DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on October 04, 2007, 10:52:24 AM
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October 4, 2007
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 ? When the Justice Department publicly declared torture ?abhorrent? in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales?s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ?combined effects? over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion?s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be ?ashamed? when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing ?cruel, inhuman and degrading? treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush?s second term and Mr. Gonzales?s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.
Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.
A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that he would not comment on any legal opinion related to interrogations. Mr. Fratto added, ?We have gone to great lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and our practices fall within U.S. law? and international agreements.
More than two dozen current and former officials involved in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three months about the opinions and the deliberations on interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the documents and the C.I.A. detention operations they govern.
When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was ?a place of inspiration? that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law.
Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney?s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department?s independence.
The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency?s domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office?s tradition of avoiding political advocacy.
Mr. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the government?s most authoritative interpreter of the law. ?In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out,? he said in an interview. ?The White House has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they didn?t like the advice being given.?
The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.
The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting administration moderates against hard-liners, military lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But under Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bradbury, the Justice Department was wrenched back into line with the White House.
After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.?s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guant?namo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner?s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.
But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls ?enhanced? interrogation techniques ? the details remain secret ? and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in ?black sites? overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.
Douglas W. Kmiec, who headed that office under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the campaign against terrorism have warped the office?s proper role.
?The office was designed to insulate against any need to be an advocate,? said Mr. Kmiec, now a conservative scholar at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent years, Mr. Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the Supreme Court, ?lost its ability to say no.?
?The approach changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror,? Mr. Kmiec said. ?The office became an advocate for the president?s policies.?
From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture?
The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.
Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.
With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.
?We were getting asked about combinations ? ?Can we do this and this at the same time??? recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.?s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003.
Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: ?These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature ? can they be combined?? Or ?Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme??
The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills.
That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. ?You think you?re making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, ?Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,?? he recalled. ?We couldn?t tell them, ?Do the best you can,? because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.?
Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics.
That opinion, which would become infamous as ?the torture memo? after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by Mr. Addington, the vice president?s adviser. Their close alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to refer privately to Mr. Yoo as Dr. Yes for his seeming eagerness to give the White House whatever legal justifications it desired, a Justice Department official recalled.
Mr. Yoo?s memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or ?even death.? A second memo produced at the same time spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long they could be used.
Despite that guidance, in March 2003, when the C.I.A. caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two weeks on Mr. Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal torture. A C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, declined to discuss the handling of Mr. Mohammed. Mr. Little said the program ?has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review? and ?has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives.?
?The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists,? Mr. Little added.
Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed?s statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.?s initial interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed?s background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure.
Other intelligence officers, including Mr. Kelbaugh, insist that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al Qaeda?s structure and plans.
?We leaned in pretty hard on K.S.M.,? Mr. Kelbaugh said, referring to Mr. Mohammed. ?We were getting good information, and then they were told: ?Slow it down. It may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.??
The doubts at the C.I.A. proved prophetic. In late 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing his work, which he found deeply flawed. Mr. Goldsmith infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of the National Security Agency?s surveillance program, prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice Department officials, including Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey, and a showdown at the attorney general?s hospital bedside.
Then, in June 2004, Mr. Goldsmith formally withdrew the August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found overreaching and poorly reasoned. Mr. Goldsmith left the Justice Department soon afterward. He first spoke at length about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike opening: ?Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.?
A single footnote ? added to reassure the C.I.A. ? suggested that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency?s previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Mr. Gonzales?s confirmation as attorney general.
If President Bush wanted to make sure the Justice Department did not rebel again, Mr. Gonzales was the ideal choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce protector of the president?s prerogatives. Deeply loyal to Mr. Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, Mr. Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous post.
Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Mr. Goldsmith?s dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Mr. Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in effect sidelining him.
Mr. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But White House officials, still smarting from Mr. Goldsmith?s rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet E. Miers, the new White House counsel, ?decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial,? one Justice Department official recalled.
Mr. Bradbury?s biography had a Horatio Alger element that appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Mr. Gonzales, the son of poor immigrants. Mr. Bradbury?s father had died when he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support her children. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent prosecutor.
Mr. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of the legal right. Mr. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old friend Mr. Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Mr. Goldsmith had hired Mr. Bradbury as his top deputy.
?We all grew up together,? said Viet D. Dinh, an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a member of the club. ?You start with a small universe of Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there.?
But what might have been subtle differences in quieter times now cleaved them into warring camps.
Justice Department colleagues say Mr. Gonzales was soon meeting frequently with Mr. Bradbury on national security issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Mr. Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic approach to the job than Mr. Yoo and Mr. Goldsmith, both from the academic world.
?As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real problems,? said Noel J. Francisco, who worked at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005. ?At O.L.C., you?re not writing law review articles and you?re not theorizing. You?re giving a client practical advice on a real problem.?
As he had at the White House, Mr. Gonzales usually said little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to the hard-driving Mr. Addington. Mr. Bradbury also often appeared in accord with the vice president?s lawyer.
Mr. Bradbury appeared to be ?fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,? recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Mr. Addington was at times ?vituperative,? said Mr. Zelikow, but Mr. Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was ?professional and collegial.?
While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances.
Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, said he was ?very troubled? at the notion of a probationary period.
?If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it,? Mr. Cooper said. ?You?re implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job.?
Mr. Bradbury said he made no such concessions. ?No one ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I ruled on any opinion,? he said. ?Every opinion I?ve signed at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of what the law requires.?
Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said any official offering legal advice on the campaign against terror was on treacherous ground.
?For government lawyers, the national security issues they were deciding were like working with nuclear waste ? extremely hazardous to their health,? Mr. Horton said.
?If you give the administration what it wants, you?ll lose credibility in the academic community,? he said. ?But if you hold back, you?ll be vilified by conservatives and the administration.?
In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Mr. Bradbury?s approach. He helped block the appointment of a liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving combined interrogation techniques.
Mr. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he advised Mr. Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant about it, and that he would do nothing to resist.
Under Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey?s opposition might have killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self-described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Mr. Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Mr. Comey stated that ?no lawyer? would endorse Mr. Yoo?s justification for the N.S.A. program, Mr. Addington demurred, saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Mr. Comey shot back: ?No good lawyer,? according to someone present.
But under Mr. Gonzales, and after the departure of Mr. Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found himself isolated. His troublemaking on N.S.A. and on interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney?s chief of staff, had irreparably offended the White House.
?On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,? said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.
Mr. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. Speaking at the N.S.A.?s Fort Meade campus on Law Day ? a noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the N.S.A. program ? Mr. Comey spoke of the ?agonizing collisions? of the law and the desire to protect Americans.
?We are likely to hear the words: ?If we don?t do this, people will die,?? Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions.
?It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ?no? when it matters most,? he said. ?It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.?
Mr. Gonzales?s aides were happy to see Mr. Comey depart in the summer of 2005. That June, President Bush nominated Mr. Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty test.
Soon Mr. Bradbury applied his practical approach to a new challenge to the C.I.A.?s methods.
The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.?s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture ? the prohibition on ?cruel, inhuman, or degrading? treatment.
Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment.
At the administration?s request, Mr. Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department.
At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of ?cruel, inhuman or degrading? would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like waterboarding. Mr. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said Mr. Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working at the time to rein in interrogation policy.
?If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,? Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, ?then they are now saying that officials broke current law.?
In the end, Mr. Bradbury?s opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. McCain?s Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the C.I.A.?s practices, according to officials familiar with the memo.
Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that ?shocks the conscience? was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said.
In a frequent practice, Mr. Bush attached a statement to the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set aside the restrictions if they interfered with his constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the administration responded to pressure from Mr. McCain and other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving up several C.I.A. techniques.
Since late 2005, Mr. Bradbury has become a linchpin of the administration?s defense of counterterrorism programs, helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year and frequently testifying about the N.S.A. surveillance program. Once he answered questions about administration detention policies for an ?Ask the White House? feature on a Web site.
Mr. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at Pepperdine, called Mr. Bradbury?s public activities a departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any advocacy role.
A senior administration official called Mr. Bradbury?s active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress and the press ?entirely appropriate? and consistent with past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bradbury ?has played a critical role in achieving greater transparency? on the legal basis for detention and surveillance programs.
Though President Bush repeatedly nominated Mr. Bradbury as the Office of Legal Counsel?s assistant attorney general, Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies of his opinions or other evidence of Mr. Bradbury?s role in interrogation policy.
?There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly unacceptable,? Mr. Durbin said.
John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy?s top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners.
?I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country?s good, some people will do a lot of it for the country?s better,? Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future.
?The problem is, once you?ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?? he asked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
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The crickets chirping is soooooo loud!!
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The crickets chirping is soooooo loud!!
And folks like Lanya & Brass would desginate that as "torture" :-\
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<<Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.>>
As if further illustration of the degradation of the language by the Republican administration were needed: waterboarding i is not cruel. Bitch-slapping is not degrading. But the memo that authorizes both is still kept secret from the American people. Why?
<<The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.
<<Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. >>
Doesnt that tell you something? Was there no urgent need for intelligence in WWII, a conflict in which the U.S. sustained hundreds of thousands of battle deaths? Obviously, the tactics were known and available in WWII; the need for intelligence was even more acute than it is now; but still the tactics were not used. They were morally repugnant to the decent men who ran the U.S. government at that time. But not to the criminal scum who run it today, obviously.
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<<The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.>>
Doesn?t that tell you something?
Yea, it tells me that there are throngs of people that can't tell the difference between being made to be thoroughly uncomfortable, which includes degradation, vs real torture, such as dismembering body parts, pulling tongues out, being burnt alive, watching your family murdered in front of your eyes......REAL torture vs "slaps to the head"..."thundering rock music"...oh, the horror of such harrowing pressure tactics
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<<REAL torture vs "slaps to the head"..."thundering rock music"...oh, the horror of such harrowing pressure tactics>>
The torture included waterboarding - - is that real enough for you?
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<<REAL torture vs "slaps to the head"..."thundering rock music"...oh, the horror of such harrowing pressure tactics>>
The torture included waterboarding - - is that real enough for you?
Is it causing any physical damage?...any dismemberment or death? That would be your answer
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When Bush approves the Al Queda torture manual get back to us.
And please don't give us any of that bigoted we are better than that. We aren't.
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<<Is it [waterboarding] causing any physical damage?...any dismemberment or death? That would be your answer>>
OK, simple hypothetical question then: If Americans captured during covert ops in Iran are waterboarded by Iranian intelligence, this is legitimate interrogation technique, no cause for protest? Or should the Americans protest the waterboarding of their captured Special Forces?
The question is for any member of the group, but given the last posts of sirs and BT, I'm really curious as to how they'd answer.
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When you can actually demonstrate anytime any of our captured troops are actually just waterboarded vs burned alive, then you might have a leg to stand on. When you can actually demonstrate how terrorists simply waterboard their captured prisoners vs the stuff outlined in their manual, again you might have a leg to stand on.
NO ONE supports ANY of our troops, who might be captured, being placed into egregiously uncomfortable situations. (outside of Tee of course, who looks forward to them being shot on sight). NO ONE would support them being waterboarded, especially if it's just being done to be evil. Point being, trying to compare these supposed "harrowing pressure tactics" as the return of the SS death camps and as bad as anything AlQeada has done is beyond ignorant...it's moronic
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<<NO ONE would support them being waterboarded, especially if it's just being done to be evil. >>
I by-passed the rest of your post. It was incredibly irrelevant to the simple question I asked and dealt with all kinds of nonsense (your troops being burned alive, the al Qaeda torture manual being applied to them, the return of SS death camps and other craziness,) all of which supposedly supported some kind of egregious rant that you were undertaking, the purpose of which is still eluding me.
However, you DID answer my simple question, as above, for which I thank you. BT could not or would not answer it. It doesn't matter. His silence speaks volumes.
So I would ask you this: if you would not support U.S. troops being waterboarded, then how can you claim that it is legitimate treatment for prisoners of the CIA or Special Forces?
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So I would ask you this: if you would not support U.S. troops being waterboarded, then how can you claim that it is legitimate treatment for prisoners of the CIA or Special Forces?
A) I never claimed it was some "legitimate treatement", those are your words, not mine. B) Because no one wants to see our own folks captured or made uncomfortable. Does that translate into our folks being prevented from using tactics that do NOT inflict physical damage on another, to generate intel that can potentially save thousands if not millions of lives?? Of course not ::)
So let us know the next time you hear of one of our troops simply being waterboarded for info, then you may have some substance behind your current rant
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Sorry, I'm just puzzled by your answer, not sure that I understood it.
I believe you just said it's OK for Americans to waterboard captured Arabs for intel that would save U.S. lives.
I think you just said that it would be OK for Arabs to waterboard captured Americans for intel that would save Arab lives.
Did I get that right?
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OK, simple hypothetical question then: If Americans captured during covert ops in Iran are waterboarded by Iranian intelligence, this is legitimate interrogation technique, no cause for protest? Or should the Americans protest the waterboarding of their captured Special Forces?
No, they shouldn't protest.
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BT could not or would not answer it. It doesn't matter. His silence speaks volumes.
BT was away from the keyboard. And he answered you in the post above.
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<<No, they shouldn't protest.>>
Straight, honest answer. Thank you. Consistent.
I believe I had this conversation with you once before. We disagreed where to draw the line, but even you conceded that there was a line. Somewhere.
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I believe you just said it's OK for Americans to waterboard captured Arabs for intel that would save U.S. lives.
I think you just said that it would be OK for Arabs to waterboard captured Americans for intel that would save Arab lives.
Did I get that right?
Yes. And as I also referenced, let us know when the latter scenario ever actually happens
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Well at least there's no hypocrisy issue here. Both BT and sirs think that as far as waterboarding is concerned, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That's at least consistent.
Unfortunately it undoes all the progress that's been made in international law in outlawing torture, including the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I'm not sure which if any of these have been signed or ratified by the U.S., but all are part of a process and even if not ratified yet by the U.S., the actual practice of torture with official U.S. government approval just delays the day of ratification (if unratified) and pushes back the date by which torture will ultimately be abolished in fact as well as on paper.
Civilization is a process, what the U.S. is doing is definitely going to retard that process, set it back at least a hundred years.
If there is nothing shameful in what the U.S. is doing (waterboarding, etc.) why are the memos secret?
What do you make of the fact that Never in history had the U.S. authorized such tactics . . . ? Surely the NEED for intelligence was just as acute when millions of lives hung in the daily balance of total worldwide war. Surely the techniques of torture, including waterboarding, were common knowledge. Why DIDN'T the American leadership of that day authorize torture to the extent that Bush and his handlers have done, if there is nothing wrong with it?
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You seem to be confusing the practice of waterboarding with the politicization of the practice of waterboarding.
