Politreks

[eyebeams]

Chain of Command Part 2 is on. It's the anti-torture TNG episode.

The problem is, of course, that according to the current position of the US government (and silently, tacitly approved by my own government), it's not torture. Picard is not in danger of death or organ damage and sends most of his time in a stress position. The plot hinges upon the Cardassians being free to treat Picard as an "enemy combatant" without any treaty protections.

Just thought y'all should know.

Comments

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Picard is not in danger of death or organ damage

Those pain implants were probably build by Ferengi. They're totally leaking all sorts of horrible particles and things into him.

[eyebeams.livejournal.com]

I'm sure waterboarding takes place in dirty shipping containers and warehouses, too, but it ain't torture either!

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

There's torture and then there's torture.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

It's also about torture being used as a power trip by psychologically damaged control-seekers, regardless of the uselessness of it as an intelligence-gathering method.

Whooda thunkit?

[eyebeams.livejournal.com]

Nope. Not torture any more! After this realization, I of course edited Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29) to reflect Wikipedia's NPOV policy, which also refuses to call such things torture when it comes to other enhanced interrogation methods in real life.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Ah, but common usage of a phrase isn't defined by law.

[roniliquidity.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

[thebitterguy]

Excellent observation. To think the Cardassians were villains once.

edit: and it's been reverted. How disappointing.

[wtimmins.livejournal.com]

Apart from the politics of the situation, this reminds me of something that always bugged me about that episode; the premise that 'torture manifestly doesn't work,' which ranks up there with adages like 'crime doesn't pay.'

Torture DOES work. Sure, some targets and subjects don't, but only some. Crime pays if you don't get caught.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Apparently little old ladies with nothing to live for are the hardest people to break. I forget where I heard that...

[jdigital.livejournal.com]

Cardassians never signed Geneva.