Is Waterboarding, Torture? Has Pres. Bush Now Admitted to Approving Torture? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 04-14-2008, 08:12 AM

Bush: <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9956644/">"We do not torture" terror suspects</a>

Bush defends interrogation practices: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-07-bush-terror-suspects_x.htm">"We do not torture"</a>

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4415132.stm">US does not torture</a>, Bush insists

<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/08/wbush08.xml">We do not torture detainees</a>, says Bush

Bush: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700772.html">"We do not torture"</a>

Quote:

http://www.kansas.com/611/story/370309.html

....ABC News, which broke the story Wednesday, reported that some of the principals understood the moral swamp into which they were wading.

"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" Ashcroft is quoted as saying at one meeting. "History will not judge this kindly."

Nor will history judge the American people kindly if we look the other way.

Quote:

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPoli...4635175&page=1
Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks
President Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE

April 11, 2008—

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. <h3>"And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."</h3>

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Contacted by ABC News, spokesmen for Tenet and Rumsfeld declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals meetings. The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney. Ashcroft could not be reached.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer sat down with Powell this week for a previously scheduled interview and asked him about the ABC News report.

Powell said that he didn't have "sufficient memory recall" about the meetings and that he had participated in "many meetings on how to deal with detainees." .................................. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=2">[2]</a>

Quote:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6647.html
Roosevelt was right: Waterboarding wrong

By: Daniel A. Rezneck
Oct 31, 2007 07:13 PM EST

....The Filipinos fought back savagely against the American occupation, committing many atrocities.

American soldiers responded with what was called the “water cure” or “Chinese water torture.” As described in a 1902 congressional hearing: “A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down, and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin ... is simply thrust into his jaws, ... and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose, ... until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious. ... His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but who cannot drown.”

Edmund Morris, in the second volume of his brilliant biography of Theodore Roosevelt, recounts how a master politician took over the situation. Roosevelt met with his Cabinet and demanded a full briefing on the Philippine situation. Elihu Root, the secretary of war, reported that an officer accused of the water torture had been ordered to stand trial.

Dissatisfied, Roosevelt sent a cable to the commander of the U.S. Army in the Philippines, stating:
“The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army.”

Roosevelt also ordered the court-martial of the American general on the island of Samar, where some of the worst abuses had occurred. He did so “under conditions which will give me the right of review.” The court-martial cleared the general of the charges, found only that he had behaved with excessive zeal and “admonished” him against repetition.

Roosevelt responded by disregarding the verdict of the court-martial and ordering the general’s dismissal from the Army. Morris wrote that Roosevelt’s decision “won universal praise” from Democrats, who congratulated him for acknowledging cruelty in the Philippine campaign, and from Republicans, who said that he had “upheld the national honor.”....

Quote:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigat...ory?id=1356870
History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding
New Debate Sparked on What Constitutes Torture

Nov. 29, 2005 —

CIA Director Porter Goss maintained this week that the CIA does not employ methods of torture. In doing so, he opened a new debate over exactly what constitutes torture -- especially when it comes to the harshest of the CIA's six secret interrogation techniques, known as "water boarding."

The water board technique dates back to the 1500s during the Italian Inquisition. A prisoner, who is bound and gagged, has water poured over him to make him think he is about to drown.

Current and former CIA officers tell ABC News that they were trained to handcuff the prisoner and cover his face with cellophane to enhance the distress. According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself a torture victim during the Vietnam War, the water board technique is a "very exquisite torture" that should be outlawed.

"Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering," said John Sifton, an attorney and researcher with the organization Human Rights Watch. "That would include water boarding."

On "Good Morning America" today, Goss told ABC News' Charles Gibson that the CIA does not inflict pain on prisoners.

Yet, in response to Gibson's inquiry if water boarding would come under the heading of torture, Goss simply replied, "I don't know."

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

"The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

"Even when you're fighting against belligerents who don't respect the laws of war, we are obliged to hold the laws of war," said Rejali. "And water torture is torture."

