[quote=CONCHO]It says something about our society that we enjoy discussing torture techniques so much. What is torture, what isn’t torture, when you should torture, why you should torture, what sort of techniques are most effective, etc… It’s all over the TV, on talk radio, and even on a freaking housing bubble blog. There are unbelievably popular movies like the Saw and Hostel series that are nothing but a bunch of torture scenes stitched together. The French make movies about people cheating on their wives and we make movies about pulling each other’s eyes out. Let’s just come right out and say it:

We’re Americans and we love torture. We love thinking about it, we love talking about it, and we even occasionally enjoy doing it (but only when it’s really necessary. It isn’t a black&white world, you know!)[/quote]

Nice straw man argument.

I suspect most Americans neither enjoy torture nor talking about it, despite the success of Saw movies. I might add that the Saw movies also make a lot of $ overseas, perhaps, those folks in France love seeing limbs amputated as much as some do here.

Much of this commotion is being raised to vilify the Bush administration without regard to the truth or how it may affect our ability to gather information. And I also suspect most folks can’t even agree on what is or isn’t torture.

As I said before, a strict definition would include only those techniques that leave lasting physical or psychological effects. I have yet to hear of anything we used fit into that category.