On Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:51:09 -0500, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
Like I said earlier in this thread, no reasonable person could
conclude that the United States did not torture people. And no
reasonable person would argue that waterboarding is not torture.

Then under your definition, there are a fair number of military officers, some
of whom refused to take any part in the interrogations, and another larger group
who didn't even know about them, who are guilty of "torture." Moreover, so are
the editors, publishers, and other management staff of Vanity Fair and other
publications and news outlets. Moreover, as Commander in Chief, Obama is guilty
of it. The good news is that your definition is wrong. And here's the funny
thing - a fair number of the "victims" of "torture" would be guilty of, at the
very least, conspiring to commit it under your definition.

It's as simple as this - "torture" is not defined for specific and legitimate
reasons. To reuse an example, giving someone nothing but ham sandwiches (and I
don't mean school cafeteria sandwiches on stale, moldy bread and fatty gristle -
I mean sandwiches that, for those that eat them, would be a sought-after
experience) to eat could easily be "torture." Giving someone nothing but beer
to drink could be. OTOH, the act of beating someone to death - _in and of
itself_ - might not be "torture," even under the most extreme definitions.

Moreover, until a judge (no, not a jury) applies the law to found facts (this
might be a jury), nothing is _legally_ "torture." This is not to say that
nothing should or would be ultimately found to be _legally_ torture, but rather,
just to state the legal process under which something is legally declared to be
"torture."

I was going to graciously ignore these three paragraphs but just
out of curiosity, what is the language in which they're written ?

It bears a remarkable resemblance to American English but that can't
be it because any parsing of the above according to the rules of
American English yields nothing but gibberish.

Yeah, sure, whatever you say...Dave Jr....

HTH,
R