Torture memos
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8793/tt13.jpg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good point Toad


(lol).

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

Well. Except they didn't get to speak in that court for a fuck of a long time. They were busy living in x-ray cells for upwards of five years. I saw an interview with the guy they released recently and allowed to come back to Britain. Maybe he's a good actor. But he looked like he'd been well and truly shattered.

I have no doubt. It was not designed to be a holiday. Some of them surely got what they deserved, some not so much. Because of the way it was handled from the outset we will never know the truth. I believe that some are being released becase the risk benifit ratio of releasing info the government wants to keep secret is not worth the risk of a public show trial. Who knows. I certainly am going to look at anyone who has been locked up there for 5 years with a certain degree of bias as a source of information as to what really went on there. Until people who were directly involved from the government side start to talk about it publically as in the form of some kind of expose I don't think we will ever know. In these situations we need a balance of information to make up our minds about what we are going to believe.

As I have said many times I am all for closing it up next week and sending every party back to their country of origin whether they want them or not and regardless of their eventual fate. Leave it.

Teabagging-the victim is made to lie on his back, with his mouth agape. the fattest smelliest, unbathed troll on base then dangles his bawls into the open mouth ...for no more than 2 hours.

Butt Cheek Taping: The victim's butt cheeks are taped together with high grade duct tape. the tape is left on for no more than 180 hours, and is then removed briskly.

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

i just wanna know why beheading isnt on that list

Ok, the combination of my latest user title (Vivacious Vivisectionist) and your post is kind of funny. :D

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the largest organ of the human body?












I'll give everyone a minute to think about it.
















































































































Just more evidence of the truly frightening thing about these anti-science, know-nothing fucktards being in power.

So do you think dermal abrasion is torture?

Dermal abrasion does not inflict pain. Torture is about pain to make him talk. Pealing skin in a painful manner so that skin grows back was (by their rewritten definition) not torture. Only fools believe pain gets useful intelligence. Which is why terrorists were planning attacks even on the Golden Gate Bridge and Newark’s Prudential Building?

How curious. They never found anybody planning those attacks - which is what happens when torture replaced intelligent interrogation.

If America had no secret CIA torture chambers all over the world, then why did Obama order them closed? Many who advocated torture also lied about secret CIA concentration camps. And still have problems admitting that some 600 of the 800 imprisoned in Guantanamo have been released – guilty of nothing. More *honesty* routinely found among those who also advocated torture – and even denied it was torture.

Only if you go to a dermal abrasion clinic and allow them to do it to you without protest.

Wait, that would be S&M.

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

:rolleyes:

You have a problem with that. Fuck, that is exactly what I would do. You are going to tell me that you, or any other scumbag who has hit our justice system guilty as hell has not done the same? Hell, I would?

Tell me who you want to believe?

Take a side now.

Who do you believe and why?

You can read the memos here... http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html

This one defines torture and what they were allowed to do...
http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/cli...2002_bybee.pdf

It says they can deprive someone of sleep for 11 days. As someone who suffers from sleep disorders, I can tell you that sleep deprivation is bad. Very, very bad. I can't even imagine what would happen if I was completely deprived of sleep for 11 days, or even for 7 days. For one thing, you start hallucinating.

The stress positions, I don't know if any of you have ever tried to stay in one position, without moving, for long periods of time. When I took kundalini yoga, we used to stay in one position for about 15-20 minutes at a time. It's a lot harder than it sounds. Your muscles start aching really bad. It doesn't say how long they were allowed to do this, but I imagine it's a lot longer than 20 minutes.

The confinement with insects that you are afraid of, they were allowed to do that up to 18 hours. If I was locked inside a small container with cockroaches, I would have a freaking heart attack.

The waterboarding, that was allowed for as long as 20 hours at a time. Can you imagine feeling like you were drowing for 20 hours?

It goes on to explain the definition of torture...

Section 2340 makes it a criminal offense for any person "outside of the United States [to] commit or attempt to commit torture."

Section 2340(1) defines torture as:
an act committed by a person acting under the color' of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to Lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody of physical control.


18 USC. § 2340(1). As ·we outlined in our opinion on standards of conduct under Section 2340A, a violation of2340A requires a showing that: (1) the torture occurred outside the United States; (2) the defendant acted under the color of law; (3) the victim 'was within the defendant's custody or control; (4) the defendant specifically intended to inflict severe pain or suffering; and (5) that the acted inflicted severe pain or suffering...

