Torture memos

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Try answering it with a yes or no. Why is that so hard for you to do?
There now you have two questions.

classic, he said he doesn't believe in torture, so I believe the answer is right there. No. And there ARE other methods that can be used, and in the opinion of most people who know about such things, the "other ways" to get information work better and are more reliable.

[Undertoad]

Right, Sug, we have prosecuted people for the Japanese style of waterboarding.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Right, Sug, we have prosecuted people for the Japanese style of waterboarding.

I think she was also taking about the Reagan DoJ that prosecuted a Texas sheriff and deputies for waterboarding.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Redux

I think she was also taking about the Reagan DoJ that prosecuted a Texas sheriff and deputies for waterboarding.

Yes. I actually cited 3 different references, I believe, this was one of them.

And waterboarding is waterboarding. It suffocates you. You lose consciousness. You have the fear you are drowning. The fact that the Japanese did other things in addition to waterboarding means nothing.

If you are in the hands of someone you trust, as in a demonstration or training situation, then mentally you know you will be OK because you know nothing bad is going to happen to you. In the case of being in the custody of an enemy, or a prison guard, the psychology is different. You fear for your life, because you DON'T know that, ultimately, you are safe. According to the definition of torture, that applies.

[classicman]

lol- good one or two, but seriously would you stick to your ideals and let potentially thousands die? Thats a scary scenario.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by classicman

lol- good one or two, but seriously would you stick to your ideals and let potentially thousands die? Thats a scary scenario.

Millions.

Liberty or death wasn't just a speech. Either you have principles or you don't.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

lol- good one or two, but seriously would you stick to your ideals and let potentially thousands die?

How often must facts be ignored? Jemaah Islamiya was destroyed BECAUSE nobody was tortured. That alone shows without doubt that classicman is lying. So that thousands would not die, Indonesia kept torturers (such as Nazis, George Jr, and classicman) away. Since they did not torture, thousands of lives were saved.

As the FBI and other professionals note (even America's WWII interrogators), the well is poisoned when torture is used. Only those educated by 24 (or with a UG mentality) would deny this. In fact, anyone who advocates torture is a threat to fundamental American principles.

They tortured the Iraqi General repeatedly so that he died. He would not disclose where Saddam was hiding his WMDs. Wacko extremists approved. Death proved that torture works. Obviously his death caused other to disclose Saddam’s WMDs. classicman's logic proves it. He *feels* it works - therefore it must work.

Extremists will even lie to themselves. 1) Extremists first denied that America was torturing. 2) Then lie again to claim torture works. 3) Then lie again to deny that thousands will die if torture is used. How many more lies? Wacko extremism is alive and well. Which even justifies lying? Only head in the sand are extremists who must always deny facts to believe their feelings.

Lying is routine among religous extremists and those who love to torture. Worse, classicman will not even deny his many lies including the above three.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by tw

In fact, anyone who advocates torture is a threat to fundamental American principles.

This is really all you had to say.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by tw

How often must facts be ignored? Extremists will even lie to themselves.
Worse, classicman will not even deny his many lies including the above three.

You cannot be serious. I need not deny anything. It is here for all to see. Your insanity is leaching out in all your posts. You better take an extra dose before writing any more. Perhaps another Dr's visit is in order as well.

The fact that there is dissent in the opinions of those who know infinitely more than you or I does not constitute MY BELIEF. The fact that there is information and professionals who disagree with you and may be right - IS A REALITY. Deal with it.I post their opinions and the information as it is available. All you post are things that support your position. How enlightening that must be - NOT.

[Jill]

So if the police capture a suspected criminal, say a possible mass murderer, and drag in his family, neighbors and friends, and torment them for years with waterboarding, slapping them around, confining them in small boxes with things that are known to terrify them, etc., without charge and without access to lawyers or courts, you'd be perfectly ok with that? You wouldn't expect the community to go up in arms about police brutality because, after all, eventually one of them might crack and give up something that may turn out to be useful.

It's the ends that matter, not the means, right?

You're perfectly fine with that?

If not, why not? What differentiates that scenario from what our government and its agents have been doing to suspected terrorists and their friends, family and neighbors? Is it the potential number of victims? Is one life, or 20, or 100, not as important to protect from the alleged mass murderer as the potential hundreds or thousands threatened by the alleged terrorists? Is it a quantity issue to you?

[Undertoad]

suspected terrorists and their friends, family and neighbors

26 people interrogated with "harsh techniques", 3 with the harshest.

Is it a quantity issue to you?

It certainly is. Would you *not* do it if, say, everyone in NYC were at risk?

[Jill]

I would not do it under any circumstances. Even if your life were at stake. Even if my husband's life was at stake.

It is inhumane.

It is illegal.

It violates our Constitution.

It's in violation of International Treaties we've signed.

It's proven to be unreliable.

It bears repeating, it's illegal and inhumane.

Now, answer my questions, please. I'll repeat them with bullet points so you don't miss any.

• [i]f the police capture a suspected criminal, say a possible mass murderer, and drag in his family, neighbors and friends, and torment them for years with waterboarding, slapping them around, confining them in small boxes with things that are known to terrify them, etc., without charge and without access to lawyers or courts, you'd be perfectly ok with that?
  
• It's the ends that matter, not the means, right?
  
• What differentiates that scenario from what our government and its agents have been doing to suspected terrorists and their friends, family and neighbors?
  