Different targets , dontchaknow.
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You seem to be confusing the practice of waterboarding with the politicization of the practice of waterboarding. Different targets , dontchaknow.
Touche'
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<<You seem to be confusing the practice of waterboarding with the politicization of the practice of waterboarding.
<<Different targets , dontchaknow.>>
Ya lost me there, BT. I'm just one dumb Canuck, after all. Not all that sophisticated. To me, waterboarding is waterboarding. It was never authorized before by any American administration, now it's authorized. In my own dumb and unsophisticated way, I found that very significant. I don't think I was confused at all. Maybe you are the one who is confused. Maybe you're confused between an unwillingness to see what's right in front of your nose and a desire to confuse the picture so badly that you'll never have to deal with it again.
But maybe you're on to something after all. Is it possible that you guys have confused the practice of "terrorism" with the politicization of the practice of "terrorism?" Maybe there IS some kind of potential in your sophistry after all.
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So if either of you were captured in some Middle Eastern country and taken to Iran because you might possibly fit the stereotype of what Iran considers terrorist threats to their nation, you'd have no real problem when they brought out the waterboarding torture?
And you can put Burma or Israel in place of Iran if it makes a difference.
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So if either of you were captured in some Middle Eastern country and taken to Iran because you might possibly fit the stereotype of what Iran considers terrorist threats to their nation, you'd have no real problem when they brought out the waterboarding torture?
Nope.
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Ya lost me there, BT. I'm just one dumb Canuck, after all.
How coy.
Who would be the target of waterboarding?
Who is the target of your politicization of the practice?
Are they the same persons?
And there is an old maxim in govt.
Lawyers opine, judges rule.
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<<Who would be the target of waterboarding?
<<Who is the target of your politicization of the practice?
<<Are they the same persons?>>
OH, now I get it. Straw-man. The subject is waterboarding. The article clearly stated that never before had any administration authorized waterboarding. When this administration DID authorize waterboarding, they tried to keep it a secret from the public, their nominal bosses. The issue is the criminality of this administration.
I can see very well why you would not like the discussion to focus on the issue of criminality. I understand why you want to divert the discussion to the politicization of the torture issue. Nice try, even if obscurely worded. Sorry it doesn't work. Who (apart from sirs) did you really think was going to be taken in by your sophistry anyway?
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The issue is the criminality of this administration.
Now we are making progress.
Who said waterboarding was illegal?
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To me, waterboarding is waterboarding. It was never authorized before by any American administration, now it's authorized.
The special forces "SERE" training subjects the soldiers to waterboarding (among other interrogation techniques) to harden the trainees against this type of interrogation. Been done for years.
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Apparently, the administration thinks that waterboarding is okay, so long as the
victim suspected, yet unconvicted terrorist is not actually killed dead, even though he has been led to believe that he will be killed.
The Administration will not admit to waterboarding or any other procedures "lest the terrorist community find out about what our techniques are".
I seriously doubt that the 'terrorist community' is unaware of all techniques that have been used in the past.
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<<Now we are making progress.
<<Who said waterboarding was illegal?>>
Since it was never authorized during WWII when the stakes were higher, the casualties far greater, and support for the war much more solid, you have a pretty good idea that it must have been considered illegal way back then.
The UN Convention on Torture etc. defines torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining . . . information . . . punishing . . . or intimidating . . . or coercing . . .
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Ed. , Torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain . . . ; or extreme anguish of body or mind . . .
From Wikipedia on Torture
Municipal Law
States that ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture have a treaty obligation to include the provisions into municipal law. The laws of many states therefore formally prohibit torture. However, such de jure legal provisions are by no means a proof that, de facto, the signatory country does not use torture.
To prevent torture, many legal systems have a right against self-incrimination or explicitly prohibit undue force when dealing with suspects.
England abolished torture in about 1640 (except peine forte et dure which England only abolished in 1772), in Scotland in 1708, in Prussia in 1740, in Denmark around 1770, in Russia in 1801.[22][23]
The French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, prohibits submitting suspects to any hardship not necessary to secure his or her person. Statute law explicitly makes torture a crime. In addition, statute law prohibits the police or justice from interrogating suspects under oath.
The United States includes this protection in the fifth amendment to its federal constitution, which in turn serves as the basis of the Miranda warning, which law enforcement officers issue to individuals upon their arrest. Additionally, the US Constitution's eighth amendment forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishments", which is widely interpreted as a prohibition of the use of torture. Finally, 18 U.S.C. ? 2340 [24] et seq. define and forbid torture outside the United States. United States law bans all torture in all places without exception.
This is pretty much of a no-brainer. That the torture memos were kept secret indicates there was some criminality to hide. That no other administration, despite the direst of temptations would touch it is another indication.
Waterboarding is a criminal act IMHO. It seems whoever has the power to rule has the power to define crime and it appears that America's current rulers have defined criminal acts in a way that lets them get away with waterboarding. Let me say that I don't think their moral sense is in any way superior to mine, and my moral sense tells me that waterboarding is NOT OK, that it is a capital crime, and that if I had the power to make the rules, guys like Bush, Cheney and his supporters would already have been executed for their crimes. As would whoever carried out their orders. If that takes a wholesale purge of the armed forces with firing squads working overtime and double time, so be it. The world would be a much better place afterwards.
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Is anyone in favor of waterboarding Juniorbush and Cheney to, you know, make them better soldiers in the War on Terror?
And, could we have it televised? We would all learn something, I am certain.
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Waterboarding is a criminal act IMHO.
So no governing body with jurisdiction has declared waterboarding an illegal at?
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Waterboarding is a criminal act IMHO.
So no governing body with jurisdiction has declared waterboarding an illegal at?
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Depends. Do you think the SCOTUS is a governing body with jurisdiction?
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/hamdan-summary----and-huge-news/
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Depends. Do you think the SCOTUS is a governing body with jurisdiction?
How's about an actual document from SCOTUS that says it, not the opinion of a blogger?
"If I'm right about this, it's enormously significant."
And if he's not right?
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<<So no governing body with jurisdiction has declared waterboarding an illegal at?>>
Why do you need to rely upon "some governing body" with "jurisdiction" to tell you what's right or wrong? Don't you know yourself what's right and wrong? Do you really think some court with a Reagan-Bush majority composition is going to have the moral authority to decide an issue like that? Know of any judges during the Nazi era of German history who decided that the whole Nazi agenda was bullshit?
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<<So no governing body with jurisdiction has declared waterboarding an illegal at?>>
Why do you need to rely upon "some governing body" with "jurisdiction" to tell you what's right or wrong? Don't you know yourself what's right and wrong?
You mean like Homosexuality is wrong? Spending other people's money is wrong? Trying to lay claim as to how the U.S. & its military is just as bad, if not worse than terrorists like AlQeada is wrong? Yea, I do know
Do you really think some court with a Reagan-Bush majority composition is going to have the moral authority to decide an issue like that? Know of any judges during the Nazi era of German history who decided that the whole Nazi agenda was bullshit?
4liberals - 2moderates - 3 conservatives (under Reagan) --> now 4libs - 1 mod - 4 conservs (under Bush) are a "majority composition"? What school did you learn your math from?
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<<So no governing body with jurisdiction has declared waterboarding an illegal at?>>
Why do you need to rely upon "some governing body" with "jurisdiction" to tell you what's right or wrong? Don't you know yourself what's right and wrong? Do you really think some court with a Reagan-Bush majority composition is going to have the moral authority to decide an issue like that? Know of any judges during the Nazi era of German history who decided that the whole Nazi agenda was bullshit?
