Torture memos

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I doubt la Pop will learn that until she's had her lily-pale ass pwnd a couple times. Her thinking is yet unsophisticated -- and very clone-y. Won't be pleasant, but it may mature her, and her understanding.

Meanwhile, exerpted:

Yet none of these interrogations were the result of a “rogue” CIA or the mad whims of a “torture presidency.” The relevant Democratic congressional leadership for intelligence — including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and former Sen. Bob Graham — were briefed on CIA operations more than once. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” Porter Goss, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 to 2004 before becoming CIA director, told the Washington Post. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

As for the slippery-slope caterwauling, the opposite is true. The slope toward more torture and abuse has gone up, not down, and it is today more difficult to climb than ever. According to existing law and Justice Department rulings, the practice has been proscribed for several years now — except, that is, for the thousands of U.S. servicemen who’ve been subjected to it by the U.S. military as part of their training. [Emph. mine]

The current debate over legislation to ban waterboarding in all circumstances stinks of political opportunism. Democrats want to claim that Republicans are “pro-torture” if they vote against the legislation. Others are hoping to advance criminal prosecutions of CIA operatives who used the techniques sparingly and with approval from both the White House and Congress, and from both parties.

From here.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I doubt la Pop will learn that until she's had her lily-pale ass pwnd a couple times. Her thinking is yet unsophisticated -- and very clone-y. Won't be pleasant, but it may mature her, and her understanding.

Meanwhile, exerpted:

...As for the slippery-slope caterwauling, the opposite is true. The slope toward more torture and abuse has gone up, not down, and it is today more difficult to climb than ever. According to existing law and Justice Department rulings, the practice has been proscribed for several years now — except, that is, for the thousands of U.S. servicemen who’ve been subjected to it by the U.S. military as part of their training. [Emph. mine]...

From here.

The difference between our servicemen being subjected to it, and a prisoner, is the servicemen KNOW they will be OK, that nothing will happen to them. The prisoners, not so much. There is a HUGE difference in the psychology of those two things.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

The difference between our servicemen being subjected to it, and a prisoner, is the servicemen KNOW they will be OK, that nothing will happen to them.

You have no frigging idea what you are talking about.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You have no frigging idea what you are talking about.

Tell us all about it, Rambo.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You have no frigging idea what you are talking about.

I am going by what experts, including SERE trainers, have said in interviews on TV.

The psychology part, it doesn't take an expert to tell me that it would be different when you are doing a training exercise where you KNOW the people in charge aren't going to let something happen to you, and being a prisoner where you really actually fear for your life. That is basic psychology 101.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

The difference between our servicemen being subjected to it, and a prisoner, is the servicemen KNOW they will be OK, that nothing will happen to them. The prisoners, not so much. There is a HUGE difference in the psychology of those two things.

And for people whose driving ideals are so unpopular they must use violence to persuade instead of reason -- id est, terrorists -- this is bad how?

All mankind except for sugarpop, who has never once looked at it this way, wants these enemies of humanity in precisely that state of mind. Thus, they may be cracked, and certain of their fellow creatures thereby denied a chance to assail other human beings.

The difference you're so concerned with is therefore unimportant. The terrs are people, sugarpop, who would as cheerfully lop off your head as they would mine, in your case after multiple gang rapes and sundry mutilations. Ever seen that one "after" picture of the partisan girl the Nazis got hold of in Russia? That might be you. That is their human rights record, and it is far worse than ours.

And I wouldn't do it to them. Despite knowledge of their human rights record. That's because I'm so much better a man than they can be. You might try being a sensible woman.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

And for people whose driving ideals are so unpopular they must use violence to persuade instead of reason -- id est, terrorists -- this is bad how?

All mankind except for sugarpop, who has never once looked at it this way, wants these enemies of humanity in precisely that state of mind. Thus, they may be cracked, and certain of their fellow creatures thereby denied a chance to assail other human beings.

The difference you're so concerned with is therefore unimportant. The terrs are people, sugarpop, who would as cheerfully lop off your head as they would mine, in your case after multiple gang rapes and sundry mutilations. Ever seen that one "after" picture of the partisan girl the Nazis got hold of in Russia? That might be you. That is their human rights record, and it is far worse than ours.

And I wouldn't do it to them. Despite knowledge of their human rights record. That's because I'm so much better a man than they can be. You might try being a sensible woman.

So because they do it, that means WE should? That is a very poor argument for doing things that are inhumane and immoral to another human being. The United States of America is supposed to above such things. We are supposed to be the moral leaders of the world. How can we claim such a title when we lower ourselves to the level of the terrorists that we so hate?

