Torture Memos

[Telefrog]

Now that we have a P&R forum, let's get messy and talk torture (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/04/defining-torture-down).

Reading the OLC torture memos (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html) is enough to make you ill. The techniques in question are plainly and instinctively abhorrent by any common sense definition, and the authors of the memos obviously know it. But somehow they have to conclude otherwise, so they write page after mind-numbing page of sterile legal language designed to justify authorizing it anyway. It's not torture if the victim survives it intact. It's not against the law if it takes place outside the United States. Waterboarding is OK as long as it isn't performed more than twice in a 24-hour period. Sleep deprivation of shackled prisoners for seven days at a time is permissible as long as the victim's diaper is changed frequently. And on and on and on.

I know, freedom isn't free, they'd do it to you, and all's fair with terrorists, and you've seen worse at college hazings, right?

[Dr. Quasius]

I know, freedom isn't free, they'd do it to you, and all's fair with terrorists, and you've seen worse at college hazings, right?

I've always answered that particular nugget with "What the fuck college did you go to?".

[Esquilax1138]

I know, freedom isn't free, they'd do it to you, and all's fair with terrorists, and you've seen worse at college hazings, right?

1: It costs a buck 'o five

2: Two wrongs don't make a right

3: Do unto others...

4: At least your usually drunk for it

Seriously, if the US Army felt it was bad enough to execute Japanese for doing it in WWII, it's probably not a good idea to start doing it to other people.

[Karak]

I will have to go with the last option.
I was dreading reading that stuff.
but it was no where near as bad as I thought it would be.

[BlackPete]

I just want to see the local police force be able to employ the same methods when interrogating suspects.

That'll cause a lot of Americans to make up their minds in a hurry on where they stand on torture.

[Ravenlock]

See, for me, the thing about torture is that it isn't just immoral - though it is that - and it isn't just illegal - though it is that too.

It doesn't even work. We've known that a long time, plenty of people tried to tell us, but we went ahead and did it anyhow, so now we know it some more (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066_pf.html).

"In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of al-Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement and military sources. Rather, he was a "fixer" for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11 -- and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan.”

The only thing torture does is get its victims to make crap up in order to stop being tortured. Well, that and make the torturers look like hypocritical idiots, which is exactly what we were being. And in the [apparently depressingly rare] event that we actually capture someone who is guilty of something, it drastically increases the chance that they will later be set free due to our mistreatment of them getting the case dismissed entirely (evidence obtained under torture not being legally admissable, and all).

“The application of techniques such as waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning that U.S. officials had previously deemed a crime -- prompted a sudden torrent of names and facts. Abu Zubaida began unspooling the details of various al-Qaeda plots, including plans to unleash weapons of mass destruction.

Abu Zubaida's revelations triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms. The interrogations led directly to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the man Abu Zubaida identified as heading an effort to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in an American city. Padilla was held in a naval brig for 3 1/2 years on the allegation but was never charged in any such plot. Every other lead ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports.

"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.”

Yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the upside here, other than all the prime time interviews for Dick Cheney and higher ratings for 24. Oh wait, I don't think either of those things are good either. Nevermind.

[Johan]

...if the US Army felt it was bad enough to execute Japanese for doing it in WWII, it's probably not a good idea to start doing it to other people.

The Japanese units with the really 'tasty' bits of information regarding human experimentation and torture were actually set free in exchange for their 'data.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731)

MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare.

The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the Allies had never publicly conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion.

This kind of shit is not new in our history. We're no saints and never have been. :(

[rifter]

I have seen it mentioned, that those that do the torturer, have themselves been through it, so they know what it is like. That is why we use means that don't permanently maim a person, but mainly break them down psychologically.

[Telefrog]

It have seen it mentioned, that those that do the torturer, have themselves been through it, so they know what it is like. That is why we use means that don't permanently maim a person, but mainly break them down psychologically.

Where did you read that? These documents seem to show that the folks administering the "aggressive interrogation" techniques did not, in fact, try the methods out on each other to test them. The test subjects were the folks being tortured backed by some hazy pseudo-science.

[H.Bogard]

I know, freedom isn't free, they'd do it to you, and all's fair with terrorists, and you've seen worse at college hazings, right?

I'm 100% for it if they terrorists they claim to capture are proven to be so 100%, sadly... that isn't even remotely the case most of the times. I can, at this moment, call the number on any personal enemy of mine and accuse him of being involved with Al-Qaeda. I'll be going home with USD 5000 and that guy will never be seen again (Has happened to a lot of people).

[rifter]

Where did you read that? These documents seem to show that the folks administering the "aggressive interrogation" techniques did not, in fact, try the methods out on each other to test them. The test subjects were the folks being tortured backed by some hazy pseudo-science.

Here it is, where they talk about SERE training (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/04/17/bush-lawyers-used-us-military-training-to-justify-cia-interrogation-techniques.html).

[Lint of Death]

I clicked all the way into this thread before realizing the title wasn't "Torture MMOs".

[Telefrog]

Here it is, where they talk about SERE training (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/04/17/bush-lawyers-used-us-military-training-to-justify-cia-interrogation-techniques.html).

a) That's SERE training. None of the actual folks administering the torture went through this.

b) I think we both know that there's a world of difference between going through a strictly controlled "safe" version of torture training to further your career, and going through it indefinitely under the care of folks that really hate you and want to cause you harm.

[Johan]

...and going through it [torture] indefinitely under the care of folks that really hate you and want to cause you harm.

I believe those are called "public employees" and you can find them at your local DMV, public school, government office, and the like. :D

Hahaha! I amuse myself, if only myself!

[Ink Asylum]

b) I think we both know that there's a world of difference between going through a strictly controlled "safe" version of torture training to further your career, and going through it indefinitely under the care of folks that really hate you and want to cause you harm.

As well as multiple procedures applied at the same time or in quick succession. Being waterboarded for fifteen minutes is a whole lot different than being waterboarded for fifteen minutes after not having slept for five days in a freezing cold room suspended from the ceiling, shoved in a restrictive box for eighteen hours, slammed into the walls by a collar around your neck twenty or thirty times, beaten and bludgeoned, etc...

The techniques approved by the last administration have killed detainees. Detainees that never had their day in court to prove their actual terrorist status. It is possible that we have tortured and killed innocent people.

[Generation ABXY]

It is possible that we have tortured and killed innocent people.

They shouldn't have been born in a terrorist country.

[Johan]

Being waterboarded for fifteen minutes is a whole lot different than being waterboarded for fifteen minutes after not having slept for five days in a freezing cold room suspended from the ceiling, shoved in a restrictive box for eighteen hours, slammed into the walls by a collar around your neck twenty or thirty times, beaten and bludgeoned, etc...

I see you're married. :D

[Dr. Quasius]

It is possible that we have tortured and killed innocent people.

I would say that it's probable.

[quidmonkey]

I clicked all the way into this thread before realizing the title wasn't "Torture MMOs".

My respect for you has just gone up.

[Crowe]

I only condone torture when Jack Bauer is the one doing said torturing. In real life I'm sure torture is sickening to watch, but I admit I love watching Jack shoot kneecaps and stab shoulders.

[Ancalagon]

I dont condone torturing. You have to ask yourself, if you need to use torture to win the "war on terror", did you really win anything? By using such tactics, you arent any better than they are.

I'm glad Obama turned around on this - the stories of extraordinary rendition were beyond frightening, and frankly any government that assisted or allowed it to happen, such as South Africa and the UK at the very least (I'm sure there are more) were complicit in it and should probably be tried for war crimes. Its a pity Obama gave retroactive immunity to the entirety of the CIA. I mean, okay I can understand a lot of them were just doing their job, and refusing would have meant instant dismissal or worse. I get that. But somebody in the CIA made the decision to use it, gave those orders, and they should be tried. Torture is torture, no matter how you dress it up.

[rifter]

Yes... breaking someone down mentally is so horrific.

Sorry, once again. Our brand of torture, I don't buy as being that horrific, Ancalagon.

There is Torture, like what our POWs had to withstand in Vietnam, or our people that get captured in Iraq/Afghanistan face before a horrific death...

Or, you have the mental wearing down that is technically torture, but isn't even in the same book. Forced coercion is torture, no matter how its done. I will never buy the line that our people's lives are not worth having someone extract this information quickly. That is what the entire argument boils down to.

[Ravenlock]

If the information that gets extracted were accurate - which, as I said in my previous post, it generally isn't (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066_pf.html) - that argument might hold water. The "ticking time bomb" scenario, by and large, does not exist.

And even if it did, that time bomb has to have a pretty long fuse for you to need to engage in the torture 266 times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html?hp).

Also, side note, slamming prisoners into walls and shackling them into standing positions for days on end do not qualify in my book as "mentally wearing them down".

[rifter]

If the information that gets extracted were accurate - which, as I said in my previous post, it generally isn't (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066_pf.html) - that argument might hold water. The "ticking time bomb" scenario, by and large, does not exist.

And even if it did, that time bomb has to have a pretty long fuse for you to need to engage in the torture 266 times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html?hp).

Also, side note, slamming prisoners into walls and shackling them into standing positions for days on end do not qualify in my book as "mentally wearing them down".

I just read this (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/obama-punish-bush-officials-responsible-interrogation-tactics/), and have to admit, 183 seems WAY on the excessive side to me.

And yes, I do agree, that engaging in forced coercion seems a bit of a lost cause, now. It has been 8 years... his knowledge really should be getting past useful. I could maybe see it used to fact check other intelligence, but I can't see it being ALL that useful.

And, while slamming against walls is to me excessive, forced to stand up, is not. Tell us what we need, and you get to lay down. It seems pretty simple.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I'd say I'm all for it if you actually have a ticking time bomb scenario - but those are pretty rare. I mean, if there's a plot that's happening in the next day or two and you clearly have no time, do whatever it takes - but if somebody's been there for months, its pretty unlikely that they have any information worth having that can be dragged out by torture.

edit: However, I don't exactly get the waterboarding thing. I understand that your body freaking panics and the huge mental strain it puts on you, but a huge part of what separates coercion to torture is the physical damage done. What about it makes it particularly less moral than just beating someone senseless?

[Ancalagon]

Rifter, imagine if someone kidnapped you from your home and held you hostage and tortured you. You have no contact with the outside world, you cant tell your family whats happened, no lawyer for you, no due court process, no Geneva conventions.

They deprive you of sleep, humiliate you, waterboard you, slam you against walls, play sounds like babies crying for hours on end, and years of your life vanish.

You have somebody do that to you for a few years straight and tell me you think its fine and dandy.

[rifter]

You have somebody do that to you for a few years straight and tell me you think its fine and dandy.

Listen to you, and don't extract that information, and you loose a mother or father... brother or sister... forever.

Tell me that is fine and dandy.

I think we are at an impasse here. I don't believe the CIA is going after the farmer that had his neighbor rat on him, because the neighbor is an ass, like this... they are going after the highest profile prisoners like this.

I DO believe the most severe methods though, should require very HIGH level clearance to use...

I DO believe that a very high level of oversight should also be used in these situations.

How you do the latter, I don't know.

[Ravenlock]

I'd say I'm all for it if you actually have a ticking time bomb scenario - but those are pretty rare. I mean, if there's a plot that's happening in the next day or two and you clearly have no time, do whatever it takes - but if somebody's been there for months, its pretty unlikely that they have any information worth having that can be dragged out by torture.

The problem with this is that it's easy to be "all for it" in theory, but in actuality, it's almost never actually going to be that one mythical scenario in which torture would theoretically be justified.

For the "ticking time bomb" scenario to actually work out, you need:

(1) to know that there is actually an immediate threat, so that you aren't misled into chasing geese the way we were by Zubaida (as detailed in the article I linked and quoted before).
(2) to actually have in custody someone who is connected enough to the plot in question to be able to give you information that will help you stop it - obviously it won't be the person(s) executing the plot, since then you already would have stopped it, but it has to be somebody who knows enough to get you to the right person(s).
(3) the person you're torturing has to tell you the truth, rather than simply make up something convincing enough to get you to stop torturing them, as Zubaida did.
(4) having satisfied #1, #2 and #3, you need to still have enough time to effectively stop the plot with the information you gained from the person in custody after torturing them. After all, if you don't stop it, the torture was for nothing.

To have all four of those conditions met outside of a script for an episode of 24 is ludicrously unlikely, especially for a plot of a magnitude such that torture apologists would consider the torture "warranted". And the real problem is, to even have a shot at satisfying all of these extremely unlikely conditions (and hell, I'm vastly oversimplifying here to begin with), you need to authorize a program that systematically condones torture on the CHANCE that you might someday hit the jackpot with it and prevent something awful.

We all want to prevent awful things, but this particular method just isn't worth the cost. It might be worth the cost in the one hypothetical instance where it saves X hundred or X thousand lives, but that doesn't justify the other 99% of the time you do it waiting to maybe someday stumble on the 1.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Rifter, imagine if someone kidnapped you from your home and held you hostage and tortured you. You have no contact with the outside world, you cant tell your family whats happened, no lawyer for you, no due court process, no Geneva conventions.

They deprive you of sleep, humiliate you, waterboard you, slam you against walls, play sounds like babies crying for hours on end, and years of your life vanish.

You have somebody do that to you for a few years straight and tell me you think its fine and dandy.

That sounds about right for the guy we know masterminded 9/11.

Not so much for people farther down the totem pole.

[Ravenlock]

Obviously, no, rifter, it is never fine and dandy for anybody to lose a friend or family member.

However, personalizing it like that misses the point and is precisely how bad decisions like this get made. The people we are locking up and torturing also have fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and so far the net gain of our torturing them has been nothing. We have tortured them on the chance that we might get something out of it.

And you can say "well obviously I don't want that, I only want us to do it when we know it'll save people", but for practical purposes that situation almost doesn't exist, and every time we get it wrong we've tortured someone needlessly again.

See my previous post directly above for further expounding on this.

[TheFlyingOrc]

The problem with this is that it's easy to be "all for it" in theory, but in actuality, it's almost never actually going to be that one mythical scenario in which torture would theoretically be justified.

Not arguing.


For the "ticking time bomb" scenario to actually work out, you need:

(1) to know that there is actually an immediate threat, so that you aren't misled into chasing geese the way we were by Zubaida (as detailed in the article I linked and quoted before).
(2) to actually have in custody someone who is connected enough to the plot in question to be able to give you information that will help you stop it - obviously it won't be the person(s) executing the plot, since then you already would have stopped it, but it has to be somebody who knows enough to get you to the right person(s).
(3) the person you're torturing has to tell you the truth, rather than simply make up something convincing enough to get you to stop torturing them, as Zubaida did.
(4) having satisfied #1, #2 and #3, you need to still have enough time to effectively stop the plot with the information you gained from the person in custody after torturing them. After all, if you don't stop it, the torture was for nothing.

Well, I disagree that it was a mistake if you get to #4. (obviously it's regrettable, but your failure to use the information doesn't mean you shouldn't have tried) That doesn't make 1-3 any less likely.



To have all four of those conditions met outside of a script for an episode of 24 is ludicrously unlikely, especially for a plot of a magnitude such that torture apologists would consider the torture "warranted". And the real problem is, to even have a shot at satisfying all of these extremely unlikely conditions (and hell, I'm vastly oversimplifying here to begin with), you need to authorize a program that systematically condones torture on the CHANCE that you might someday hit the jackpot with it and prevent something awful.

We all want to prevent awful things, but this particular method just isn't worth the cost. It might be worth the cost in the one hypothetical instance where it saves X hundred or X thousand lives, but that doesn't justify the other 99% of the time you do it waiting to maybe someday stumble on the 1.
Well, there's always the possibility that you'll get the location of an enemy encampment or some names that help you in the long run, but it seems that straight starvation would work better than most acute torture, at least to me.

[Ink Asylum]

And, while slamming against walls is to me excessive, forced to stand up, is not. Tell us what we need, and you get to lay down. It seems pretty simple.

So what does the person do if he doesn't know what they need? He either lies and causes us to expend resources chasing down fake leads or he says nothing because there is nothing to say and is tortured even more.

That's pretty much what happened. All the workable intelligence from Zabaydah came from interrogation that wasn't torture. All intelligence produced from torturing him was false.

Also, "forced to stand" isn't akin to an eight hour shift as a retail cashier. It often means having your arms tied together behind your back and then pulled upwards and chained to the ceiling with just enough slack so your feet are on the ground.

There is Torture, like what our POWs had to withstand in Vietnam, or our people that get captured in Iraq/Afghanistan face before a horrific death...

Dozens of detainees have died in US hands after being tortured during Bush's administration. The deaths resulted from hypothermia, beatings, and other bodily stresses that taxed their bodies over the weeks and months of their interrogation.

Here's one: (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/we-have-a-new-e.html)

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/images/2008/11/22/agcorpse2.jpg
(Photo: a detainee killed by US forces in Abu Ghraib prison, after being beaten and forced into a position with his arms bent back over and behind his head, with a hood restricting his breathing. All the techniques used against him were authorized by president George W. Bush.)

I wonder if he would think his death was horrific.

When we, as a nation, do what we have done to people in our custody, be they terrorists or enemy combatans or otherwise, we have no moral ground to complain when it happens to our own troops.

[Ox]

I dont condone torturing. You have to ask yourself, if you need to use torture to win the "war on terror", did you really win anything? By using such tactics, you arent any better than they are.
Really? I think this is a dangerous moral equivalency even for those who oppose torture. Motives matter in all things. One of the charges against Nazi Germany was that they engaged in "aggressive war." The United States was also pretty aggressive in fighting Nazi Germany, just like it was aggressive in fighting the Indians and it was aggressive in fighting the British and the Barbary Pirates and Spain and Mexico and the North Vietnamese and Afghanistan and Iraq and any number of other wars you could mention. Does that mean all these wars were just as bad as Hitler's plan to conquer the world and eradicate democracy? Even more, were they just as bad as the Holocaust?

Consider: it would certainly be permissible to use force, including deadly force, to stop a terrorist attack. Yet a terrorist attack doesn't necessarily imply torture: most of the deaths from terrorism tend to be pretty quick. So is using force to thwart a terrorist attack just as bad as terrorism? Is torture intended to thwart a terrorist attack just as bad as, say, torture for the fun of it? I don't think torture is permissible, but I don't think it helps the argument to use such an expansive argument that pro-torture advocates can rightfully scoff at us as morally naive.

(1) to know that there is actually an immediate threat, so that you aren't misled into chasing geese the way we were by Zubaida (as detailed in the article I linked and quoted before).
Knowledge? What does that mean? All of our supposed knowledge is probabilistic. All we know is dependent on our prior experience and extrapolation; otherwise, we'd have to say that contrary evidence wouldn't shake our beliefs. That way lies religious extremism.

When we, as a nation, do what we have done to people in our custody, be they terrorists or enemy combatans or otherwise, we have no moral ground to complain when it happens to our own troops.
Obama wants to imprison terrorists, right? In nice clean comfortable prison cells, but they won't be allowed to leave. He might even be in favor of executing them. Does that mean we've got no moral ground to complain if our troops are held forever or executed? Again, I think this moral equivalency only weakens the anti-torture argument. This is precisely why so many conservatives endorse torture: if you use bad arguments, no wonder people aren't convinced.

[Ravenlock]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock
(1) to know that there is actually an immediate threat, so that you aren't misled into chasing geese the way we were by Zubaida (as detailed in the article I linked and quoted before).Knowledge? What does that mean? All of our supposed knowledge is probabilistic. All we know is dependent on our prior experience and extrapolation; otherwise, we'd have to say that contrary evidence wouldn't shake our beliefs. That way lies religious extremism.

Well, that is sort of my point - that we're almost never going to have enough certainty that our torture will yield a result to make it worth engaging in - but you're right, absolute knowledge is incorrect to imply or ask for here, since it doesn't exist. Amend it to "be reasonably certain...", for whatever value of reasonably certain you feel would justify torture. It's still going to be rare enough to make my argument.

[Ox]

Well, that is sort of my point - that we're almost never going to have enough certainty that our torture will yield a result to make it worth engaging in
And that's my objection. We routinely kill people because we think they're bad or it's necessary to stop a war -- but we don't know. We torture people by submitting them to medical treatments -- but we don't know. If you think absolute knowledge is required for anything, you've never done anything.

Amend it to "be reasonably certain...", for whatever value of reasonably certain you feel would justify torture. It's still going to be rare enough to make my argument.
Meh. Why is that rare? We're convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that one out of every six (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:BYDKj9NVhWYJ:www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc232h.pdf+percent+americans+criminal+record&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) African-Americans has committed a serious crime warranting imprisonment. For lots of these folks, undoubtedly the judges and juries were as convinced of their guilt as they were of their own names. Wouldn't "beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard we use to deprive a man of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, also be sufficient to warrant torture?

EDIT: Lest I once again get accused of playing "devil's advocate," let me point out that it's true here in the historical meaning. Just like a priest considering a candidate for sainthood, I believe this is an important question where it's not just important for us to give the answer we all agree on, but to use clear logic when getting to that answer. Opposing torture for bad or weak reasons is pointless. The people who currently approve of the use of torture aren't malevolent or bloodthirsty or cruel or stupid; they are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do. Only rigorous reasoning has a chance of convincing them they are on the wrong path.

[Ancalagon]

Listen to you, and don't extract that information, and you loose a mother or father... brother or sister... forever.