This morning, Goss insisted that the CIA and its officers are not breaking U.S. law.

"We do debriefings because debriefings are the nature of our business -- to get information, and we do all that, and we do it in a way that does not involve torture because torture is counterproductive," Goss said.

The CIA maintains its interrogation techniques are in legal guidance with the Justice Department. And current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the techniques, including water boarding.

ABC News' Maddy Sauer, Vic Walter, and Rich Esposito contributed to this report.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/wa...3g&oref=slogin
February 23, 2008
Waterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept.
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department revealed Friday that its internal ethics office was investigating the department’s legal approval for waterboarding of Qaeda suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency and was likely to make public an unclassified version of its report.

The disclosure by H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was the first official acknowledgment of an internal review of the legal memorandums the department has issued since 2002 that authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Mr. Jarrett’s report could become the first public accounting for legal advice that endorsed methods widely denounced as torture by human rights groups and legal authorities. His office can refer matters for criminal prosecution; legal experts said the most likely outcome was a public critique of the legal opinions on interrogation, noting that Mr. Jarrett had the power to reprimand or to seek the disbarment of current or former Justice Department lawyers.

The cloak of secrecy that long concealed the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program and its legal underpinnings has gradually broken down.

The C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, publicly admitted for the first time two weeks ago that the agency used waterboarding in 2002 and 2003 in the interrogation of three Qaeda suspects but said that the technique was no longer used, and its legality under current law is uncertain. The technique, which has been used since the Spanish Inquisition and has been found illegal in the past by American courts, involves water poured into the nose and mouth to create a feeling of drowning.

After General Hayden’s acknowledgment, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey rebuffed demands for a criminal investigation of interrogators who used waterboarding or of their superiors, saying C.I.A. officers could not be prosecuted for actions the Justice Department had advised them were legal. Mr. Jarrett’s review focuses on the government lawyers who gave that advice.

Mr. Jarrett’s disclosure came as prosecutors and F.B.I. agents conduct a criminal investigation of the C.I.A.’s destruction in 2005 of videotapes of harsh interrogations and a week after Congress passed a ban on coercive interrogations, which President Bush has said he will veto.

Mr. Jarrett did not say when his investigation might conclude. He did not respond to a request on Friday for an interview.

In a letter to two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Mr. Jarrett wrote that the legal advice approving waterboarding was one subject of an investigation into “the circumstances surrounding the drafting” of a Justice legal memorandum dated Aug. 1, 2002.

The document declared that interrogation methods were not torture unless they produced pain equivalent to that produced by organ failure or death. The memorandum, drafted by a Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, and signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was withdrawn in 2004.

Mr. Jarrett said the investigation was also covering “related” legal memorandums prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel since 2002. That suggested the investigation would address still-secret legal opinions written in 2005 by Steven G. Bradbury, then and now the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, that gave legal approval for waterboarding and other tough methods, even when used in combination.

Mr. Jarrett said his office was “examining whether the legal advice in these memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys.”

“Because of the significant public interest in this matter, O.P.R. will consider releasing to Congress and the public a nonclassified summary of our final report,” Mr. Jarrett wrote, using the initials for the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Justice Department officials said that the O.P.R. inquiry began more than three years ago and noted that it was mentioned in a Newsweek article in December 2004. It has since been expanded, the officials said, to cover more recent legal opinions on interrogation.

Mr. Jarrett’s letter, dated Monday, came in reply to a Feb. 12 letter from Mr. Durbin and Mr. Whitehouse to him and the Justice Department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, seeking an investigation into the department’s legal approval of waterboarding.

“Despite the virtually unanimous consensus of legal scholars and the overwhelming weight of legal precedent that waterboarding is illegal,” the senators wrote, “certain Justice Department officials, operating behind a veil of secrecy, concluded that the use of waterboarding is lawful. We believe it is appropriate for you to investigate the conduct of these Justice Department officials.”

Mr. Fine replied in a letter this week that the law gave Mr. Jarrett’s office responsibility for reviewing the actions of department lawyers providing legal advice. Mr. Jarrett confirmed that his office was investigating.

