comment from little green footballs:
From the Tormont Webster's Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary:
torture: 1. the infliction of severe physical pain, especially as a means of punishment or coercion. 2. the undergoing of such pain 3. mental anguish 4. a cause of such pain or anguish.
Based on this definition, I don't think anyone would deny that what the U.S. forces inflicted in Abu Ghraib prison was torture.
Clearly torture covers a large array of offenses. Clearly the torture inflicted by Saddam's regime was an order of magnitude (at least) greater than anything our forces have done. And, unfortunately, the English language doesn't have separate words for different levels of torture. Our enemies and the LLL are taking ruthless advantage of this language deficiency, which I think is the best point to come out of Charles' "editorial."
But it was torture nonetheless.
translation:
hey, we need a new word for 'torture' because using the word 'torture' for what happened in iraq makes us look bad.
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