Torture memos

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Of course they knew it was torture. They were warned by more than one source that it was. They just had to try and justify it because that's what Cheney wanted. I think it is all his doing.

12:33am responding to Merc

Originally Posted by classicman
IF waterboarding produced a positive outcome then this administration could be pressured to use it in the future if a key operative were captured. If they did not and something terrible happened, they would be blamed. Right or wrong, for political reasons (among others) this administration does NOT want a credible link.

12:35am responding to the above.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

No, they wouldn't, because they know they can get more reliable information by other methods. Torture is proven to be unreliable. By the gods! I can't believe some of you actually believe torture is OK.

This was not posted till 2:09PM this afternoon.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Is my language that hard to understand, or are you just giving me a hard time?

Yes, no. (Is my answer hard to follow :p)

I'm just trying to follow you. You are all over the place again and your timeline doesn't add up. It would appear that you were referring to the posts you quoted and now you are saying otherwise... hence the confusion.
I think I got ya now, moving along.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I said: King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

You have absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Absolutely nothing.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We await this finding. If they just wrote opinions, how could one know whether it was deliberate? It seems to me that proof would require:

A) Word had to be passed from the WH on what conclusions they wanted. "We need you to create an opinion that permits the harshest levels of interrogation possible, although that may be unlawful. We will make sure you aren't held accountable."

or

B) Evidence that the DoJ attorneys had a different opinion before being asked. "Attorney X published an opinion ten years ago that stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture."

UT.....The DoJ OPR investigation (to determine if the attorneys who wrote the torture memos were guided solely by legal issues or slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted) could very well come down to e-mails:

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating the work of lawyers who signed off on the interrogation policy, and is believed to have obtained archived e-mail messages from the time when the memorandums were being drafted.

If it turned out that the lawyers initially concluded that aspects of the proposed program would be illegal, then reversed that conclusion at the request of policy makers, then prosecutors could make a case that the officials knowingly broke the law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us...egal.html?_r=4

IF....the OPR finds that there was political influence......the shit will hit the fan.

But as you noted....we await this finding.

[sugarpop]

King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

[sugarpop]

Here's another one...

http://pubrecord.org/torture/854.html?task=view
George W. Bush’s Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near-drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn’t even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case – which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later – was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week...

http://washingtonindependent.com/13453/waterboarding
...the U.S. itself prosecuted waterboarding of American soldiers after World War II; waterboarding by American soldiers in the Philippines, and “water torture,” as it’s also been called — most recently by a local sheriff in Texas...

...Evan Wallach, a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and expert on the laws of war, wrote: “Not so very long ago, the United States, acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial, and as a participant in the world community, not only condemned the use of water torture, but severely punished as criminals those who applied it.”...

[lookout123]

We once condemned same sex partnerships too. Things change.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by lookout123

We once condemned same sex partnerships too. Things change.

yes, but we usually change for the better, not the other way around. How can we hold ourselves up as the moral beacons we claim to be if we engage in torture?

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by lookout123

We once condemned same sex partnerships too. Things change.

I can't fucking believe you just drew that comparison.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by one guy's opinion in the WaPo

Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#World_War_II

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In this [Japanese] version [of waterboarding], interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.

Originally Posted by our smarmy little intelligence expert

Please don't tell me you didn't already know this.

Isn't she so cute! being all smug and pretending to know stuff!

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#World_War_II




Isn't she so cute! being all smug and pretending to know stuff!

Why are you being such an ass? I am entitled to my opinion, which by the way, is the same as millions of other Americans. I have learned about this stuff over the past 8 years. I am not an expert, and I don't believe I have ever suggested otherwise.

[Undertoad]

Using Jordan as an example of an enlightened, non-torturing country is just sad.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/0...d-widespread-0

[TGRR]

If you support torture, you're scum.

It really is that simple.

[Undertoad]

Sug, post your opinion, but if you post it with that smarmy "Please don't tell me you didn't already know this", make sure you get it exactly right, or we have the right and the responsibility to pwn your ass.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Sug, post your opinion, but if you post it with that smarmy "Please don't tell me you didn't already know this", make sure you get it exactly right, or we have the right and the responsibility to pwn your ass.

UT, I said that because classicman is a very informed individual, and I found it hard to believe that I would know something that he didn't. I didn't mean it in a condescending way. I meant it in a "I can't believe you don't know this" stunned kind of way. It's hard to imagine how people mean something when they're typing on the internet, because you can't see the expression on their face or hear the inflection in their voice.

And ftr, I DID get it exactly right. We absolutely HAVE prosecuted people in the past for waterboarding.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

classicman is a very informed individual

Well ow there is a first - I've been called A LOT of things...

WHAT???????? Are you high again?