Secret endorsement of torture

[Plane]

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.

[Amianthus]

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...

[sirs]

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     

[Plane]

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.

[sirs]

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?   

[Plane]

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 .

[Lanya]

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

[sirs]

Well, that's 1 opinion

[BT]

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.

[Michael Tee]

<< . . . 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. 

[Michael Tee]

<<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.

[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.  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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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. >>