Tell me that is fine and dandy.


Thats the thing the fearmongers keep saying. Give me unlimited power to do what I want, otherwise your family will die. Unless you let us go beyond the bounds of national and international law, your family will die.

Very emotive, but not meaningful or true. I mean, as has been mentioned before, the information gained from torture apparently just isnt that relevant. My guess from my limited knowledge would be that there are dozens of sources for information, and if you rely on only one source you will have the wool pulled over your eyes. Thus, its extremely unlikely that terrorism is necessary to save lives. Besides which, I would guess that the decentralized cell structure common in terrorist organisations exists precisely for that reason - if you dont know shit, you cant talk about shit.

But, for the sake of... I dont know... completeness, lets consider that there was a terrorist plot, and that authorities had caught a guy who knew the details. I fail to see how a guy going missing for a few months wouldnt be noticed by his accomplices - do you really think they will still carry out their mission?

You know, I never said lets roll over and die for the terrorists, so your argument was a bit of a strawman. Terrorism should be fought, but not with torture. You sink that low, you arent any better than them.

Really? I think this is a dangerous moral equivalency even for those who oppose torture. Motives matter in all things. One of the charges against Nazi Germany was that they engaged in "aggressive war." The United States was also pretty aggressive in fighting Nazi Germany, just like it was aggressive in fighting the Indians and it was aggressive in fighting the British and the Barbary Pirates and Spain and Mexico and the North Vietnamese and Afghanistan and Iraq and any number of other wars you could mention. Does that mean all these wars were just as bad as Hitler's plan to conquer the world and eradicate democracy? Even more, were they just as bad as the Holocaust?

Consider: it would certainly be permissible to use force, including deadly force, to stop a terrorist attack. Yet a terrorist attack doesn't necessarily imply torture: most of the deaths from terrorism tend to be pretty quick. So is using force to thwart a terrorist attack just as bad as terrorism? Is torture intended to thwart a terrorist attack just as bad as, say, torture for the fun of it? I don't think torture is permissible, but I don't think it helps the argument to use such an expansive argument that pro-torture advocates can rightfully scoff at us as morally naive.

I'm not sure I get your point. Its not aggressiveness or motive that I'm talking about, its the use of immoral practices in war.

Yeah, motive matters, I'll grant you that, Hitler's plans were wrong, but he's remembered much more for the Holocaust and mass extermination of unworthy lives than he is for anything else.

My point is, there is never a good motive to use torture. Never. No matter what your motive is, its not worth it.

[TheFlyingOrc]

T
My point is, there is never a good motive to use torture. Never. No matter what your motive is, its not worth it.
I only see this as true if the torture is happening to an innocent person.

edit: Seriously, how is torture more wrong than war?

[Ox]

My point is, there is never a good motive to use torture. Never. No matter what your motive is, its not worth it.
I agree. But if that's our best argument, here's what the debate looks like:
"There's never a good motive to use torture."

- "Really? I think there is."

"Well, you're wrong."

- "Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

You offer a religious proscription to people who don't share your faith. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean you're not likely to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you.

[Ravenlock]

And that's my objection. We routinely kill people because we think they're bad or it's necessary to stop a war -- but we don't know. We torture people by submitting them to medical treatments -- but we don't know. If you think absolute knowledge is required for anything, you've never done anything.

Well, for that value of "anything", yes. ;) Limited time to reply here, hopefully I will get back to this later, but that's precisely why I oppose the death penalty. Because I think that absolute certainty would be required to ethically justify executing someone, and absolute certainty being in a practical sense impossible, it is in a practical sense impossible to "justly" execute someone. I can, in the ideal sense, understand the position that supports the death penalty, but in the practical sense I can't support it.

I do not disagree with your statements about logical debate and the desperate need for it, though I despair a bit of our ever getting there in the public arena (at least in the current political climate of the U.S.). There's far too low an understanding of what constitutes it, and far too low a level of concern about educating people in that regard.

[Ox]

Limited time to reply here, hopefully I will get back to this later, but that's precisely why I oppose the death penalty. Because I think that absolute certainty would be required to ethically justify executing someone, and absolute certainty being in a practical sense impossible, it is in a practical sense impossible to "justly" execute someone. I can, in the ideal sense, understand the position that supports the death penalty, but in the practical sense I can't support it.
Okay, that makes sense. But like I said, this is a religious proscription that not everyone shares.

Since you brought up the death penalty, let me offer another wildly dissimilar activity that superficially resembles the issues we're dealing with: abortion. For some people, abortion is a terrible evil that can never be justified. For others, it's not a big deal. The government tends to try to avoid the issue as much as possible, because it's just a great big miserable issue that can never be resolved since it's so tied up in religion and conceptions of man and what-have-you. So let's have the same system for torture: the government won't do it itself, and it won't pay for it to happen. But if some patriotic American decides he or she wishes to dabble a little in that, the government will permit it -- subject to certain licensing regulations and guidelines about who is eligible (no newborn babies, please).

I do not disagree with your statements about logical debate and the desperate need for it, though I despair a bit of our ever getting there in the public arena (at least in the current political climate of the U.S.). There's far too low an understanding of what constitutes it, and far too low a level of concern about educating people in that regard.
Go back and read the speeches of Cicero: the public discourse has been debased since the very first Forum. We've never had a perfect public discourse, but we never get totally idiotic, either.

[rifter]

Here's one: (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/we-have-a-new-e.html)

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/images/2008/11/22/agcorpse2.jpg

I wonder if he would think his death was horrific.


After doing a search, using the file name, the caption, AND using Tineye... I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the image you posted is a sensationalist photo. ALL items link back to the Andrew Sullivan post. That opinion piece is the basis to a TON of related articles. I can not find ONE PIECE of independent evidence that this image is legitmate... and there has been SO many times that Al Queda and other people has fed the media false images and photoshopped images, that I generally don't believe them. I can not find any information on who took this photo, or anything. I can see it was modified in Photoshop CS 2, and taken on a Sony camera.

You can't get information out of dead prisoners, it kind of goes against the whole idea that the CIA wanted information, to kill people.

[Ravenlock]

Literally on my way out the door this time, but Ox, you're a smart dude (or, I suppose, rather oddly named dudette) and I'm glad you're in here. :)

[Ink Asylum]

After doing a search, using the file name, the caption, AND using Tineye... I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the image you posted is a sensationalist photo. ALL items link back to the Andrew Sullivan post. That opinion piece is the basis to a TON of related articles. I can not find ONE PIECE of independent evidence that this image is legitmate... and there has been SO many times that Al Queda and other people has fed the media false images and photoshopped images, that I generally don't believe them. I can not find any information on who took this photo, or anything. I can see it was modified in Photoshop CS 2, and taken on a Sony camera.

Is this a more reliable source for you? Associated Press and MSNBC. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6988054/)

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050217/050217_prisondeath2_vmed.widec.jpg

Judging by the bandage under the eye, the black tarp, and the plastic bags, I'd say it's the same dead detainee. The veracity of that photo is not in doubt. It's one of the Abu Ghraib set, not some Al Qaeda propaganda (though you can bet Al Qaeda is using it as a recruitment tool now). The pictures, evidence and testimony were enough to convict Pvt. Charles Graner to 10 years for abuses perpetrated against other detainees.

Sure, the detainee in those photos had injuries sustained from the soldiers that brought him in. Maybe those killed him, not the stress position, but he's not the only person to die during interrogation, just the only one we have pictures of.

From the ACLU, documents recovered from the government by a FOIA request. (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/38710lgl20090211.html)

The ACLU also obtained reports of investigations into deaths that took place in Afganistan and Iraq – as well as Abu Ghraib abuses. Although several have been reported on already, this is the first time the military investigations have been released in full. They include:

* Investigation of two deaths at Bagram. Both detainees were determined to have been killed by pulmonary embolism caused as a result of standing chained in place, sleep depravation and dozens of beatings by guards and possibly interrogators. (Also reveals the use of torture at Gitmo and American-Afghani prisons in Kabul )
* Investigation into the homicide or involuntary manslaughter of detainee Dilar Dababa by U.S. forces in 2003 in Iraq .
* Investigation launched after allegations that an Iraqi prisoner was subjected to torture and abuse at "The Disco" (located in the Special Operations Force Compound in Mosul Airfield, Mosul , Iraq ). The abuse consisted of filling his jumpsuit with ice, then hosing him down and making him stand for long periods of time, sometimes in front of an air conditioner; forcing him to lay down and drink water until he gagged, vomited or choked, having his head banged against a hot steel plate while hooded and interrogated; being forced to do leg lifts with bags of ice placed on his ankles, and being kicked when he could not do more.
* Investigation of allegations of torture and abuse that took place in 2003 at Abu Ghraib.
* Investigation that established probable cause to believe that U.S. forces committed homicide in 2003 when they participated in the binding of detainee Abed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation, causing him to die of asphyxiation.

These are not isolated incidents or bad apples. We are learning more each day that these procedures were approved at the highest levels of our government. Were they designed to kill? No, but when you subject the body to such extreme punishment, day after day, week after week, bodies give out and die, soldiers go too far. Torture is not an exact science, and when it is approved it inevitably leads to abuse and unexpected deaths.

[National Kato]

Yep, looks like the same guy.

[Ox]

These are not isolated incidents or bad apples. We are learning more each day that these procedures were approved at the highest levels of our government. Were they designed to kill? No, but when you subject the body to such extreme punishment, day after day, week after week, bodies give out and die, soldiers go too far. Torture is not an exact science, and when it is approved it inevitably leads to abuse and unexpected deaths.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is straight-up wrong. You cannot ascribe Abu Ghraib abuses to the torture program. Abu Ghraib wasn't conducted pursuant to any guidelines whatsoever, it wasn't designed to extract information, the people doing it had no training in coercive interrogation, and they had no interest in keeping the people alive.

I mean, fuck. Abu Ghraib prisoners were never asked any questions. They weren't even suspected terrorists: they were just common criminals. This was prison abuse, not government torture.

For you to use Abu Ghraib in this discussion is like me hacking someone to death with a meat cleaver and saying, "See? Surgery is very dangerous." It's not even remotely similar, and conflating these two things is precisely the sort of flawed logic that encourages me to become pro-torture simply to retain a sense of intellectual honesty.

[Serapth]

What has me confounded in all of this is that anyone, anywhere actually believed the US ( or any other major nation ) doesn't use torture.

Although, I do wonder if G.W is now exposed to perjury charges?

[Ox]

Although, I do wonder if G.W is now exposed to perjury charges?
A good question. Was he ever under oath?

[TheFlyingOrc]

A good question. Was he ever under oath?

It seems that the legal ground would be shaky if we call him a liar because we clarified the definition of torture.

[Ox]

Incidentally, if we're going to charge Bush with perjury, we'd better also charge this guy (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/17/attorney-claims-justice-memos-prove-did-torture/) and these folks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html).

[alienmastermind]

EDIT: The people who currently approve of the use of torture aren't malevolent or bloodthirsty or cruel or stupid; they are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do.

Torture...is evil. When someone pretends it's not, they're lying. Torturing prisoners is wrong. And, currently, against the law. Ex Post Facto, is the term you used when we chatted about Nuremburg, Ox. Relevant here, since the 'we were told it was legal' isn't much of a defense for the ones following orders to torture, much less for those who created the orders.

Oh, and waterboarding was invented by the Japanese, and those responsible were held accountable for war crimes.

We can argue morality to a point, but I think using a 'box filled with biting insects' to extract any useful information was proven as a failed technique back during the Inquisition. The only thing you extract from a guy you're drowning to near death and bringing him back from the brink is his terror or eventual death. (Helpful in the case of just wanting to get revenge on people you either fear or hate, though. Which is what malevolent, wicked, evil people would do.)

John McCain has been noted as saying torture doesn't work. He should know, he was tortured.

I am on the side of best practice for the long run. The guy who masterminded 9/11? He actually talked on Al Jazzeera television at great lengths spilling his guts on technique, strategies, and how it was done. It was the TV version of the OJ Simpson book 'If I Did It'. Much of the information we would have gathered, could have been gleaned from that broadcast without nearly putting this man to death six times a day in the month of March.

But, revenge is the motive here, not information.

Because the people ordering torture are evil, wicked, immoral people.

Ox, the people who committed these crimes were stupid and evil men. Still are, man. Sorry we disagree, but torturing folks is against the law...and it's wrong. Ordering the law to be broken? That's also criminal behavior.

[alienmastermind]

Incidentally, if we're going to charge Bush with perjury, we'd better also charge this guy (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/17/attorney-claims-justice-memos-prove-did-torture/) and these folks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html).

The first, is a Constitutional Lawyer under Bush. Yep. Probably should. (Gotta love Faux News as a source, though.)

The people who knew and condoned should be investigated and punished...your second citation doesn't mention anyone condoning torture or stating they have to do it, other than unattributed quotes of 'officials' really. So, best of luck pursuing that line of crap.

Is this a way to prove out hypocrisy? I'll say for my part, I want to see anyone, Republican, Democratic, involved in this put to trial.

[TheFlyingOrc]

The first, is a Constitutional Lawyer under Bush. Yep. Probably should. (Gotta love Faux News as a source, though.)

You typed Faux News into an argument and you really expect people to take you seriously?

Secondly, what objective moral standard are you using to say that torture is illegal 100% of the time, and describe how it is necessarily more wrong than war.

[Ox]

Torture...is evil. When someone pretends it's not, they're lying.
Couldn't I say the same thing, but replace the word "torture" with "abortion"?

Torturing prisoners is wrong. And, currently, against the law.
Ish. "Torture" is not a word with a universal definition. So while "torture" is indeed against the law, it's less clear whether certain specific activities are against the law.

We can argue morality to a point, but I think using a 'box filled with biting insects' to extract any useful information was proven as a failed technique back during the Inquisition.
Huh? What useful information were they trying to extract during the Inquisition? They didn't care about whether you were or were not, in fact, Christian; they just wanted you to confess you were not Christian, then execute you. I don't know anyone who endorses torture for the purpose of asking, "Are you a terrorist?"

(Helpful in the case of just wanting to get revenge on people you either fear or hate, though. Which is what malevolent, wicked, evil people would do.)
Good people never seek retribution? Is the criminal justice system wholly the product of malevolent, wicked, evil people? I mean, yes, if you're Catholic. But so is ice cream.

John McCain has been noted as saying torture doesn't work. He should know, he was tortured.
And there are cancer patients who weren't cured who say chemo doesn't work. And they should know, because they weren't cured. Does torture need a 100% success rate in order to be valuable?

Sorry we disagree, but torturing folks is against the law...and it's wrong. Ordering the law to be broken? That's also criminal behavior.
Since when do we disagree? I agree that torturing folks is against the law and wrong. And I agree that ordering the law to be broken can be criminal behavior (I'm not being wishy-washy, I just know of circumstances under which this clearly wouldn't be criminal).

[Ox]

The first, is a Constitutional Lawyer under Bush. Yep. Probably should. (Gotta love Faux News as a source, though.)
George H.W. Bush. Do we have collective punishment now for people who worked for the relatives of bad people?

Is this a way to prove out hypocrisy? I'll say for my part, I want to see anyone, Republican, Democratic, involved in this put to trial.
No, I don't give a shit about hypocrisy. I'm pointing out that there was ambiguity in 2002 about whether, legally, waterboarding constituted torture. Legal ambiguity is a highly relevant factor in whether a criminal law applies.

EDIT:
Oh, and I should have made this point earlier: mocking the link for being from "Faux News" is an astonishingly anti-intellectual thing to say. The article merely reports that Rivkin released a statement and quoted from it, then quoted the torture memos and the responses of various people criticizing the torture memos. There is not much news reporting here; I could have gotten much the same article from any one of several sources. There was no obvious bias in the reporting, and in any event I was only citing it for the principle that Rivkin disagrees with the general consensus on the memos. I can't imagine you think "Faux News" made that up or somehow distorted Rivkin's views (after all, you think he should be locked up for being a lawyer in the early 1990s). So you mocked the very fact that I linked an article originally written on Fox News simply because linking anything, no matter how innocuous or noncontroversial, from that source is automatically suspect. Rejecting a point of information purely because of its source, with no regard for any indicia of reliability, is practically the definition of anti-intellectualism.

[Deadend]

Torture is wrong, evil and does not work.

I blame the lawyers for trying to dance around things to legalize it. Lots of nice twisting and redefining of words, to create a new fictional context where suddenly things are not torture but something very similar that is in fact okay because a lawyer said so. Namely John Yoo, who I hope to see him and a few others in the previous administration stand trial as war criminals.

[Ox]

I blame the lawyers for trying to dance around things to legalize it. Lots of nice twisting and redefining of words, to create a new fictional context where suddenly things are not torture but something very similar that is in fact okay because a lawyer said so.
Do you have the same attitude for every lawyer who defends a murder or rape suspect? They all twist and redefine words to create a new fictional context where suddenly things aren't what they seem. That's what being a lawyer is. There's a reason they aren't popular.

[Ink Asylum]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is straight-up wrong. You cannot ascribe Abu Ghraib abuses to the torture program. Abu Ghraib wasn't conducted pursuant to any guidelines whatsoever, it wasn't designed to extract information, the people doing it had no training in coercive interrogation, and they had no interest in keeping the people alive.

I mean, fuck. Abu Ghraib prisoners were never asked any questions. They weren't even suspected terrorists: they were just common criminals. This was prison abuse, not government torture.

For you to use Abu Ghraib in this discussion is like me hacking someone to death with a meat cleaver and saying, "See? Surgery is very dangerous." It's not even remotely similar, and conflating these two things is precisely the sort of flawed logic that encourages me to become pro-torture simply to retain a sense of intellectual honesty.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/world/reach-war-abu-ghraib-reservist-plead-guilty-some-charges-mistreatment-iraqi.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/T/Torture)

Seven enlisted men and women have been charged in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The circumstances became widely known in April, when photographs of American military police tormenting and humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners were published in the news media and circulated on the Internet.

Defense lawyers have contended that the defendants were following orders from superiors.

''It would be laughable to conclude that these seven military police acted without authorization from above,'' said Guy Womack, a civilian lawyer for Specialist Graner.

A memorandum sent last summer by an Army intelligence officer appealed for suggested interrogation techniques to extract information from insurgents captured in Iraq. ''The gloves are coming off, gentlemen, regarding these detainees,'' said the memo, which was signed by Capt. William Ponce Jr., an Army intelligence officer at the military's headquarters in Baghdad.

In an apparent reference to Col. Steven Boltz, the military's intelligence chief in Baghdad at the time, the memo continued: ''Col. Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting, and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks.''

According to the person who provided the memo to The New York Times on Monday on condition of anonymity, it was issued in July 2003. The authenticity of the memo could not be independently confirmed. It was first reported on Monday in The Washington Post.

Harvey J. Volzer, a civilian lawyer who represents Specialist Megan M. Ambuhl, whose case was also discussed Monday, said, ''Everybody knew what was going on at the prison and nobody reported it because everybody thought there was authorization for what was going on.''

The soldiers at Abu Ghraib were trying to extract information about insurgent activity in Iraq. To get that information they humiliated, abused, tortured, and in some cases accidentally killed detainees. Information has been trickling out about it for years that the orders came from higher-ups outside the prison.

As the Bush Administration no longer controls all the information we're learning even more that there was a system of torture being put into use by people at the top levels of government, justified by legal memos twisting the definition of "enhanced interrogation." To suggest that didn't trickle down and lead to things getting out of hand in places like Abu Ghraib is foolish.

As more light is shed on these issues I firmly believe we will see threads directly connecting the abuses at Abu Ghraib with lawyers like Yoo and Bybee and others in the administration like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Abu Ghraib didn't happen in a vaccuum.

[Ox]

The soldiers at Abu Ghraib were trying to extract information about insurgent activity in Iraq.
No, they weren't. To do that, you might consider asking them some questions during the torture. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib weren't asked any questions. I don't know why this is a tough issue.

The defense lawyers' claim was that the liberalization of torture somehow led the Abu Ghraib guards to think it was OK to torture for fun. Even if this were true, that doesn't mean the Abu Ghraid guards were torturing for information.

As the Bush Administration no longer controls all the information we're learning even more that there was a system of torture being put into use by people at the top levels of government, justified by legal memos twisting the definition of "enhanced interrogation." To suggest that didn't trickle down and lead to things getting out of hand in places like Abu Ghraib is foolish.
If you want to make that argument, fine. I'm not disputing that might have happened. I am disputing that the Abu Ghraib abuses were ordered for the purposes of extracting information. They weren't ordered, and no attempt was made to extract information in the Abu Ghraib abuses.

As more light is shed on these issues I firmly believe we will see threads directly connecting the abuses at Abu Ghraib with lawyers like Yoo and Bybee and others in the administration like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Abu Ghraib didn't happen in a vaccuum.
And I believe in the Virgin Birth. We all have our little theories.

[Ink Asylum]

If you want to make that argument, fine. I'm not disputing that might have happened. I am disputing that the Abu Ghraib abuses were ordered for the purposes of extracting information. They weren't ordered, and no attempt was made to extract information in the Abu Ghraib abuses.

So the prisoners in those photos were abused but never questioned? Even if that were true, they were abused because of spillover from approved techniques to be used on detainees for the purpose of gathering information on the insurgency. That's what happens when torture becomes an accepted practice. It leads to senseless torture (like waterboarding someone over a hundred times in a month while receiving no new information) just as much, if not more so, then "justified" torture.

