The power of words and the argument of innocence.

After these two classes talking about torture, both in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, I came to the conclusion of how important are words to define legal status and legalize things that, from a moral perspective, wouldn’t be appropriated.

The vague definition of the August 1, 2002 memorandum (putting the limit of torture to almost immediate death), gives enough space to create documents and to follow actions that traditionally would have been considered torture. Because, it redefines the concept itself, allowing things that were not allowed before. Because, if that definition was followed, it was legally acceptable to torture.

Also, a thing that concerned me a lot while I was watching the documentaries, and came back to what we talked about the book generation kill, is how the perpetrators are portrayed as victims too. Because you always have a choice. The experiment says at the beginning wanting to justify their actions, with the argument that “people follow orders” of higher people. But, they also collaborated in killing innocent people. No-one forced one of the female soldiers in the documentary (Abu Ghraib) to do a thumbs up and take a picture with naked tortured men. They are portrayed as victims when the real victims are not them. They were all the time in a privileged situation, they had not their lives at risk while torturing.

Also, the arguments in both documentaries are made without using the main people who suffered these tortures as sources. There are only eight testimonies of people presented. And, most of the time, they are presented as transitions between parts, but never given the focus of the documental. It is better than in the generation kill one, but still problematic.