Torture, Abuse … Abuse, Torture
I just saw a clip of this on the Daily Show: At a recent daily breifing of the DoD, Rumsfeld fielded the following question…
Q: Mr. Secretary, a number of times from the podium you’ve said U.S. troops do not torture individuals. There was a joking colloquy one time here about the iron maiden, remarks — I mean, does this report undercut your notion that the U.S. doesn’t torture, this is — is this one of those rare exceptions here that torture took place?
RUMSFELD: I think that — I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture.
So, I’m not a lawyer either, but it got me wondering … what the fuck difference does it make? Some are calling this “torture” others prefer calling this “abuse” — am I really out on a limb here thinking that both words seem to apply?
- Torture: an act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person … for a purpose such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation or coercion (UN Convention against Torture)
- Abuse: When another person does something on purpose that causes you mental or physical harm or pain (Medicare Glossary)
May 7th, 2004 at 6:41 am
Always pleased to help clear up confusion. Torture is to abuse as terrorist is to patriot. They are terrorists, they torture. We are patriots, we occassionally abuse.
See, it’s not that difficult. They – bad. Us – good.
Though in this case I think we started way too far up the ladder of phrasing.
I think we should have said, ‘you know, kids will be kids, and our playground monitor had to go home early today, so, well, we didn’t actually have an adult to watch them at recess, but don’t worry, it won’t happen again; and only moved up the scale to abuse when the media pressure forced a move.
I’ll have to try to think of some good alternative words that fall between abuse and torture for McClellan and Rummy and the guys to use. You don’t want to have to go all the way to torture in one step. We’ll want to make it a gradual process, where we give a little verbage at a time, and hope the news cycle puts this on the backburner pretty soon.
May 7th, 2004 at 8:01 am
thesaurus.com had a ton of ’em for abuse (harm):
damage, defilement, harm, hurt, impairment, injury, malevolence, maltreatment, manhandling, misdeed, offense, pollution, violation, wrongdoing.
I personally am surprised we didn’t hear “manhandled”.
May 7th, 2004 at 8:34 am
Torture seems to imply a specific purpose: “for a purpose such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation or coercion”
As abuse doesn’t seem to specifically require a “purpose”, perhaps what Rummy is saying is that there was no reason behind what was done to these prisoners. They had no information we needed, no confessions to make, etc., etc., we simply abused them.
May 7th, 2004 at 8:35 am
Torture seems to imply a specific purpose: “for a purpose such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation or coercion”
As abuse doesn’t seem to specifically require a “purpose”, perhaps what Rummy is saying is that there was no reason behind what was done to these prisoners. They had no information we needed, no confessions to make, etc., etc., we simply abused them.