[Generation ABXY]

Oh, and I should have made this point earlier: mocking the link for being from "Faux News" is an astonishingly anti-intellectual thing to say. The article merely reports that Rivkin released a statement and quoted from it, then quoted the torture memos and the responses of various people criticizing the torture memos. There is not much news reporting here; I could have gotten much the same article from any one of several sources. There was no obvious bias in the reporting, and in any event I was only citing it for the principle that Rivkin disagrees with the general consensus on the memos. I can't imagine you think "Faux News" made that up or somehow distorted Rivkin's views (after all, you think he should be locked up for being a lawyer in the early 1990s). So you mocked the very fact that I linked an article originally written on Fox News simply because linking anything, no matter how innocuous or noncontroversial, from that source is automatically suspect. Rejecting a point of information purely because of its source, with no regard for any indicia of reliability, is practically the definition of anti-intellectualism.

Hell, you should have seen the time someone (I want to say Johan, but I could be wrong about that) linked through the Drudge. Despite the fact that the link went to an entirely different site – some U.K.-based financial paper, IIRC – his whole argument was pretty much written off for awhile because of it, and it spawned a whole new debate about what sources were "acceptable".

When it comes to links, Ox, you must remember that first and foremost you are dealing with Open-Minded People. ;)

[Ox]

So the prisoners in those photos were abused but never questioned? Even if that were true
It's true in the sense that there has never been any allegation they were questioned, nor has there every been any evidence they were questioned. But apart from that, it's a total lie.
they were abused because of spillover from approved techniques to be used on detainees for the purpose of gathering information on the insurgency.
So prisoner abuse never happened before Bush? Has there been a dramatic uptick in prisoner abuse in the United States since 2001?

[Ink Asylum]

There's been a dramatic uptick in abuse of detainees in The War On Terror. Is that somehow in doubt?

[Ox]

Yes, it is. If you have evidence for this, I'll be happy to change my mind.

EDIT: Just to clarify: we're talking about unintended prisoner abuse, right? Your argument is that authorizing coercive interrogation increases coercion outside of interrogative venues. Don't cite the fact that Bush authorized new techniques as if that proves this argument.

[Johan]

It should be obvious by now that an effective lawyer can argue virtually any side of any issue to plausibility and rationality, given enough rhetorical room and an audience. :D

[Ox]

I wish that were true, Johan. I am (false modesty aside) a whole fuck of a lot more talented than most of my opponents. I also work a lot harder. But that hardly guarantees victory.

[Johan]

I wish that were true, Johan. I am (false modesty aside) a whole fuck of a lot more talented than most of my opponents. I also work a lot harder. But that hardly guarantees victory.

I think you just proved my point, but I'm a simple guy who tends to be more direct and less loquacious.

Drudge is running a link to CNS News (can't get it to load right now) that says waterboarding prevented an attack in L.A. through the information it provided.

Edit: Here's the link. (http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46949)

[Ravenlock]

A Washington Post editorial on the memo here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042002818_pf.html). It'll be interesting to see how this discussion develops. I do find it intriguing that the memo apparently claimed that the "enhanced" interrogation of Zubaydah "yielded critical information", where all previously disclosed info has indicated that Zubaydah's interrogation was effectively worthless.

The most interesting part of his piece, for me:

Why didn't Obama officials release this information as well? Because they know that if the public could see the details of the techniques side by side with evidence that the program saved American lives, the vast majority would support continuing it.

This is probably true, and in my mind maybe the biggest problem. I do suspect that "the vast majority" of U.S. citizens would support efforts to save American lives no matter what the cost, and that's a slippery slope that historically has never ended well.

The article does go completely fucking off the rails, though, when it claims:

...the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can -- and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. ...The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.

Oh, we're helping these people by torturing them. Just letting them get it all off their chests. I get it, it makes so much more sense now! Hey Marc Thiessen: Fuck you.

[Ox]

This is probably true, and in my mind maybe the biggest problem. I do suspect that "the vast majority" of U.S. citizens would support efforts to save American lives no matter what the cost, and that's a slippery slope that historically has never ended well.
Which historical examples are you thinking about? All of the historical examples of torture I can think of were used by governments that didn't answer to popular will and were used largely to eliminate domestic political opposition. I don't know if those examples are really applicable here.

Oh, we're helping these people by torturing them. Just letting them get it all off their chests. I get it, it makes so much more sense now! Hey Marc Thiessen: Fuck you.
I think this reading of what Thiessen is saying is uncharitable, to say the least. His point is that the interrogator's goal isn't to create overwhelming fear or pain in the mind of the detainee. Instead, the interrogator's goal is to convince the detainee that he has already fulfilled the limit of his endurance.

I have a little experience about this. Under certain circumstances, one's perceived tolerance for pain and discomfort can vary wildly. A stimulus that I might find merely annoying at one time might become unbearable at a different time. Think of fingernails on a blackboard: it might make your hair stand on edge normally, but if you were stressed out, tired, or startled, it might make you beg for them to stop. Does that mean the same stimulus might be torture under some circumstances and permissible under others? Would a stimulus be torture for you but permissible for me? What if the interrogator gets it wrong and thinks I can withstand a stimulus that really constitutes torture?

And as Mr. Thierssen alludes, what I think I can stand may not be the same as my actual endurance. After twenty minutes of fingernails on the blackboard, I might conclude I had fulfilled my duty -- especially if the right coaching had been given me beforehand. If you tell me that nobody has ever endured the dreaded Tickle Technique for more than 35 seconds, I would probably blab after a couple of minutes resistance... even if the 'dreaded Tickle Technique' is simply having to watch an episode of Sesame Street with way too much Elmo facetime.

[rifter]

This is probably true, and in my mind maybe the biggest problem. I do suspect that "the vast majority" of U.S. citizens would support efforts to save American lives no matter what the cost, and that's a slippery slope that historically has never ended well.


From what I have been hearing, officials have been saying the enhanced techniques worked great... This was said years ago. Obama's administration has only released select portions... seems like political spin to me.

As for the Vast majority would say no matter the cost, even I have limits, and I feel like I have been one of the most outspoken "pro-torture" people here. I have no problem mentally breaking people down by making them stand, and be awake for days. I get squeamish about it all, when blood appears though. So, no ripping of nails, no hot pokers across the body/into the eyes, no dismembring/removing of digits... you get it.

Loud music, barking dogs, hot/cold conditions, sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, asking them to say there are 3 lights... I really don't care about those. I also expect the prisoners to be carefully monitored, so while they are broken down mentally, their bodies remain healthy. While I don't inherently care about the prisoners themselves, killing them removes our ability to get information. And, while I don't care about the prisoner, we should never cross the line, where killing one... is "not a big deal". That to me, is a VERY hard line, that should never, ever be crossed.

[Ravenlock]

Which historical examples are you thinking about? All of the historical examples of torture I can think of were used by governments that didn't answer to popular will and were used largely to eliminate domestic political opposition. I don't know if those examples are really applicable here.

Well, that IS sort of what I was talking about, actually though I wasn't limiting my concern in that regard to torture specifically. The slippery slope I was referring to is the history of people who are willing to overlook behavior that they would normally consider morally reprehensible or otherwise untenable because it's being done "to protect them." That's the history of the Alien and Sedition Acts, of McCarthyism, and of practically every dictator to ever take power.

You may be correct about my being overly harsh with Thiessen, and I can certainly readily admit that I would never want to be the one tasked with extracting information from a resistant suspect. The way Thiessen phrased it, however, still seems highly questionable to me.

While I don't inherently care about the prisoners themselves...

I do. Maybe not in the case of the hypothetical one that is actually guilty and knowledgeable, but in the FAR more likely instances where the people we detain and potentially torture know nothing of value, and in some cases are only locked up because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's worth keeping in mind that more than half of the detainees that have been held at Guantanamo since the war in Afghanistan started have been freed without charge - over 400 of them - some of them having been held there for years and having no-one-knows-what-exactly done to them. Is that irrelevant, in your view?

[Ox]

Well, that IS sort of what I was talking about, actually though I wasn't limiting my concern in that regard to torture specifically. The slippery slope I was referring to is the history of people who are willing to overlook behavior that they would normally consider morally reprehensible or otherwise untenable because it's being done "to protect them." That's the history of the Alien and Sedition Acts, of McCarthyism, and of practically every dictator to ever take power.
Well, heck. We are willing to overlook imprisonment and killing "to protect us," although we generally frown upon kidnapping and murder. I guess you can claim it's a 'slippery slope' in the sense that this is often used to justify more infringements on people's liberty, but I don't think anybody is advocating the abolition of prisons. We can never try to eliminate slippery slopes without eliminating eminently reasonable policies. This is one of the many reasons why liberty requires constant vigilance.

And I think McCarthyism and the Sedition Acts are bad examples of slippery slopes. Very quickly after they got egregious, we became outraged and pulled back from those excesses. How is that a 'slippery slope'? I think these political issues are more like a pendulum: we go too far in protecting safety, then too far in protecting liberty, back and forth around an unattainable perfect medium.

Maybe not in the case of the hypothetical one that is actually guilty and knowledgeable, but in the FAR more likely instances where the people we detain and potentially torture know nothing of value, and in some cases are only locked up because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I doubt that's really far more likely.

It's worth keeping in mind that more than half of the detainees that have been held at Guantanamo since the war in Afghanistan started have been freed without charge - over 400 of them - some of them having been held there for years and having no-one-knows-what-exactly done to them. Is that irrelevant, in your view?
"Released without charge" is very different from "innocent." Take these fellows (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52670-2004Oct21.html) for example (NB: even if you think everyone in the federal government was an inveterate liar between 2001 and 2009, that doesn't explain the fellow who told reporters he had successfully convinced the US to release him from Gitmo, whereupon he rejoined with al-Qaeda). And, of course, "released without charge" doesn't even mean "we think he's innocent."

Moreover, I think your numbers may be wrong. Of the 750 detainees ever held at Gitmo, about 250 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guant%C3%A1namo_Bay_detainees) have been released. I'm reluctant to rely on Wikipedia if a better source is available, but I haven't found one.

[rifter]

I do. Maybe not in the case of the hypothetical one that is actually guilty and knowledgeable, but in the FAR more likely instances where the people we detain and potentially torture know nothing of value, and in some cases are only locked up because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's worth keeping in mind that more than half of the detainees that have been held at Guantanamo since the war in Afghanistan started have been freed without charge - over 400 of them - some of them having been held there for years and having no-one-knows-what-exactly done to them. Is that irrelevant, in your view?

Actually, I DO care about them. A better way to put it, is that I don't care about those that are combatants. Innocent prisoners, completely, 100% different thing. Though, out of the ones released, 68 have been found on the battlefield again... or something like that. That is the ones we KNOW about... do you honestly believe that the other 332 are all innocent that were released?

I REALLY, REALLY feel sorry for those wrongly detained. It is heart wrenching... but you can never be 100%. It is very sad, but the ultimate truth, and doing nothing, because out of 100 bad guys... a few may be neutral... is self destructive.

[Ravenlock]

Regarding the numbers, sadly, mine also came from Wikipedia, which means both our numbers are potentially worthless. ;) Mine came from this section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detainment_camp#Detainees) and claimed to be sourced from GlobalSecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_detainees.htm), who do indeed keep track of people going in and out of Guantanamo, but I confess to not having done the math myself. It is noteworthy that neither of us has been able to find a better number - anecdotally, what I'm reading suggests that nobody in the press really knows exactly what the numbers are.

That said:

We can never try to eliminate slippery slopes without eliminating eminently reasonable policies. This is one of the many reasons why liberty requires constant vigilance.

Indeed. And it is my opinion that torture is one of the lines that we need to be vigilant enough not to cross. However, I'm starting to feel like you and I are going back and forth on opposite sides of that "unattainable perfect medium" you mentioned, and that's unlikely to lead us anywhere. Or maybe it's just that it's 1AM and I'm tired, who knows.

And I think McCarthyism and the Sedition Acts are bad examples of slippery slopes. Very quickly after they got egregious, we became outraged and pulled back from those excesses. How is that a 'slippery slope'?

They are examples of slippery slopes in that their becoming egregious happened at all. Society doesn't need to dissolve (that is to say, the slope doesn't need to actually lead you all the way off the cliff) for the same sort of negative effects to be witnessed. Lines were crossed that shouldn't have been, and we should always be trying to prevent that. Apologies can be made, but the actions can't be undone.

I doubt that's really far more likely. ..."Released without charge" is very different from "innocent." Take these fellows for example (NB: even if you think everyone in the federal government was an inveterate liar between 2001 and 2009, that doesn't explain the fellow who told reporters he had successfully convinced the US to release him from Gitmo, whereupon he rejoined with al-Qaeda). And, of course, "released without charge" doesn't even mean "we think he's innocent."

No, "released without charge" doesn't mean "we think he's innocent", but it does usually mean "we have no evidence with which to justify his imprisonment", which is awfully important in a society that claims to be governed by the rule of law, and is a really lame statement to make after holding and abusing someone for years.

I see your anecdote (and see my reply to rifter below about the "going back to the fight" numbers...) and present another (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/20/guantanamo/): five Algerians who were held for seven years without charge and, according to the only info publicized upon their release, without any compelling evidence that they were a threat to us.

The Bosnian Prosecutor who investigated their initial detention back in 2001 (which was effectuated at the behest of the U.S.) concluded they ought to be released, but the Bosnian Government succumbed to the pressure of the Bush administration and turned them over to the U.S. as they were being released ("hooded, shackled, and packed into waiting cars while their horrified families watched"), after which they were shipped to Guantanamo.

One of the detainees ordered released today had a wife who was pregnant at the time he was shipped to Guantanamo, who then gave birth to a daughter, now 6, whom he has never met. Another of the Bosnian-Algerians had an infant daughter at the time he was put in Guantanamo who died last year of congenital heart disease at the age of 6. Another of them "suffered months of facial paralysis from a brutal beating inflicted by Guantanamo camp soldiers."

Could they be lying about the beating? Sure, though that account came from their American lawyer (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/11/trapped_at_guantanamo/) with whom they had contact only every few months. I have read over the last several years accounts from Iraq and Afghanistan of how "enemy combatants" have come into U.S. custody, everything from being rounded up on the street to being handed over by local enemies in exchange for cash. In some cases I've read about it has seemed that we don't even know exactly who we have at Guantanamo (and by logical extension elsewhere). Are some of them legitimately our enemies? I'm sure they are. Do I think that justifies imprisoning people indefinitely without charge? I do not, especially when it seems most of the time the reason is we simply have no evidence with which to charge them.

Seriously, man. Seven years, no trial, no method of appeal, solitary confinement for up to six months at a time, no evidence. That's almost Count of Monte Cristo level shit. If they didn't hate America before they sure as shit do now.

Reply to rifter follows almost immediately... ;)

[Ravenlock]

A better way to put it, is that I don't care about those that are combatants. Innocent prisoners, completely, 100% different thing. Though, out of the ones released, 68 have been found on the battlefield again... or something like that. That is the ones we KNOW about... do you honestly believe that the other 332 are all innocent that were released?

No, it's exactly my point that we DON'T know. As for the "found on the battlefield" number, not even our own people (http://www.slate.com/id/2209404/pagenum/all/) agree on what that is, leading me to believe they don't know, either. Emphasis in the following quote will be mine:

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing in dissent in Boumedienne v. Bush, asserted, "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield." He cited a year-old, widely debunked (http://law.shu.edu/center_policyresearch/reports/urban_legend_final_61608.pdf) (pdf) report for that statistic. Last week at Eric Holder's confirmation hearings, it was Sen. John Cornyn, R.-Texas, who upped the count to 61 soldiers who had rejoined the battlefield since being let out of Gitmo.

Sixty-one is the most recent statistic from the Bush Defense Department, which coughed up this hairball at a Jan. 13, 2009, press conference. While the DoD spokeswoman would not at the time clarify how that statistic had jumped from the previous number of 37, elaborate on the identities of these 61 men, explain where they had been identified as battlefield returnees, or even indicate how many were still alive, she was confident that "there clearly are people who are being held at Guantanamo who are still bent on doing harm to America, Americans, and our allies. … So there will have to be some solution for the likes of them."

According to a new study by Mark Denbeaux and his team at Seton Hall University School of Law, this was the Bush administration's 43rd attempt to quantify the number of detainees who have rejoined the battle. The previous 42 were no more impressive. The Seton Hall study shows that the administration's prior recidivist statistics do not even trend consistently upward—a 2007 DoD report downgraded the prior estimate of recidivists from 30 to five. The Defense Department has also been known to name as recidivists several individuals who have at no time been held at Guantanamo. Moreover, the Denbeaux study shows that the Defense Department defines speaking to reporters or publishing op-eds critical of Guantanamo as "returning to the fight."

So in short, I regard their statements about the status of former Gitmo detainees as bullshit. Poorly documented, indefensible bullshit, and it certainly doesn't lend me confidence that the remaining detainees aren't just more folks against whom we have no evidence and who we will eventually be forced to release.

It's late, guys, I'm headed to bed. Might return to this tomorrow if I have time, but none of us are getting paid for this and I think we mostly understand each other even if we don't agree on everything. For the record, I thank you both for a good discussion. :)

[Deadend]

My head aches now..
So people who are held for years in a prison where they are withheld from all the rules and laws on how the US is to treat prisoners (including Geneva conventions) upon release from the bullshit wish to go shoot at US troops? Holy fuck, I mean wow.. who would have ever guessed?

[Johan]

The only way to know which approach will "work" is to see it in action, and the change has already begun. The standard for success is zero successful terrorist attacks on U.S. soil subsequent to 9-11. I hope that continues during Obama's administration.

[Ravenlock]

The only way to know which approach will "work" is to see it in action, and the change has already begun. The standard for success is zero successful terrorist attacks on U.S. soil subsequent to 9-11. I hope that continues during Obama's administration.

Two things. Firstly, I think it's wildly naive to assume that the lack of attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11 is due to our diligence and/or rock solid security. It is widely acknowledged that our seaport and airport security, though certainly improved over the pre-9/11 version, still has plenty of holes (the number of successful tests by our own people to sneak contraband through them over the last several years continues to make this clear), and the sheer number of potential targets in the country effectively means it's impossible to have anything approaching 100% coverage without a police state. If somebody wanted to hit a New York nightclub like the Bali attack in 2002, or a subway station somewhere, you really think it'd be an impossible task?

What it would be, though (or at least what it would have been...), is a very poor strategic choice. Bin Laden & friends have gotten to enjoy watching us waste our "blood and treasure" in the Middle East for the better part of a decade now, where it's easy for them to recruit more people to keep blowing us up. They've said as much. Why waste resources on small scale attacks in the U.S. and risk shifting the world's goodwill back to us when small scale attacks against us over there are essentially free? Of course, that equation may change now that the extremely unpopular GWB is out of office and the new guy claims he's getting us out of the sandbox. (A dubious claim at best, of course, but perception matters.)

Which brings me to point 2: there are those of us who don't believe you get credit for achieving an end when the means you used to do it were untenable. Even if you believe it was the "plan", having no attacks on our soil at the cost of two lengthy wars, a HUGE increase in levels of federal budget and power, a decrease in the respect for privacy and personal liberties, a torture program, and the indefinite imprisonment of anyone designated an "enemy combatant" with no burden of proof applied is not a "standard for success" unless the goal is "no attacks at any cost", which I firmly believe the goal should not be.

Terrorism is a reprehensible criminal act that should be punished when it occurs and prevented when feasible, but it is also a tragic reality for the majority of the civilized world. For us to label "no attacks, ever" as the only acceptable result is not only completely unrealistic, but also likely to lead us into even more excesses in our pursuit of an impossible goal.

[Johan]

Two things. Firstly, I think it's wildly naive to assume that the lack of attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11 is due to our diligence and/or rock solid security.

I don't "assume" it; I base my opinion on the reality of seven contiguous years of success in preventing any domestic attacks, and the opinion of the intelligence community and those involved, who have stated publicly that valuable intelligence was indeed gathered to prevent domestic attacks. That's not an assumption, and is indeed based upon more external, objective evidence than your position apparently denying it.

Which brings me to point 2: there are those of us who don't believe you get credit for achieving an end when the means you used to do it were untenable.

The question is which means are "untenable." I haven't seen anyone set forth any kind of policy proscription with clear parameters within which our intelligence community and military should work as regards detained individuals in this "whatever label we've now attached to it" war/contingency/operation/whatever-thingy.

If the argument is that "my approach to methods of extracting information will be to just mirror that of Obama's" then I'd say you're no better than those who mindlessly followed Bush in his march to war in Iraq and his other conduct and methods.

Define torture, list what methods are allowable and what are not, and explain how you would deal with those who were engaged in behavior outside of your parameters from the previous administration.

Also, and this is a perfectly rational point of comparison, unless Obama is perfect in preventing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, there will be questions as to his methodology and approach. Legitimately, too.

We'll see. Only time will tell.

[TheFlyingOrc]

My head aches now..
So people who are held for years in a prison where they are withheld from all the rules and laws on how the US is to treat prisoners (including Geneva conventions) upon release from the bullshit wish to go shoot at US troops? Holy fuck, I mean wow.. who would have ever guessed?

