At a certain point torture become about making one live against one's will, keeping the body of the tortured alive. Clearly important in this regard is some doctor in the room monitoring the victim. I have not actually heard much in the US press about this aspect and what must be some egregious breach of the Hippocratic Oath (though I read short interview in the German newspaper Die Zeit about a month ago that brought it to my attention). In fact, the only mention of a doctor in the room I recall hearing about was from a torture apologist who made it seem like a positive thing, something to the effect of "well, there's always a doctor monitoring the situation." I suppose we're still embedded in this absurd "is torture really bad or not" debate.
That's an excellent point, and one I haven't heard expressed so far--that torture is about "making one live against one's will", and that is why the doctors are necessary.
I know Sullivan (and surely countless other anti-torture bloggers) has repeatedly called to have the doctors who treated the detainees stripped of their medical licenses, but of course the establishment punditry has remained silent on the issue, choosing instead to all but sip gin and tonics as they coast from one pithy one-liner to another, seemingly unburdened by anything like, oh, facts or ethical principles or historical context:
Actually, looking at the video again I'm amazed at the number of truly surprising things that these people say. Sam Donaldson is the only one who even remotely looks like he subscribes to such basic principles of liberalism as the rule of law and inviolable human rights--and even he doesn't do too well.
No comments:
Post a Comment