Mr. Jarrett reports to the attorney general and oversees only the professional conduct of Justice Department attorneys. He does not enjoy the independence or authority of Mr. Fine, who covers all aspects of Justice operations and also reports to Congress.

In 2006, when Mr. Jarrett tried to look into the Justice Department’s role in approving the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program, Mr. Bush blocked the investigation by denying Mr. Jarrett’s investigators the necessary security clearances. Mr. Fine’s office subsequently obtained the necessary clearances and began such an investigation.

Last November, days after Mr. Mukasey was confirmed as attorney general, Mr. Bush reversed course and granted clearances to Mr. Jarrett’s staffers, who began a delayed review of the legal authorization for the N.S.A. program.

Mr. Durbin and Mr. Whitehouse have been among the most outspoken critics in Congress of harsh interrogation methods. They have called on Mr. Bush to withdraw the nomination of Mr. Bradbury, author of the 2005 interrogation memorandums, as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel; he has filled the job on an acting basis since 2005.

In 2004, Mr. Durbin first proposed a ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that Congress passed in 2005, when it was sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

Mr. Whitehouse, a former United States attorney, said in an interview that he believed the August 2002 memo on torture, as well as classified opinions he had reviewed, fell far short of the Justice Department’s standards for scholarship. He said that in approving waterboarding, the opinions ignored both American military prosecutors’ cases against Japanese officers for waterboarding American prisoners during World War II and a federal appeals court’s decision that upheld the 1983 conviction of a Texas sheriff for using “water torture” on jail inmates.

“I’m very, very pleased that the Office of Professional Responsibility is looking into this,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

Jose Padilla, the American sympathizer of Al Qaeda serving a 17-year sentence for conspiring to help violent Muslim extremists abroad, filed a lawsuit in January against Mr. Yoo, who left Justice in 2003 to return to his job as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The lawsuit claims Mr. Yoo’s legal opinions permitted the designation of Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant and his interrogation using methods that amounted to torture.

Mr. Yoo, who asserted that a president during wartime has extraordinarily broad powers, was a highly influential figure in the Justice Department in the first year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. His views found favor with Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, who shared his views of presidential power.

But some of Mr. Yoo’s opinions, including the August 2002 memo on torture, were withdrawn in 2004 after Jack L. Goldsmith took over as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Yoo could not be reached for comment Friday.

The record indicates to me that waterboarding is a form of torture. it looks to me that president Bush approved of the discussion and methods, taking place in the white house, of interrogating prisoners, including the method of waterboarding, yet he publicly denied that the US was torturing prisoners.

Doesn't this seem a huge departure from longstanding US policy and principle? Isn't Bush's admission, grounds for impeachment, based on the precedent of a US general's court martial for the same thing happening, on his watch?

Willravel · 04-14-2008, 08:27 AM

This would be grounds for impeachment... if a liberal party grew some balls and stepped forward, insisting on an investigation leading to impeachment.

guyy · 04-14-2008, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

This would be grounds for impeachment... if a liberal party grew some balls and stepped forward, insisting on an investigation leading to impeachment.

Lying to get the country into a war in Iraq should be an impeachable offense. Is there anything a worse a president could do?

Oh -- i forgot. Yes, he could have had a blow job.

The centrist/right wing of the Democrats, Hillary & Co. included, went along with the lies, mostly out of gutlessness & stupidity. To impeach Bush would mean accepting some responsibility. It's not going to happen.

host · 04-14-2008, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

This would be grounds for impeachment... if a liberal party grew some balls and stepped forward, insisting on an investigation leading to impeachment.

willravel....rest assured...the last article in the OP states that the "OPR", is on the case...."investigating !!!"

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/wa...3g&oref=slogin
February 23, 2008
Waterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept.
By SCOTT SHANE

....Mr. Jarrett did not say when his investigation might conclude. He did not respond to a request on Friday for an interview.....