If the US government held me for many years without trial, I would be very angry, but I would not join a military unit to attack them. Pretending like this is a normal, reasonable response to the situation is absolutely ridiculous.

[rifter]

Two things. Firstly, I think it's wildly naive to assume that the lack of attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11 is due to our diligence and/or rock solid security.
Of course, it has nothing to do with FBI and CIA and other intelligence groups stopping a plot, before it gets to the buggy security checkpoints... Sorry, checkpoints are the last line of defense, not the first.


What it would be, though (or at least what it would have been...), is a very poor strategic choice. Bin Laden & friends have gotten to enjoy watching us waste our "blood and treasure" in the Middle East for the better part of a decade now, where it's easy for them to recruit more people to keep blowing us up. They've said as much.
The real truth of the matter, is that a lot of people in those areas, especially Iraq, are getting tired of Al Queda screwing things up. The US Military is being looked at as at worst a neutral party. The people are seeing that by outing the snakes that live amongst them, they are able to live better lives. And, when the snakes and monsters are removed... they have more secure lives. The surge worked, we have driven the worst of the worst elements underground, out, or killed them. It is not the prime recruiting ground that you are referring to, or they used to have.


... and the indefinite imprisonment of anyone designated an "enemy combatant" with no burden of proof applied is not a "standard for success" unless the goal is "no attacks at any cost", which I firmly believe the goal should not be.

Enemy combatants are called that, because they are terrorists. They do not LIVE under Geneva Conventions. Geneva Conventions cover warfare between nations. That includes uniforms, and avoiding civilian centers. There IS a "War on Terror". At least in Iraq and Afghanistan. In WWII, did we routinely capture the enemy, and return them home a few months later? Generally, when you are captured during a war, you are held until the war is over. That is kind of the norm, you know. Of course, when they capture our people, they brutally torture them... stuff that makes water-boarding look like a practical joke, then kill them. I am not saying we stoop to their levels, but lets not loose sight of the kind of people are up against, when deciding how "humanely" to treat them.

[Ink Asylum]

I should be shocked by this but I'm not: (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html)

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

As for a question Ox asked me as to what interrogation methods I personally would approve, since I do not have personal knowledge of the effects procedures have on the human body and psyche I will yield that determination to a respected international organization. In this case, the International Committee of the Red Cross seems one of the best arbiter of what is and isn't torture.

[Johan]

We're in good hands, apparently. (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090421/USA_Border_090421/20090421?hub=TopStories)

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made the comments [suggested that the 9-11 terrorists entered the U.S. through Canada] during a media interview earlier this week, much to the chagrin of Canadians on both sides of the border.

"Unfortunately, misconceptions arise on something as fundamental as where the 9-11 terrorists came from," said Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador in Washington.

"As the 9-11 commission reported in 2004, all of the 9-11 terrorists arrived in the United States from outside North America. They flew to major U.S. airports. They entered the U.S. with documents issued by the United States government and no 9-11 terrorists came from Canada."

Diplomatic kerfuffle! Yahoo! :D

[Generation ABXY]

My head aches now..
So people who are held for years in a prison where they are withheld from all the rules and laws on how the US is to treat prisoners (including Geneva conventions) upon release from the bullshit wish to go shoot at US troops? Holy fuck, I mean wow.. who would have ever guessed?

See, this probably wouldn't happen if we did it my way: Every time we capture an enemy combatant, they would automatically be put into a medically induced coma. We hold them, try them and, if they are found guilty, punish them. If they aren't, we remove them from the coma inside the United States, giving the nice home, a good job and a government handler to portray their loving wife. Naturally, they'll have these memories of their life in another country, but we just explain to them that there was a horrible accident, they have amnesia and much of what they do remember is just a dream. Hell, if we could actually induce amnesia (or perhaps just perform a lobotomy), all the better!

At that point, we've done our best to remove a new potential threat form persuasive influences, and they get a new life with all the trimmings. Everybody wins! :D

[Ink Asylum]

I think you've got the plot of an interesting political thriller there. Get on it!

[Generation ABXY]

I think you've got the plot of an interesting political thriller there. Get on it!

In truth, it is; I just stole the basis for a short story I was working on called "Sleeper/Sleeper." :p

It was outside of my genre, though, so I rather gave up on it for now.

[National Kato]

Remember when former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said the detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib were the unauthorized actions of a 'few bad apples?' Looks like one of the apples fell from pretty high up the tree (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html?_r=1&hp):

A newly declassified Congressional report released Tuesday outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration. The report focused solely on interrogations carried out by the military, not those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency at its secret prisons overseas. It rejected claims by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others that Pentagon policies played no role in harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or other military facilities.
The report showed that Mr. Rumsfeld’s authorization was cited by a United States military special-operations lawyer in Afghanistan as “an analogy and basis for use of these techniques,” and that, in February 2003, a special-operations unit in Iraq obtained a copy of the policy from Afghanistan “that included aggressive techniques, changed the letterhead, and adopted the policy verbatim.”“The paper trail on abuse leads to top civilian leaders, and our report connects the dots,” Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “This report, in great detail, shows a paper trail going from that authorization” by Mr. Rumsfeld “to Guantánamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq,” Mr. Levin said.

I can assume we've not heard the last about all of this.

[Serapth]

We're in good hands, apparently. (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090421/USA_Border_090421/20090421?hub=TopStories)



Diplomatic kerfuffle! Yahoo! :D

The US government has been using Canada/USA border security on a number of border related issues and disputes. The simple fact of them being true or not is entirely besides the point I suppose.

[Hawkzombie]

Torture only works if you make them believe they'll die if they don't give you the information. Always kill the less informed looking of the two first, and you'll usually get your answers quickly.

Uh...not that I know or anything >.>

[rifter]

Torture only works if you make them believe they'll die if they don't give you the information.
It seems to me, that most of our coercive techniques are based on the belief that people will quit resisting, if they are EXTREMELY uncomfortable. Hence, they don't fear that they will die, because they keep hearing loud music, or barking dogs and can't sleep... but they DO crack, because they can not handle the mental pressure it puts on them. I really doubt any of this has to do with fear of death.

[Johan]

The US government has been using Canada/USA border security on a number of border related issues and disputes.

Stop sending us your timber or the terrorists win. :D

[Serapth]

Stop sending us your timber or the terrorists win. :D

I don't know... if the terrorists win, they will get rid of Paris Hilton, right?

I mean, anyone that would get rid of Paris Hilton can't be all bad!

[Johan]

I don't know... if the terrorists win, they will get rid of Paris Hilton, right?

Send more lumber; give me an axe, dammit! ;)

[Ox]

As for a question Ox asked me as to what interrogation methods I personally would approve, since I do not have personal knowledge of the effects procedures have on the human body and psyche I will yield that determination to a respected international organization. In this case, the International Committee of the Red Cross seems one of the best arbiter of what is and isn't torture.
First, I don't think they want the job. Second, why would they ever approve anything? The Red Cross has absolutely no vested interest in averting terrorism. Consequently, they will not use a balancing test weighing the potential harm to a detainee against the value of the information that may be extracted.

Ever watch a cop show? You know how they say to the suspect, "The judge will go easier on you if you confess?" There's a very strong argument that this violates the Convention on Torture. Never underestimate the ability of well-meaning people and organizations to draw up absurd rules.

And anyway, I'm not asking a question about human physiology. I'm asking a question about morality. You're just as competent to answer that question as anyone else. Fobbing the issue off to the Red Cross is avoiding the issue.

No, "released without charge" doesn't mean "we think he's innocent", but it does usually mean "we have no evidence with which to justify his imprisonment", which is awfully important in a society that claims to be governed by the rule of law, and is a really lame statement to make after holding and abusing someone for years.
I like that phrase, "rule of law." It's like "due process". It's terribly vague. If we have a law, passed by Congress and signed by the President, that authorizes non-trial dispositions of certain detainees, why isn't that the "rule of law"?

So people who are held for years in a prison where they are withheld from all the rules and laws on how the US is to treat prisoners (including Geneva conventions) upon release from the bullshit wish to go shoot at US troops? Holy fuck, I mean wow.. who would have ever guessed?
If you read the article, we thought we had convinced these people to abandon the fight through sweet-talking. Obviously, sweet-talking is a failed strategy. I'm willing to try it some more, but if we take the same attitude to sweet-talking as we do to the efficacy of torture, then we'll abandon it entirely. Which leaves us with one option: summary execution.

[Johan]

I like that phrase, "rule of law." It's like "due process". It's terribly vague. If we have a law, passed by Congress and signed by the President, that authorizes non-trial dispositions of certain detainees, why isn't that the "rule of law"?

Rule of law = What one agrees with.
Mob rule/unconstitutional = What one disagrees with.

[Ink Asylum]

First, I don't think they want the job. Second, why would they ever approve anything? The Red Cross has absolutely no vested interest in averting terrorism.

I don't expect the Red Cross to approve of anything, but I trust them more as an impartial judge of what constitutes torture than I do individual governments. As a country we are signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture, (http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html) so we have agreed to respect an international definition of torture and to avoid engaging in it.

Consequently, they will not use a balancing test weighing the potential harm to a detainee against the value of the information that may be extracted.

And when it comes to torture, neither should we. Torture is torture, even if it's effective, and we should not do it. We have signed a treaty stating we will not do it, even if effective, even if we're at war, even if the people we're doing it to are big bad terrorists. From the Convention Against Torture.

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

aEtFMj6ZiHM

What Shepherd said. "Torture works!" arguments mean nothing unless what you're arguing is that we should break or abandon our international treaty. Until that treaty is changed, though, it remains illegal.

Even Ex-President Bush agreed (at least at one point). (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/04/22/memories.aspx)

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy. I further urge governments to join America and others in supporting torture victims' treatment centers, contributing to the UN Fund for the Victims of Torture, and supporting the efforts of non-governmental organizations to end torture and assist its victims.

[National Kato]

I find it interesting that Cheney is all about releasing these classified memos and showing how these interrogation methods work, but where was he five years ago when he could've said, 'you know, these are classified techniques that are necessary and vital, but these soldiers accused in Abu Ghraib didn't design them?' Why didn't he own up and defend them instead of throwing them under the bus? Why not defend active, serving Americans?

I find it sad that they let the soldiers take the fall but now try and take credit.

[Ox]

I don't expect the Red Cross to approve of anything, but I trust them more as an impartial judge of what constitutes torture than I do individual governments. As a country we are signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture, (http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html) so we have agreed to respect an international definition of torture and to avoid engaging in it.
Have you bothered to read that definition? We've never abided by it.

torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Any severe mental pain or suffering? We tell ordinary criminals we'll charge their wives as accomplices unless they confess. We threaten the death penalty if they don't plead guilty. We wink at and joke about prison rape. What country do you live in where we abide by this definition? Heck, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single country on Earth that doesn't violate this definition on a daily basis.

And when it comes to torture, neither should we. Torture is torture, even if it's effective, and we should not do it.
You miss my point. We don't want to "torture," whatever that is (you act like it's clear, but no expert on the subject would agree with you). And we want to be careful not to torture, so we'll probably prophylactically decide to refrain from techniques that are close to torture.

Exactly how big should this prophylactic band be? As I pointed out, even threatening to prosecute someone is torture under the definition. So how far do we go to make sure we don't even get close to stuff like that? This is where the battle is: figuring out what precisely is and isn't torture, and even more importantly what valuable tools we'll give up because they are uncomfortably close to torture. Don't pretend this is a simple issue that can be solved with some kindergarten sing-a-long.

I find it interesting that Cheney is all about releasing these classified memos and showing how these interrogation methods work, but where was he five years ago when he could've said, 'you know, these are classified techniques that are necessary and vital, but these soldiers accused in Abu Ghraib didn't design them?' Why didn't he own up and defend them instead of throwing them under the bus? Why not defend active, serving Americans?
Honestly? Did you not read my discussion of Abu Ghraib, or have you just decided it was too stupid even to acknowledge?

[Ink Asylum]

You miss my point. We don't want to "torture," whatever that is (you act like it's clear, but no expert on the subject would agree with you). And we want to be careful not to torture, so we'll probably prophylactically decide to refrain from techniques that are close to torture.

Exactly how big should this prophylactic band be? As I pointed out, even threatening to prosecute someone is torture under the definition. So how far do we go to make sure we don't even get close to stuff like that? This is where the battle is: figuring out what precisely is and isn't torture, and even more importantly what valuable tools we'll give up because they are uncomfortably close to torture. Don't pretend this is a simple issue that can be solved with some kindergarten sing-a-long.

Then the discussion should be about that, and not about whether said technique is effective or not. Don't say things like this:

Consequently, they will not use a balancing test weighing the potential harm to a detainee against the value of the information that may be extracted.

The test to determine if something is torture should not depend on whether or not it works, merely what the physical and mental effects are on the subject.

Once torture is defined, you then eliminate those techniques from your available options and weigh the remaining techniques by their efficiency.

[Ox]

The test to determine if something is torture should not depend on whether or not it works, merely what the physical and mental effects are on the subject.
That's an interesting view. You'll draw a baseline of the level of suffering that's permissible to inflict on others without any regard for the good you're trying to achieve?

Personally, I'd probably be willing to inflict more suffering on someone to stop a terrorist attack than I would be to stop, say, littering. There's an absolute limit to the maximum amount of suffering I'm willing to inflict, but even below that maximum limit, I need to be achieving something pretty valuable to break out the prison rape.

Once torture is defined, you then eliminate those techniques from your available options and weigh the remaining techniques by their efficiency.
"Small crimes deserve death, and I know of no greater punishment for large ones." Pretty draconian attitude you've got there.

[National Kato]

Honestly? Did you not read my discussion of Abu Ghraib, or have you just decided it was too stupid even to acknowledge?

Didn't read it...not sure I even saw it. Sorry, there's a lot of opinion around here and finite time in a day. That's not to say I wouldn't have decided it was too stupid to acknowledge had I read it. ;)

My sentiment comes from the questions asked by former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who would know firsthand about that prison, on Countdown (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/janis-karpinski-dick-cheney-where-were-you) after the memo linking Rumsfeld to the practices authorized at Abu Ghraib were released. You know, the whole 'few bad apples' fiasco.

[Ox]

Not a problem. But I don't understand Karpinski's point. A soldier might not have designed the interrogation procedures, just like a soldier might not have designed the bayonet drill. But if he uses those procedures on unauthorized targets for fun, how it is somehow exculpatory or mitigating for him to point out someone else designed the procedure? He knew perfectly well it wasn't okay for him to abuse these prisoners. What relevance is it that he learned how to abuse people somewhere else?

As a side note, I'm pretty sure Karpinski is wrong about one crucial detail: none of the Abu Ghraib defendants were trained interrogators. The defense theory was merely that they heard about coercive interrogation and thought that meant prisoner abuse was okay. I guess any common thug anywhere in the world could use the exact same excuse, going back to Cain.

[National Kato]

What relevance is it that he learned how to abuse people somewhere else?

I think if he learned how by watching a Powerpoint presentation authorizing it, prior to becoming lead interrogator (Cpt. Wood's Senate testimony), it has plenty of relevance. If you're saying that Cpt. Wood was not a trained interrogator, then perhaps she's perjured herself? I'm not sure I'm one to make that judgment.

[Telefrog]

I think if he learned how by watching a Powerpoint presentation authorizing it, prior to becoming lead interrogator (Cpt. Wood's Senate testimony), it has plenty of relevance. If you're saying that Cpt. Wood was not a trained interrogator, then perhaps she's perjured herself? I'm not sure I'm one to make that judgment.

Jesus! Those bastards.

Powerpoint is torture!

[BlackPete]

I find it interesting that Cheney is all about releasing these classified memos and showing how these interrogation methods work, but where was he five years ago when he could've said, 'you know, these are classified techniques that are necessary and vital, but these soldiers accused in Abu Ghraib didn't design them?' Why didn't he own up and defend them instead of throwing them under the bus? Why not defend active, serving Americans?

My take on Cheney's position is that he was basically saying, "Well if you're going to release THESE memos, then you might as well release ALL the memos... including the ones that said we got good info out of the use of torture."

Yeah, I don't know how well that would've played out. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/23/723439/-FBI-Agent:Abu-Zubaydah-gave-up-KSM-w-o-tortureand-more)

[National Kato]

My take on Cheney's position is that he was basically saying, "Well if you're going to release THESE memos, then you might as well release ALL the memos... including the ones that said we got good info out of the use of torture."

Exactly my take as well. Coming from the man who wanted everything classified while he was in office and nothing released, I find this latest 'tell-all tour' he's doing to be pretty hilarious. And by hilarious I mean reprehensible.

[Generation ABXY]

Meh. He may have wanted it all classified, but that clearly isn't happening now. So, if you are going to release some of it, you might as well give us the whole story.

[BlackPete]

I really wonder if we'll ever find out what the whole story is. There's still a lot of questions around torturing a guy 183 times in a month, a FBI agent stepping up to say they already got intel before torture was even used, etc.

It's just one giant mess of lies and half truths from so many different people that it'd be a nightmare to figure out what the real truth is.

[Johan]

Meh. He may have wanted it all classified, but that clearly isn't happening now. So, if you are going to release some of it, you might as well give us the whole story.

Yes, but you can give the whole story like Charles Dickens did, in serialized form over a period of time, in your local newspapers, rather than all at once! Right?

[Ink Asylum]

Meh. He may have wanted it all classified, but that clearly isn't happening now. So, if you are going to release some of it, you might as well give us the whole story.

The documents were released because of a FOIA request from the ACLU. (http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=10715) Obama had been stalling since the beginning of his presidency about whether to release the memos (and the Bush Administration had been resisting the request for years). He released only the memos that were the subject of the FOIA request.

[Johan]

He released only the memos that were the subject of the FOIA request.

The problem with this approach is that, without knowing what the memos say, you don't know which ones to ask for.

In other words, releasing them all would give a complete picture. Releasing just these few is a bit like looking through a telescope at one page of a Charles Dickens novel and telling everyone else what the plot of the story is all about. It's a bit unrealistic.

[Generation ABXY]

Yeah, I think it needs a little context.

[Ink Asylum]

Yeah, I think it needs a little context.

If Cheney wants that context, he can file an FOIA request himself. Obama is not obligated to release memos he might feel contain information which should remain classified just to give "context."

So far no one is on trial, except in the court of public opinion. If it comes to that then I'm sure other memos will have to be considered as evidence. Until then, Obama can say that national security trumps Cheney's public image.

[National Kato]

The problem with this approach is that, without knowing what the memos say, you don't know which ones to ask for.


I'm pretty sure they go over everything, redact a ton of it, and then release what they can. It's not like they throw darts at a board or something. As far as the ACLU requesting it, they probably asked for them all.

[Ox]

He released only the memos that were the subject of the FOIA request.
Don't those memos also have sections that discuss the results of the interrogation? And aren't those sections redacted?

Did the FOIA request demand that the results section be redacted?

Until then, Obama can say that national security trumps Cheney's public image.
Fair enough. Are we going to form the same opinion of Obama that we did of Cheney? Or would that also endanger national security?

[Ink Asylum]

Don't those memos also have sections that discuss the results of the interrogation? And aren't those sections redacted?

Did the FOIA request demand that the results section be redacted?

I haven't heard anything like that. You can read the memos here if you'd like to see for yourself. (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html)

[Generation ABXY]

If Cheney wants that context, he can file an FOIA request himself. Obama is not obligated to release memos he might feel contain information which should remain classified just to give "context."

So far no one is on trial, except in the court of public opinion. If it comes to that then I'm sure other memos will have to be considered as evidence. Until then, Obama can say that national security trumps Cheney's public image.

Ah, so rank hypocrisy is the policy du jour? Gotcha.

[Ox]

Thanks, Ink. It appears I was misremembering: although the effectiveness memo has not been released, it was a separate document that was repeatedly referenced by the memos that were released.

I want to get back to what is permitted, since I literally have never been able to get a straight answer from anyone who opposes the old policies. You'd think people would be eager to talk about how things ought to be done. Let's take a few examples, shall we? We'll assume arguendo that the statements of medical risk in the memos are accurate, while acknowledging we'll want to get a second opinion on that.

5. Facial hold. This technique is used to hold the head immobile during interrogation. One open palm is placed on either side of the individual's face. The fingertips are kept well away from the individual's eyes.
Torture or not torture?

6. Facial slap or insult slap. With this technique, the interrogator slaps the individual's face with fingers slightly spread. The hand makes contact with the area directly between the tip of the individual's chin and the bottom of the corresponding earlobe. The interrogator thus "invades" the individual's "personal space." We understand that the goal of the facial slap is not to inflict physical pain that is severe or lasting. Instead, the purpose of the facial slap is to induce shock, surprise, or humiliation. medical and psychological personnel are physically present or otherwise observing whenver this technique is applied.
Torture or not torture?

[Flicking.] Flicking of water is achieved by the interrogator wetting his fingers and then flicking them at the detainee, propelling droplets at the detainee. Flicking of water is done "in an effort to create a distracting effect, to awaken, to startle, to irritate, to instill humiliation, or to cause temporary insult. The water used in the "flicking"... must be potable and [lukewarm]. Although water may be flocked into the detainee's face with this variation, the flicking of water at all times is done in such a manner as to avoid the inhalation or ingestion of water by the detainee.
Torture or not torture?

