Torture memos

[Undertoad]

Interrogation techniques approved in 2002 by the Justice Department and detailed in memos released Thursday:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...boarding_N.htm

Attention grasp: "Grasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion."

Walling: A fake, flexible wall is built, and the suspect is pulled forward and "then quickly and firmly" pushed against the wall. "The idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is."

Facial grasp: "Used to hold the head immobile. One open palm is placed on either side of the individual's face."

Insult slap: "The purpose of the facial slap is to induce shock, surprise and/or humiliation."

Cramped confinement: The suspect is placed in a confined space that "is usually dark." Some spaces allow a subject only to sit down; confinement in those spaces "lasts for no more than two hours."

Wall standing: Subjects are forced to lean with only their fingers for support against a wall 4 to 5 feet away from their bodies in a tactic "used to induce muscle fatigue."

Stress positions: They include "kneeling on the floor while leaning back at a 45-degree angle" and "sitting on the floor with legs extended out in front of him with his arms raised above his head."

Sleep deprivation: This is meant to "reduce the individual's ability to think on his feet and, through the discomfort associated with lack of sleep, to motivate him to cooperate."

Insects placed in a confinement box: The subject is placed in "a cramped confinement box" and told a stinging insect will be placed in the box with him. Instead, a harmless insect, "such as a caterpillar," is placed inside.

Waterboarding: The subject is placed on a board with a cloth covering his nose and mouth. The cloth is saturated with water to simulate drowning. It creates "the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic.' "

- 28 CIA detainees were subject to some of these methods
- Caution was made that doing them in tandem would be a violation
- They put one guy in a box with a bug
- Sleep deprivation seems the worst to me - could last up to 180 hours

So I guess my question is, waitaminute, WTF? I'd cross off waterboarding and sleep deprivation, but you're not allowed to slap the guy now? Really? This is what it's going to come to? A known terrorist who has good information about other terrorists, and if you slap him you'll be put in jail?

If putting bugs near a guy is torture, I was brutally tortured regularly when I was 10.

[lookout123]

While some of them are just goofy and would be difficult to use in reality, there is nothing on that list I have a problem with. Yeah, that includes waterboarding.

[Pico and ME]

I dont have a problem with it if they are being used on a known terrorist. I wonder if we actually followed that guideline though.

[classicman]

I dunno about all of this. I mixed feelings/opinions. - What is acceptable as a means of interrogating an alleged or known terrorist now? If all posted above is removed, then what is left?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Half of them would fall under, "First you gotta get their attention".

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

I dunno about all of this. I mixed feelings/opinions. - What is acceptable as a means of interrogating an alleged or known terrorist now? If all posted above is removed, then what is left?

Soft Cushions and The Comfy Chair! No one expects The Spanish Inquisition !

[DanaC]

What worries me, is that in heightened situations and environments, there is often something of a gap between the details as they appear in the rules and the details as they are applied in the territory. An extra hour or three in a stress position. An extra night or three of sleep deprivation.

Very little of what I have seen, heard and read, suggests that these limitations were being vigorously applied, nor that interrogations were subject to sufficient oversight to ensure those limitations weren't 'stretched'.

Is 'slapping' allowed under the geneva convention? Is it allowed in police interrogations? Either these men are soldiers or they're criminals. If slapping and sleep deprivation are allowed for either military prisoners, or suspects in a crime then I see no reason not to allow it for alleged terrorists. If it isn't allowed in either of those situations then I see no reason to allow it in this.

Another point worth making is that these things may have a very different psychological effect on day 3 than they might on day 1003. Many of the men held in Guantanamo have spent years there. It's been suggested that interrogations may happen at any time throughout that internment. Bear in mind the entire system of internment there has been designed to destabilise and weaken the resolve of the inmate. After a couple of years of dehumanising imprisonment (without any end in sight, with no recourse to legal process, and the increasing suspicion that if you die there, nobody will be doing an autopsy to find out how...) sleep deprivation, slapping and confinement in small boxes, or physically stressful positions would more than likely take on a whole other level of meaning.

Now...given that we really cannot be sure of their guilt without some kind of trial, I am very uncomfortable about allowing a prisoner to be systematically broken across several years.

[Undertoad]

Very little of what I have seen, heard and read, suggests that these limitations were being vigorously applied, nor that interrogations were subject to sufficient oversight to ensure those limitations weren't 'stretched'.

But jeez, how would you know? It depends on the credibility of the terrorists' lawyers.

[DanaC]

Good point Toad


(lol).

[Meursault]

i just wanna know why beheading isnt on that list

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Meursault

i just wanna know why beheading isnt on that list

Because chopping off the head of someone you disagree with is totally acceptable if they disagree with your view on political situations or you support their right to chop off your head in the context of their societal norms. Hell, it is the norm. Stick around, you'll see.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Because chopping off the head of someone you disagree with is totally acceptable if they disagree with your view on political situations or you support their right to chop off your head in the context of their societal norms. Hell, it is the norm. Stick around, you'll see.

I think you can safely assume that if any US administration starting beheading people everyone here would complain. Heck, one of our allies is Saudi Arabia, and they still practice beheading. Of course, our recently departed president was a governor who presided over 152 executions in a state where the courts have held that it is not their responsibility to insure that public defenders in capital murder cases stay awake.

