War of Words: Defining Torture

Bravo for the excellent article, “Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition” (Jan. 23). Too often the mainstream media have portrayed the administration’s position as repudiating all forms of cruelty, whereas it has only repudiated torture, strictly defined. The real crime, though, is that neither the American public nor most Democratic officeholders are outraged.

Robert Moss

Bloomfield, N.J.

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I never thought that within my lifetime our country would elect people who corrupt our language and disgrace our Constitution, our standing in the world and international law by parsing fine points about what constitutes torture to evade responsibility for their criminal behavior.

No reframing by Alberto Gonzales or John Yoo, no evasions by Condoleezza Rice about “interrogation techniques” will ever justify the use of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other locations. The time will come when the full scope of these crimes will become known. Meanwhile, we define ourselves as Americans by what we allow ourselves to know and how we respond to this shameful crime.

Ken Levy

Los Angeles

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Did Rice actually condone torture, or was she simply ignorant of its application, like everyone else in the Bush administration who are supposedly in command of our military forces (wink, wink)? If she didn’t have an opinion as to whether hours of simulated drowning on a water board met her definition of torture, where was the follow-up question: “Ms. Rice, would you consider it torture if it were being done to you?” Why treat torturers’ apologists with kid gloves? Why make them secretary of State? I thought we just destroyed Iraq to get rid of a guy like that. Now we’re elevating them in our own system of government.

Bruce Strathdee

Palm Desert

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What if you believed you faced a grave and growing danger, and you had a person in your custody who you believed knew something that could prevent it, but he won’t talk. How could you get him to talk? What if your job is to prevent this danger? What would you do?

Robert S. Rodgers

Culver City

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So the same people who pilloried Bill Clinton for questioning the definition of “is” are now trying to come up with a definition of “torture”? I’ll make it easy for them: If you wouldn’t want it done to your children, it’s torture.

Kurt Weldon

Winnetka