You have asked us to assume that Zubayadah is being held outside the United States, Zubayadah is within U.S. custody, and the interrogators are acting under the color of law. At issue is whether the last two elements would be met by the use of the proposed procedures, namely, whether those using these procedures would have the requisite mental state and whether these procedures would inflict severe pain or suffering within the meaning of the statute.

Severe Pain or Suffering In order for pain or suffering to rise to the level of torture, the statute requires that it be severe. As we have previousty explained, this reaches only extreme acts. See id. at 13. Nonetheless, drawing upon cases under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), which has a definition of torture that is similar to Section 2340"s definition, we found that a single event of sufficiently intense pain may fall within this prohibition...

...We next consider whether the use of these techniques would inflict severe mental pain or suffering within the meaning of Section 2340. Section 2340 defines severe mental pain or suffering as "the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from" one of several predicate acts. 12 U.S.c. § 2340(2). predicate acts are: (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 of other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that any of the preceding acts will be done to another person. See 18 U.S.C. § 2340(2)(AJ-{D). As we have explained, this list of predicate acts is exclusive. Sec Section 2340A Memorandum at 8. No other acts can support 2 charge under Section 2340 based on the infliction of severe mental pain or suffering. Thus, if the methods that you have described do not either in and of themselves constitute one of these acts or as a course of conduct fulfill the predicate act requiremcnt, the prohibition has not been violated. See ia. Before addressing these techniques, we note that it is plain that none of these proceedures involves a threat to any third party, the use of any kind of drugs, or for the reasons described above, the infliction of severe physical pain. Thus, the question is whether any of these acts, separately or as a course of conduct, constitutes a threat of severe physical pain or suffering, a procedure designed to disrupt profoundly the senses, or a threat of imminent death...

From that description, it seems pretty clear to me that what they did WAS most definitely torture.

It is pretty well known that a lot of the people down there were not terrorists. We put them there anyway, and kept them there for YEARS, without a trial, or without even charging them with a crime. So why would I believe anything the last administration said about what they were doing? All they have done, from day 1, is LIE to the Emrican people, and the rest of world. From the memos, it's clear we used torture, even while Bush was going on TV insisting that "we do not torture." My God, after Abu Ghraib, it is ASTOUNDING to me that so many people were still in denial about our actions with regards to torture. Bush has done more to ruin our standing in the world than everyone who ever went before him, combined. How will ever wipe that stain from our heritage?

One of the most sickening things about that whole abu ghraib affair to my mind, was the way soldiers like that young woman carried the can for what was clearly a systemic problem.

A similar thing is happening here now with the police. For as long as I can recall, on demonstrations, it was a commonplace that if you saw police without their id numbers on their epaulettes, you knew were in for a kicking. It happened when I was at the poll tax demo in '90, and again at the big anti-nazi rally in '93. We all of us know that's what happens on demos. It also happened routinely throughout the miners' strike in the 80s. Now, I don't mean a handful of cops chose to go without their id...I am talking about a line of police, three men deep across critical areas, such as the one blocking the demonstrators from getting near Downing Street in '90. All the police along the sides of the march early on, were just ordinary police, with numbers on, keeping the peace. Then as we got near to more sensitive and potentially troubled areas, the police all as far as any of us could see, had no numbers. WE commented on it atthe time. AS we noticed the shift from friendly, professional, to aggressive and unaccountable, we actually said it, we said, 'shit....they've no id'. And they hadn't. And they were very violent. And they used same 'kettle', or corralling strategy that caused such violence the other week. There was even footage at the time, of police losing control and beating the shit out demonstrators (and a journalist). This is how our police force deal with demonstrations and deomstrators. Its the way it's been for a long long time.


At the summit in london recently, where a demo was (again) sparked into violence by the 'kettle' strategy of the demo police, a newspaper seller who wasn't even involved was shoved and hit by a policeman and then died of a heart attack (I think). There's footage of police hitting demonstrators with batons, shioving them to the ground. One cop smashed his shield into the face of a demonstrator, another is hitting a woman on her legs with a baton. One of the things clearly apparent in these days of instant mobile filming, was that the police involved werent wearing ID numbers.

The police are trying to treat this as a number of individuals breaking the rules. Again. Rather than the commonplace that it has been for as long as anybody can recall. Just like with the soldiers at abu Ghraib, they are going to be made to stand for the crimes of an institution. Yet again, the institution which (we all suspect) tacitly approved of their behaviour, and I suspect directly engaged with and either supported, or subtly directed that behaviour, stands aloof and untouched, whilst those that did its dirty work get to play guilty devil to the waiting media, and lose everything.

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

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

Based on what source? That is part of the problem.

Also part of the problem as I stated earlier.

