Karl Rove's Definition Of "Torture"

It is worth remembering given the current state of the debate. Karl Rove has been aggressively arguing that nothing that the Bush administration did could be construed as torture, not even the Khmer Rouge technique of water-boarding, let alone the long-term sleep deprivation, stress positions, hypothermia, forced nudity, hooding, dietary manipulation, sensory deprivation and all the other "EIT"s his president authorized. And yet here was have an op-ed written last year in which the word "torture" is used quite clearly and defined quite precisely:

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head.

This is called a "stress position." You can see an example of this CIA-approved, presidentially-authorized technique above (on a rare instance of it being photographed by a US soldier following orders to soften up detainees by forcing their limbs into painful positions for hours on end). Karl Rove needs to be asked on the record if he believes that John McCain is exaggerating when he says he was "tortured," and if he believes that McCain's interrogators were war criminals, and whether the confession McCain gave was true. At some point, these blatant double standards need at least to be explained - whether they are sustained by Karl Rove, Nancy Pelosi, or the New York Times. Because the issue goes to the heart of whether the US was governed by war criminals for seven years.

Read also U.S. has a 45-year history of torture.