The utter vacuity of this argument was revealed this week in an obituary of an American serviceman who was subjected to, what by Bush administration standards, are relatively mild "torture" techniques.
From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air. [Emphasis added by Glenn Greenwald.]
Since the vile acts were done by other, Chinese in this case, there was no question that this service member was tortured.
In elite American thinking, torture thus depends on who the perpetrator and who the victim is, the Times reveals. That, after all, was the real subtext of the Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos": It's not torture because our government wants to do it, and our government doesn't torture, by definition.