So what makes you trust the current one any more than the last?

Don't mix events that happened at Abu Ghraib with Gitmo. There is no evidence that anything close to what happened in Iraq took place in Gitmo. The rest ot that is your opinion taking right from the left-wingnut talking points.

The evidence from the DoJ memos, In't Red Cross reports, comments by some interrogators and other sources is clear that we used techniques including water boarding, long term sleep deprivation, physical abuse, psychological abuse, etc that violated the international standards of torture under the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention against Torture.

Not just at Gitmo, but at CIA black prisons around the world...far worse than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib. The DOJ memos attempt to rationalize these actions by unilaterally determining its own standards under those international treaty obligations of which the US is a signator.

That is not how a nation that promotes democracy and the rule of law should act.

Oh well, if you're going to take the word of the international red cross ... :P

The int'l red cross was not present to give testimony about what happened.

The ACORN of the world! A mafia-like organization with a hidden agenda!

The International Red Cross report is based on first-hand accounts.

Unfortunately, the US had refused to sign the UNCAT optional protocol adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2002 that established "an international inspection system for places of detention" (signed by nearly all of our European allies)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optiona..._or_Punishment

And one of the DOJ memos states that:

"The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydaydah... and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed)"

They can call it an "enhanced interrogation technique"..but it is torture by any other standard.

Why so many times? He was not telling them what they wanted to hear. Same reason the Iraqi General was murdered during torture. He also was not telling American extremists what they wanted to hear. Instead he was telling the truth.

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. Monty Python was clairvoyant? Posted here repeatedly even in May 2004 because the problem was that obvious that long ago:
Image control...
And still, George Jr loyalists deny it - facts be damned.

Political extremists believe only what is good for the party line. Centrists instead use facts to know. Political extremists did then and still now deny what was that obvious even when Gen Miller left Guantanamo to instill the same torture techniques in Abu Ghraid. Why? We *knew* Saddam had WMDs. That *justifies* torture.

Just another lesson from history that we are expected to recite in another 30 years. Deja vue.

Nope.... because he was telling them good stuff. The rest of that same memo tells us that at least two out of the three waterboardings led to legitimate, and very important information, possibly preventing a "Second Wave" after 9/11.

He would have given the same info if we'd just asked nicely. He'd have probably given it faster too.

Actually Merc, with the release of the report by the Red Cross and the torture memos, there most certainly IS evidence proving what they did. There are also videotapes of interrogations, or were. I believe it was reported that some of them were erased. Now why would they erase them if they had nothing to hide?

It has been reported for years that many of the people being held were not terrorists, but people who were swept up and held anyway, and never released based on nothing. I tend to believe investigative reporters. They deserve our respect, because they break stories that we would otherwise never know. I tend to believe the Red Cross, because they get access to places as long as they keep silent. Only someone seemed to think that report was more important, and they released it. Whoever that was deserves some kind of world recognition for what they did.

Lastly, I trust this administration more because I believe I can. So far Obama has been pretty good about keeping campaign promises and keeping his word. I NEVER felt like I could trust Bush, because he was too secretive and sneaky. He lied about things. He was a cowboy executing cowboy justice. He was arrogant. Obama is none of those things. I am extremely pissed off that they are refusing to prosecute anyone, because I think lots of people should be prosecuted, but that doesn't mean we can't trust him. In the end, I think he will have to prosecute some people. when that day comes, I will cheer from the rooftops.

I think the most compelling reason why we should not use these techniques is this... two female journalists were captured recently while reporting on a story from the Chinese - N Korean border. When asked about how the women were being treated, they replied, "we are not Gauntanamo." That was North Korea talking, for crying out loud!

Now a female journalist with dual citizenship in the United States and Iran has been tried (and I believe sentenced) in Iran for spying. I wonder how she will be treated?

This really goes to the heart of the matter. We should treat others the way WE OURSELVES want to be treated. We will not always agree on policy, or other governmental affairs, but that doesn't mean we should not show respect. If we abandon our principles and bring ourselves down to the level of terrorists, then why should we expect to be treated with any decency by anyone?

If that videotape was known to have evidence on it beforehand, then it does make you look guilty. but whatever. I don't expect you to come over to my way of thinking. We disagree about almost everything.

True. One of us lives in the real world and the other wants the real world to match a fantasy.

Which is exactly what happens once we eliminate the extremist mantra.