Because you are the one who brought up criminality:
OH, now I get it. Straw-man. The subject is waterboarding. The article clearly stated that never before had any administration authorized waterboarding. When this administration DID authorize waterboarding, they tried to keep it a secret from the public, their nominal bosses. The issue is the criminality of this administration.
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<<Because you are the one who brought up criminality:>>
Fair enough.
The only reason there's no clear-cut case for criminality is because the US has not ratified the UN Convention on Torture. I guess you could say that they have reservations over the definition of torture in the Convention. The US probably feels the definition is over-broad and includes waterboarding, whereas they wouldn't want waterboarding included in the definition of torture. Bottom line is, they (the Bush administration) are going to waterboard their prisoners and nobody can stop them.
No previous administration has authorized this. The UN Convention, ratified by many countries, has renounced such methods as torture. The ratifying countries have adopted the definitions of torture contained in the Convention and sworn to forgo torture as defined. But now Bush authorizes torture and at the same time claims the U.S. does not torture.
There is obviously no way to compel the U.S. to observe civilized norms of behaviour short of military defeat. As long as they have the power to torture, they will torture. At the present time and for the foreseeable future, it looks like the U.S. will be able to torture and to get away with it. This is a bitter pill to swallow but realistically there is no other possible outcome. Sometimes it pays to face the world as it is and just pray or hope for God or history or blind chance or whatever force or forces actually determine the course of events to unleash the unforeseen catastrophe that those who so grossly violate human rights and the dignity of their fellow man so richly deserve. You will probably ask, what about al Qaeda and their torture manual? Their punishment is the U.S. military. My concern is who or what will punish the U.S. military and their civilian bosses in their present lawless state. Some kind of world order is definitely indicated, most obviously a UN with vastly enhanced powers of enforcement.
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The only reason there's no clear-cut case for criminality is because the US has not ratified the UN Convention on Torture.
The US signed the convention on 18 Apr 1988, and was ratified on 21 Oct 1994.
The issue of waterboarding was brought up in a Committee against Torture meeting on 5 May 2006 - I haven't heard that the US was sanctioned by the UN for this. Have you?
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D'OH.
Well, you know Ami, those UN folks are just toadies for Bush, doing his bidding, covering his lying arse with their position that Saddam did have his WMD stockpiles, when they knew he didn't. ;)
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<<The US signed the convention on 18 Apr 1988, and was ratified on 21 Oct 1994.>>
I should have looked it up. The only reason I didn't was because I assumed that the only way the U.S. could get away with waterboarding was if they had never ratified the Convention. I never dreamed they would be so fucking brazen as to sign the Convention and then just go ahead and authorize such a clear-cut breach of it.
<<The issue of waterboarding was brought up in a Committee against Torture meeting on 5 May 2006 - I haven't heard that the US was sanctioned by the UN for this. Have you?>>
What would be the point? They recognize no legal authority but their own will. The International Court of Justice at the Hague condemned them for interfering in Nicaragua's internal affairs but they're about as concerned with the ICJ's rulings as they are with my posts.
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<<The US signed the convention on 18 Apr 1988, and was ratified on 21 Oct 1994.>>
I should have looked it up. The only reason I didn't was because I assumed that the only way the U.S. could get away with waterboarding was if they had never ratified the Convention. I never dreamed they would be so fucking brazen as to sign the Convention and then just go ahead and authorize such a clear-cut breach of it.
<<The issue of waterboarding was brought up in a Committee against Torture meeting on 5 May 2006 - I haven't heard that the US was sanctioned by the UN for this. Have you?>>
What would be the point? They recognize no legal authority but their own will. The International Court of Justice at the Hague condemned them for interfering in Nicaragua's internal affairs but they're about as concerned with the ICJ's rulings as they are with my posts.
mikey,
try to keep your responses credible.
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<<mikey,
<<try to keep your responses credible.>>
We're living through some pretty surrealistic times, BT. The fact that the U.S. government is run by a gang of thugs with zero respect for international law is in itself an incredible situation, which it's hard for my responses not to reflect.
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We're living through some pretty surrealistic times, BT. The fact that the U.S. government is run by a gang of thugs with zero respect for international law is in itself an incredible situation, which it's hard for my responses not to reflect.
Or, the other explanation is that the committee did not find that waterboarding is torture.
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<<Or, the other explanation is that the committee did not find that waterboarding is torture.>>
Yeah, that would be credible. Here's the definition of torture, straight from the CAT (Convention Against Torture):
Article 1.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering , whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from , inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
and for added measure,
Article 2
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
For the very reason of its wide definition, I just assumed that no American government would ever adopt such a Convention.
But why is anyone so concerned with what the committee thought about waterboarding? Since when does Amerika pay heed to foreigners, let alone so-called "committees" of the demonic United Nations? What does AMI think about waterboarding, does it fall within the CAT definition of torture or not?
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But why is anyone so concerned with what the committee thought about waterboarding? Since when does Amerika pay heed to foreigners, let alone so-called "committees" of the demonic United Nations?
It would bolster your case if they made a pronouncement that waterboarding was torture. I think it's telling that in the 2 years since the complaint was lodged, they have not done so.
What does AMI think about waterboarding, does it fall within the CAT definition of torture or not?
Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.
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Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.
==============================================
Personally, I think that you need to do a bit of research on this before you come to such a snap judgment.
It seems to me that there is a very high probability that at some point, the waterboarded individual's body takes over, and the mind that tells you that this is merelky annoying is no longer in control. Instead, the person has an instinctive drowning reflex, and feels that he will die, and panics.
You can tell yourself as you stick your finger down your throat that there is no reason for you to upchuck and that the finger down your throat is merely an annoyance, but at some point, you get a gag reflex, and BLAAAAAAAGHHH! Up come the cookies, the cobbler, the spaghetti and the Merlot '87.
Waterboarding might well be unendurable torture or it might not, but the only way to decide this is to have yourself waterboarded. Or so it seems to me.
This will be true despite anyone signing any document.
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Waterboarding might well be unendurable torture or it might not, but the only way to decide this is to have yourself waterboarded. Or so it seems to me.
You mean like the military is trained to do?
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http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2006/09/20/waterboarding-cia-approved-enhanced-interrogation-techniques/
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<<Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.>>
Let's not forget that waterboarding is not just pouring warm water over heads, there is also the minor detail that the victim cannot breathe while the process is continuing. Keeping that in mind, Ami, do you think it would be OK if Iranians waterboarded captured Americans for information during any future wars in Iran? Whether or not you consider it torture, is it an OK technique for American prisoners (i.e., Americans held prisoners by others) to be subjected to?
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When American kids come home telling stories of being waterboarded, don't anybody here utter a word.
After all, its just harmless frat hazing.
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When American kids come home telling stories of being waterboarded, don't anybody here utter a word. After all, its just harmless frat hazing.
Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here ::)
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Let's hang out some weekend and let me waterboard for a few hours, ok?
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Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours? Do tell
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Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours? Do tell
Wait I thought it was just good old boy adolescent fun. Which is it? I mean, if it's not torture and just the same as hazing/being "uncomfortable", what's the big deal?
The waterboarding technique, characterized in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a "professional interrogation technique,"[13] is described as follows by journalist Julia Layton:
Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.[14]
CIA officers who subject themselves to the technique last an average of 14 seconds before caving in.[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
It'll be fun!! Good times!
