Torture memos

[Pete Zicato]

What I hear: "The end justifies the means."

And I still don't believe it.

Originally Posted by classicman

The last part from LO123's link

As far as I recall, beyond the legal questions, the CIA IGs report raised questions about the effectiveness of torture

But you can read it for yourself.

Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA's "Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities" by Agency Inspector General John Helgerson. Yesterday, the Obama administration released new portions of the report including considerably more information about the use of torture and other illegal practices by CIA interrogators than a version of the report declassified by the Bush administration in 2008. The report was first posted on the Web yesterday by the Washington Independent.

New revelations include:

* Details on a number of “specific unauthorized or undocumented torture techniques” not mentioned in the 2008 release, including the use of guns, drills, threats, smoke, extreme cold, stress positions, “stiff brush and shackles,” mock executions and “hard takedown.” The Bush administration censured almost all portions of the document pertaining to specific torture techniques, save for a few references to waterboarding that omitted nearly all other contextual information.

*A look at the legal reasoning behind the Agency’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the development of Agency guidance on capture, detention and interrogation.
A brief discussion of the history of CIA interrogation, including the "resurgence of interest in teaching interrogation techniques" in the early 1980s "as one of several methods to foster foreign liaison relationships."
The conclusion that, while CIA interrogations had produced useful intelligence, the “effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained” is not “so easily measured.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torture...e/index_ig.htm

IMO. the ends dont justifty the means....we are a nation of laws...or we are no better than the enemy.

[lookout123]

If you I am causing you discomfort and you believe I may escalate that into the downright painful and possibly lethal, do you think you would be more or less likely to answer my questions?

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by lookout123

If you I am causing you discomfort and you believe I may escalate that into the downright painful and possibly lethal, do you think you would be more or less likely to answer my questions?

<sarcasm>shoving hot needles under their fingernails would probably also work. Or we could use an iron maiden. That would please the heavy metal folks.</>

The results don't matter if the methods are reprehensible.

[Pico and ME]

But its no good if the person just doesn't have any information to give. Of course, then, they will make it up to survive. I wonder how many people we tortured who were in that category? How often did we really get the right people to torture?

[classicman]

What is acceptable, Pete? - seriously.

[Pete Zicato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_convention

Originally Posted by Pete Zicato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_convention

And UNCAT (UN Convention Against Torture) signed by Reagan and US law...AND, the very moral foundation on which this country was built.

[classicman]

From Redux's link

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.
– Convention Against Torture, Article 1.1

Exactly what doesn't that include?

[Pete Zicato]

Either they are prisoners of war - in which case we hold them until the war is over according to the rules of the Geneva convention.

Or they are (accused) criminals in which case they should get a speedy and fair trial. Punishment according to law if/when they are proven guilty.

You are looking for an excuse for torture. If we stoop to that level, how are we better than any third world dictatorship?

[classicman]

No I'm not. I'm trying to figure out what forms of interrogation are allowed in your opinion. The description from the link is very ambiguous.

[Pete Zicato]

In general I'd say: No pain. No killing. No pushing to the brink of death.

So are we talking your basic POW captured in battle or some guy accused of working for al qaeda? If the latter has a trial occurred?

[classicman]

I dunno what interrogation tactics are allowed. Sounds like none.

Laws against torture are not codified to the level of specific individual acts, but to standards of behavior.

Much like "assault" is not codified by individual acts. but by standards..."causing serious physical or bodily harm." Hundreds of years of common law understand what that means...just as common law understand what is meant by "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental"

And no. I am not suggesting any correlation between torture and assault...just an example of how such acts are codified.

Legal interrogation tactics are more psychological... like building a sense of trust, exploiting a detainee’s self-love or allegiance to or resentment of the persons with whom he was aligned, or convincing the person off the futility of his position, etc.

These techniques are not only legal, but also, according to many interrogation experts, more effective. Applied in the right combination, they will work on nearly all detainees...and the US military identifies these techniques as the best way to induce detainees to divulge information.

When you are a nation of laws, you live by those laws.

[classicman]

gotcha. I was wondering if there were specific things that could be done physically that were determined to be torture vs others that were not. I was trying to determine where that "line" was/is.