Posted on 03/05/2007 1:55:03 PM PST by SmithL
Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, suggests a study published Monday.
The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture.
"What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate," the study's lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Steve H. Miles of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the study, said the findings "show that the severity of long-lasting adverse mental effects is unrelated to whether the torture or degrading treatment is physical or psychological."
"The wrongness of these inflicted harms is compounded by the fact that most abused prisoners, including those in the present war on terror, are innocent or ignorant of terrorist activities," Miles said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Here's my definition: Having to endure a Barbra Streisand concert.
And were probably called unflattering names as children.
"Experts" usually aren't.
–verb (used with object)
6. to subject to torture.
7. to afflict with severe pain of body or mind: My back is torturing me.
8. to force or extort by torture: We'll torture the truth from his lips!
9. to twist, force, or bring into some unnatural position or form: trees tortured by storms.
10. to distort or pervert (language, meaning, etc.).
To put Helen Thomas' panties upon a man's head.
IBTHTP
So crappy food and cramped spaces are the same as pulling someone's fingernails and toenails out by the roots or sliding pins underneath their tongue?
"They made me listen to Singing Commercials." - Old Man Goodridge from The Three Stooges.
You say that like someone who has never gone to sea on a submarine.
; )
How about locked up nude with Helen Thomas?
Be sure and include watching endless coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's body and the circling vultures.
Any time I have to kill time in an airport bar I'm forced to listen to CNN. Now that's torture in my book.
That is the road one goes down as soon as torture is downgraded to include "psychological stress". Good ol' incrementalism. Gotta keep America handicapped on all fronts.
I could care less...just as long as it AIN'T HER that's nude...
If their experiences (for which they blame their current unhappiness or other problems) didn't amount to torture by the definition of the State department, that was considered evidence that things that the state department doesn't consider torture must really be torture.
That's about as unscientific of a study as you can get.
about as reliable as a UN study on anything.
Look at this quote from Catharine MacKinnon: "In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent." Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies.
Lest you think this woman is a crackpot, marginalized on the left, take a look at the Wikipedia entry on her Here.
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