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I'll cut and paste this from an old thread:
Torture, as laid out in by the UN Convention against Torture, which the US took a leading role in writing and adopted with the relevent caveats mentioned:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such puposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has commited, or is suspected of having commited, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. The version the US accepted further requires that torture has to happen in the custody or control of the torturer to be torture, and that what would normally classify as torture is not torture if it results from lawful sanctions (ie, the death penalty in the US results from lawful sanctions). [United Nations Convetion Against Torture]
In case anyone was skeptical, this is textbook torture. It's got intent and harm, and even a goal. Unless of course these were the result of 'legal sanctions' that I'm not aware of, akin to what Alberto Gonzales (Torture Memo Guy) has advocated. I know military and civil codes differ, but I should reiterate that the US wrote most of and adopted the above definition. Unfortunately, torture isn't just a historical event.
[ 08-05-2005, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: Lucern ]
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