Saddam: "Americans tortured me"

[A18]

LOL. Sleep deprivation is torture? What a joke you Europeans are.

If you force a person to go a week or longer without any sleep whatsoever, the person can and eventually will literally go crazy.  It might seem silly at face value, but very extended sleep deprivation (i.e., days upon days, not just a few hours), I think, could certainly be counted as a form of psychological torture.

Way different from the kind of sleep deprivation we typically think of.

[© tweed]

'No evidence' Saddam was tortured

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4551656.stm

[Joe Republic]

'No evidence' Saddam was tortured

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4551656.stm

Why am I not surprised...?

[dazzleman]

I'm sure the whole thing is a lie.  Saddam knows he has nothing to lose by making up a story, and potentially a lot to gain.  He probably hoped that it would create a media firestorm in the US and cause great embarrassment to the Bush administration.  But it seems that not even liberals here really believed the story, or cared much about it.  Poor Saddam.  Another one of his little schemes failed.

[Gabu]

LOL. Sleep deprivation is torture? What a joke you Europeans are.

If you force a person to go a week or longer without any sleep whatsoever, the person can and eventually will literally go crazy.  It might seem silly at face value, but very extended sleep deprivation (i.e., days upon days, not just a few hours), I think, could certainly be counted as a form of psychological torture.

Way different from the kind of sleep deprivation we typically think of.

Well, your comment seemed to assert that sleep deprivation was universally not torture; I was saying that it is, if done long enough.

[Gabu]

I'm sure the whole thing is a lie.  Saddam knows he has nothing to lose by making up a story, and potentially a lot to gain.  He probably hoped that it would create a media firestorm in the US and cause great embarrassment to the Bush administration.  But it seems that not even liberals here really believed the story, or cared much about it.  Poor Saddam.  Another one of his little schemes failed.

Quite frankly, I think that just about any treatment of the guy is justified at this point, given everything he's done.  The issue I've had with torture in the past is the torture of people for information who may very well not know a whole lot, given that the people really have no motivation whatsoever not to simply lie to have the torture stop.  But Saddam?  I won't lose any sleep over this, even if it's true.