Nudity. This technique is used to cause psychological discomfort, particularly if a detainee, for cultural or other reasons, is especially modest. When the technique is employed, clothing can be provided as an instant reward for cooperation. During and between interrogation sessions, a detainee may be kept nude, provided that ambient temperatures and the health of the detainee permit. For this technique to be employed, ambient temperatures must be at least 68F. No sexual abuse or threats of sexual abuse are permitted. Although each detention cell has full-time closed-circuit video monitoring, the detainee is not intentionally exposed to other detainees or unduly exposed to the detention facility staff. We understand that interrogators "are trained to avoid sexual innuendo or any acts of implict or explicit sexual degradation." Nevertheless, interrogators can exploit the detainee's fear of being seen naked. In addition, female officers involved in the interrogation process may see the detainees naked, and for the purposes of our analysis, we will assume that detainees subjected to nudity as an interrogation technique are aware that they may be seen naked by females.
Torture or not torture? Are you beginning to see why this is not a question that a six-year-old could answer?

[Ox]

I think if he learned how by watching a Powerpoint presentation authorizing it, prior to becoming lead interrogator (Cpt. Wood's Senate testimony), it has plenty of relevance.
Relevant to what? Which element of the crime does it disprove?

[BlackPete]

Torture or not torture?

Torture or not torture?

Torture or not torture?

Torture or not torture? Are you beginning to see why this is not a question that a six-year-old could answer?

For each "Torture or not torture", I'd simply compare it to cops. Are the cops allowed to do it? If not, then don't allow the feds to do it either.

If the treatments were equalized across all law enforcement agencies for all types of suspects, then I suspect people will be much quicker to draw the line towards the softer side.

[Johan]

Ah, so rank hypocrisy is the policy du jour? Gotcha.

Drudge's headline right now:

Pelolsi didn't know about waterboarding. (http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_I_didnt_know_about_waterboarding.html)

Aaaaaah...shit; she did. (http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_briefed_on_waterboarding_in_02_.html)

How rank is that? Pretty rank... :(

[BlackPete]

Drudge's headline right now:

Pelolsi didn't know about waterboarding. (http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_I_didnt_know_about_waterboarding.html)

Aaaaaah...shit; she did. (http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_briefed_on_waterboarding_in_02_.html)

How rank is that? Pretty rank... :(

When Pelosi refused to touch anyone, that was when it should've been obvious that she was in deep herself.

[BlackPete]

Just to stir the pot a little hotter: US soldier commits suicide after refusing torture duty. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/us-soldier-killed-herself_b_190517.html)

It's hard to pick a specific quote from the article as it's pretty badly written, so here are the highlights:

- Alyssa Peterson was one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq... Peterson, 27, was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq.

- "Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."

- The official probe of her death would later note that earlier she had been "reprimanded" for showing "empathy" for the prisoners. One of the most moving parts of the report, in fact, is this: "She said that she did not know how to be two people; she ... could not be one person in the cage and another outside the wire."

- She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

[Johan]

Just to stir the pot a little hotter: US soldier commits suicide after refusing torture duty. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/us-soldier-killed-herself_b_190517.html)

Alternatively, it's entirely possible that a preexisting emotional/mental/behavioral imbalance made it impossible for her to do her job, distasteful as the job may be to many, and led to her suicide.

:shrugs:

We don't really know.

[Ox]

For each "Torture or not torture", I'd simply compare it to cops. Are the cops allowed to do it? If not, then don't allow the feds to do it either.
So that means we have to read Miranda rights to detainees in Afghanistan. Also, this is in stark contrast to the US's reservation on the Torture Convention.

EDIT: It also means we're going to call stuff like a search that's not supported by probable cause "torture." Are you worried you're diluting the phrase? Because while I support the Fourth Amendment, I don't necessarily think a frisk is just as bad as thumbscrews.

[BlackPete]

So that means we have to read Miranda rights to detainees in Afghanistan. Also, this is in stark contrast to the US's reservation on the Torture Convention.

EDIT: It also means we're going to call stuff like a search that's not supported by probable cause "torture." Are you worried you're diluting the phrase? Because while I support the Fourth Amendment, I don't necessarily think a frisk is just as bad as thumbscrews.

Hey, all I'm saying is level the playing board across all law enforcement agencies (and yes, I include the military in that). If you want to be able to torture suspects, then fine, let the cops do that as well.

Which way you want to go (take away interrogation methods from the military or add methods to cops) is up to you to decide. Otherwise it's hypocritical to say that it's fine for certain people to be interrogated in a certain way, while it's not OK for others because they're in a different category.

Evil people have rights. Torture them all equally, I say!

[Ink Asylum]

Ah, so rank hypocrisy is the policy du jour? Gotcha.

Obama respected a FOIA request that Bush and Cheney resisted for years. Where's the hypocrisy?

[Crowe]

Hey, all I'm saying is level the playing board across all law enforcement agencies (and yes, I include the military in that). If you want to be able to torture suspects, then fine, let the cops do that as well.

Which way you want to go (take away interrogation methods from the military or add methods to cops) is up to you to decide. Otherwise it's hypocritical to say that it's fine for certain people to be interrogated in a certain way, while it's not OK for others because they're in a different category.

Evil people have rights. Torture them all equally, I say!

As in relation to Terrorist or just in general. Are we talking about Police being able to Torture any law breaker? Or just those suspected of Terrorism.

[Ink Asylum]

When it comes to torture/not torture question, I'll again yield to international medical and psychological professionals over my own judgment or the judgment of government lawyers.

In addition, when people want to downplay interrogation techniques or torture, the easiest way to do that is to act like a seemingly mild technique (say, sleep deprivation) is the only one applied at any moment, and applied in a way that would seem fairly harmless to most people. "Gee, I've gone without sleep for a night or two, it's not that big a deal! It's like hazing!" When the reality is that multiple techniques are applied at once, for hours at a time, or again and again over days and weeks with little if any time for a detainee's body and mind to heal.

If a country wants to ramp up their interrogation techniques but really wants to avoid violating the international treaty they've signed on to, they should bring in experts from that international organization to review techniques before they're implemented and as they're applied. Instead, the Bush administration tried to decide for themselves what torture was then tried to hide what they had done. By the time an organization like the Red Cross got in to see detainees things had gone way too far. That could have been avoided if the Bush administration had been more open from the beginning.

[BlackPete]

As in relation to Terrorist or just in general. Are we talking about Police being able to Torture any law breaker? Or just those suspected of Terrorism.

Any suspect. Why draw the line between terrorism and serial killing? Or, hell, even domestic vs. international terrorists -- I didn't see the Unabomber and McVeigh getting waterboarded.

[Esquilax1138]

Everyone should be tortured at least twice a year, just in case they know something. It's the only way to be sure we are getting all the info they need to keep the country safe.

[Johan]

That could have been avoided if the Bush administration had been more open from the beginning.

A mistake the Obama administration will definitely NOT repeat. Right?

Doubtful.

Where's the hypocrisy?

*cough* (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/06/obama/)

In other words, beyond even the outrageously broad "state secrets" privilege invented by the Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama administration, the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them unless they "willfully disclose" to the public what they have learned.

That's "change" alright. It certainly is.

Bush basically conducted a governmental "land grab" for increased power for the executive branch, but let's not kid ourselves about Obama. He's actually stepped that UP a notch in several respects.

* Arguing the government is free to conduct even illegal communications intercepts.
* Attempting an end-run to nationalize banks by swapping preferred (non-voting) shares in TARP-receiving banks and companies for voting shares, and thereby gaining control/ownership of said companies.
* Wanting to cut tax deductions for private charitable giving, while increasing government-run volunteer programs, thus increasing government involvement in social programs while diminishing private ones.

There's more, but it's late. He's not giving up power. He's gathering more. Also, Guantanamo, from what little leaks out from there, has apparently gotten worse since Obama took office.

[Ox]

Which way you want to go (take away interrogation methods from the military or add methods to cops) is up to you to decide. Otherwise it's hypocritical to say that it's fine for certain people to be interrogated in a certain way, while it's not OK for others because they're in a different category.
How on Earth is that hypocritical? I think it's acceptable to use Hellfire missiles on terrorists. I don't think it's acceptable to use Hellfire missiles on jaywalkers. I wouldn't call that hypocritical; I'd call that "exhibiting the most basic critical faculties."

I mean, tell me if you think I'm crazy. Do you think the Hellfire missile protocol should be the same for terrorists and jaywalkers? Do you think it's really hypocritical to draw a distinction there?

When it comes to torture/not torture question, I'll again yield to international medical and psychological professionals over my own judgment or the judgment of government lawyers.
Why? Let's take the face hold: placing your palms on another person's cheeks to immobilize his head. Are you afraid this could cause some horrific injury? Let's say some doctor said, "Yes, the face hold is the primary cause of cheek cancer." Cheek cancer is bad, so this technique has risks.

Unfortunately, however, I don't believe there's any medically valid test to see if something is moral or not. That judgment cannot be made scientifically. No psychologist or doctor can tell you what is and is not just. Do not abdicate your moral sense out of a fear of getting it wrong; that is the only sure way to damn yourself.

[BlackPete]

How on Earth is that hypocritical? I think it's acceptable to use Hellfire missiles on terrorists. I don't think it's acceptable to use Hellfire missiles on jaywalkers. I wouldn't call that hypocritical; I'd call that "exhibiting the most basic critical faculties."

I mean, tell me if you think I'm crazy. Do you think the Hellfire missile protocol should be the same for terrorists and jaywalkers? Do you think it's really hypocritical to draw a distinction there?

You're using a completely different context for Hellfire missiles. You wouldn't shoot Hellfire missiles at Gitmo, now would you?

Well, I guess certain people would like to, though, if that's what you were referring to?

Remember the theme is "torture".

[TheFlyingOrc]

Hey, all I'm saying is level the playing board across all law enforcement agencies (and yes, I include the military in that). If you want to be able to torture suspects, then fine, let the cops do that as well.

Which way you want to go (take away interrogation methods from the military or add methods to cops) is up to you to decide. Otherwise it's hypocritical to say that it's fine for certain people to be interrogated in a certain way, while it's not OK for others because they're in a different category.

Evil people have rights. Torture them all equally, I say!

We are allowed to shoot them in the face. Clearly the rules are a little bit different in military operations? Stop trying to find simple answers to complex questions.

[Ink Asylum]

Unfortunately, however, I don't believe there's any medically valid test to see if something is moral or not. That judgment cannot be made scientifically. No psychologist or doctor can tell you what is and is not just. Do not abdicate your moral sense out of a fear of getting it wrong; that is the only sure way to damn yourself.

My personal definition of "torture" is relatively meaningless to the discussion as its influence on the international community's definition, the one which will determine the legality of the Bush Administrations decisions, is insignificant.

I don't need to approve or disapprove of any specific interrogation techniques to argue that we follow the UN treaty we signed. If there is evidence of possible torture we are legally obligated to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

The efficiency of questionable techniques? Not important in that discussion. Personal opinions on the morality of questionable techniques? Not important in that discussion.

[TheFlyingOrc]

My personal definition of "torture" is relatively meaningless to the discussion as its influence on the international community's definition, the one which will determine the legality of the Bush Administrations decisions, is insignificant.

If we're going to open up the possibility that some random board decides that anything other than giving the enemy cupcakes is torture, we should probably withdraw from the treaty.

[BlackPete]

We are allowed to shoot them in the face. Clearly the rules are a little bit different in military operations? Stop trying to find simple answers to complex questions.

You're allowed to shoot POWs in the face? I doubt it.

[Johan]

Speaking of torture, I'm considering filing a grievance with the U.N.. ;)

Carry on! :)

[Ink Asylum]

Speaking of torture, all the right wing gas bags defending torture that worship at his commie-fighting altar might want to ask themselves, "What would Reagan do?" (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2137_v88/ai_6742034/)

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

From Reagan's signing statement for the UN Convention Against Torture.

[BlackPete]

So anyway, just to be clear -- I was not seriously advocating that cops be allowed to waterboard confessions out of suspects, even though this is what's happening in POW camps.

Basically it irritates the hell out of me that people who support the use of torture against suspected terrorists would suddenly turn squeamish at the thought of the same being used against Americans. When the Japanese were executed for waterboarding US citizens, it boggles me that Americans are now doing the same to others and claiming that it is not "torture" with a straight face.

The bottom line is: If there's a problem with cops being allowed to use these methods on american citizens, then there's a problem with using these methods, period.

[Ox]

You're using a completely different context for Hellfire missiles. You wouldn't shoot Hellfire missiles at Gitmo, now would you?
Dunno. Would I be hypocritical not to?

Remember the theme is "torture".
Sure. But bear in mind that what cops are permitted to do varies widely depending on what sort of crime they're investigating. If I run up to an officer and say, "Officer, officer, I just saw BlackPete steal a book!", he can't arrest you. If I say, "Officer, officer, I just saw BlackPete kill somebody!", he can.

My personal definition of "torture" is relatively meaningless to the discussion as its influence on the international community's definition, the one which will determine the legality of the Bush Administrations decisions, is insignificant.
"Ox, you've asked me a question. I don't want to answer your question. So I'm going to pretend your question is off-topic."

Look, if you just don't want to expose yourself to ridicule by offering an honest answer, fine. But don't pretend it's an uninteresting question. I'm interested in your answer.

[Generation ABXY]

When the Japanese were executed for waterboarding US citizens...

I don't believe I've weighed in on whether or not waterboarding is torture, but I have to say, I think that is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. If we're thinking of the same thing, there was a lot more to the charges than just waterboarding, and even then there is some discussion over whether or not the differences between our two methods is deserving of some greater distinction.

[Johan]

Bataan.
Nanking.
Unit 731.

I'll just stop there. :(

[Generation ABXY]

I was thinking more Yukio Asano, Johan. In cases like that, they found that the Japanese soldiers had used waterboarding (among other things, as I mentioned), but with, I think, a very important difference.

From wikipedia:
In this version, 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.

[Ink Asylum]

"Ox, you've asked me a question. I don't want to answer your question. So I'm going to pretend your question is off-topic."

Look, if you just don't want to expose yourself to ridicule by offering an honest answer, fine. But don't pretend it's an uninteresting question. I'm interested in your answer.

No offense, Ox, but out of everyone who posts in these forums you seem to maintain the most personal detachment from the arguments you advance, and that's respectable. That's not surprising given your profession, but it means you're generally on the offense and putting other people's personal beliefs and opinions on the stand. You don't always do that, and you do open up sometimes, but it's generally your role in the political forums. I respect that, because everyone should be challenged, instead of taking things for granted.

That being said, my desire not to get into personal judgments on individual interrogation techniques does not mean I fear ridicule, and I would thank you not to assume that. I expressed that I do not have the knowledge or expertise with interrogation methods and their effects to make those determinations, so I leave them in the hands of those that do. If I were to spout off about something I had no training or experience with I'm sure you would be one of the first to call me on it, yet here I show humility on a subject and you call it cowardice. I don't appreciate the catch-22.

[Johan]

...because everyone should be challenged, instead of taking things for granted.

I like to take things for granted.

Please don't challenge that. ;)

Actually, it sounds a little to me like you simply trust one set of authorities or institutions over another set of authorities or institutions regarding this issue. That's not necessarily right or wrong; just an observation.

[Ox]

That's not surprising given your profession
I understand and agree with your point, and I'm not in the slightest offended. However, there seems to be a general assumption that this is somehow connected to my profession. I understand why people assume that, but it's actually completely wrong. I was like this way before I ever considered my profession, and I'm actually rather wedded to the arguments I make professionally.

Basically: at work, I make arguments I believe in passionately. Here, I'm goofing off. It's totally unrelated to the topic at hand, but I thought this was as good a time as any to clear up that little misconception.

That being said, my desire not to get into personal judgments on individual interrogation techniques does not mean I fear ridicule, and I would thank you not to assume that.
Okay, sorry.
I expressed that I do not have the knowledge or expertise with interrogation methods and their effects to make those determinations, so I leave them in the hands of those that do. If I were to spout off about something I had no training or experience with I'm sure you would be one of the first to call me on it, yet here I show humility on a subject and you call it cowardice. I don't appreciate the catch-22.
I want to be clear I've been very careful not to describe your behavior as cowardly.

I guess my problem with this answer is that it's not consistent. You have absolutely zero reluctance in calling waterboarding torture. Are you an expert on waterboarding? I think your knowledge of it comes entirely from reading news articles about it. You deem yourself competent to describe waterboarding as torture based solely on that information. If I were to present a group of doctors or psychologists who disagreed with you and thought waterboarding was not torture, you would reject them out of hand.

All of which is fine and understandable, and I'd do the same thing. But I don't understand why your competence is so circumscribed.

If the advice of doctors and psychologists were relevant to the determination, you'd have a lot more sympathy for George W. Bush: all the evidence seems to indicate everyone he spoke to assured him this wasn't torture. If determining what is and is not torture requires specialized knowledge, how can we blame the President for trusting the experts?

[Ink Asylum]

Basically: at work, I make arguments I believe in passionately. Here, I'm goofing off. It's totally unrelated to the topic at hand, but I thought this was as good a time as any to clear up that little misconception.

Okay, sorry.

Thank you. And thanks for clarifying certain things. I don't think you're behavior is just because you're a lawyer. Obviously, you're a lawyer largely because of how you are naturally. But if you had never told anyone you were a lawyer it wouldn't have been hard to guess that you at least had taken college courses in law.

I guess my problem with this answer is that it's not consistent. You have absolutely zero reluctance in calling waterboarding torture. Are you an expert on waterboarding? I think your knowledge of it comes entirely from reading news articles about it. You deem yourself competent to describe waterboarding as torture based solely on that information. If I were to present a group of doctors or psychologists who disagreed with you and thought waterboarding was not torture, you would reject them out of hand.

I'm comfortable calling waterboarding torture not because of my personal feelings on it, but because it has a long history of being recognized as torture by most nations, including the US. The organizations and professionals that define waterboarding as torture greatly outnumber and, in my opinion, far outweigh those that believe it isn't. I'm sure you could produce a number of doctors who don't believe waterboarding is torture, but I would weigh them against the overwhelming international majority that believes it is torture.

Even many people who are defending the Bush Administration's actions believe that waterboarding is torture, but that it's ok as long as it's effective.

As I said before, without personal experience and knowledge of waterboarding I yield to the professionals, and at the moment they define it as torture in large majorities.

[Ox]

As I said before, without personal experience and knowledge of waterboarding I yield to the professionals, and at the moment they define it as torture in large majorities.
Okay. Professional whats? What technical expertise do you need to evaluate this? A doctor is competent to evaluate physical injury, a psychologist long-term mental harm. A lawyer can evaluate whether a procedure violates treaties, and a priest can determine whether it violates God's will. Do we need to assemble a panel of all these professions or more to come up with the answer?

After all, it's worth pointing out that this consensus on waterboarding is coincident with the fact that it's associated with George W. Bush, and anything associated with George W. Bush is now extremely unpopular, especially among "international professionals." Very few of these people really gave much thought to waterboarding prior to 2002, which is understandable but suggests it might have colored their perceptions. And Bush's unpopularity, I'm sure you'll agree, stems from a lot more than the perception that he tortured people.

[Ink Asylum]

Okay. Professional whats? What technical expertise do you need to evaluate this? A doctor is competent to evaluate physical injury, a psychologist long-term mental harm. A lawyer can evaluate whether a procedure violates treaties, and a priest can determine whether it violates God's will. Do we need to assemble a panel of all these professions or more to come up with the answer?

I've noted before organizations like the Red Cross, which includes a wide variety of professionals, and other similar institutions that specialize in human rights and have international respect. Add in the US lawyers in previous administrations that prosecuted soldiers from previous wars for waterboarding, and plenty of political leaders from all over the world.

After all, it's worth pointing out that this consensus on waterboarding is coincident with the fact that it's associated with George W. Bush, and anything associated with George W. Bush is now extremely unpopular, especially among "international professionals." Very few of these people really gave much thought to waterboarding prior to 2002, which is understandable but suggests it might have colored their perceptions. And Bush's unpopularity, I'm sure you'll agree, stems from a lot more than the perception that he tortured people.

Waterboarding was not invented nor popularized by George W. Bush. As pointed out before, the US itself has condemned and prosecuted the use of waterboarding long before Bush became president. Waterboarding was not seen as something less than torture until Bush came along and gave it a bad name.

[Ox]

I've noted before organizations like the Red Cross, which includes a wide variety of professionals, and other similar institutions that specialize in human rights and have international respect. Add in the US lawyers in previous administrations that prosecuted soldiers from previous wars for waterboarding, and plenty of political leaders from all over the world.
No, those are people you respect and trust. But I don't respect or trust them. So explain to me why I ought to respect and trust them.

After all, you're claiming that they have some sort of expertise you and I lack. It should be easy to point out exactly what kind of training or other knowledge they have and explain why it's relevant. The mere fact that they happen to be foreigners is not, I assume, their primary qualification.

Ultimately, I consider myself an expert on this stuff. Explain to me why I'm wrong.

Waterboarding was not invented nor popularized by George W. Bush. As pointed out before, the US itself has condemned and prosecuted the use of waterboarding long before Bush became president.
The US itself prosecuted a single person for an assortment of offenses. One of them was a form of interrogation that goes by the name "waterboarding," although it was substantially different: water was poured directly into the upturned mouth and nose of the detainee, creating a substantial risk of drowning or related physical injury. The US program covered the mouth and nose with a cloth or cellophane to prevent this, and they were carefully monitored by doctors to ensure physical injury did not occur. So, no, we haven't previously condemned and prosecuting this form of interrogation.