They took two "shots" in the following case....and the silence from the OPR is deafening:

Quote:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-25827419.html
C. BRYSON HULL, Associated Press Writer
AP Online
04-13-2000
Gov't To Probe Ex-CIA Officer Case

HOUSTON (AP) -- The Justice Department will investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the 1983 arms-dealing case against former CIA officer Edwin P. Wilson, government attorneys acknowledged in a court filing Thursday.

The disclosure came in the department's response to a Wilson motion to hold 17 current and former CIA and Justice officials in contempt of court for allegedly hiding evidence that would have helped his defense.

``The allegations of this case have been referred to (the Office of
Professional Responsibility), which will conduct a thorough investigation,''
a footnote near the end of the government's eight-page motion said.

Justice spokesman Myron Marlin said the department will not begin looking
into the matter until a court appeal by Wilson, 71, is settled.

Wilson, who was sentenced to 52 years in prison, is appealing his federal
conviction for illegally shipping 20 tons of plastic explosives to Libya from
Houston's Intercontinental Airport.

Wilson alleges prosecutors introduced into evidence a crucial affidavit by
then-CIA Executive Director Charles A. Briggs that they knew was false.

Now in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, Wilson contends the affidavit swore
he ``was neither asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to provide any
services, directly or indirectly, to the CIA,'' after his 1971 retirement,
except for one Libya-related assignment for which he was paid $1,000.

Among the nearly 800 pages of once-classified documents are papers showing
Wilson was asked to perform several dozen services for the CIA, including
acquiring an anti-tank weapon for an agency operation and helping relocate a
Laotian general who was a valuable CIA source.

The Justice Department on Thursday argued that no one intentionally misled
the judge and jury and that only someone who was in the courtroom could have
committed contempt. Of the 17, lead prosecutor Theodore Greenberg was the
only one in the courtroom during the trial, and nothing he did constituted
contempt, Justice Department lawyers said.

Wilson's attorney, David Adler, was skeptical that the OPR investigation will
lead to sanctions.

``If there's anything that the government is incapable of doing, it's
investigating itself. OPR's record of investigating abuses by the Justice
Department is abysmal,'' he said.

The following is from a <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1814912&postcount=3">several years old post</a>:

Quote:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/cassel/20040212.html

Prosecutor Misconduct In Two Recent High-Profile Cases:
Why It Happens, and How We Can Better Prevent It
By ELAINE CASSEL
----
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004

...........What about federal disciplinary options when prosecutors go astray? Sadly, they are also weak.

In 2001, the General Accounting Office wrote a stinging report on the Justice Department's Office of Professional

Responsibility. It found that OPR rarely held prosecutors accountable for misconduct. And if OPR turned over a case over

to the state that licensed an errant prosecutor, OPR rarely followed up.

In response to the report, Congress called on OPR to start doing a better job of self-policing. As Chairman of the House
<b>
Judiciary Committee James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) remarked, "The public has a right to demand the highest ethical

standards for its public servants, particularly those acting on their behalf in the legal system. Unfortunately, today's

report indicates the OPR's procedures fall short of ensuring accountability for attorneys who commit ethics violations and

ensuring public transparency of the process. Both areas are critical in maintaining integrity and public confidence in a

self-regulating profession."

Did OPR improve itself? It's hard to tell. OPR is supposed to file an annual report, but the last one I found on its

website was for 2001. It is filled with self-congratulatory reports of how well it is doing its job -- but it is also

lacking in specifics.</b> We should all watch closely to see if the Mellin and the Detroit cell prosecutors -- all of whom

plainly committed misconduct -- are disciplined by OPR or not. If not, that in itself will be a strong sign that OPR is

still not doing its job..........

Quote:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport/statement.html

...........Furthermore, Amnesty International calls upon state bar authorities to investigate the Administration lawyers

alleged to be involved in the torture scandal for failing to meet professional responsibility standards. The attorneys who

wrote various legal opinions that may have provided cover for subsequent crimes and who should be investigated include

Bybee and David Addington, General Counsel to Vice President Cheney; Robert Delahunty, former Special Counsel in the

Office of Homeland Security, and three attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel—John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney

General, Patrick Philbin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General. We

also call on the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to make public the findings of its

investigation into the Bybee memo..........