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Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours? Do tell
Wait I thought it was just good old boy adolescent fun.
And who the hell said that? That would be the person you might want to talk to in inviting them over to your house for some personal uncomfortablilty
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<<Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here [that waterboarding is just harmless frat hazing.]>>
And the divorce between sirs' brain and reality becomes final and absolute.
I don't think it's all that significant that sirs would compare waterboarding to harmless frat hazing. What I find significant is that in sirs, we have a human being who is willing to subject other human beings to the agony of waterboarding. In me, you have a human being that is not willing to subject another human being to the agony waterboarding. Whether sirs calls it hazing or I call it agony is not the point. The point is what is he willing to do to another human being and what am I willing to do to one.
I look at the world as divided, good guys and bad guys. Good guys are like me. Bad guys are like sirs. sirs can't convince me waterboarding is OK and I can't convince him that it is not. This is a true values question, and logic is not adequate to the task of convincing one into or out of core values.
sirs and his ilk must be prevented, by force if necessary, from having their way in the world. It's as simple as that. They are the enemy.
But the fact is, they and their evil twins in the Arab world are winning the war of good against evil. Torture is and will remain fully entrenched for the foreseeable future. It really doesn't matter who wins in Iraq, the real winner will be torture. In the long run only the total defeat of the U.S.A. by some power as yet unseen will put an end to the power of people who practise sirs' values.
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<<Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here [that waterboarding is just harmless frat hazing.]>>
I don't think it's all that significant that sirs would compare waterboarding to harmless frat hazing. What I find significant is that in sirs, we have a human being who is willing to subject other human beings to the agony of waterboarding.
IF it can prevent the potential for thousands of lives to be saved, absofrellinloutely. You'll of course get back to me when you can demonstrated how I support the infliction of bodily damage, or dismemberment, of pulling tongues out, or of burning the flesh of a living human....you know the stuff that folks like AlQeada performs, that you keep trying to compare us to. The best you can complain about is loud music, slaps on the head, and waterboarding, as if that's what our enemy does ::)
sirs and his ilk must be prevented, by force if necessary, from having their way in the world. It's as simple as that. They are the enemy... In the long run only the total defeat of the U.S.A. by some power as yet unseen will put an end to the power of people who practise sirs' values.
And there, for all to see. It's Americans like me, and like minded citizens fighting for freedom and democracy that are the true enemies of the globe. Only those who managed to call real evil evil, are apparently the evil ones. And of course... ends justify the means. I doubt Brass and Tee would subject me to waterboarding. My guess is they'll jump right into pulling the tongue out 1st, while forcing me to listen Air America, in one of their re-education camps. Good thing I have my Sig & 30-30. That'll make it a tad harder
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What's so funny, sirs, is I wouldn't bother looking your direction, let alone waste one second on torturing you.
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But according to Tee, I'm the real enemy, I'm the evil that permeates this country, worse than Usama, worse than probably Hitler, but of course nothing tops Bush. If I'm the real enemy, why would you ignore me? I need to be re-educated, in one of your camps for serious offenders
So, going to let us in on who's claiming waterboarding is just some frat prank?? Adolescent fun??
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Keeping that in mind, Ami, do you think it would be OK if Iranians waterboarded captured Americans for information during any future wars in Iran? Whether or not you consider it torture, is it an OK technique for American prisoners (i.e., Americans held prisoners by others) to be subjected to?
Since the US military already does it to many US soldiers during training to resist interrogation techniques, I don't see anything wrong with our enemies using a technique our soldiers are trained to resist.
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But according to Tee, I'm the real enemy, I'm the evil that permeates this country, worse than Usama, worse than probably Hitler, but of course nothing tops Bush. If I'm the real enemy, why would you ignore me? I need to be re-educated, in one of your camps for serious offenders
So, going to let us in on who's claiming waterboarding is just some frat prank?? Adolescent fun??
That would be you and your precious lord and savior, Rush Limbaugh.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408050011
Citing statements by U.S. Army investigators during a preliminary military court hearing of Pfc. Lynndie England that England was "having some fun" when she abused Iraqi detainees, radio host Rush Limbaugh, on August 4, returned to the same script of his controversial remarks about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. On the August 4 edition of the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh said that England and the other accused soldiers were engaging in acts that were "sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun."
And your fellow traveler, Ami.
Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.
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And on cue, Brass demonstrates precisely mypoint, Ami wasn't referring to any "pranks", and Limbaugh wasn't referring to any waterboarding. Thank you very much ;D
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I have to say that I find sirs' mind and its workings to be spookily fascinating. A window into the psychopathology of fascism and militarism and their interlocking relationship to pure old-fashioned sadism.
<<IF it [waterboarding] can prevent the potential for thousands of lives to be saved, absofrellinloutely [I would support it.]>>
This part of his post isn't very interesting, except for the absolute divorce from reality that is so typical of fascist and crypto-fascist "thinking." EVERYBODY who falls under prisoner interrogation has the potential to supply links or connections that directly or indirectly could lead to somebody or something which MIGHT be in a position to take thousands of lives. That is the nature of war, where the object is the largest possible scale of casualty infliction on the other side. Any soldier, quartermaster, harbourmaster, station master, or even traffic guard is a potential source of information that might save thousands of lives. There is NOBODY who would be exempt from torture, even the wives and children of Resistance fighters, if the potential for saving thousands of lives were to be the criterion for when to torture.
Here's where sirs gets really interesting: <<You'll of course get back to me when you can demonstrated how I support the infliction of bodily damage, or dismemberment, of pulling tongues out, or of burning the flesh of a living human....you know the stuff that folks like AlQeada performs, that you keep trying to compare us to. >>
Well, that's gonna be kinda hard to do, sirs. That's what the U.S. maintains secret torture chambers around the world for, so you'll never see exactly WHAT they are doing to their victims. That's why they have the practice of rendition - - where they just deliver the victim, they don't actually perform the tortures. That's how they can say with a straight face that they don't torturel
But I have a question for sirs, and I'm really curious: those things you mention,but you claim the U.S.A. does not do - - pulling tongues out, burning living flesh, dismemberment - - what ABOUT them? What if THOSE tortures had the potential to save thousands of lives, just like waterboarding? Would you also be "absofrellinlutely" in favour of them too? And if so, is it OK if Arabs use them on captured Americans to save (OK, potentially save) "thousands of Arab lives?"
<<[Tee quote:] sirs and his ilk must be prevented, by force if necessary, from having their way in the world. It's as simple as that. They are the enemy... In the long run only the total defeat of the U.S.A. by some power as yet unseen will put an end to the power of people who practise sirs' values.
<<And there, for all to see. It's Americans like me, and like minded citizens fighting for freedom and democracy that are the true enemies of the globe.>>
God-damn right. YOU are the only major power that openly defends torture. The Arabs do only what they have always been doing since there were first Arabs. Only from the West did the anti-torture campaign begin to roll back the practice, tiny step by tiny step. Only from the U.S.A. and the U.K. came the drive for a rule of law and the abolition of torture. And only from the U.S.A. are the small fruits of that drive being rolled back to the point where the world stands again at Square One in the fight against torture and the great civilizing conventions, the Fourth Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Unusual and Degrading Punishments , being openly ridiculed and flouted. And only by stopping you and your ilk will the campaign against torture begin to rebuild all its lost achievements.
