Torture memos

[Undertoad]

http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_1997/yax-057.htm

(2) ... Water torture. There were 2 forms of water torture. In the first the victim was tied or held down on his back and a cloth placed over his nose and mouth. Water was then poured on the cloth. Interrogation proceeded and the victim was beated if he did not reply. As he opened his mouth to breathe or to answer questions, water went down his throat until he could not hold anymore. Sometimes he was then beaten over his distended stomach , sometimes a Jap. jumped on his stomach or sometimes pressed on it with his foot. In the 2nd, the victim was tied lengthways on a ladder face upwards with a rung of the ladder across his throat and his head below the ladder. In his position he was slid head first into a tub of water and kept there until almost drowned. After being revived interrogation continued and he would be re-immersed.

[TheMercenary]

thanks UT.

I don't know what we did or did not do.

And no one else can say for sure either.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I don't know what we did or did not do.

So the pictures from Abu Ghriad never existed?

Were those also ideal interrogation techiques?

[Lamplighter]

NY Times
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: April 13, 2013



David Addington, left, John Yoo, center, and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller are among those whom Russia has barred.

Russia Bars 18 Americans After Sanctions by U.S.

The list is headed by four men who Russia’s Foreign Ministry says
are responsible for “the legalization of torture” and “unlimited detention”:

David Addington, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
and provided legal support for interrogation policies;

John Yoo, a high-ranking Bush administration lawyer who wrote several major opinions on torture;

and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller and Rear Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson,
each of whom commanded detention operations in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Now the US government should follow suite,
and the Univ of California should move John Yoo's office to Begg Rock.

[Undertoad]

If Russia is barring Americans for anything torture-related, it must be for copyright violations of their own methods.

http://terrorism.about.com/od/humanr...siaTorture.htm

“Disappearances” in Chechnya are so widespread and systematic that they constitute crimes against humanity; by some estimates between 3,000 and 5,000 have “disappeared” since 1999. In numerous cases their corpses are found in unmarked graves or dumped, but in most instances they are simply never heard from after being taken into custody . . . The majority of the bodies showed signs of severe mutilation, including flaying or scalping, broken limbs, severed finger tips and ears, and close range bullet wounds typical of summary executions. Examinations by medical doctors of some of these bodies have revealed that some of the deliberate mutilations were inflicted while the detainees were still alive.

[Lamplighter]

OK, but regardless of whatever happens in other governments,
we are responsible for what happens in ours.

Yoo and Additon sold out ours for legal expendiency.

[richlevy]

I think I'd prefer us measuring ourselves against the best that the world has to offer rather than justifying ourselves against the worst.

[ZenGum]

Look at that filthy, pitch-black kettle! Just look at it!!

[Undertoad]

Read the original story. This barring is in response to a US barring of Russian officials who falsely prosecuted, jailed, beat, and killed a guy, for exposing Russian corruption.

The Russians didn't like the US getting all up in their business

So they stopped US parents adopting Russian orphans. Too bad for the fucking orphans, who are the modern cannon fodder of diplomacy now

"Stop or we'll shoot our kids!"

But Lamp took the bait and praised the Russians for beating his own favorite dead horses...

The Russian government is corrupt but OOH LOOK SHINY THINGS I HATE JOHN YOO TOO!! WE SHOULD BE MORE LIKE THE RUSSIANS!!

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Read the original story.
This barring is in response to a US barring of Russian officials who falsely prosecuted,
jailed, beat, and killed a guy, for exposing Russian corruption.
<snip>

@UT, My OP included this, and my next post conceded your point, but not everything is:
"My Country Right or Wrong", "Love It or Leave It", or "Retarded or High"

By coincidence for this entire thread, an article came out today...

NY Times
SCOTT SHANE
April 16, 2013
U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes

WASHINGTON — A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs
in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that
“it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture”
and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.

The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war,
there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions
that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom,
propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”
The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project,
a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.

Debate over the coercive interrogation methods used by the administration of
President George W. Bush has often broken down on largely partisan lines.
The Constitution Project’s task force on detainee treatment,
led by two former members of Congress with experience in the executive branch
— a Republican, Asa Hutchinson, and a Democrat, James R. Jones —
seeks to produce a stronger national consensus on the torture question.<snip>

The task force found “no firm or persuasive evidence” that these interrogation methods
produced valuable information that could not have been obtained by other means.
While “a person subjected to torture might well divulge useful information,”
much of the information obtained by force was not reliable, the report says. <snip>

Mr. Hutchinson, who served in the Bush administration as chief of the
Drug Enforcement Administration and under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,
said he “took convincing” on the torture issue. But after the panel’s nearly two years of research,
he said he had no doubts about what the United States did.

“This has not been an easy inquiry for me, because I know many of the players,"
Mr. Hutchinson said in an interview. He said he thought everyone involved in decisions,
from Mr. Bush down, had acted in good faith, in a desperate effort to try to prevent more attacks.
“But I just think we learn from history,” Mr. Hutchinson said.
“It’s incredibly important to have an accurate account
not just of what happened but of how decisions were made.”

He added, “The United States has a historic and unique character,
and part of that character is that we do not torture.”
The panel found that the United States violated its international legal obligations by engineering
“enforced disappearances” and secret detentions.
It questions recidivism figures published by the Defense Intelligence Agency for Guantánamo detainees
who have been released, saying they conflict with independent reviews.
<snip>

I urge those who have posted in this, and similar, threads to read the entire article.

[DanaC]

I seriously doubt that Lamplighter thinks you should be more like the Russians.

[Undertoad]

Keep on beating that horse. We're ten years on now and it never gets tiresome.

[Lamplighter]

We're ten years on now and it never gets tiresome.

I'm glad you agree.

[Undertoad]

Yes, because there are still some people without opinions on the subject and discussing it will be productive and interesting.