I highlighted the fact that since Jan. 20, 2001, the only OPR annual report that has been released by this

administration's DOJ was for the year 2000, before the current occupants took office. There has been no follow up to the

DOJ Nov. 1, 2003 WAPO news story that the OPR had opened an investigation into the prosecutorial misconduct exposed in

October, 2003, that occurred in the 1983 prosection of former CIA operative Edwin P. Wilson.

I suspect that as long as the public can be distracted by tripe like "a runaway bride", the "jacko" trial and acquittal,

and the Bush SSI crisis road show, sprinkled with the post Schiavo circus demands for judicial "accountability, no OPR

reports need ever be made public again. Some of you voted for more of this, but you remind me that you are the true

patriots, and I am the negative, subversive, un-American dissenter!

[quote]http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/editpos...post&p=1768929

I am observing that there is very little interest here about this story of a Federal Justice Dept. and CIA conspiracy that

knowingly carried out a fraud upon the court by submitting as evidence a false and damning affadavit against Ed Wilson

that led to him serving 10 years in solitary confinement, and an additional 12 years in a "super max" federal prison.

I am adding the following just for reference:
(Good news??? The government is "investigating"?.....Hardly...
there has been no follow up on this in 19 months, ABC news and the NY Times did not report on the WA PO report below,
and the "Office of Professional Responsibility" at <a

href="http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/reports.htm">http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/reports.htm</a> has not issued an annual report since

2001, coinciding with the current administration's tenure in office. So....two federal judges and as many as 15 other top

government officials continue to hold high office with no accountability relating to their actions in this fraud!)

Quote:

Stanley Sporkin / Edwin Wilson: WASHINGTON POST Inquiry In Case Of Arms Dealer: Justice to Probe Conduct of Prosecution,

by Susan Schmidt, Washington Post Staff Writer, November 1, 2003 Page A12
<img src="http://www.whereisthemoney.org/hotseat/stanley/images/WP11-1-03pg1.jpg" width="660" height="860">
<img src="http://www.whereisthemoney.org/hotseat/stanley/images/WP11-1-03pg2.jpg" width="660" height="860">

hiredgun · 04-14-2008, 06:06 PM

I don't know enough to say who knew how much and when, although recent accounts (such as the new Frontline 'Bush's War') seem to indicate that prisoner abuses were the result of a deliberate and high-level redefinition of 'torture' carried out amid a pervasive government-wide feeling that 'the gloves should come off'.

On the question of waterboarding, it is absolutely and unmistakably a form of torture, period. Malcolm Nance has an informative piece over at Small Wars Journal on this subject: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...torture-perio/

Nance should know, as he has conducted waterboardings himself.

The common mantra of waterboarding as a 'simulation' is vastly misleading. It is not a simulated drowning but a controlled drowning.

aceventura3 · 04-15-2008, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Bush: <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9956644/">"We do not torture" terror suspects</a>

Bush defends interrogation practices: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-07-bush-terror-suspects_x.htm">"We do not torture"</a>

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4415132.stm">US does not torture</a>, Bush insists

<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/08/wbush08.xml">We do not torture detainees</a>, says Bush

Bush: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700772.html">"We do not torture"</a>

The record indicates to me that waterboarding is a form of torture. it looks to me that president Bush approved of the discussion and methods, taking place in the white house, of interrogating prisoners, including the method of waterboarding, yet he publicly denied that the US was torturing prisoners.

Doesn't this seem a huge departure from longstanding US policy and principle? Isn't Bush's admission, grounds for impeachment, based on the precedent of a US general's court martial for the same thing happening, on his watch?

I read you post and the links. Based on what I read there is no legitimate basis for impeachment in my view. Your post shows no evidence that a law was broken, nor do you show any evidence that Bush authorized that any law be broken regarding torture.

