Newzity

Depends who you ask. George Bush repeatedly said he does not support torture and there is no torture allowed under US laws.

But the problem is this: what one calls torture, others call it interrogation technique. In the recently disclosed 81-page memo written by John C. Yoo in 2003, he said to qualify to be tortured

“The victim must experience intense pain or suffering of the kind that is equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body functions will likely result.”

So it is not torture unless you die or physically paralyzed. For example, the hotly debated waterboarding is not torture. Nor any of the techniques used in Abu Ghraib few months later. Remember that Yoo was the second-ranking official at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department at that time. In the rare case, when it was torture and violated a criminal law, he assured that the military should not fear any prosecution.

“Even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate a criminal statute, the Justice Department could not bring a prosecution because the statute would be unconstitutional as applied in this context.”

Yoo also wrote the 2002 memo giving CIA great authority for interrogating detainees. By the way, Yoo is a law professor at UC Berkeley. Who knew the school that tries to portray itself as a bastion of freedom is the nesting place for people like Yoo. Interestingly, Yoo came to US as an infant when his parents had to leave their native country South Korea. Given his personal history one would have hoped that he would be more sensitive to torture.