Mysterio10 wrote:
This whole story was a bunch of bullshit, these people wern't tortured at all.
Technically I agree with you, but based on an entirely different line of thought (at least as far as I can tell). I don't really consider what these sailors were subjected to to be torture; according to their descriptions I would place it far closer to a harsh interrogation.
The general techniques used by the Iranians are the same used by the U.S. on its detainees and P.O.W.'s, namely non-physical mental pressure. Isolation, a constant reminder or threat of jail time, and a vivid description of what may happen in jail are par for the course for interrogation techniques. I do believe that the constant cocking and loading of weapons outside the door constitutes crossing a line, but even then no international standards were broken. These were uniformed soldiers in foreign captivity, and as long as there was no physical component to the interrogation, then to the best of my knowledge the Geneva Convention and any other international statutes hold up.
What I take to be the major issue here, which I think is being buried under the focus on the treatment of the sailors, is that an independant nation (Iran) went out and captured, at gunpoint, a group of foreign uniformed soldiers in international waters without provocation. This was, by every definition and standard recognized, an act of war.
I do not advocate a war with Iran; to the contrary I see it as an easy stepping-stone to World War Three. However, there has been a clear path over the past few years with Iran pushing at its boundaries time and time again, constantly seeing what they can get away with. Sooner or later there will come a point where they will cross a line that is truly unnacceptable to someone (probably the U.S.), and the best we're going to get out of a sitution like that is a Cuban Missile Crisis type standoff. At the other end of the spectrum...well, I'd rather not think too long about it.
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