Second wave? A claim from the same people who said Saddam had WMDs. That fired people who warned of pending terrorism. Who undermined the Oslo Accords. Who encourages war with N Korea. Who nearly created a war with China over a silly spy plane. Who said Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. Who had White House lawyers rewrite science papers they did not like (because science contradicted their political agenda). Who almost destroyed Hubble. Who unilaterally canceled international treaties only because they did not like them. Who advocated nuclear proliferation. Who said America does not do nation building - and therefore lost military victories in two wars.

These are people who can be trusted in saying torture stopped a second wave? What second wave? Nobody can find any evidence of a second wave.

When Clinton listened to law enforcement, then multiple terrorist attacks all over the world were averted. AND we know what those attacks were. We know those attacks were averted because we were told by honest people - not extremists. Where is even one fact that suggests a second wave was coming? Torture that routinely leads to lies and no useful intelligence proved a second wave was averted? Therefore we know attacks on the Golden Gate Bridge and Prudential Building were averted. Not!

At what point does this second wave myth become obvious even to the extremists? At what point was this second wave really only the Second Coming of Christ? We know this because the same person also told us that America does not do nation building? Fool me 1000 times; shame on you? Is that how it goes?

Learn reality folks. Those who promote torture routinely avoid reality. Such as: Jemaah Islamiya was destroyed completely and faster because they just asked nicely. It contradicts extremist mantra. Extremists know that only torture gets answers. Why? Because they just know. Rush Limbaugh said so.

Asking nicely with a sharp wit is how interrogation always worked. Torture is how we proved that Saddam had WMDs. Reality and extremism are antonyms. First extremists deny we were torturing. Now extremists say we had to torture. How many times must extremists be caught lying before we stop believing them?

In the real world, the largest democracy in the world would abide by the international treaties it signs.

In the real world, when the CIA Inspector General reports that many of the agency's interrogation techniques would be considered torture under US treaty obligations, the CIA would investigate and take correction action.....instead of pursuing a political investigation of the Inspector General for doing his job of holding the agency accountable to the rule of law rather than political influence.

In the real world, DOJ attorneys would have drafted post-9/11 interrogation memos based on legal considerations and not political direction from the White House and would not be facing possible disbarment now for their alleged unethical actions.

In the real world, most interrogation experts (civilian and military) would agree that torture is rarely, if ever, as effective as other means of interrogation.

The fantasy world is the one that you have bought into...the Jack Bauer/24 world that only exists on TV, but that the Bush administration sold to the public as the real world.

added:

IMO, the danger is believing everything the CIA tells you and discounting everything that the detainees attorneys or independent agencies like the IRC reports.

I recall Bush or Cheney telling us about an al queda plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge...it turns out it was one guy with a handheld blow torch.

Do you, or should we, really trust the government that completely? When they investigate their own IG for reporting his findings? or destroy nearly 100 tapes of interrogations?

Amazing how one chooses to believe what one wants to believe. No matter what side one is on. To discount that which doesn't fit one's desires is a choice that is almost always made.

There are facts that are not in dispute...most notably that the DoJ memos "justify" interrogation techniques including water boarding and physical/psychological abuses that go beyond the internationally recognized standards of torture.

It really doesnt matter if you or I agree or disagree if these interrogation techniques constitute torture....what matters is that the US signed an agreement to abide by the standards.

What is left to one's belief is if it is legitimate for the executive branch of the government to unilaterally redefine these techniques as "enhanced interrogation" but not torture and to ignore US international treaty obligations that have been recognized by all recent previous administrations.

IMO, if the Bush administration wanted to circumvent the UNCAT agreement negotiated and signed for the US by the Reagan administration as well as approx. 150 other nations, it should have gone to Congress to request approval to withdraw from the international agreement....and become a rogue nation like the few others in the world that do not recognize it.....Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Zimbabwe to name a few.

This bears repeating...

Most old line Republicans are scared shitless of their future. After all, they would have to believe based in facts. They would have to learn how to ignore myths routinely promoted by their political handlers. Extremism cannot survive with honesty.

We are not torturing. When that lie was exposed, old line extremist Republicans then said we must torture to get intelligence. That lie was also exposed by 1993 WTC, USS Cole investigation, well proven techniques even used in WWII, the stopping of terrorism all over the world on Millennium eve, Jemaah Islamiya, and ...

So extremists must again lie – even ignore those facts - to continue preaching what their political handlers (Rush Limbaugh) tell them to think.

Wacko extremists even denied we had secret prisons. Obama ordered those *non-existent* prisons closed. How do wacko extremists deny that their lie? They don't. Wacko extremists defend themselves by replacing old lies with new lies. You are supposed to forget how often extremists lie. Need we again visit wacko extremism trying to impose their religion in Dover PA schools? Extremists then exposed as liars repeatedly by the judge?

