When Europe was being occupied by the Nazis 65 years ago, a well known mean they would resort to (and the French milice as well) was "the bathtub torture" (supplice de la baignoire).
The Gestapo needed life saving information from the terrorists (also known as résistants in French) it would say, and the bathtub torture (among others) was needed in order to protect German soldiers as well as French citizens (or any other European ones, Czech, Dutch, Pole etc. you name it) from terrorists activities. The terrorists were evil and knew no limit in the horrors they were capable of inflicting to innocent German soldiers; They had to be stopped, hence the need to get information. That was the propaganda line (like they needed one anyway...)
All over the world, there are people who endorse the death penalty and there's nothing you can do about it. Million others see no reason why torture shouldn't be applied to criminals until they die from it. What can I say? Homo homini lupus, there's a beast in our deepest selves.
Americans are not different from other peoples around the globe: many favour the death penalty as well as torture.
Now, one of the differences between dictatorships and democracies is the utter rejection by the later of practices common among the former.
The "supplice de la baignoire" (Bathtub torture) is known in English as water boarding and many Americans, I suppose, don't see what's wrong with torturing evil terrorists. But since some, with a little more education, feel there's a little hitch yet, they simply accommodate their uneasiness by denying waterboarding is torture. And the trick's done... Ain't life cool and easy?
When President G.W. Bush last week announced he will veto a bill banning water boarding and other harsh interrogation tactics etc. maybe that rang no bell among many Americans but to many Europeans it simply was a reminder of what the Nazis would do with the very same rhetoric.
Now, we're not talking of unofficial crimes by some sort of police or undercover agents of secret services but the President of the United States himself officially acknowledging his endorsement of torture. This man has been elected twice by the American people...
Where will the moral disintegration of America eventually stop?
(No need to recall the French army practiced waterboarding in Algeria. It did and there's much to be ashamed of. And the reason was that the terrorists - known in Algeria as freedom fighters- had to give precious life-saving information...)
The Gestapo needed life saving information from the terrorists (also known as résistants in French) it would say, and the bathtub torture (among others) was needed in order to protect German soldiers as well as French citizens (or any other European ones, Czech, Dutch, Pole etc. you name it) from terrorists activities. The terrorists were evil and knew no limit in the horrors they were capable of inflicting to innocent German soldiers; They had to be stopped, hence the need to get information. That was the propaganda line (like they needed one anyway...)
All over the world, there are people who endorse the death penalty and there's nothing you can do about it. Million others see no reason why torture shouldn't be applied to criminals until they die from it. What can I say? Homo homini lupus, there's a beast in our deepest selves.
Americans are not different from other peoples around the globe: many favour the death penalty as well as torture.
Now, one of the differences between dictatorships and democracies is the utter rejection by the later of practices common among the former.
The "supplice de la baignoire" (Bathtub torture) is known in English as water boarding and many Americans, I suppose, don't see what's wrong with torturing evil terrorists. But since some, with a little more education, feel there's a little hitch yet, they simply accommodate their uneasiness by denying waterboarding is torture. And the trick's done... Ain't life cool and easy?
When President G.W. Bush last week announced he will veto a bill banning water boarding and other harsh interrogation tactics etc. maybe that rang no bell among many Americans but to many Europeans it simply was a reminder of what the Nazis would do with the very same rhetoric.
Now, we're not talking of unofficial crimes by some sort of police or undercover agents of secret services but the President of the United States himself officially acknowledging his endorsement of torture. This man has been elected twice by the American people...
Where will the moral disintegration of America eventually stop?
(No need to recall the French army practiced waterboarding in Algeria. It did and there's much to be ashamed of. And the reason was that the terrorists - known in Algeria as freedom fighters- had to give precious life-saving information...)
1 commentaire:
Waterboarding has been considered torture and illegal since the U.S. used it in its occupation and "war on terror" in the Philippines in 1900. Its use there created a backlash.
It is only the current Bush regime that has changed that policy and officialized its use. That is not to say that there hasn't been illicit use of it through the preceding years.
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