Members of the Bush administration met and discussed the issue of interrogation techniques and gave CIA agents clear guidelines on what they thought would be legal and acceptable questioning techniques. There is no evidence that these people failed to act in good faith. In fact I think they showed a high level of responsibility in meeting and issuing guidelines on this subject.

The legality of water boarding as a questioning technique used by the CIA against military combatants was not clearly defined as illegal at the time it was used by the CIA. In 2007 Bush signed an executive order banning torture during the interrogation of terror suspects.

Certainly we can debate the complexities of the issue, however, there is no clear argument that Bush or members of his administration violated any law. some people even disagree if water boarding is torture depending on how the technique is administered.

Quote:

Andrew C. McCarthy, a licensed attorney and former U.S. federal prosecutor now serving as director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism, states in an October 2007 op-ed in National Review that he believes that, when used "some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive", waterboarding should not qualify as torture under the law. McCarthy continues: "Personally, I don't believe it qualifies. It is not in the nature of the barbarous sadism universally condemned as torture, an ignominy the law, as we've seen, has been patently careful not to trivialize or conflate with lesser evils,"[46]. Nevertheless, McCarthy in the same article admits that "waterboarding is close enough to torture that reasonable minds can differ on whether it is torture" and that "[t]here shouldn’t be much debate that subjecting someone to [waterboarding] repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture."[46]

Some American politicians have unequivocally stated that it is their belief that waterboarding is not torture. In response to the question "Do you believe waterboarding is torture?" on the Glenn Beck show, Representative Ted Poe stated "I don't believe it's torture at all, I certainly don't." Beck agreed with him.[49] The American conservative media commentator Jim Meyers has stated, in a December 2007 Newsmax.com opinion piece, that he does not believe that waterboarding should be classified as a form of torture, because he does not believe it inflicts pain.

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

allaboutmusic · 04-15-2008, 04:32 PM

Those guys seem very sure that waterboarding is not torture, does not inflict pain etc. Well if that is the case, I'd like to see them experience it for themselves. If it's not torture, what are they afraid of?

silent_jay · 04-15-2008, 04:42 PM

It's funny, you see people who haven't experienced it saying it isn't torture, because they 'don't think it inflicts pain', yet they aren't sure, so how can they say it doesn't inflict pain?

Now take a look at hiredgun's link to the SWJ and Malcolm Nance (who has been waterboarded, was the Master Instructor at SERE) saying it absolutely torture, in fact the same type of torture John McCain went through in Hanoi.

Now who would you believe? The politician who 'doesn't think it causes pain' or the ex-SERE instructor who has been waterboarded and has watreboarded hundreds of people?

I like this quote as well:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWJ

It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

He has a point.

aceventura3 · 04-16-2008, 06:54 AM

Under the UN Convention against torture they state there has to be "severe" pain rather than "pain". This is not clear. I think the world would be better served if under international law and under our law if specific techniques were put in these laws rather than subjective definitions of what "pain" or "severe pain" is. Don't you guys agree?

Quote:

Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "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."[2] In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may inflict torture on others for the same reasons as those acting in an official capacity; however, another motive for torture can be for the sadistic gratification of the torturer, as was the case in the Moors Murders.

Torture is prohibited under international law and the domestic laws of most countries; however, Amnesty International estimates that 75% of the world's governments currently practice torture.

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

roachboy · 04-16-2008, 07:13 AM

uh---i don't see how this is an ethically tenable position, ace, particularly since unless you have yourself been waterboarded, you are speculating--so have you been subjected to this yourself?

if not, then you're aestheticizing the pain of another (by making it an abstract entity that you can contemplate, like a thing a toaster or a towel) on the one hand, and then diminishing it by comparing what you imagine it to be against some arbitrary standard---it'd be like having someone shove a pin into your fingernail while telling you that it didn't *really* hurt.

seems an ugly road to go down if the only real basis for your position is that you think the bush people acted in good faith when they decided to make the argument that this was not torture--which was linked to their claim that the geneva conventions were "quaint"...and it doesn't seem to me that you have any actual information to go on beyond this assertion of good faith--hell, even the frontline series "bush's war" provides you with enough information to bring this assertion into serious question. i'd suggest you at least watch it.