[Ink Asylum]

The US itself prosecuted a single person for an assortment of offenses.

The US alone prosecuted one WWII Japanese soldier (Yukio Asano), but the US, in particular General MacArthur, set up the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Trials) consisting of international judges hand picked by MacArthur, which prosecuted more Japanese individuals for waterboarding. The Chief Prosecutor was from the US and appointed by Truman.

McCain mentioned these trials during a campaign stop in 2007. (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/)

McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as "water cure," "water torture" and "waterboarding," according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning.

R. John Pritchard, a historian and lawyer who is a top scholar on the trials, said the Japanese felt the ends justified the means. "The rapid and effective collection of intelligence then, as now, was seen as vital to a successful struggle, and in addition, those who were engaged in torture often felt that whatever pain and anguish was suffered by the victims of torture was nothing less than the just deserts of the victims or people close to them," he said.

In a recent journal essay, Judge Evan Wallach, a member of the U.S. Court of International Trade and an adjunct professor in the law of war, writes that the testimony from American soldiers about this form of torture was gruesome and convincing. A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps.

So, not only were a "number" of soldiers put to death for torture, and their defense of the method sounds disturbingly similar to those used by people defending it today.

One of them was a form of interrogation that goes by the name "waterboarding," although it was substantially different: water was poured directly into the upturned mouth and nose of the detainee, creating a substantial risk of drowning or related physical injury. The US program covered the mouth and nose with a cloth or cellophane to prevent this, and they were carefully monitored by doctors to ensure physical injury did not occur. So, no, we haven't previously condemned and prosecuting this form of interrogation.

This is incorrect on two counts. The first is that the Japanese soldiers engaged solely in a clothless form of waterboarding. While some did not use a cloth, others did. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834)

The most detailed descriptions come from eyewitness accounts and court records from wars past. The following is a transcript of the 1947 court proceedings in the trial of a World War II Japanese war criminal: Chinsaku Yuki. He was accused of the torture and murder of Philippine civilians, and ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison. This exchange is between the American prosecutor, Col. Keeley, and Filipino lawyer Ramon Navarro, who was subjected to waterboarding.

You mean he brought water and poured water down your throat?

No sir, on my face, until I became unconscious. We were lying that way, with some cloth on my face, and then Yuki poured water on my face continuously.

Then there's your argument that using a cloth makes waterboarding less torturous. That is also incorrect, and was mentioned by the Bush Administration official Stephen J. Bradbury in one of the released OLC torture memos. (http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/olc/techniques.pdf#page=13)

The wet cloth creates a barrier through which it is difficult - or in some cases not possible - to breathe. … Either in the normal application, or where countermeasures are used, we understand that water may enter — and may accumulate in — the detainee’s mouth and nasal cavity, preventing him from breathing. In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities.

The cloth is there to make breathing harder, not easier.

Then there's the Vietnam War, when US generals declared waterboarding illegal and courtmartialed a soldier who used the technique. ("http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834)

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.

So yes, we have previously condemned and prosecuted this form of interrogation.

[rifter]

Interesting... the 168 waterboardings become 10... or less (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/28/despite-reports-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-waterboarded-times/).

I find it interesting that the CIA has documented the procedure so thoroughly. I think everyone knows they were walking a line, and the differences between the past, and present are that in the present they had it down much more to a science on how to use the technique so that it did the least harm, while giving the same full impact of being scared.

[Ink Asylum]

So we tortured less often than we thought we did. We still tortured. Go us.

[Ox]

The US alone prosecuted one WWII Japanese soldier (Yukio Asano), but the US, in particular General MacArthur, set up the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Trials) consisting of international judges hand picked by MacArthur, which prosecuted more Japanese individuals for waterboarding... So, not only were a "number" of soldiers put to death for torture, and their defense of the method sounds disturbingly similar to those used by people defending it today.
Whoa, hold on. Those Japanese were prosecuted for "ordered, authorised, and permitted inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others," among several other charges. Any form of interrogation, including mere verbal abuse, violates the Geneva Conventions, and any violation of the Geneva Conventions qualifies as "inhumane" treatment. Does that mean any form of interrogation, including mere verbal abuse, is torture?

[rifter]

So we tortured less often than we thought we did. We still tortured. Go us.

See, we get back to the crux of Ox's argument.

I see waterboarding as a forceful, coercive technique, that walks a fine line on the not-torture side of things. An action, when applied poorly, could easily cross the line. But, because of the scrutiny on the action, and because of the meticulous care used by those applying it, it does not fall under torture. We didn't torture less than we thought we did. We used coercive techniques less, as well as used them VERY early on... when his information would be useful. Hell, it has already been said that his interrogation was used to help stop another attack on the West Coast.

[Ink Asylum]

I see waterboarding as a forceful, coercive technique, that walks a fine line on the not-torture side of things. An action, when applied poorly, could easily cross the line. But, because of the scrutiny on the action, and because of the meticulous care used by those applying it, it does not fall under torture. We didn't torture less than we thought we did. We used coercive techniques less, as well as used them VERY early on... when his information would be useful.

And, as I've pointed out, waterboarding has been prosecuted as torture by the US and the international community. Being careful does not make it suddenly not torture. Pain and suffering can be torture even if there is no permanent physical damage or threat of death. From the UN Convention Against Torture: (http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html)

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

That is the definition the US agreed to. There is nothing in there about the pain and suffering having the chance to cause injury or death. Your personal definition of torture, my personal definition of torture, don't matter when it comes to the legality of the Bush Administration's actions.

Hell, it has already been said that his interrogation was used to help stop another attack on the West Coast.

Incorrect. We stopped that attack before we tortured KSM. (http://www.slate.com/id/2216601/)

In a White House press briefing, Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward" [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, "In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast." These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.

How could Sheikh Mohammed's water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration "broke up" that attack during the previous year? It couldn't, of course. Conceivably the Bush administration, or at least parts of the Bush administration, didn't realize until Sheikh Mohammed confessed under torture that it had already broken up a plot to blow up the Library Tower about which it knew nothing. Stranger things have happened. But the plot was already a dead letter. If foiling the Library Tower plot was the reason to water-board Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, then that water-boarding was more than cruel and unjust. It was a waste of water.

[Ox]

See, we get back to the crux of Ox's argument.
Actually, that's not what I'm arguing at all. I'm happy to say that waterboarding is really torture. But I don't think, especially in 2002, "torture" was a well-defined concept. Even today, there it little consensus on where the line between torture and non-torture is.

This is a big deal: criminal laws have to be sufficiently clear that a reasonable person would know whether his contemplated conduct would be illegal. Ink, like every other anti-torture person I've ever encountered, refuses to lay out the criteria that raises ordinary police brutality to the level of torture. He claims that "experts" can identify this, but I can't even tell which kinds of experts he wants to consult. Moreover, if one cannot be expected to identify for oneself whether conduct is illegal, but must instead rely upon the assurances of an expert, then generally you are at least partially excused: you are required to consult with an expert, but if your expert advises you poorly, you are not expected to know enough to second-guess him.

But let's leave aside all that. By all means, execute everyone who was even remotely involved in the Bush Administration. We're still going to have to figure out some policy for detainees looking forward. If we ask the Red Cross, their answer is going to be: "Use the POW rules." And the POW rules prohibit us from asking questions nicely over tea and crumpets. Calling someone a jerk is prohibited by the POW rules. Maybe someone out there really thinks that's the proper rule. But if we start defining calling someone a jerk as "torture," then suddenly I really don't think torture is so bad. And that is a very dangerous result.

[Ox]

That is the definition the US agreed to.
No, it's not. We didn't agree to that definition. We agreed to that definition with the following clarification (http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/usdocs/tortres.html):
That with reference to Article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.
This is why the OLC memos put so much emphasis on the risk of death: because that's actually part of the treaty we signed.

[Ink Asylum]

This is why the OLC memos put so much emphasis on the risk of death: because that's actually part of the treaty we signed.

I see 1, 2, 3, OR 4. 1 is severe pain and suffering alone. So even if we avoided doing 4 waterboarding can still be 1 without threat of death.

[Ox]

I see 1, 2, 3, OR 4. 1 is severe pain and suffering alone. So even if we avoided doing 4 waterboarding can still be 1 without threat of death.
"Severe physical pain or suffering." Does waterboarding cause physical pain or suffering? I thought the whole point of the procedure was to induce the panic of imminent drowning without actually filling your lungs with water. This is why medical professionals monitored the procedures and ensured that no serious physical pain or injury would result.

Waterboarding, at least as the OLC memo-writers were told, has a low probability of inflicting physical damage and is almost entirely mental. So I don't think you can use 1.

[Ink Asylum]

"Severe physical pain or suffering." Does waterboarding cause physical pain or suffering? I thought the whole point of the procedure was to induce the panic of imminent drowning without actually filling your lungs with water. This is why medical professionals monitored the procedures and ensured that no serious physical pain or injury would result.

Waterboarding, at least as the OLC memo-writers were told, has a low probability of inflicting physical damage and is almost entirely mental. So I don't think you can use 1.

Again, a direct quote from an OLC memo:

The wet cloth creates a barrier through which it is difficult - or in some cases not possible - to breathe. … Either in the normal application, or where countermeasures are used, we understand that water may enter — and may accumulate in — the detainee’s mouth and nasal cavity, preventing him from breathing. In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities.

Breathing becomes difficult or impossible, water enters the mouth and nose, is swallowed in significant quantities and, one would assume, some manages to enter the lungs during attempts to breathe.

Waterboarding, as practiced by the Bush Administration, was not simulated drowning, it was controlled drowning. If it were allowed to continue for enough time, probably only a minute or two, the result would be death by drowning.

Waterboarding is at least physical suffering, and I imagine it is physical pain as well. Drowning isn't pleasant.

[rifter]

Actually, that's not what I'm arguing at all. I'm happy to say that waterboarding is really torture. But I don't think, especially in 2002, "torture" was a well-defined concept. Even today, there it little consensus on where the line between torture and non-torture is.

Sorry, I thought that earlier in the thread, when you were talking about what constitutes torture and WHO gets to define it, was something you were talking about. That is what I was getting at.


But let's leave aside all that. By all means, execute everyone who was even remotely involved in the Bush Administration. We're still going to have to figure out some policy for detainees looking forward. If we ask the Red Cross, their answer is going to be: "Use the POW rules." And the POW rules prohibit us from asking questions nicely over tea and crumpets. Calling someone a jerk is prohibited by the POW rules. Maybe someone out there really thinks that's the proper rule. But if we start defining calling someone a jerk as "torture," then suddenly I really don't think torture is so bad. And that is a very dangerous result.

To me, the level of technique that I think would be reasonable to use, changes on the level of the person it is being used on. Top people, I have far fewer qualms about using much more forceful techniques, as apposed to the guy that was told he will get 72 virgins if he dies while fighting us. The conscript probably doesn't have all that much information, so I don't think pushing them as hard as the ringleaders is right. I believe that these techniques are definitely a science, and you have to use the proper technique at the proper time... else it all devolves down to torture.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Actually, that's not what I'm arguing at all. I'm happy to say that waterboarding is really torture. But I don't think, especially in 2002, "torture" was a well-defined concept. Even today, there it little consensus on where the line between torture and non-torture is.

This is a big deal: criminal laws have to be sufficiently clear that a reasonable person would know whether his contemplated conduct would be illegal. Ink, like every other anti-torture person I've ever encountered, refuses to lay out the criteria that raises ordinary police brutality to the level of torture. He claims that "experts" can identify this, but I can't even tell which kinds of experts he wants to consult. Moreover, if one cannot be expected to identify for oneself whether conduct is illegal, but must instead rely upon the assurances of an expert, then generally you are at least partially excused: you are required to consult with an expert, but if your expert advises you poorly, you are not expected to know enough to second-guess him.

But let's leave aside all that. By all means, execute everyone who was even remotely involved in the Bush Administration. We're still going to have to figure out some policy for detainees looking forward. If we ask the Red Cross, their answer is going to be: "Use the POW rules." And the POW rules prohibit us from asking questions nicely over tea and crumpets. Calling someone a jerk is prohibited by the POW rules. Maybe someone out there really thinks that's the proper rule. But if we start defining calling someone a jerk as "torture," then suddenly I really don't think torture is so bad. And that is a very dangerous result.

I think this thread has made it increasingly clear that certain people are not going to attempt to answer this question, and instead wait for someone else to show up with a worse argument and pounce on that, ignoring this one.

[Ox]

Breathing becomes difficult or impossible, water enters the mouth and nose, is swallowed in significant quantities and, one would assume, some manages to enter the lungs during attempts to breathe.
With the exception of your assumption, all the same things happen if I go swimming.

Waterboarding is at least physical suffering, and I imagine it is physical pain as well. Drowning isn't pleasant.
As the OLC memo notes, medical professionals said that there was no reasonable probability of serious physical pain during the waterboarding. So the experts have spoken.

[Ink Asylum]

With the exception of your assumption, all the same things happen if I go swimming.

And thus we come to the weakest anti-torture argument there is: "I do something that sounds similar of my own volition, therefore it can't be considered torture when forced upon someone else under completely different circumstances."

As the OLC memo notes, medical professionals said that there was no reasonable probability of serious physical pain during the waterboarding. So the experts have spoken.

How about suffering, then?

[Ox]

And thus we come to the weakest anti-torture argument there is: "I do something that sounds similar of my own volition, therefore it can't be considered torture when forced upon someone else under completely different circumstances."
No, Ink. Give me the tiniest fucking modicum of credit, please. When I go swimming, it's not physically painful. Water gets in my nose and mouth, but this doesn't hurt (even if water gets into my sinuses, it just makes me irritated and sneeze violently). I can't breathe, but the lack of ability to breathe isn't painful for at least 90 seconds. I swallow water, which is completely painless.

My point is not that I consent to that stuff, it's that it isn't physically painful. Drowning is unpleasant because it's scary, not because it hurts.

How about suffering, then?
Can you have physical suffering without physical pain?

[Ink Asylum]

My point is not that I consent to that stuff, it's that it isn't physically painful. Drowning is unpleasant because it's scary, not because it hurts.

Drowning is unpleasant because your body reacts as if it were threatened by death, because it is. That's not "scary," that's an uncontrollable physical reaction that causes suffering.

Can you have physical suffering without physical pain?

Yes you can. Why else would they mention both if you can't have suffering without pain? Why not just say "severe pain" and leave it at that? Because you can physically suffer without pain. If simulated drowning isn't physically painful but causes the body to go into convulsions in an attempt to avoid dying, that's suffering, with or without pain.

[Ox]

Drowning is unpleasant because your body reacts as if it were threatened by death, because it is. That's not "scary," that's an uncontrollable physical reaction that causes suffering.
Well, the physical reaction is adrenaline rush and panic. So what you're saying is that anything scary causes physical suffering. Which is at least as reductive as equating suffering with pain.

If simulated drowning isn't physically painful but causes the body to go into convulsions in an attempt to avoid dying, that's suffering, with or without pain.
Okay, so "suffering" can be painless convulsions. Is waterboarding "specifically intended" to cause painless convulsions? Because if painless convulsions are merely an occasional or accidental byproduct of waterboarding, that's not going to meet the definition, either.

[Ravenlock]

But let's leave aside all that. By all means, execute everyone who was even remotely involved in the Bush Administration. We're still going to have to figure out some policy for detainees looking forward. If we ask the Red Cross, their answer is going to be: "Use the POW rules." And the POW rules prohibit us from asking questions nicely over tea and crumpets. Calling someone a jerk is prohibited by the POW rules. Maybe someone out there really thinks that's the proper rule. But if we start defining calling someone a jerk as "torture," then suddenly I really don't think torture is so bad. And that is a very dangerous result.

I sadly haven't been able to come back to this thread (and have PM'd several people and apologized for not being able to properly respond to their arguments due to lack of time to properly think them over and type them up), but I have been reading along and need to say that for my money, this is the best thing Ox has said in the whole thread, and he's said quite a lot of good stuff.

We might not agree on everything, Ox, but I have a ton of respect for the logic you laid out here. I do think waterboarding, as practiced by us according to the documentation I've seen on it, probably qualifies as torture. More pertinently, it's been labeled torture by the international body whose opinion we have agreed to respect in the matter. Ironically, even if it wasn't, to my mind slamming peoples' heads against walls and keeping them in stress positions for days are arguably WORSE, since those things CAN cause physical damage... but waterboarding is all the rage to talk about. Regardless, you're absolutely right that there needs to be a clear definition for what is and isn't "torture", and that the term must be reserved for things severe enough to qualify, lest we diminish the impact of the word.

Of course, this argument goes both ways. Historically, as discussed, waterboarding has been considered, classified as, prosecuted as torture. I will grant you that there may be variations in the technique between then and now, but there has been a concerted effort by right-wing ideologues to ridicule the seriousness of it, and paint it as no more than "putting a wet rag on somebody's head", which is every bit as sinister and dangerous a mischaracterization in my book as labeling namecalling "torture".

A final thought about interrogation methods that do and don't succeed (and so far I still haven't seen anything that convincingly claims waterboarding did succeed, at all), from a 2007 article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html) about the reactions to "harsh interrogation techniques" of WWII veteran interrogators who questioned Nazi POW's.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

...Across the river, President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.

Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

...The veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name, were brought back to Fort Hunt by park rangers who are piecing together a portrait of what happened there during the war.

Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.

"We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.

The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

Say what you will about the battle-hardened nature of our enemy (though honestly, an insurgency that quells when you put money in their hands is not made of "true believers", it's made of people doing what the hand that feeds them says to do), but I personally would very much like to see Mr. Kolm tell Sean Hannity what it was like to face down Hitler's "Deputy Fuhrer" over a chessboard and then ask Sean to repeat just how vitally important it was to waterboard Abu Zubaydah.

[Ox]

Comparing Rudy Hess to Abu Zubaydeh is a little fraught, isn't it? Did Zubaydeh come to America of his own free will to negotiate an armistice and lose his marbles?

Anyway, I'm going to threadjack this sucker entirely and mention something that occurred to me this morning on the subway. The torture debate is the mirror image of the embryonic stem cell debate. Consider:
- One side says it wants to save lives, the other side says we must draw a moral line in the sand.

- One side claims that we cannot live without the technique, while the other side says the efficacy claims are wildly exaggerated, unproven, and can in any event be achieved more effectively with less controversial methods.

- One side accuses the other of sacrificing the victims of misfortune on the altar of an abstract moral principle, while the other side responds that America is better than self-interest and utilitarian calculus.

- In both debates, there is much concern over slippery slopes leading to even more egregious techniques.

- In both debates, we have reached the point where each side has complete contempt for the other and sometimes openly questions the other side's fundamental humanity.

Now, I'm not saying the actual issues are very similar. But the contours of the debates are. Which is funny, since relatively few people are on the same side of both debates.

[Ink Asylum]

You could say the same about a lot of debates. Abortion, the death penalty, many wars, basically anything having where the state actively harms or kills. Hell, you could extend it to non-humans and environmental topics (mountaintop removal, treatment of animals in agribusiness) fall into the same pattern.

[Ox]

That's a good point.

[BlackPete]

CIA provided documentation proving Pelosi was briefed on the use of "enhanced interrogation" (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/cia_says_pelosi_was_briefed_on.html)

Yup... no way for her to wiggle her way out of this one.

[ShivaX]

CIA provided documentation proving Pelosi was briefed on the use of "enhanced interrogation" (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/cia_says_pelosi_was_briefed_on.html)

Yup... no way for her to wiggle her way out of this one.

Lets hope the hippies vote her ass out of there.

Only they wont, cause thats how things seem to work.

[Slack3r78]

- One side says it wants to save lives, the other side says we must draw a moral line in the sand.
Analogy kind of falls apart for me when you consider that embryos are willingly destroyed on a daily basis for reasons entirely unrelated to research, but I am unaware of any mass-waterboardings absent the intent to gather intelligence.

[Johan]

Yup... no way for her to wiggle her way out of this one.

You're an optimist, I see.

I'm not. She'll skate.

but I am unaware of any mass-waterboardings absent the intent to gather intelligence.

College hazing rituals.

[Ink Asylum]

I won't mind seeing her go if this is what does her in. We're never going to get the whole truth if leadership in both parties is working to keep things hidden. Get the truth, all of it, and punish anyone responsible, no matter what party they're in.

Our leaders are not special. When they fail in their duties they can and should be replaced.

[BlackPete]

You're an optimist, I see.

I'm not. She'll skate.

Well... true. For her to get into any trouble, the neocons would have to admit that the use of torture was wrong and/or Obama plus Democrats finally growing a backbone and takes a hard stance against torture (and the use of euphemisms) and force her out. I don't see either cases happening anytime soon.

Still... if the neocons would admit that torture was wrong in exchange for Pelosi getting out of office, I would be satisfied.

[National Kato]

Jesse Venture on Larry King Live (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/28083):

VENTURA: That's right. I was water boarded, so I know -- at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence -- every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.

KING: What was it like?

VENTURA: It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

KING: Even though you know it's not going to happen -- even though before it, you know you're not going to drown.