No wonder there is a war ongoing in the Republican party to save it from extremists and a political agenda justified by lies. Extremists even still lie about torture. First deny it was ongoing. Then must lie again - that only torture gets facts. A war in the Republican party because extremist political agendas cannot exist without lies - even about torture.

Extremists will not even ask a question that any decent American was asking five years ago: when do we go after bin Laden? To ask that question is to admit to more extremist lies - including the one where Saddam and bin Laden were co-conspirators.

You will have to repeat it again. Extremists routinely ignore what contradicts their political agenda. Those who know torture work learned because they saw it proven with Jack Bauer/24 on Fox TV.

What is a greatest threat to every American soldier? That Americans routinely torture and then would even lie about it.

When caught posting lies, extremists respond with more lies. So yes, repeat it again because extremists had to ignore that reality.

Should we be surprised when extremists post more cheap shots and lies about Chavez and Obama shaking hands? Liars are not ethical or honest.

IRC got their information from detainees. Hardly a good source as I stated earlier.

It feeds and perpetuates the beliefs they already have based on limited sources of information. People are always going hear what they want to hear.

Oh yea, completely harmless. :rolleyes:


http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscel...ridge_Plot.pdf

there are two examples of my post by Redux and Sugarpop. Please note that I NEVER agreed one way or the other in post #46, but both of you, plus 2 ignored posts (I'll assume at least one of which was in reference to me) show that you all very quickly jumped to validate your opinions when they were not challenged. (and most likely one attack) Interesting.

As far as what constitutes torture and whether we should have or not, again, I have mixed opinions.

On Rant/ I am not sure we should have released the memos to the world. I know I know transparency and all that, but it seems as though the assumption on the left is that we did these things to every prisoner. The truth is probably far from that. My limited understanding is that the interrogation techniques started at the least "intrusive" and stronger ones had to be authorized by superiors before they could be implemented.
Were there abuses? Probably. Were they widespread? Probably not, but who knows. The left will attack the right with their inhumanity and the right will say they were defending & protecting the country. Reality is most likely somewhere in the middle. /Off rant

That was nothing more than a PR move. Looks like it worked on you.
Probably not very well - Is there something that makes you think they would have treated her/them any differently a year or two ago? If so, you are kidding yourself.

:thumb:

Iraq: ICRC explains position over detention report and treatment of prisoners
Introductory statement and summary of main points made by the ICRC's director of operations, Pierre Krähenbühl, at a press conference at the organization's headquarters, 7 May 2004, following the publication by the Wall Street Journal of excerpts of an ICRC report.



http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0...c?opendocument

For this post to have honesty, you must dispute the long list of accusations of torture by many separate and independent parties. You must dispute every one. You don't even try because the fact is America was torturing. The memo simply demonstrates in 2002 the first step in authorizing torture. And where was it being authorized? In the highest levels of the George Jr administration.

FBI interrogators left places like Iraq once the torture started. Why? First - once a prisoner is tortured, the well is poisoned. Nothing useful can be obtained. Second, FBI agents did not want to be party to obvious illegal activities. But extremists tell use torture did not exist because maybe one hundred separated prisoners (who had no contact with one another) all repeated the same stories. All described the same torture methods.

Amazing how those *enemies* are clairvoyant. Using mind telepathy, they shared the same stories before the IRC got to them. These many *enemies* who have since been released from American prisons because they were not guilty of anything – and yet tell similar stories of the torture methods used on them.

Who is most likely to torture? Prison keepers who are holding innocent men without even judicial review. How curious. That is the George Jr administration that has a long history of overt lying.

Fact is that Americans were torturing prisoners. Even FBI agents said so. Torture justified by the same 'we are good and they are evil' agenda that characterized wacko extremist politics. How do we know torture did not happen? Extremists denied it. That is the entire proof? Of course extremists deny it. The act of being an extremist requires lying even to one's self.

Reality is that the George Jr administration did authorize the use of torture and holding innocent people for years in prisons. Even secret torture prisons that Obama closed on day 2 … because those prisons did exist despite extremists denials.

The honest response is to admit Americans were torturing. And doing so because it was authorized inside the George Jr administration by people such as Gonzales.

No wonder these same people tried to get us into a war with China over a silly spy plane.

All posters should keep in mind that tw has never expressed the least interest in the free societies winning out over the slavemaking ones. Tw just can't think about human liberty, nor apparently give it its proper value. Tw really doesn't want totalitarianism to lose, anywhere. Instead, it's "we're so awful, because we're trying to win."

Can anyone show otherwise?