Pay no attention to the dead bodies

I've lately heard several of the GOP mouthpieces on the radio (both national and local) dismiss the recent torture controversy; saying that none of the government's "enhanced interrogation techniques" were indeed torture. Limbaugh slapped himself to simulate "torture" and Hannity has offered to be waterboarded for charity (I wager he wouldn't last 30 seconds). As opposed to defenders of torture (who are at least intellectually honest), El Rushbo and Co. argue that no detainees have even been tortured.

Well, there have been 38 suspected or confirmed homicides of detainees in US custody; and that is according to the US military. I assume that most reasonable people would define abuse that results in death as torture.

According to Jason Leopold's April 30 article at The Public Record: "Dilawar was chained by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell for four days and brutally beaten by Army interrogators on his legs for hours on end to the point where he could no longer bend them. He died on Dec. 10, 2002.

Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, an Air Force medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Dilawar, said Dilawar’s leg was pummeled so badly that the” tissue was falling apart and had basically been pulpified."

“Had Dilawar lived,” Rouse told Army investigators in sworn testimony, "I believe the injury to the legs are so extensive that it would have required amputation. I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.""

Sounds like torture to me.

Some folks will argue, "Do whatever will keep us safe." But the instance noted above was hardly a 'Jack Bauer-type' life or death situation. In fact, "The U.S. Military never produced any evidence to prove that either Habibullah or Dilawar had connections to the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

In fact, as the New York Times reported, when Dilawar had died, “most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.”