VENTURA: You don't know it. If it's -- if it's done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. You could do a whole bunch of stuff. If it's it done wrong or -- it's torture, Larry. It's torture.He goes on to talk about his respect for Gen. Powell and his feelings about Bush and Cheney and others who approved this method of interrogation.

[headhunter228]

I'm not sure exactly why the Bush administration used torture to get information out of prisoners. There are numerous ways that someone could get information out of someone else. Drugs, trickery, etc. It has been proven that torture is an inefficient way to get information out of a captive. Any ideas?

[torrefaction]

"Severe physical pain or suffering." Does waterboarding cause physical pain or suffering? I thought the whole point of the procedure was to induce the panic of imminent drowning without actually filling your lungs with water. This is why medical professionals monitored the procedures and ensured that no serious physical pain or injury would result.

Waterboarding, at least as the OLC memo-writers were told, has a low probability of inflicting physical damage and is almost entirely mental. So I don't think you can use 1.

You know, to be fair, "mental pain or suffering".

Wouldn't the thought that you're drowning be a significant amount of mental pain?

[Ink Asylum]

I'm not sure exactly why the Bush administration used torture to get information out of prisoners. There are numerous ways that someone could get information out of someone else. Drugs, trickery, etc. It has been proven that torture is an inefficient way to get information out of a captive. Any ideas?

I won't even begin to try to get into the heads of people like Bush and Cheney. I couldn't fathom what their reasoning was.

[BlackPete]

Jesse Venture on Larry King Live (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/28083):
He goes on to talk about his respect for Gen. Powell and his feelings about Bush and Cheney and others who approved this method of interrogation.

You beat me to it. I thought it was funny because it's true. Hell it wouldn't even take an hour to break Cheney... most waterboard victims crack in minutes, if even that long.

Now, getting Cheney to admit to making a mistake... I can see that taking an hour.

[rifter]

I won't even begin to try to get into the heads of people like Bush and Cheney. I couldn't fathom what their reasoning was.

Quite simply, they were getting information to protect our nation. They believe that morally grey techniques used on very, very evil men, to protect their people, is well worth it.

[Ox]

You know, to be fair, "mental pain or suffering".

Wouldn't the thought that you're drowning be a significant amount of mental pain?
Sure. But re-read the codicil. Mental pain, no matter how severe, doesn't count unless it's the result of one of the specified causes.

[torrefaction]

Sure. But re-read the codicil. Mental pain, no matter how severe, doesn't count unless it's the result of one of the specified causes.

Ah, true. Reading comprehension FTW.

[Slack3r78]

You beat me to it. I thought it was funny because it's true. Hell it wouldn't even take an hour to break Cheney... most waterboard victims crack in minutes, if even that long.

Now, getting Cheney to admit to making a mistake... I can see that taking an hour.
Waterboarding could potentially trigger cardiac arrest in somebody in Cheney's physical condition.

[Ink Asylum]

Hearings on torture are happening today in Congress. Here's a preview of what one of the witnesses, a top FBI interrogator who witnessed CIA enhanced interrogations firsthand will include in his testimony. (http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/top-fbi-agent-will-detail-failures-of-enhanced-interrotation-contradict-claim-that-it-worked/)

Soufan will directly contradict key claims by torture apologists that the techniques elicited high-value information. He will say flat out that the claim that Abu Zubaydah didn’t start giving up info until August 2002, when he was waterboarded, is false. “The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him,” Soufan will say.

Soufan will also contradict claims that waterboarding got Abu Zubaydah to cough up info leading to the capture of so-called “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla. He will point out that waterboarding wasn’t approved until August of 2002, while Padilla was captured in May of 2002.

And Soufan will deny yet another key claim of torture apologists: That torture revealed Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s involvement in 9/11. “That was discovered in April 2002, while waterboarding was not introduced until almost three months later.” Soufan will say.

[Midrael]

I was thinking about this today since it was a slow day at work. I'll start off by saying that I do not support what was done. I call what was done torture, and I can't support it regardless of the intel. I blame Star Trek: The Next Generation for my opinions on the matter. ;)

All that said, I've been hearing a lot of discussion regarding whether the acts performed brought about good intel or not. I'm confused on why it matters? Would it be okay if a military officer was ripping off a prisoner's fingernails as long as he got good information? Would it be alright to deliver electric shocks to a prisoner if it could save thousands of lives? Where's the line drawn?

I've given it some thought as to what I would do in that situation. If I had a prisoner that I knew had intelligence that could save lives, would I cross a moral boundary to get it? Maybe I would depending on the circumstance. I can't imagine that I'd be unwilling to face the consequences for what I did though.

I apologize for the ramble. I'm sure similar and contrary opinions are all through this thread. It was just something that has been stuck in my mind today. Carry on. :)

[ShivaX]

I was thinking about this today since it was a slow day at work. I'll start off by saying that I do not support what was done. I call what was done torture, and I can't support it regardless of the intel. I blame Star Trek: The Next Generation for my opinions on the matter. ;)

All that said, I've been hearing a lot of discussion regarding whether the acts performed brought about good intel or not. I'm confused on why it matters? Would it be okay if a military officer was ripping off a prisoner's fingernails as long as he got good information? Would it be alright to deliver electric shocks to a prisoner if it could save thousands of lives? Where's the line drawn?

I've given it some thought as to what I would do in that situation. If I had a prisoner that I knew had intelligence that could save lives, would I cross a moral boundary to get it? Maybe I would depending on the circumstance. I can't imagine that I'd be unwilling to face the consequences for what I did though.

I apologize for the ramble. I'm sure similar and contrary opinions are all through this thread. It was just something that has been stuck in my mind today. Carry on. :)

Because people like Dick Cheney will say if we got good intel from doing it, that not doing it makes us less safe and anyone who opposes it hates America. Of course if we didn't get anything worthwhile out of it, it makes those same people look even worse, since they're basically supporting torture for the sake of torture and not some twisted rationale of national security.

I'm in the boat that I don't care if we got some good intel, we shouldn't be doing it. Its not who we are, or at least not who we strive to be. We didn't do it to the Nazis or the Japanese or anyone else, even people who had no problem using it against us and did things that most terrorists could only dream of. Its what seperates us from them, in my opinion.

Once we condone torture then why stop there? If we really want to win the "war on terror" unleash full scale war. Fuel air explosives and cluster munitions over areas where they're at, civilians be damned. Carpet bomb villages and cities with fire bombs. Historically all those things have been more forgivable than torture in the eyes of most nations.

[National Kato]

That Soufan testimony is now making the rounds in the news. I can only imagine conservatives and torture apologists getting apoplectic over it.

[ShivaX]

That Soufan testimony is now making the rounds in the news. I can only imagine conservatives and torture apologists getting apoplectic over it.

They'll just say hes a liberal liar who hates America. Actually I'm reasonably sure they were already saying that before he tesified to anything.

[Tel Prydain]

All that said, I've been hearing a lot of discussion regarding whether the acts performed brought about good intel or not. I'm confused on why it matters? Would it be okay if a military officer was ripping off a prisoner's fingernails as long as he got good information? Would it be alright to deliver electric shocks to a prisoner if it could save thousands of lives? Where's the line drawn?

If there was a 98% chance of finding out something that would save a hundred lives, and they knew 100% for sure that the guy is a high-level bad-guy? Shock away.

But things are never that clear cut.

[Ink Asylum]

If you make that decision, though, to do something you know is illegal for the greater good, you should be willing to throw yourself on the mercy of the court and argue that your actions were justified.

[Midrael]

If you make that decision, though, to do something you know is illegal for the greater good, you should be willing to throw yourself on the mercy of the court and argue that your actions were justified.

This is the thought that I was trying to muddle towards. :)

[Ox]

If you make that decision, though, to do something you know is illegal for the greater good, you should be willing to throw yourself on the mercy of the court and argue that your actions were justified.
Those are different things!

What's more, that's exactly what's been happening so far. None of the suspected offenders, to my knowledge, have fled the country or gone into hiding: Bush, Cheney, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, etc. are all living openly in America at this time. So far, the only one making public comments on the issue has been Dick Cheney, who has argued that his actions were justified. He obviously cannot simultaneously beg for mercy for wrongs he claims he did not commit, especially since there seems to be little reason to suspect anyone would listen.

[Midrael]

What's more, that's exactly what's been happening so far. None of the suspected offenders, to my knowledge, have fled the country or gone into hiding: Bush, Cheney, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, etc. are all living openly in America at this time. So far, the only one making public comments on the issue has been Dick Cheney, who has argued that his actions were justified. He obviously cannot simultaneously beg for mercy for wrongs he claims he did not commit, especially since there seems to be little reason to suspect anyone would listen.

Actually, they're submitting to the public that they did nothing wrong and should not be held accountable as I understand it. This would seem to be an attempt to not appear in court. We're talking about actually going to court and appearing before a jury to let them decide.

[Ox]

Actually, they're submitting to the public that they did nothing wrong and should not be held accountable as I understand it. This would seem to be an attempt to not appear in court. We're talking about actually going to court and appearing before a jury to let them decide.
Wait, so Dick Cheney should go to his local prosecutor and say, "Excuse me, sir. Would you mind charging me with a crime I don't believe I committed so I can defend myself before a jury?" What if the prosecutor refuses?

C'mon, that's ridiculous. Society may impose harsh requirements on those who are suspected of criminal wrongdoing, but we've never suggested they instigate criminal proceedings against themselves. Nor have we ever suggested that a suspected criminal must refrain from speaking in his own defense outside of a courtroom. After all, Dick Cheney is an old man who spent many years in the public eye; the short time he would spend in prison or on death row would be insignificant compared to the damage his public reputation has received.

I mean, my God. I know I supposedly view everything through a legal prism, but the notion that a courtroom is the only proper venue to justify yourself strikes even me as too far.

[Slack3r78]

Soufan already made those same claims in an op-ed a week or two ago. The apologists will just continue to ignore him as they've already done.

[rifter]

All that said, I've been hearing a lot of discussion regarding whether the acts performed brought about good intel or not. I'm confused on why it matters? Would it be okay if a military officer was ripping off a prisoner's fingernails as long as he got good information? Would it be alright to deliver electric shocks to a prisoner if it could save thousands of lives? Where's the line drawn?


Here is the thing, we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We don't need to hold ourselves to some sort of angelic state, because quite honestly, we live in a world with very evil people. Those evil people skip over what the republicans viewed as grey area, but still ultimately non-torture... and go straight to horrific acts that are nearly imaginable.

You should look up the video of what the Terrorists did to Daniel Pearl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl). As I have stated, I don't have a problem using forced coercive techniques, on people like this. We still have the moral authority. We still are good people, but, we WILL protect our people. We WILL protect our interests. I don't believe sending that message out, is a bad idea.

[Ink Asylum]

You should look up the video of what the Terrorists did to Daniel Pearl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl). As I have stated, I don't have a problem using forced coercive techniques, on people like this. We still have the moral authority. We still are good people, but, we WILL protect our people. We WILL protect our interests. I don't believe sending that message out, is a bad idea.

At what point do we lose our moral authority, then? How far can we go and still claim to be good people? What if waterboarding (which is internationally recognized as torture) didn't work? What should they have done? Start pulling out fingernails? Put them on the rack? Where do you draw the line, or is there no line for you when American lives are at risk?

[Ink Asylum]

Those are different things!

No they're not. You can argue that your actions were justified while recognizing they were illegal and accepting whatever punishment awaits. That's not what anyone involved is doing.

You should also note that I was addressing my comments to Tel Prydain, who said that if he knew American lives were on the line then he would approve illegal techniques like electric shocks. You brought it back to Cheney, which wasn't my intention. Cheney clearly believes what he did wasn't illegal.

[National Kato]

You should look up the video of what the Terrorists did to Daniel Pearl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl). As I have stated, I don't have a problem using forced coercive techniques, on people like this. We still have the moral authority. We still are good people...

Using the measure of "Well, at least we're better than those guys," to gauge your moral compass is a ridiculous notion. How many degrees better than the evildoers do you need to feel morally righteous? It's laughable.

[Ink Asylum]

When WE waterboard people, we use fresh spring water, not plain old tap water like those barbarians!

[rifter]

Using the measure of "Well, at least we're better than those guys," to gauge your moral compass is a ridiculous notion. How many degrees better than the evildoers do you need to feel morally righteous? It's laughable.

What I find laughable, is the number of people that think you can use kid gloves on evil people, and get anything done! THAT is the most laughable thing of all. Did you watch the Daniel Pearl video? We are not dealing with people that understand us at ALL. They don't CARE to understand us. They act like animals, compared to any real civilization, though, you want to hold these people to OUR standards? That is laughable.

As for the previous question about how far is too far...

I do think pulling nails, or stuff like that is wrong. Anything that maims, or has a lasting physical mark, is wrong. People crack with the fear of imminent harm nearly as well as actual harm.

Though, if someone did that, and saved 1000 lives... honestly, I would say the ends justify the means. If they did it because they were sadistic ass-holes, that is something else entirely.

I guess the crux of my view boils down to, are what we doing truly helping our side out. To save our people, I don't mind doing harm to a bastard that wants us dead. That stands against our way of life. I have a very hard time coming up with any sympathy for that kind of person. I have always viewed it as us vs them. They want to ruin my way of life... I don't want them to.

[Slack3r78]

Here is the thing, we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We don't need to hold ourselves to some sort of angelic state, because quite honestly, we live in a world with very evil people. Those evil people skip over what the republicans viewed as grey area, but still ultimately non-torture... and go straight to horrific acts that are nearly imaginable.

You should look up the video of what the Terrorists did to Daniel Pearl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl). As I have stated, I don't have a problem using forced coercive techniques, on people like this. We still have the moral authority. We still are good people, but, we WILL protect our people. We WILL protect our interests. I don't believe sending that message out, is a bad idea.
Moral relativism is fun.

[BlackPete]

I really really don't think that we'll hear the last of Abu Ghrarib. I'm seeing some disturbing reports going around about children (14 year olds) being raped by soldiers.

I'm REALLY hoping that's all just bullshit.

"It's not torture when WE do it" indeed...

[Midrael]

They act like animals, compared to any real civilization, though, you want to hold these people to OUR standards? That is laughable.

I don't think we should hold them to our standards. I think we should hold US to our standards. That's why they're our standards.

I did see the Daniel Pearl video when it first came out, and I wish I hadn't. It's a horrible, horrible video done by really horrible people. But are we talking about retribution or intelligence gathering?

[National Kato]

Did you watch the Daniel Pearl video? We are not dealing with people that understand us at ALL.

Yeah, I've seen it. I've also seen A Mighty Heart. I also have a lot more respect for the men and women working in interrogations and intelligence than you, because they don't need to torture in order to save lives. They're skilled, honorable Americans who do not use 'kid gloves' when they interrogate. They just don't want to become like the people they're fighting...and they have more experience and knowledge than you or anyone like me who's just watched bloody videos and made their decision.

[Ink Asylum]

What I find laughable, is the number of people that think you can use kid gloves on evil people, and get anything done!

If you believe the testimony of a FBI interrogator Ali Soufan yesterday, (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/13/soufans-narrative/)that's how we got new, actionable information out of Zubaydah, using normal interrogation. Then the interrogation was pulled out of his hands before he had exhausted Zubaydah's value and harsh tactics were employed, whereupon Zubaydah shut down:

A few days after we started questioning Abu Zubaydah, the CTC interrogation team finally arrived from DC with a contractor who was instructing them on how they should conduct the interrogations, and we were removed. Immediately, on the instructions of the contractor, harsh techniques were introduced, starting with nudity. (The harsher techniques mentioned in the memos were not introduced or even discussed at this point.)

The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation.

We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence.

This included the details of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber." To remind you of how important this information was viewed at the time, the then-Attorney General, John Ashcroft, held a press conference from Moscow to discuss the news. Other important actionable intelligence was also gained that remains classified.

After a few days, the contractor attempted to once again try his untested theory and he started to re-implementing the harsh techniques. He moved this time further along the force continuum, introducing loud noise and then temperature manipulation.

Throughout this time, my fellow FBI agent and I, along with a top CIA interrogator who was working with us, protested, but we were overruled. I should also note that another colleague, an operational psychologist for the CIA, had left the location because he objected to what was being done.

Again, however, the technique wasn't working and Abu Zubaydah wasn't revealing any information, so we were once again brought back in to interrogate him. We found it harder to reengage him this time, because of how the techniques had affected him, but eventually, we succeeded, and he re-engaged again.

In short, the "kid gloves" were working, and every time harsher techniques were used the suspect shut down. When the "kid gloves" were used again after harsh techniques it became harder to get Zubaydah to open up.

I guess the crux of my view boils down to, are what we doing truly helping our side out. To save our people, I don't mind doing harm to a bastard that wants us dead. That stands against our way of life. I have a very hard time coming up with any sympathy for that kind of person. I have always viewed it as us vs them. They want to ruin my way of life... I don't want them to.

Well, we've already changed our way of life. We're now a country that tortures people. The terrorists can never force us under their rule. They're incapable of that. They can, though, frighten us into changing ourselves.

[Ox]

No they're not. You can argue that your actions were justified while recognizing they were illegal and accepting whatever punishment awaits. That's not what anyone involved is doing.
If an act is justifiable, it either isn't illegal or (at the very least) the law is unjust and should be changed. It seems the most basic requirement of a so-called 'justice' system is that it not punish just acts.

Throwing yourself on the mercy of a court requires acceptance of responsibility. But how can you accept responsibility for your wrongs while still maintaining you were right? Offering any argument for mitigation or justification is, inherently, an attempt to avoid full punishment. You can't accept a punishment and simultaneously argue you shouldn't get it.

This reminds me of McCain's attempted "compromise" on torture: that we would ban it, but in the most extreme situations, we might forbear prosecution. And the argument for this was that someone who was really in an extreme position would be willing to torture to save lives and then serve his sentence. But what kind of grotesque monsters would we be if we said, "I know you were faced with a terrible choice for which there can be no good option. Indeed, I know your choice was just and the same one I would choose. But I will still punish you anyway"?

[Ink Asylum]

It is possible for someone who commits a crime to believe their actions are justified while also recognizing that the greater society does not see it that way. He/she can try to convince them they are wrong while also being willing to accept whatever punishment they might decide is justified if they remain unconvinced.

[headhunter228]

Once we condone torture then why stop there? If we really want to win the "war on terror" unleash full scale war. Fuel air explosives and cluster munitions over areas where they're at, civilians be damned. Carpet bomb villages and cities with fire bombs. Historically all those things have been more forgivable than torture in the eyes of most nations.

I'm not so sure about that. People threw a fit when the US and the British firebomed the German city of Dresden during WWII. The incendiary bombs dropped on the city created a firestorm, almost completely destroying the city. People have been very outspoken on how wrong it was to completely destroy a city with little strategic value or military targets. Take Kurt Vonnegut and his book, Slaughterhouse Five, for example.

[Ox]

It is possible for someone who commits a crime to believe their actions are justified while also recognizing that the greater society does not see it that way. He/she can try to convince them they are wrong while also being willing to accept whatever punishment they might decide is justified if they remain unconvinced.
Okay. Who, praytell, has threatened to go on the lam if he is indicted?

[Ink Asylum]

Once again, you're taking comments I directed towards Tel and making it seem as if I was talking about the past administration. I was not.

I was talking about the people who say "Yes, it was torture, yes, it was illegal, but if it saves American lives I would do it anyway." That is not what Bush administration officials and lawyers are arguing.

[BlackPete]

Former Vice President Dick Cheney intervened in CIA Inspector General John Helgerson investigation into the agency’s use of torture against alleged “high-value” detainees, but the watchdog was still able to prepare a report that concluded the interrogation program violated some provisions of the International Convention Against Torture.

The report, which the Obama administration may soon declassify, was completed in May 2004 and implicated CIA interrogators in at least three detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and referred eight criminal cases of alleged homicide, abuse and misconduct to the Justice Department for further investigation

According to some reporter. (http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/899-cheney-stopped-cia-inspector-general-from-completing-torture-probe.html)

[headhunter228]

This is what I got when I tried to click on the link.

ACCESS DENIED!

Internet access to the requested website has been denied based on your user profile and organization's Internet Usage Policy.

User/Machine: IPGROUP
IP: **************
Category: Generic Streaming Media
Blocked URL: http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/899-cheney-stopped-cia-inspector-general-from-completing-torture-probe.html

For further options, click here.
To submit this blocked site for review, click here. For assistance, contact your Administrator.
8e6 R3000 Enterprise Filter provided by 8e6 Technologies. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

Stupid school computer Internet blocks...*mumble mumble*

[Ink Asylum]

Former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem reports that the vice president’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner who was suspected of knowing about a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-13/cheneys-role-deepens/p/)

*Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.

*The former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, in charge of interrogations, tells The Daily Beast that he considered the request reprehensible.

*Much of the information in the report of the 9/11 Commission was provided through more than 30 sessions of torture of detainees.

[Ink Asylum]

Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/)

My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

[Ox]

So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?
Obviously, everyone involved in this is subject to a credibility evaluation. People on the left always believe everything someone says if it makes Bush and Cheney look bad, and people on the right always believe everything someone says if it makes Bush and Cheney look good.

