"Palestinian Hanging"

No, that's not exactly an uplifting term, no pun intended. Unfortunately, another description is even more disturbing:

"He also had injuries to his ribs. You don’t die from broken ribs. But if he had been hung up in this way and had broken ribs, that’s different." In his judgment, "asphyxia is what he died from—as in a crucifixion."

That's Dr. Michael Baden, describing the death of Manadel al-Jamadi--you've probably seen his picture:


No, al-Jamadi wasn't an "innocent civilian." All reports indicate he was actively involved in the insurgency--in other words, regardless of my personal stand on the war, had he been KIA, well...presumably he knew the risks.

However, his death occurred while in custody--so, unless you're ready to toss out the Geneva Conventions (which means no whining should Americans suffer a similar fate), it's valid to ask what the hell happened and why. As Baden and Cyril Wecht (also known to Kennedy assassination conspiracy believers) both do:

Wecht believes that Jamadi "died of compromised respiration," and that "the position the body was in would have been the cause of death." He added, "Mind you, I’m not a critic of the Iraq war. But I don’t think we should reduce ourselves to the insurgents' barbaric levels."

Looks like I disagree with Wecht on both JFK and the war--but I'm in firm agreement with him on the issue of torturing people to death, whether or not you call it "Palestinian Hanging," crucifixion, or whatever.

Apologists for torture are forever devising Rube Goldberg justifications or reprising 24 plots to back their claims...which is sort of like trying to strategize Gulf War I with a US Civil War documentary. In other words, it's both stupid AND dangerously inept.

Torturing people, in the REAL world, will accomplish VERY limited things: for the sadistically demented, it provides some element of pleasure. It certainly is painful for the torture-ee. And finally, in a war like Iraq, it probably generates tons of antipathy from the local populace while providing either bogus information--or no information, as was apparently the case with al-Jamadi. It's both penny foolish AND dollar dumb.

Which is probably why it's been embraced so heartily by this administration--well, that and probably because some of them truly ARE sick in the head.