<<Only those who managed to call real evil evil, are apparently the evil ones. >>
Look in the fucking mirror when you want to call evil evil. Stop pointing your finger at everyone else, YOU guys have done more to advance torture and roll back the campaign against it than anyone else on earth, and you are the people to be stopped if the campaign against torture is to have any realistic future at all.
<< And of course... ends justify the means. I doubt Brass and Tee would subject me to waterboarding.>>
You got THAT right.
<<My guess is they'll jump right into pulling the tongue out 1st, while forcing me to listen Air America, in one of their re-education camps. >>
You sure make it sound tempting. But don't worry, I thank God every day I'm not made of the same stuff as you, morally speaking.
<<Good thing I have my Sig & 30-30. That'll make it a tad harder>>
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot what a chickenshit little coward you really are. Who are you so scared of, sirs, that you needed to get a Sig & Sauer 30-30 and sleep with it loaded under your pillow? Osama bin Laden coming to get you? Me and Brass coming to pull out your tongue? Or is it the uninsured children of Amerikkka coming to rob you of what's yours to finance the health care of their miserable worthless little bodies?
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>> have to say that I find sirs' mind and its workings to be spookily fascinating. A window into the psychopathology of fascism and militarism and their interlocking relationship to pure old-fashioned sadism.<<
There you go sirs. The scumbag Communist called you a sadistic fascist.
What are you going to do now? Suck his dick?
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Not enough money on this globe
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<<There you go sirs. The scumbag Communist called you a sadistic fascist.
<<What are you going to do now? Suck his dick?>>
(Rich)
Another intellectual heard from.
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<<Not enough money on this globe>>
The voice of principle speaking. (sirs)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, sirs, if you can get past the siren song of Rich's unfulfilled sexual longings and general craziness and total idiocy, maybe you'd like to direct your mind back to the subject at hand - - remember?
<<But I have a question for sirs, and I'm really curious: those things you mention,but you claim the U.S.A. does not do - - pulling tongues out, burning living flesh, dismemberment - - what ABOUT them? What if THOSE tortures had the potential to save thousands of lives, just like waterboarding? Would you also be "absofrellinlutely" in favour of them too? And if so, is it OK if Arabs use them on captured Americans to save (OK, potentially save) "thousands of Arab lives?">>
Curious minds are impatiently waiting.
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Wait no longer, since I've been on record LONG ago, (not surprised you don't pay any attention to various positions that don't dare agree with yours) that my line IS where the body is irreversibly damaged, such as tonge pulled out, arms dislocated, body burned alive. Up until that point, whatever discomfort a terrorist is given, in the effort to determine what info they have that prevents the next 911, I'm all for. And here you're all bent out of shape with head slapping and loud music, while you're homies over at AlQeada make it their benchmark to perform the former
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Well, gotta say that I am pleasantly surprised to learn that you're not ALL bad. (It was actually obvious from your condemnation of the al Qaeda torture manual that you did have a line in the sand on torture. Just wanted to see where it was.)
Since your line seems to be irreversible bodily harm, the obvious question is what about electroshock torture? As in Vietnam, where GIs hooked up the male or female genitalia to a field telephone with a hand-cranked generator and "rang up" the victim? As in Argentina and Chile, two U.S. client states, where the military could insert the electrodes up your ass or into the penis or vagina? Jacopo Timmerman ("Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number") survived but some didn't. A quote I recall from Viet Nam, "We lost a man in the tank yesterday," referring to electroshock torture, not water torture.
How about rape? Prison rapes don't leave permanent physical damage on their victims either. Is rape of a "terrorist," or a "terrorist's" loved ones OK if it has the potential of making somebody talk and saving thousands of lives?
I happen to have been associated with an organization that aids victims of torture, and I can tell you that a great many victims of electroshock and/or rape have lasting psychological or mental damage, which as far as I can tell is gonna be irreversible. But leave that out of the equation for the time being.
What's your position on (a) electroshock and (b) rape of "terrorists" or their loved ones assuming no permanent physical or mental damage? I might as well warn you this is kind of a trap since it's very rare IMHO that either would leave no permanent mental damage, often severe, on a victim. However, let's hear what one crusader for "freedom" and the American way thinks. Believe me, I find this very interesting and I appreciate any time you take to answer the question.
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Well, gotta say that I am pleasantly surprised to learn that you're not ALL bad. (It was actually obvious from your condemnation of the al Qaeda torture manual that you did have a line in the sand on torture. Just wanted to see where it was.)
It's been out there LONG ago, for all to see, so your repetative garbage that I support torture, has remained null & void, just as long as you've been ranting on it.
Since your line seems to be irreversible bodily harm, the obvious question is what about electroshock torture?
I bet it's not pleasant, but I bet it also can easily cause brain damage. Such electrical usasge can also potentially screw up the heart's beating current, so that's likely a no-go for me
How about rape?
Now you're getting ridiculous...which is really saying something, considering how out-to-lunch you so often are
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>>Not enough money on this globe<<
Okay, so you're just going to bend over and take it.
You're what's wrong with the party. We don't need people who take that kind of thing lying down. We need people who realize what we're fighting against and respond in kind. These people are simply evil and will destroy this country and all the while you'll be worrying about what they think of you. And they'll be (are) laughing at you.
Fuck that.
I think it would be best for you to stay on the porch sirs. You give the impression of weakness, you sadistic fascist.
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>>Not enough money on this globe<<
Okay, so you're just going to bend over and take it. Fuck that. I think it would be best for you to stay on the porch sirs. You give the impression of weakness, you sadistic fascist.
Take what? Someone excercising their 1st amendment right to type, say & think completely asanine & moronic things? What are you advocating Rich, stoning? I tell ya what, you keep focused on shrill, hyperbolic, and demeaning personal attacks, and I'll stay back here with the substantive & civil dialog that highlights all the same leftist hypocrisy, distortions, and lying, without making an ass of himself :-\
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>>What are you advocating Rich, stoning? <<
I'm advocating you grow some balls. Failing that, don't even tell me how to handle them scumbags again.
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>>What are you advocating Rich, stoning? <<
I'm advocating you grow some balls. Failing that, don't even tell me how to handle them scumbags again.
Strange, how YOU seem to be the one demanding how I handle scumbags. That fits pretty nicely with the left's frequent use use of projection, or in this case hypocrisy. You sure that's the avenue you want to anchor yourself down to?
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They laugh at you sirs. They love a wimpy Republican.
I mean, they call you a sadistic fascist, and you respond, "Thank you sir may I have another".
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They laugh at you sirs. They love a wimpy Republican.
I mean, they call you a sadistic fascist, and you respond, "Thank you sir may I have another".
I don't know who they are, but trust me Sirs, if there is anyone providing comedic relief here between you and Rich, it isn't you.
Paranoia strikes deep Rich.
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They laugh at you sirs. They love a wimpy Republican. I mean, they call you a sadistic fascist, and you respond, "Thank you sir may I have another".
I don't know who they are, but trust me Sirs, if there is anyone providing comedic relief here between you and Rich, it isn't you. Paranoia strikes deep Rich.
Paranoia? Perhaps. I just wish he'd stop taking lessons from the knute school of debate. But thanks for the heads up
They laugh at you sirs. They love a wimpy Republican.
And you think I'm republican, how again? If you can't even get that right, your added adjective is hardly valid
I mean, they call you a sadistic fascist, and you respond, "Thank you sir may I have another".
People exercising their 1st amendment right to be transparently ignorant & stupid, makes my job so much the easier, that no response is generally even necessary. I just have to shine a big bright spotlight on it, minus all the shrill personal attacking hyperbole
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>>I don't know who they are ...<<
You asshole, you are they. Are you going to deny it? Didn't you friend and fellow commie say it?
