Torture has been an age old practice employed in gathering information and intelligence from ones enemies. It's roots go back as long as our history as a people, and the effectiveness of torture has been debated as long as there has been a practice of it.
Officially, the United States and Israel prohibit the use of torture as a means of gathering information from enemy combatants. Rumors and innuendos of torture of captive Islamic terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay have been debunked. Yet and still, the Canadian Foreign Ministry had distributed literature to it's diplomats listing both the US and Israel on a torture awareness training manual as part of a torture watch list.
The incident arose after a copy of the document had been forwarded to Amnesty International by lawyers who are working on a case involving allegations of torture of Afghan detainees by Afghan authorities after Canadian troops had delivered them into Afghan custody. Amnesty International has so far issued no statement on the matter.
The types of torture the document alleges the United States to be involved in include sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and isolation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where one Canadian is being held under suspicion of acts of terrorism. One could logically conclude, if isolation is a method of torture, that the entire corrections system of the United States would be involved in the implementation of torture by the use of solitary confinement of prisoners.
Canadian officials, meanwhile, have quickly denounced the document and have called for the training manual to be revised, under pressure from both the United States and Israel.
Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture.
"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten," Bernier said in a statement.
"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."
Syria, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Iran, China, and Afghanistan where among other nations listed in the document.
The Canadian Foreign Ministry began it's work on putting together a training document after the US deportation of Canadian engineer Maher Arar to Syria in 2002, where he claims to have been tortured in a Damascus prison, after taking criticism for their handling of the incident.
If the "humiliation" of detainees at Abu Ghraig is torture, then I'm a Chippendale Dancer. Putting panties on their heads isn't torture. It's childish and ridiculous, yes, but I doubt very seriously it's going to leave anyone emotionally scarred for life. How many college frat boys have wandered around at beer swilling parties with their girlfriends panties on their heads? And they call that TORTURE?
Waterboarding, yes, I can see that as torture. But let me post this question: which is the more severe; waterboarding or beheading? Where is the outcry of the left at the beheading of captured westerners by the Islamic jihadists? Where is the outrage?
I'm sure that the detainees at Gitmo are feeling so very, very tortured and neglected by being encouraged to play baseball, being fed three square meals a day PREPARED IN A MANNER NOT TO OFFEND ISLAMIC HOLDINS, and being allowed to read the Harry Potter books and any other literature that they ask for. I'm SURE that they're TORTURED when we supply them with prayer rugs and copies of the Koran.
It's because of such BLATANT stupidity as this that I'm ALL FOR the idea offered by Stephen Kruiser to invade Canada. And when we GET there we're going to introduce them to FOOTBALL and BUDWEISER!
Torture my leathery arse.
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
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