So if I was an accused gay man in Saudi Arabia or a poor innocent murder defendant in Texas, the outcome would pretty much be the same. Ask me which I would prefer, a lethal injection in Texas or a beheading in the Middle East?

[TheMercenary]

I know one thing. If I was caught and guilty of such acts of whatever I would stand up and loudly exclaim that I was tortured and say whatever I could to discredit whom ever imprisoned me, esp if I know that much of the world was jumping on my band wagon, whether it was true or not. I would milk that for all it was worth, and a good lawyer would do the same. I mean think about it, the dude guilty of shooting some other dude for a rock of crack on the street corner certainly stands up in court and says, "Yes your honor, I am absolutely guilty." The advantage these guys have is they have never gone to court. Their court is the court of public opinion, half-truths, and outright lies by both parties.

[morethanpretty]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I know one thing. If I was caught and guilty of such acts of whatever I would stand up and loudly exclaim that I was tortured and say whatever I could to discredit whom ever imprisoned me, esp if I know that much of the world was jumping on my band wagon, whether it was true or not. I would milk that for all it was worth, and a good lawyer would do the same.

I know that if I was held and NOT guilty of such acts of whatever, I would do that as well Merc.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Jill

I wonder if John McCain thinks he was tortured. Perhaps he was just put in "stress positions".

McCain considers himself tortured. However, according to later American redefinition of torture, McCain was not tortured.

These early recommendations morphed into definitions that said if the act does not leave permanent organ damage, then it is not torture. IOW, according to Gonzales rewrite, if skin layers were slowly removed, that was not torture because permanent organ damage did not result.

Consider the absurdity of this memo. First, the author did no research. It basically says you told us this and you plan to do that. Therefore these actions are acceptable.

Second, torture is being defined only because one man must have information: Abu Zubaydah. He must be severely interrogated because he trained the operatives for a1 Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was al Qaeda’s Deputy Camp Commander for training camps, personally approved selection and graduation of terrorists in 1999 and 2000, no one went in or out of Peshawar, Pakistan without his knowledge and approval, and he was Al Qaeda’s communication and coordinator for all international contacts including counterintelligence.

In short, Zubaydah was Superman and was not telling us all these things he *must* know. Therefore rules must be rewritten to extract information. Theory was that interrogation methods (that had worked best for hundreds of years and that were so successful even during WWII) were not sufficient. So rules must be rewritten. Forget that maybe he really did not know all this stuff.

Rules were changed to instill fear and pain. But these rule changes were OK because they did not create pain. How absurd.

Interrogation without pain is why the FBI broke the entire 1993 WTC bombing and the USS Cole bombing. Pain and fear was not used. Instead, intelligent interrogation causes the targets to talk with honesty. But that obviously cannot work on Superman. So we needed violence legitimized.

Slam him against a fake wall. He will be carefully wrapped in cloth first to not be harmed. Sound of crashing into the fake wall will cause so much fear as to cause him to tell all? Nonsense. Eventually, the fake wall was replaced by concrete. And then when someone noted slamming against a concrete wall was torture, then the wall was covered by a sheet of plywood. Plywood would cushion the blow. Examples of how these techniques morphed into acceptable interrogation methods years later. After all, the theory behind these methods demand that pain be inflicted.

Torture had to be expanded because Superman and others did not give up the facts. Why? Because there were no Al Qaeda sleeper cells, no Saddam WMDs. And no international Al Qaeda hiding all over the world waiting under our beds to kill us all. But these new interrogation methods had to be approved BECAUSE enemies MUST be hiding everywhere to kill us all. We knew these threats must exist. Therefore well proven interrogation without torture must be wrong. Clearly the enemy must be massing to kill us all. So violence must be approved.

Myths and wild speculation (created because the powers that be were wacko extremists) justified violence only because terrorists could not tell us what we wanted to hear. Meanwhile, Indonesia kept these same Americans away from Nasir Abbas because he knew so much about Jemaah Islamiya (who did the 2002 Bali bombing). Despite myths and lies promoted in America, Jemaah Islamiya was not Al Qaeda. Nasir Abbas gave up the entire Jemaah Islamiya network BECAUSE he was not tortured. See Why does America need Secret Prisons? . But then what the Indonesians did is also how professional interrogators did it in WWII, 1993 WTC bombing, and the USS Cole. See the Washington Post of 6 Oct 2007:
Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII
Interrogators Fought 'Battle of Wits'

Indonesia needed to keep Americans away from Nasir Abbas because American methods of violence would have poisoned the well.

The memo approves of methods that do no pain when the new interrogation method required pain - because he was Superman. No wonder a fake wall was quickly replaced with a concrete one. Entire concept of interrogation by intimidation required inflicting pain – also called torture. The Spanish Inquisition was alive and well – and did not use cushy pillows as some (and Monty Python) claimed. This memo shows how torture was first approved and why it only got worse - even killing an Iraqi General in Abu Ghriad because he would not tell us where Saddam's WMDs were hidden.

According to the newer American definitions of torture, McCain was not tortured. Beheading is torture because it created permenant organ damage.