So let's assume this guy is both telling the truth and is right: no harsh interrogation since 2004. That's pretty remarkable, and indeed one can fairly use it to denigrate Cheney's present line of attack. On the other hand, what makes us think Cheney wanted this to happen?
People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.
That looks like a pretty reasonable fear these days. Am I crazy, or does it sound like people stopped taking Bush and Cheney's orders after 2004? Maybe that's a good thing or a bad thing, and maybe I'm misunderstanding what happened. But it sounds like Bush and Cheney could not have continued harsh interrogations even if they wanted to.

Moreover, if this is really true and the order came from the top, doesn't that go a long way toward mitigating the wrong of torture? After all, the Abu Ghraib abuse wasn't ordered. It was not an interrogation, but rather unsanctioned prisoner abuse that was supposedly inspired by the interrogation program. If Bush and Cheney actually recoiled from such an expansion (although perhaps an expansion they should have predicted) from what they believed to be an extremely circumscribed interrogation program, that would speak much better of them than the general opinion holds.

Finally, in any event, it's worth noting that -- assuming this report is true -- it appears Ink has an excellent piece of evidence to prove me wrong: publicizing past abuses does at least sometimes prevent future ones.

[National Kato]

Moreover, if this is really true and the order came from the top, doesn't that go a long way toward mitigating the wrong of torture? After all, the Abu Ghraib abuse wasn't ordered.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, so forgive me if I'm confused. Didn't the statement say they stopped following White House orders after the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos? And how would an order from the White House to torture mitigate the wrong of torture?

[Ink Asylum]

Obviously, everyone involved in this is subject to a credibility evaluation. People on the left always believe everything someone says if it makes Bush and Cheney look bad, and people on the right always believe everything someone says if it makes Bush and Cheney look good.

So put 'em all on the stand, under oath, and lets get some answers. Cheney's more than happy to do interviews and attack the President, lets see if he, and Lawrence Wilkerson, are willing to repeat those charges under oath.

That looks like a pretty reasonable fear these days. Am I crazy, or does it sound like people stopped taking Bush and Cheney's orders after 2004? Maybe that's a good thing or a bad thing, and maybe I'm misunderstanding what happened. But it sounds like Bush and Cheney could not have continued harsh interrogations even if they wanted to.

Or they started, at that point of revelation, going into CYA mode.

After all, the Abu Ghraib abuse wasn't ordered. It was not an interrogation, but rather unsanctioned prisoner abuse that was supposedly inspired by the interrogation program.

On this we continue to differ. I still believe, as do others, that the events of Abu Ghraib were the result of direct instructions from superiors to obtain information about the insurgency. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17430)

In mid-August [2003], a captain in military intelligence (MI) sent his colleagues an e-mail—recently shown to me—in which, clearly responding to an earlier request from interrogators, he sought to define "unlawful combatants," distinguishing them from "lawful combatants [who] receive protections of the Geneva Convention and gain combat immunity for their warlike acts." After promising to provide "an ROE"—rules of engagement—"that addresses the treatment of enemy combatants, specifically, unprivileged belligerents," the captain asks the interrogators for "input...concerning what their special interrogation knowledge base is and more importantly, what techniques would they feel would be effective techniques." Then, reminding the intelligence people to "provide Interrogation techniques 'wish list' by 17 AUG 03," the captain signs off this way:

The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees, Col Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks. I thank you for your hard work and your dedication.

The more information that comes out the more Abu Ghraib looks like less of an anomaly or a few bad apples, and more like approved procedures during that period of the war.

Even if, as you believe, none of the detainees in the photos of Abu Ghraib were being abused and tortured to soften them up for interrogation, just on the side for kicks, would the chilling effect have been any different if the pictured detainees were being interrogated?

Finally, in any event, it's worth noting that -- assuming this report is true -- it appears Ink has an excellent piece of evidence to prove me wrong: publicizing past abuses does at least sometimes prevent future ones.

Thank you for acknowledging that.

[Ox]

I'm not sure what you're saying here, so forgive me if I'm confused. Didn't the statement say they stopped following White House orders after the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos? And how would an order from the White House to torture mitigate the wrong of torture?
Yeah, I phrased it confusingly. First, I assumed that people just stopped following orders. But the article implies that the White House ordered harsh interrogation to cease. So let's assume, in the alternative, that the WH ordered harsh interrogation to cease. Under this assumption, Bush and Cheney were so disturbed by the Abu Ghraib abuse they recanted their previous support even for the controlled interrogation they had previously endorsed. Recantation doesn't necessarily expunge any guilt they have for the previous abuse, but it does indicate moral rethinking. If you later come to regret your previous wrongdoing, that's generally considered to be a mitigating factor, right?

[National Kato]

But the article implies that the White House ordered harsh interrogation to cease. So let's assume, in the alternative, that the WH ordered harsh interrogation to cease. Under this assumption, Bush and Cheney were so disturbed by the Abu Ghraib abuse they recanted their previous support even for the controlled interrogation they had previously endorsed.

Wait. I need to read the full article and am at work - but the quote Ink provided says the opposite: Bush/Cheney ordered the harsh techniques to continue, not cease. I swear I'm reading that quote correctly. I need to spend more time with the full article. Give me a sec. :)

DOUBLE EDIT: I got my years a bit mixed up. I think I understand your point now...

[Ink Asylum]

Yeah, I phrased it confusingly. First, I assumed that people just stopped following orders. But the article implies that the White House ordered harsh interrogation to cease. So let's assume, in the alternative, that the WH ordered harsh interrogation to cease. Under this assumption, Bush and Cheney were so disturbed by the Abu Ghraib abuse they recanted their previous support even for the controlled interrogation they had previously endorsed. Recantation doesn't necessarily expunge any guilt they have for the previous abuse, but it does indicate moral rethinking. If you later come to regret your previous wrongdoing, that's generally considered to be a mitigating factor, right?

Or Bush/Cheney were disturbed more by the public reaction and that their secret interrogation programs were about to be exposed, so they shut down the program and went into Ass-Covering mode.

Wait. I need to read the full article and am at work - but the quote Ink provided says the opposite: Bush/Cheney ordered the harsh techniques to continue, not cease. I swear I'm reading that quote correctly. I need to spend more time with the full article. Give me a sec.

That e-mail was sent pre-Abu Ghraib photo release. Ox is saying Bush/Cheney were so upset by seeing the photos that they stopped the interrogations because they were feeling guilty or something. Considering Cheney's recent interviews about how Obama's refusal to use harsh interrogation techniques is making America less safe I'm disinclined to believe Cheney suffered some attack of conscience because of Abu Ghraib. He hasn't shown a single solitary moment of public regret over any of his actions in office.

[National Kato]

That e-mail was sent pre-Abu Ghraib photo release. Ox is saying Bush/Cheney were so upset by seeing the photos that they stopped the interrogations because they were feeling guilty or something.

Yeah, my misunderstanding. Sorry, Ox. But no, I don't believe Bush/Cheney ordered the stop because they felt bad about it - it was definitely a CYA moment.

[headhunter228]

Considering Cheney's recent interviews about how Obama's refusal to use harsh interrogation techniques is making America less safe I'm disinclined to believe Cheney suffered some attack of conscience because of Abu Ghraib. He hasn't shown a single solitary moment of public regret over any of his actions in office.

I still wouldn't want to go hunting with him. ;) Even so, you don't need "harsh interrogation techniques" to get information out of prisoners. Trickery and truth serum are more reliable, more efficient, and more humane than torture. Granted, too much truth serum can cause brain damage, but it's certainly more humane than torture. I used to admire Cheney for telling the media to "go fuck themselves," but now I'm starting to think that was simple stupidity, instead of him having some balls.

[Ox]

Wait, hold on. Let's timeline this article. Undisputed stuff is in black; allegations still disputed are in blue.

9/11/01: Duh.

"April and May of 2002": White House orders harsh interrogation of prisoners, mainly to expose a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

March 2003: US invades Iraq, which is "almost entirely" the reason why there have been no more terrorist attacks in the US.

Spring 2004: Some Abu Ghraib photographs released. Harsh interrogations cease because "people were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued." The article does not specify who these 'people' were or whether they included Bush and Cheney.

Spring 2009: Obama Administration considers releasing additional Abu Ghraib photographs, then decides not to.

May 12 or 13, 2009: The article is written.

My point is that it's undisputed the White House ordered harsh interrogations in 2002. The article isn't clear who decided to stop them in 2004.

[BlackPete]

Undisputed stuff is in black? But it's white text on black background....

Oh. I see what you did there.

[rifter]

Moreover, if this is really true and the order came from the top, doesn't that go a long way toward mitigating the wrong of torture? After all, the Abu Ghraib abuse wasn't ordered. It was not an interrogation, but rather unsanctioned prisoner abuse that was supposedly inspired by the interrogation program. If Bush and Cheney actually recoiled from such an expansion (although perhaps an expansion they should have predicted) from what they believed to be an extremely circumscribed interrogation program, that would speak much better of them than the general opinion holds.


A good friend's wife, was, many years ago, involved with an intelligence group that used coercion as means to get information. She saw what was happening at Abu Ghraib (the pictures that were released) and was livid. (she had been out for many years by this time). The soldiers there, were NOT using torture to gain information, they were screwing around. She could tell they were not being effectively interrogated. Abu Ghraib, at least the early pictures, were guards screwing around, and REALLY screwing up. And, nothing personal, but I will take HER read of the situation over any of your reads of the situation. She kind of is in the know on this kind of thing.

[Ox]

And, nothing personal, but I will take HER read of the situation over any of your reads of the situation. She kind of is in the know on this kind of thing.
Okay. And when you figure out how I disagree with her, I'll be interested to hear about it. Nothing personal, but at no point did I claim that the Abu Ghraib abuse was interrogative.

[rifter]

Okay. And when you figure out how I disagree with her, I'll be interested to hear about it. Nothing personal, but at no point did I claim that the Abu Ghraib abuse was interrogative.

It wasn't directed at you. Sorry about that. I was using the quote, because you brought up a good point, when you said but rather unsanctioned prisoner abuse that was supposedly inspired by the interrogation program.. I was more using your piece as a jumping off point to talk about what my friend's wife said about AG.

Sorry about that mis-communication there. It was definitely not directed at you, at all.

[Ink Asylum]

A good friend's wife, was, many years ago, involved with an intelligence group that used coercion as means to get information. She saw what was happening at Abu Ghraib (the pictures that were released) and was livid. (she had been out for many years by this time). The soldiers there, were NOT using torture to gain information, they were screwing around. She could tell they were not being effectively interrogated. Abu Ghraib, at least the early pictures, were guards screwing around, and REALLY screwing up. And, nothing personal, but I will take HER read of the situation over any of your reads of the situation. She kind of is in the know on this kind of thing.

How many years ago, may I ask? The methods at Abu Ghraib were approved by Rumsfeld, tested at Guantanamo, then suggested to interrogators at other prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html?_r=1&hp) Perhaps she didn't recognize the interrogation methods because they were only made into policy during Bush's first term.

The Senate report documented how some of the techniques used by the military at prisons in Afghanistan and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq — stripping detainees, placing them in “stress positions” or depriving them of sleep — originated in a military program known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE, intended to train American troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations.

According to the Senate investigation, a military behavioral scientist and a colleague who had witnessed SERE training proposed its use at Guantánamo in October 2002, as pressure was rising “to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” Officers there sought authorization, and Mr. Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques.

Months later, the report said, the interrogation officer in charge at Abu Ghraib obtained a copy of that policy “and submitted it, virtually unchanged, through her chain of command.” This ultimately led to authorization by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of the use of stress positions, “sleep management” and military dogs to exploit detainees’ fears, the report said.

Stripping detainees
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii286/inkasylum/capt6.jpg

Stress positions
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii286/inkasylum/capt5.jpg

Military dogs
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii286/inkasylum/capt4.jpg

That the only photos are from detainees that might not have been actively interrogated is irrelevant. The photos show techniques that were approved years earlier as interrogation methods at Guantanamo and other prisons. It has been confirmed that the very methods pictured above were used on other detainees as part of "harsh interrogation." The American public that recoiled when these photos were released would not be ok with them if they were pictures of detainees under interrogation.

[Ox]

The methods at Abu Ghraib were approved by Rumsfeld, tested at Guantanamo, then suggested to interrogators at other prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html?_r=1&hp)
You really ought to qualify that statement. Some methods used at Abu Ghraib that most assuredly were not approved by Rumsfeld or tested at Guantanamo:

Threatening to electrocute prisoners unless they remained standing on a narrow box

Compelling prisoners to masturbate upon fear of death (which is what your first picture shows)

Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly

Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton

Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees

Sodomization of detainees with a baton

Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor

Naked human pyramids upon threat of death

That the only photos are from detainees that might not have been actively interrogated is irrelevant. The photos show techniques that were approved years earlier as interrogation methods at Guantanamo and other prisons. It has been confirmed that the very methods pictured above were used on other detainees as part of "harsh interrogation." The American public that recoiled when these photos were released would not be ok with them if they were pictures of detainees under interrogation.
As I pointed out, only two of the photos you showed were actually of approved tactics. And none of the photos most commonly associated with Abu Ghraib and its horrors were. Maybe the American public recoiled equally strongly to the photo of the barking dog and the man in the stress position (although we should double-check that that particular stress position was an approved one). But you can't assert they would have without evidence.

[BlackPete]

Drip... drip... drip... (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/5330481/New-outrage-over-Iraq-prison-abuse-photographs.html?image=14)

More photos are being leaked out. It appears that all the Abu Ghrarib photos will appear eventually, so trying to block them is probably pointless in the end.

And WTF is with giving the thumbs up while poking at some guy's bleeding leg!?

[Telefrog]

And WTF is with giving the thumbs up while poking at some guy's bleeding leg!?

I don't know, but that chick looks pretty hot.

[National Kato]

A coalition of groups is attempting to seek disbarment of twelve Bush Administration lawyers (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/18/torture.bush.lawyers/index.html) for their roles in crafting the legal rationale for the enhanced techniques many consider torture.

"It is time to hold these lawyers accountable for violating their legal oath," Kevin Zeese, an attorney for the coalition, said in a written statement.

"Just as the bar would suspend an attorney who advised a police officer to torture and brutalize a detained immigrant or criminal defendant, the bar must suspend these attorneys for advocating and causing the torture of war detainees. The disciplinary boards that hear these complaints must act or they will be seen as complicit in the use of torture."
The lawyers named are David Addington, John Ashcroft, Stephen Bradbury, Jay Bybee, Michael Chertoff, Douglas Feith, Alice Fisher, Timothy Flanigan, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes II, Michael Mukasey and John Yoo.

The complaints were filed with the bars in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

A preliminary internal report on the Justice Department investigation into the authors of the Bush administration's "torture memos" indicated that the federal government might also urge state bar associations to take sanctions against the memo writers, according to two government sources.

We are far from done with this chapter.

[BlackPete]

I'm only surprised that Gonzalez was allowed to keep his law degree after his shameful performance while being questioned by Congress.

As for the rest... actually I think (and I never thought I'd say this) Ashcroft probably shouldn't be on that list because he did resign rather than following along with the administration. Let's not forget about that drama about Gonzalez & Card rushing to see him in the hospital, hoping to get him to cooperate while he was still mentally fuzzy.

Michael Chertoff looks like a cadaver.

[Ox]

A coalition of groups is attempting to seek disbarment of twelve Bush Administration lawyers (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/18/torture.bush.lawyers/index.html) for their roles in crafting the legal rationale for the enhanced techniques many consider torture.
Highly unlikely (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603182.html), and that's not even considering the fact that state bars are scandalously reluctant to disbar attorneys for any reason.
"The only theory on which [a case] could proceed would be if lawyers violated their duty to a client . . . by giving the White House an opinion in which they did not actually believe," Gillers said.

Good luck proving that.

[BlackPete]

Good luck proving that.

It's kind of ironic because by that metric, Gonzalez is safer than Ashcroft.

[Doogie2K]

Highly unlikely (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603182.html), and that's not even considering the fact that state bars are scandalously reluctant to disbar attorneys for any reason.

No kidding. How many years of flagrant douchebaggery* did it take for Jack! to get disbarred? He pretty much had to moon the judge before they finally had enough of him.

* - Not even talking about his crusade against video games, specifically; just his generally unprofessional behaviour in the media and in the courtroom.

[Ox]

He pretty much had to moon the judge before they finally had enough of him.
"Pretty much had to moon the judge"? Are you forgetting about the time he sent the judge hardcore gay pornography? Even that wasn't enough.

[Slack3r78]

As for the rest... actually I think (and I never thought I'd say this) Ashcroft probably shouldn't be on that list because he did resign rather than following along with the administration. Let's not forget about that drama about Gonzalez & Card rushing to see him in the hospital, hoping to get him to cooperate while he was still mentally fuzzy.
I actually agree with this. I've really come to think that Ashcroft really isn't quite as bad a guy as he might have initially seemed like from the outside. Not to say I don't think he's still a bit off his rocker -- wasting Justice Department dollars on draping over nude statues being a prime example -- I'm just more inclined to believe that he fell much too far on the religious right for my taste than I am to believe that he's responsible for the really egregious oversteps of the Bush administration.

[Ox]

Not to say I don't think he's still a bit off his rocker -- wasting Justice Department dollars on draping over nude statues being a prime example
The story I've always heard was that press photographers deliberately framed their shots to make sure there was always some stone boob hovering right next to his head. This eventually annoyed him.

I'm not saying he was right to get annoyed, but I don't think the nude statues themselves bothered him so much as the rather juvenile sense of humor of the press corps.

[Slack3r78]

The story I've always heard was that press photographers deliberately framed their shots to make sure there was always some stone boob hovering right next to his head. This eventually annoyed him.

I'm not saying he was right to get annoyed, but I don't think the nude statues themselves bothered him so much as the rather juvenile sense of humor of the press corps.
Well, while that story may have had an element of caricature to it, his justice department did pursue obscenity charges and the like far more actively than had been does since the Reagan era, which is the general gist I was getting at.

[Ink Asylum]

The story I've always heard was that press photographers deliberately framed their shots to make sure there was always some stone boob hovering right next to his head. This eventually annoyed him.

I'm not saying he was right to get annoyed, but I don't think the nude statues themselves bothered him so much as the rather juvenile sense of humor of the press corps.

Yeah. I've heard that story, too. I wouldn't call it juvenile so much as reporters going for an ironic visual. It's a meaningful illustration of the American attitude towards the exposed breast. Apparently, it's also nothing new. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/statues.htm)

When former Attorney General Edwin Meese released a report on pornography in the 1980s, photographers dived to the floor to capture the image of him raising the report in the air, with the partially nude female statue behind him.

[Doogie2K]

"Pretty much had to moon the judge"? Are you forgetting about the time he sent the judge hardcore gay pornography? Even that wasn't enough.

I did not know about that. Is it recent Jack!, or more vintage? (Like, when he was calling Janet Reno a lesbian.)

[Ox]

Couple years ago (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2007/09/26/judge-spanks-jack-thompson-for-sending-gay-porn-with-court-filing). It was pretty glorious.

On a separate note, I'm stunned by this citation in the court's order: “No court need tolerate the use of obscene, indecent, and scandalous pleadings.” Adams v.
Nankervis, 902 F.2d 1578 (Table), 1990 WL 61990, at *3 (9th Cir. 1990). Not stunned by the quote itself: that's completely reasonable and even common-sensical. But I've noticed there are some ironclad laws of legal work that are almost never broken. They tend to be stuff like, "The difficulty and time required for any assignment is directly proportionate to how incompetent, incoherent, and asinine the opposing counsel's argument is." But chief and most unbreakable rule of them all is: "If you are looking for a citation for a principle that is obvious and common-sense, no legal authority has ever said it or anything resembling it." The principle that you can't submit gay porn to a court is so obvious that I would never have even bothered to look for authority on the matter. Which, I guess, is why I'm not a federal judge.

[Telefrog]

Well, at least religious folks don't have any difficulty with the morality of torture. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/22/torture.christian/index.html)

Rev. Ronald Kuykendall, an evangelical pastor in Gainesville, Florida, says that the question is difficult to answer because everyone has a different of definition of torture. He says he would support the torture of a terrorist if "the techniques used are lawful, necessary" and the ultimate purpose is to save lives.

Kuykendall says the New Testament (Romans 13:1-7) teaches Christians that "everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established."

"The NT [New Testament] is clear that God grants the right of the 'sword' to the state to be used against wrongdoers," Kuykendall says. "Just as I believe I don't have a right to vengeance personally, I do believe that I can seek justice through the state and call the police on a robber, or a gunman threatening my life."

Chuck Colson, the evangelical pastor who once served as an aide to President Nixon, answered the same question in an on-line discussion conducted by the Washington Post "On Faith" Web site.

Colson said that Christians are supposed to obey the law, but there may be times when there is a higher obligation, such as ignoring a "no trespassing" sign to rescue a drowning man.

"So it is with torture," Colson wrote. "If a competent authority honestly believes that this was the only way to get information that might save the lives of thousands, I believe he would be justified."

Charles Kammer, a religious studies professor, says he was not surprised to learn from that a majority of evangelical Christians support the use of torture in certain circumstances.

Kammer says that despite Jesus' own commitment to nonviolence, Christianity as a whole has never embraced nonviolence. He says some evangelicals also confuse patriotism with piety.

"What's good for America has often been seen as God's will," says Kammer, who teaches at The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.

"They think the torture of evil people is not bad, but may be morally required as a way of protecting the good people."