• Is one life, or 20, or 100, not as important to protect from the alleged mass murderer as the potential hundreds or thousands threatened by the alleged terrorists?
  
• Is it a quantity issue to you? (Apparently yes, but I'd like a clarification and a quantification. At what number of potential victims does torture become acceptable to you?)

[Undertoad]

Because you said please.

No, I would not legalize torture in any form to be used in law enforcement. However, it is routinely done. (see my thread: Is tasering torture?)

What differentiates that scenario from what our government and its agents have been doing to suspected terrorists

Enforcing rule of law is an entirely different matter from protecting a country during wartime. Do you want your cops killing gang members on the street? Of course not. Do you want your soldiers in 1944 shooting at Japanese soldiers, whose country's goal is to destroy the US? Yes you do.

It is inhumane.

To not do whatever you can to foil plots to kill thousands and hurt the country is inhumane.

It is illegal.

Ah, but the law is never so black and white...

It violates our Constitution.

Constitutional protections are not available for non-citizens who are not living in the US.

It's in violation of International Treaties we've signed.

I think this is true, but probably not important. I would expect that the authors did not consider the possibility of suddenly having to fight a shadowy network of combatants, scattered around every corner of the globe, some places which are signatories and some not.

It's proven to be unreliable.

I doubt it, and I'm sure all gathered intelligence is validated using sophisticated methods we can't even imagine.

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Because you said please.

No, I would not legalize torture in any form to be used in law enforcement. However, it is routinely done. (see my thread: Is tasering torture?)

So the fact that something you consider torture, which has not been legally classified as torture, happens in law enforcement from time to time, means what, exactly?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Enforcing rule of law is an entirely different matter from protecting a country during wartime. Do you want your cops killing gang members on the street? Of course not. Do you want your soldiers in 1944 shooting at Japanese soldiers, whose country's goal is to destroy the US? Yes you do.

False equivalence. If gang members took to the streets and started shooting at law enforcement, I would absolutely support the police shooting to kill. That's what happens during wartime; our troops are being fired upon, or are at imminent risk of being fired upon, and they are returning fire with fire, which is always an appropriate response.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

To not do whatever you can to foil plots to kill thousands and hurt the country is inhumane.

To not do whatever you can that works, and doesn't compromise the value of the information obtained is, indeed, inhumane. No one is suggesting that potential or accused terrorists be left entirely alone to further their plots unencumbered. The implication is absurd. The motto "by any means necessary" is contrary to the nature of the free world, and what separates us from those who you refer to as being for "unfreedom". We do not beat them by becoming them.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Ah, but the law is never so black and white...

It certainly is in this case. It has been prosecuted by both law enforcement and the military, resulting in convictions and court-martials.

. . .

A Punishable Offense

In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

"All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators," writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

Cases of waterboarding have occurred on U.S. soil, as well. In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.

. . .

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Constitutional protections are not available for non-citizens who are not living in the US.

You misunderstand. It is a violation of our Constitution to violate the terms of our Treaties, that makes it defacto in violation of our Constitution. See Article VI, which reads, in part:

Originally Posted by U.S. Constitution

All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

. . .

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I think this is true, but probably not important. I would expect that the authors did not consider the possibility of suddenly having to fight a shadowy network of combatants, scattered around every corner of the globe, some places which are signatories and some not.

Of course it's important. You don't get to just poo-poo away our responsibilities under treaties we're signatories to, just because they may not have anticipated a certain kind of enemy. That excuse is nothing new, by the way. From the previously linked NPR article:

Stephen Rickard, Washington director of the Open Society Institute, says that throughout the centuries, the justifications for using waterboarding have been remarkably consistent.

"Almost every time this comes along, people say, 'This is a new enemy, a new kind of war, and it requires new techniques,'" he says. "And there are always assurances that it is carefully regulated."

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I doubt it, and I'm sure all gathered intelligence is validated using sophisticated methods we can't even imagine.

Your doubts notwithstanding, even the CIA admits to its unreliability.

CIA official: No proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks on America

The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

. . .

The IG's report is among several indications that the Bush administration's use of abusive interrogation methods was less productive than some former administration officials have claimed.

Even some of those in the military who developed the techniques warned that the information they produced was "less reliable" than that gained by traditional psychological measures, and that using them would produce an "intolerable public and political backlash when discovered," according to a Senate Armed Services Committee report released on Tuesday.

. . .

[Jill]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You have no frigging idea what you are talking about.

Actually, she does, and you don't. To confirm that, why don't we ask one of our servicemen who was a part of that program. . .

Waterboarding Is Torture, Says Ex-Navy Instructor

A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use by U.S. interrogators because it is a relic of abusive totalitarian governments.

Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.

. . .

It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured."

. . .

SERE attendees expect to be released and assume that their trainers will not permanently harm them. Nance said it is "stress inoculation" meant to let U.S. troops know what to expect if they are captured. "The SERE community was designed over 50 years ago to show that, as a torture instrument, waterboarding is a terrifying, painful and humiliating tool that leaves no physical scars, and which can be repeatedly used as an intimidation tool," he said.

A detainee, on the other hand, "has no idea what is about to happen to them," Nance said, and could legitimately fear death. "It's far worse," he said.

I think I'll take the word of someone with first-hand experience, both in training and being the recipient of this technique, over some dude on a message board whose partisan panties are in a twist.