Scarborough: Sleep Deprivation Is No Big Deal “They Do That In Fraternities”
Scarborough does not reach the “Hannity” threshold by saying he will be waterboarded for charity, but sleep deprivation is most definitely torturous.
There are a few points to make on this video.
One:
Scarborough thumbs his nose at the idea that the White House is assembling a team that will take care of future interrogations, saying he could hardly say it with a straight face. What he doesn’t say, or may not know, is that team is going to be made up of FBI expert interrogators. So Scarborough, in essence, is laughing at the FBI.
Two:
Contrary to what Joe Scarborough says, sleep deprivation is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions explicitly state:
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated.
Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances respect to their persons and their honour.
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever.
Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Sleep deprivation most certainly falls under one, if not all, of these provisions.
Three:
Scarborough is correct when he says that Eric Holder did say that he did not think that these people, who the CIA tortured, were covered by the Geneva Conventions. This however, is only half of what he said.
Though Holder did not feel the Geneva Conventions applied, he validated the concerns of then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, when he said that torturing these prisoners puts our soldiers at risk, which is the major reason why so many people are against these torture tactics in the first place.
I am personally against torture because it’s torture, but the fact of the matter is, many Americans don’t care that these terror suspects were tortured. These same Americans do fear for the safety of troops who may be captured by an enemy. An enemy who now feels justified in torturing this soldier because the United States bypassed the Geneva Conventions as well.
The point here is, when we began the process of torturing detainees, we immediately lost the moral high ground and placed our own men and women at risk. It is because of this fact alone, that Holder’s comment was, and still is, irrelevant.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Because some one went to college participated in a fraternity and in what they thought was sleep deprivation draws a conclusion. Or what Scarbough thinks is torture is something. Perhaps Joe should watch more world war two movies. Some of the Asian concepts fine tuned sleep depravation.
Just do a Google, it all over the place…
Sleep deprivation has been used in a number of wartime settings, not only those involving terrorist suspects. The Soviet KGB plied sleep deprivation techniques during the Cold War, the Japanese deprived captured prisoners of sleep during World War II, and the British Army allegedly used the technique on IRA suspects in the 1970s.
Some findings, Impaired glucose tolerance.
Without sleep, the central nervous system becomes more active, something that inhibits the pancreas from producing adequate insulin, the hormone the body needs to digest glucose.
“In healthy young men with no risk factor, in one week, we had them in a pre-diabetic state,” says researcher Van Cauter when referring to a study that he conducted on the effects of sleep deprivation.
Cheney better think again…what the Bush administration did was torture and it is a crime…
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August 26th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
@josie46:
You’re right. Sleep deprivation in fraternities is DEFINITELY not the same as when it is used as a torture method. A few more differences are that when used in a fraternity (1) you know that it will stop within a certain time frame and (2) you are choosing to do it!
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