[Maple Flag]

Without prejudice:

I see two things that continually jump out at me during the articles and reports on prisoner treatment.

1. It is unclear if the treatment in each case is

a) sanctioned and calculated
b) non-sanctioned, but deliberatly ignored by leadership
c) is non-sanctioned undisciplined abuse discovered too late

There have probably been cases of each of the above, but it is still unclear as to what the distribution is, and what standards and limits are set on category A, if any, which bring me to my next point.

2. It has not been made clear (at least I don't have a clear picture) on where the U.S. government stands on prisoner treatment for non-soldiers. Certainly the Geneva convention is respected at least on paper, and probably in reality for the vast majority of cases, where it applies. Where it does not apply is the big gray zone. I have heard commentary that the Geneva convention does not apply to terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, etc. IF that is true, what standards for prisoner treatment are applied? Are there any standards for suspected terrorists, or is this all an open field?

Are there any standards for establishing if a person is a "suspected terrorist" with usefull information subject to harmful interrogation methods, or if they are just a common armed criminal involved in looting or what ever and subsequently arrested.

If you aren't a terrorist, but know terrorists (your brother, your son, your father, your friend, etc) , are you also fair game for harmful methods of interrogation, or are you considered off limits to anything beyond normal investigative interviewing? Again, the line is very fuzzy.

The media's principle failure in my opinion has been in the area of identifying the standards that are supposed to be in place, and measuring the practices against the standards. They are too focussed on showing ugly photos and creating emotional reactions rather than intelligent ones. That is to be expected.

What has been especially absent is clarity from the U.S. government on the standards in place, and the mechanisms for supporting compliance.

At the end of the day, torture for sadistic reasons, or vengeance, are unprofessional, and the perpetrators deserve to stand before a judge in my opinion.

On the other hand, I can be more sympathetic to torture that is sanctioned, calculated, and very carefully metred out with a clear purpose and reasonable expectation of positive results.

I just wish the U.S goverment (and other nations) would either define and ban torture outright in all cases without exception and make sure the leadership acts to ensure compliance by all involved, or, if torture is a needed and valuable tool, have the integrity to stand up and say, "Yes, we use and support the use of prisoner torture in specific cases, and here are our standards for the application of torture, which we endevour to ensure all our practicioners adhere to."

Maybe I just like things to be a little too clean cut.