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Rich is performing the impossible - - making sirs look almost sane and normal. Bravo, Rich.
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And if anyone knows insane & abnormal to compare it to, that'd be Tee :D
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<<And if anyone knows insane & abnormal to compare it to, that'd be Tee >>
Well, I sure as hell know it now.
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People exercising their 1st amendment right to be transparently ignorant & stupid, makes my job so much the easier, that no response is generally even necessary. I just have to shine a big bright spotlight on it, minus all the shrill personal attacking hyperbole
Well said!
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Thankee, Plane
8)
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<<I just have to shine a big bright spotlight on it . . . >>
Well, that explains it - - I guess your big bright spotlight didn't come with any batteries.
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<<Is it [waterboarding] causing any physical damage?...any dismemberment or death? That would be your answer>>
OK, simple hypothetical question then: If Americans captured during covert ops in Iran are waterboarded by Iranian intelligence, this is legitimate interrogation technique, no cause for protest? Or should the Americans protest the waterboarding of their captured Special Forces?
The question is for any member of the group, but given the last posts of sirs and BT, I'm really curious as to how they'd answer.
A cause for rejoicing , that the Al Queda or Iranian interrogation teams would adopt the harshest guidelines that the CIA has ever used .
If the American captives were getting what American captors were giving there should be no complaining , rather celebrateion over the improvement!
It is meet that the US be held to a higher standard , but not with any pretense that virtue is preserved by the lessor standard. We are held to a higher standard because we are better if we are not actually better then hold us to no higher standard.
I have the feeling that as a subject of public discussion interrogation techniques are going to pick up tighter regulations in the future , but it depends a bit on the public mood , if Americans suffer some notorious abuse our tolerance of our own abuse is likely to loosen.
But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?
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<<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
Spoken like a man with absolutely no self-respect at all. Who lets others set his own standards for him. You're really no better than the boy who says, "Well, Johnny does it all the time." You need to grow up.
I do not mean to be castigating you personally, plane. These are the values of many of your countrymen and quite frankly they suck. They're just not good enough. You are a nation in steep decline and the moral rot is showing through everywhere.
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<<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
Spoken like a man with absolutely no self-respect at all. Who lets others set his own standards for him. You're really no better than the boy who says, "Well, Johnny does it all the time." You need to grow up.
I do not mean to be castigating you personally, plane. These are the values of many of your countrymen and quite frankly they suck. They're just not good enough. You are a nation in steep decline and the moral rot is showing through everywhere.
I disagree , in the face of attack we are publicly discussing how well to treat our tormentors.
It is the American way.
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<<I disagree , in the face of attack we are publicly discussing how well to treat our tormentors.>>
A slight correction, you seem to be publicly discussing how well or how badly to treat those who are provoked into lashing out against their own tormentors.
However, be that as it may, my comments were directed specifically to your rhetorical question, <<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
Certainly it is legitimate to discuss the treatment of prisoners in any circumstances. It was not the general discussion that I was taking issue with, but the POV represented by that one question of yours, which I took as a complete abdication of moral responsibility. You really haven't responded to that.
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<<I disagree , in the face of attack we are publicly discussing how well to treat our tormentors.>>
A slight correction, you seem to be publicly discussing how well or how badly to treat those who are provoked into lashing out against their own tormentors.
However, be that as it may, my comments were directed specifically to your rhetorical question, <<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
Certainly it is legitimate to discuss the treatment of prisoners in any circumstances. It was not the general discussion that I was taking issue with, but the POV represented by that one question of yours, which I took as a complete abdication of moral responsibility. You really haven't responded to that.
Were we really their tormentors?
When we are at war torment is expected, but the back bone of Al Queda is middle class Saudis who would not even rate third world lower class if not for the USA they were not tormented before they declared war.
If one were to reduce the wealth of the lower half of the worlds people by half that would be the situation that the world would have if the US were totally isolationist.
If there were more Canadian involvement in rounding up terrorists there would be a Canadian Guantanamo , how would the rules there be diffrent?
I doubt that there could be a prison anywhere more strict on its guards than is Guantanamo.
But there does need to be a way to effectively gather the information that the military and law enforcement legitimately needs . President Bush and his staff set a limit on cruelty , as you have noted , earlier administrations did not.
"However, be that as it may, my comments were directed specifically to your rhetorical question, <<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
Certainly it is legitimate to discuss the treatment of prisoners in any circumstances. It was not the general discussion that I was taking issue with, but the POV represented by that one question of yours, which I took as a complete abdication of moral responsibility. You really haven't responded to that.
Only if one ignores the rest of the post , I do say as I did say that we should be held to a higher standard because we are better.
For emphasis
I do say as I did say that we should be held to a higher standard because we are objectively better.
Al Queda demonstrates its courage by treating its captives in a beastly way that they are not worried about receiving themselves when they are captured. I certainly do not advocate a competition with them to see which of us can be the more inhuman.
What is your suggestion for a reasonable limit on pressuring or humiliating a prisoner?
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<<I just have to shine a big bright spotlight on it . . . >>
Well, that explains it - - I guess your big bright spotlight didn't come with any batteries.
That's because it runs on AC
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plane's most recent post: <<I certainly do not advocate a competition with them [al Qaeda] to see which of us can be the more inhuman.>>
and from his post before that: <<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
<<What is your suggestion for a reasonable limit on pressuring or humiliating a prisoner?>>
First of all, I would never concern myself about the humiliation of prisoners. Doesn't do any real harm and I don't think it's going to motivate them in any way other than to fuck you up or piss you off. Some prisoners deserve to be humiliated. I recall that the prisoners taken at Stalingrad were marched through the streets of Moscow followed by street-sweeping vehicles which washed and cleansed the streets after the Nazis had defiled them with their presence. Great theatre, and way less punishment than the bastards deserved. (They got theirs later in the Siberian slave labour camps, from which only about 5% ever returned.) Wearing women's panties, getting slapped around - - BFD. My friend was a prisoner of the Egyptian Army taken during Israel's War of Independence, and his food often included parts of rats' bodies, tails, claws, etc. as well as spit and probably other bodily fluids from their captors. Didn't seem to do him any real harm. Soldiers ought to be able to take it.
Did you read BT's post on the "Iwanowski" trick, that the Americans would pretend to be at the point of turning the Nazi over to "the Russians" (actually a mean-looking American officer of Russian descent wearing a Red Army uniform?) That was hilarious. I'd say trickery was OK, threatening death was OK, good-cop/bad-cop is OK. I'd think rewards would work really well - - hookers, dope, money, secure custody, early release. I'd basically go along with the UN Convention on Torture etc. If they ban it, I'd ban it.
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plane's most recent post: <<I certainly do not advocate a competition with them [al Qaeda] to see which of us can be the more inhuman.>>
and from his post before that: <<But really ,what right has any member of Al Quieda to complain untill they are treated worse than they treat their own prisoners?>>
<<What is your suggestion for a reasonable limit on pressuring or humiliating a prisoner?>>
First of all, I would never concern myself about the humiliation of prisoners. Doesn't do any real harm and I don't think it's going to motivate them in any way other than to fuck you up or piss you off. Some prisoners deserve to be humiliated. I recall that the prisoners taken at Stalingrad were marched through the streets of Moscow followed by street-sweeping vehicles which washed and cleansed the streets after the Nazis had defiled them with their presence. Great theatre, and way less punishment than the bastards deserved. (They got theirs later in the Siberian slave labour camps, from which only about 5% ever returned.) Wearing women's panties, getting slapped around - - BFD. My friend was a prisoner of the Egyptian Army taken during Israel's War of Independence, and his food often included parts of rats' bodies, tails, claws, etc. as well as spit and probably other bodily fluids from their captors. Didn't seem to do him any real harm. Soldiers ought to be able to take it.