I have a question for all of you who think what we did isn't torture, those pictures from Abu Ghraib, if they had been reversed, and it was OUR soldiers who were treated like that, how would you have felt? You would all have been screaming bloody murder that they were tortured, but since it was US who did it, you feel the need to make excuses. You really need to examine that.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

. . .those pictures from Abu Ghraib, if they had been reversed, and it was OUR soldiers who were treated like that, how would you have felt? You would all have been screaming bloody murder that they were tortured, but since it was US who did it, you feel the need to make excuses. You really need to examine that.

Annoyed, but I wouldn't call it torture. Why do you insist that the most thoughtful, profound people on the board are thoughtless?

We can win, or we can make excuses. We had until recently an Administration who wasn't making excuses, but trying to win. I don't see the same spirit in the Obama Administration, which is why I voted for a real war-fighter, not a socialist-influenced comparative lightweight who by his mere unaggressiveness shall encourage the icky fascistic unfriendlies. It is bad for the Republic, and bad for mankind in general, to encourage these unfriendlies. Show otherwise or shut up.

[classicman]

From the NRO link above

Keeping waterboarding as an interrogation technique is not the slippery slope some say it is.

One was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the principle architect of the 9/11 attacks” according to the 9/11 Report, and the head of al-Qaeda’s “military committee.” Linked to numerous terror plots, he is believed to have financed the first World Trade Center bombing, helped set up the courier system that resulted in the infamous Bali bombing, and cut off Danny Pearl’s head.

A second was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the head of al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf. He allegedly played a role in the 2000 millennium terror plots and was the mastermind behind the USS Cole attack that killed 17 Americans.

The third was Abu Zubaydah, said to be al-Qaeda’s chief logistics operative and Osama bin Laden’s top man after Ayman al Zawahri. It is believed that Zubaydah essentially ran al-Qaeda’s terror camps and recruitment operations. After he was waterboarded, Zubaydah reportedly offered intelligence officers a treasure trove of critical information. He was waterboarded just six months after the 9/11 attacks and while the anthrax scare was still ongoing.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who witnessed the interrogation, told ABC’s Brian Ross: “The threat information that he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”

He divulged, according to Kiriakou, “al-Qaeda’s leadership structure” and identified high-level terrorists the CIA didn’t know much, if anything, about. It’s been suggested that Zubaydah and al-Nashiri’s confessions in turn led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

[TheMercenary]

There you have it. Now it comes down to what you want to believe.

[Undertoad]

The NRO item is old and sometimes wrong based on what's come out since; for example, Mr Goldberg says the detainees were WB'd for a total of less than five minutes, which doesn't concur at all with the numbers listed in the torture memos.

[classicman]

I saw that too. I wasn't sure whether this was correct or the memo's, so I let it be.

According to the CIA IG, there has never been an internal review to verify the claims made that the "harsh interrogations" provided any meaningful data or prevented any attack on the US (as has been asserted by Bush/Cheney). In act, suggestions for the necessity of such a review of interrogations tactics, because of their questionable nature, were ignored.

Kiriakou, the CIA analyst in question, by his words, was not present during the application of the "harsh interrogation techniques" and now acknowledges that waterboarding is torture and therefore, illegal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2007121100844

Not too long, we had a president who said this, regarding treatment of prisoners:

“It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered.”

-- George W. Bush

yes, Bush was talking specifically about abuses at Abu Ghraib....but why shouldnt it apply more broadly to any questionable treatment of prisoners?

[Undertoad]

But maybe the devil's in the details:

The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.

It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."

"The water was poured 183 times -- there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."

The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.

The confusion stems from language in the Justice Department legal memos that President Obama released on April 16. They contain the numbers, but they fail to explain exactly what they represent.

[classicman]

Not debating the waterboarding=torture issue, moreso the effectiveness which is also in question...

In an interview, Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida's waterboarding but was part of the interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan for weeks after his capture in that country in the spring of 2002.

He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative -- until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.

The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted.

After the hospital interviews bore no fruit, Abu Zubaida was flown to a secret CIA prison, where the interrogation duties fell to a team trained in aggressive tactics, including waterboarding.

FBI agents have opposed the use of coercive techniques as counterproductive and unreliable; intelligence officials have defended the tactics as valuable.

President Bush and others have portrayed Abu Zubaida as a crucial and highly placed terrorist, but some intelligence and law enforcement sources have said he did little more than help with logistics for al-Qaeda leaders and their associates.

Kiriakou said he now has mixed feelings about the use of waterboarding. He said that he thinks the technique provided a crucial break to the CIA and probably helped prevent attacks, but that he is now convinced that waterboarding is torture, and "Americans are better than that."

"Maybe that's inconsistent, but that's how I feel," he said. "It was an ugly little episode that was perhaps necessary at that time. But we've moved beyond that."