The Australian Attorney General, Phillip Ruddock, has said that he thinks the US was too hasty in rejecting torture (which it hasn't, really). And sleep deprivation isn't really torture anyway. Never mind that the North Koreans used sleep deprivation as torture in the Korean police action, and that Australia decried their use of torture when it ratified the current conventions in 1950. Never mind that torture is incredibly unreliable as a way of gathering information. Never mind that it's uncivilised!
As always, the present government follows along wagging its tail after the increasingly fascist US administration. I am ashamed of my government.
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I completely agree. We have gone from the country that everyone loves to a shallow copy of the stupidity and fear rife in a Republican America.
It makes me sick.
We have to get this in front of the average Australian. Popular media is ignoring what I believe is the biggest story since 9/11 in both the USA and here in Aus.
I sent an email off to Bob Brown and Nicola Roxon today offering links and research to help them, but it is the Australian and American sitting down watching sitcoms and game shows that have to be reached. Ruddock is talking about sleep deprivation, what about all the other methods like waterboarding?
Scienceblogs is well respected, it would be great for everyone here to post something about the detainee bill even though it is not related to their own profession. This story must not just fade into the background.
shaun
Given that the US has just abandoned habeus corpus, I think the problems of one little country doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this mixed up world...
Oh, the irony: Tree of Knowledge in Queensland poisoned.
Bob
One might take that as a metaphor for the modern era, yes...