because the argument is the usual argument: these standards apply when they affect american troops--but when the states is reacting, anything goes. nearly. this is such a horrific idea, such a ridiculous precedent to set--think about it.

aceventura3 · 04-16-2008, 07:42 AM

Roachboy,

All I am saying is the law needs to be specific. I don't want to be water boarded, I don't even think I would have the ability to do it to a living being - human or animal. However, being at war is an ugly business, a life and death business. Those executing a war deserve clear and specific guildlines. If what we are saying is that we disagree on whether or not water boarding a person willing to attach a bomb to his body and explode the bomb killing himself, innocent children, women, elderly, disabled, relief workers, etc., is putting that person in "severe" pain and suffering that is one thing. I can accept that as a legitimate criticism of the administration. However, to suggest that Bush deserves to be impeached because he attempted to add clarity to the issue of torture for the CIA is something else - and I find that hard to accept.

silent_jay · 04-16-2008, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Under the UN Convention against torture they state there has to be "severe" pain rather than "pain". This is not clear. I think the world would be better served if under international law and under our law if specific techniques were put in these laws rather than subjective definitions of what "pain" or "severe pain" is. Don't you guys agree?

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

I'll take the word of a person who has been subjected to waterboarding, over a Wikipedia article that any idiot with a computer can edit any day.

Willravel · 04-16-2008, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Roachboy,

All I am saying is the law needs to be specific.

It shouldn't have to. The Geneva Conventions shouldn't have to say "Don't torture, which means..." because we already know that we shouldn't be doing things like water boarding. It's like eating your vegetables; we all know what it means. We don't need to ask, "Do carrots count? What about bell peppers? Can I skip today and eat more tomorrow?" because it's a fucking simple concept.

host · 04-16-2008, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Roachboy,

All I am saying is the law needs to be specific. I don't want to be water boarded, I don't even think I would have the ability to do it to a living being - human or animal. However, being at war is an ugly business, a life and death business. Those executing a war deserve clear and specific guidelines. If what we are saying is that we disagree on whether or not water boarding a person willing to attach a bomb to his body and explode the bomb killing himself, innocent children, women, elderly, disabled, relief workers, etc., is putting that person in "severe" pain and suffering that is one thing. I can accept that as a legitimate criticism of the administration. However, to suggest that Bush deserves to be impeached because he attempted to add clarity to the issue of torture for the CIA is something else - and I find that hard to accept.

ace...you want "specific"?

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040502099.html
2003 MEMO ON INTERROGATION
Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail
Drugging Detainees Is Among Techniques

Former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo now teaches law at the University of California at Berkeley.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 6, 2008; Page A03

Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner's eyes poked out?

Or, for that matter, could he have "scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance" thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?

These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. law prohibiting maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities. <h3>The specific prohibitions, he said, depended on the circumstances or which "body part the statute specifies."

But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped</h3> by the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief.

The dry discussion of U.S. maiming statutes is just one in a series of graphic, extraordinary passages in Yoo's 81-page memo, which was declassified this past week. No maiming is known to have occurred in U.S. interrogations, and the Justice Department disavowed the document without public notice nine months after it was written. ....

President Bush follows the legal opinion of the lawyer he is most in agreement with....Yoo says Bush can do whatever he wants....it's "wartime", that makes Bush the "wartime president", the "decider". WHAT "SPECIFIC" WOULD MATTER, ace?

This is a better description than I could write myself, making the argument that it is time for the house to form an impeachment investigation committee:

Quote:

http://troutfishing.dailykos.com/ From April 10 entry:

....Yesterday an ABC news story incriminated top Bush Administration officials Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Ashcroft and Powell, in discussing highly specific details of proposed torture techniques, in National Security Council meetings, and then approving those techniques as policy through the NSC. <h5>There's a problem with this however ; the president is the head of the NSC, chairs certain meetings and, crucially, is the only one with authority to sign off</h5> on key National Security Council policies and decisions.