Did you read BT's post on the "Iwanowski" trick, that the Americans would pretend to be at the point of turning the Nazi over to "the Russians" (actually a mean-looking American officer of Russian descent wearing a Red Army uniform?) That was hilarious. I'd say trickery was OK, threatening death was OK, good-cop/bad-cop is OK. I'd think rewards would work really well - - hookers, dope, money, secure custody, early release. I'd basically go along with the UN Convention on Torture etc. If they ban it, I'd ban it.
I question Al Queda's right to complan, but not your right to quibble , as far as I know you have not mistreated any prisoner placed in your charge at all .
Trickery requires credibility , an officer was retired for tricking an Irqui prisoner nto thinking he would be killed early in the conflict. He got the information , but hegave up his career because his standards were improvised and humiliateing a prisoner had to be discouraged. I think that he would have gotten away with this during WWII when standards of pisoner treatment were more lax.
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Did you read BT's post on the "Iwanowski" trick, that the Americans would pretend to be at the point of turning the Nazi over to "the Russians" (actually a mean-looking American officer of Russian descent wearing a Red Army uniform?) That was hilarious.
Wouldn't that be "mentally damaging"? After all, it's a threat of potential death...
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Did you read BT's post on the "Iwanowski" trick, that the Americans would pretend to be at the point of turning the Nazi over to "the Russians" (actually a mean-looking American officer of Russian descent wearing a Red Army uniform?) That was hilarious.
Wouldn't that be "mentally damaging"? After all, it's a threat of potential death...
Precisely. How does the Nazi know it's a "trick". Definate psychological torture Tee is advocating here. What a hypocrite ;)
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Did you read BT's post on the "Iwanowski" trick, that the Americans would pretend to be at the point of turning the Nazi over to "the Russians" (actually a mean-looking American officer of Russian descent wearing a Red Army uniform?) That was hilarious.
Wouldn't that be "mentally damaging"? After all, it's a threat of potential death...
Precisely. How does the Nazi know it's a "trick". Definate psychological torture Tee is advocating here. What a hypocrite ;)
No no , I asked him for his thoughts on what would be a reasonable limit on inquisitors methods and he made a real suggestion , frankly I am still thinking about it .
How many tricks can be done before the subjects know that it is all hoax?
He may have further suggestion and they might be interesting.
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No no , I asked him for his thoughts on what would be a reasonable limit on inquisitors methods and he made a real suggestion , frankly I am still thinking about it . How many tricks can be done before the subjects know that it is all hoax? He may have further suggestion and they might be interesting.
Yet you don't find it humerous Plane, how Tee has gone out of his way to try and rationalize how certain psychological stresses can be "damaging" thus be declared torture, yet here is laughing at how a nazi prisoner was tricked, made to think he was going to be handed over to the big bad Russians, and that isn't damaging to his psyche?
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No no , I asked him for his thoughts on what would be a reasonable limit on inquisitors methods and he made a real suggestion , frankly I am still thinking about it . How many tricks can be done before the subjects know that it is all hoax? He may have further suggestion and they might be interesting.
Yet you don't find it humerous Plane, how Tee has gone out of his way to try and rationalize how certain psychological stresses can be "damaging" thus be declared torture, yet here isl aughing at how a nazi prisoner was tricked, made to think he was going to be handed over to the big bad Russians, and that isn't damaging to the psyche?
I know what you mean and I do see the humor , but if MT would like to make something like a realistic suggestion about the limts of prisoner treatment I am interested.
This is a lot better than condemnation with no alternative offered.
Starting with what he wuld allow and what he wouldn't we might get a realistic idea of what te alternatives really are .
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
"A Place of Inspiration"
Marty Lederman
That's Alberto Gonzales's description of the Department of Justice that would work tirelessly to produce these sorts of legal opinions. Having worked at OLC for many years, I genuinely can't even imagine what it would be like to come to work each day with a mandate to produce this sort of legal advice.
"[James] Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be 'ashamed' when the world eventually learned of it." Were that it were so.
Between this and Jane Mayer's explosive article in August about the CIA black sites, I am increasingly confident that when the history of the Bush Administration is written, this systematic violation of statutory and treaty-based law concerning fundamental war crimes and other horrific offenses will be seen as the blackest mark in our nation's recent history -- not only because of what was done, but because the programs were routinely sanctioned, on an ongoing basis, by numerous esteemed professionals -- lawyers, doctors, psychologists and government officers -- without whose approval such a systematized torture regime could not be sustained.
Moreover, as I have argued many times in this space, there is no real justification for classifying the legal advice and the basic outlines of the CIA program (subject, of course, to protections for foreign sources who would be compromised).
What, then, will it take for Congress to have the courage finally to provide the thorough public accounting that is so desperately needed here -- and, perhaps more importantly, to pass laws that expressly and specifically prohibit identified techniques amounting to cruel treatment and torture; that prohibit secret, incommunicado CIA facilities; and that provide real legislative oversight so that this never happens again?
Posted 9:59 PM by Marty Lederman [link]
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/10/place-of-inspiration.html
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Well, that's 1 opinion
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Once upon a time the big shame for America was the School of the Americas, you know, the training school of torture for tin horn Latin American dictators. People were so upset with it that they would protest in front of it on a yearly basis. What is usually glossed over is that it was founded in 1946. Truman was President then. And the Democrats controlled the legislature.
Apparently some peoples high horses wear stilts.
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<< . . . Tee has gone out of his way to try and rationalize how certain psychological stresses can be "damaging" thus be declared torture, yet here is laughing at how a nazi prisoner was tricked, made to think he was going to be handed over to the big bad Russians, and that isn't damaging to his psyche? >>
You must be very confused (as usual.) Name one "psychological stress" that I declared to be torture.
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<<Once upon a time the big shame for America was the School of the Americas, you know, the training school of torture for tin horn Latin American dictators. People were so upset with it that they would protest in front of it on a yearly basis. What is usually glossed over is that it was founded in 1946. Truman was President then. And the Democrats controlled the legislature. >>
When the Torture School of the Americas first attracted domestic protests, it was for its teaching of torture techniques. If you have any evidence that this "school" was teaching torture even back in the days of the Truman administration, let's have it. Otherwise, I'll have to assume that Truman was not in the business of teaching torture to the minions of tinhorn dictators from banana republics.
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If you have any evidence that this "school" was teaching torture even back in the days of the Truman administration, let's have it. Otherwise, I'll have to assume that Truman was not in the business of teaching torture to the minions of tinhorn dictators from banana republics.
The school has always taught interrogation techniques and was designed to teach Latin American govts how to deal with insurrectionists. JFK renamed the school to the School of Americas and refocused it for the cold war.
The protests started when it was moved to Ft. Benning after we left Panama.
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<<The school has always taught interrogation techniques and was designed to teach Latin American govts how to deal with insurrectionists. JFK renamed the school to the School of Americas and refocused it for the cold war.>>
Yeah. As I said, BT, <<If you have any evidence that this "school" was teaching torture even back in the days of the Truman administration, let's have it. >>