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