So that's it. Binyam Mohammed was subjected to sleep deprivation. He was shackled during interrogations and was threatened with being removed from the safety of American custody. He was not beaten, waterboarded, or subjected to bodily pain of any sort. As one who suffers from insomnia I can sympathize with the sleep-deprived, but this is not torture by any reasonable definition. If anything less pleasant than a weekend at a spa is considered torture, and therefore illegal, we may as well give up on interrogating terrorists.
There was, of course, a context for the interrogation of Binyam Mohammed. That context was the September 11 attacks.
Which brings us to the second story, the release, apparently via a Freedom of Information Act request, of aerial photographs of the collapse of the World Trade Center
You can see the NYPD pictures here.
On September 11, thousands of Americans experienced something far worse than sleep deprivation.
Posts