That's not surprising; it's the very role of the chief executive in American government and if the NSC, not to mention the Justice Department, could somehow operate quasi-independently from the president American Democracy would fall apart. That's American government 101; the president is head of the executive branch and functions as, put so charmingly by George W. Bush, "the decider".

That's an accurate description. The president is the ultimate "decider" of the executive branch and it also happens that, as president, George W. Bush is the head of the National Security Council, "the decider" for all key NSC decisions.

In other words, George E. Lowe suggested to me, if Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and other in the administration authorized US policy on torture without Bush's clearance they staged, in effect, a virtual coup :

bizarrely, the ABC story neglects to mention that the NSC is an executive body which helps formulate national security policy and that, at the head of it, the final authority who signs off on the national policy documents the NSC generates, the final authority who signs off on NSC policy documents, NSC resolutions, is the president: George W. Bush, the decider.

For a description of how that process works, listen to part two of my latest interview with George E. Lowe, part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgCRANYYonw

Last week law professor Jonathan Turley suggested that the Yoo memos pointed to the White House, and now ABC reports that the "most senior Bush administration officials" discussed and approved specific torture techniques. As ABC news <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4583256&page=1">reported yesterday</a> April 9, 2008:

<h5>In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.</h5>

But based on my interviews George E. Lowe the ABC story amounts to what the CIA calls "limited hang out", because the strong likelihood is that George W. Bush himself signed off on torture.

The ABC story says Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Ashcroft and Powell discussed highly specific details and also authorized the torture policy. In an interview last year, Former CIA Director George Tenet stated that "It [the suggested torture techniques] was legal according to the Attorney General" and "it was authorized."

Tenet did not say who authorized the torture and although the ABC story notes the Justice Dept. had issued a 'top secret' memo declaring the "enhanced" torture methods to be legal such a ruling, on the supposed legality of the torture methods, does not indicate that the "authorization" Tenet referred to came from the Justice Department. Indeed, evidence points rather to the National Security Council and the White House.

Regardless of the Justice Department ruling, Tenet was apparently unwilling to implement the torture techniques without the additional legal cover of direct orders to do so from the White House. Tenet has referred to the "golden shield" which protects CIA agents his multiple trips to the National Security Council and the White House, on the torture issue, indicate he was was anxious to get as much legal cover for his people as possible.

As ABC details, Tenet "wanted reassurance his agents would be protected" went to the White House "again and again". That in turn suggests Tenet knew that using the torture techniques promoted by the administration would violate the Geneva Conventions and amount to war crimes.

The ABC story indicates that the Justice Department bears some of the culpability for the torture policy, and it also specifically implicates Condaleeza Rice and Dick Cheney, but ABC's coverage fundamentally muddies the nature of the power relationships.

The suggestion inherent to ABC's coverage is that the Justice Department and also the National Security Council operate as independent or qausi independent branches of government, somehow autonomous from presidential control. That is wildly misleading.

As George E. Lowe has informed me this is not how the NSC works - the NSC does not operate independently from the president. The president chairs NSC meetings and he signs off on NSC resolutions. Here's how <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/">the White House itself describes the National Security Council</a>:

The National Security Council is chaired by the President. <h5>Its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of National Intelligence is the intelligence advisor. The Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting. The Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget are invited to attend meetings pertaining to their responsibilities. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate.
National Security Council's Function<h5>

The National Security Council is the President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters<h5> with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Since its inception under President Truman, the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies. The Council also serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies.</h5>

The Federation of American Scientists has a <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/NSChistory.htm">highly detailed description of the function and history of the NSC as an institution.</a> The FAS account corresponds very closely with the account given to me by George E. Lowe right down to the specific sorts of terminology used.

The most salient point is this :

<h3>The National Security Council does not formulate policy independently from the president.</h3> The President chairs the NSC and is the final authority in policy formation.

Indeed, the president signs off on all key National Security Council decisions and all key NSC policy documents, and the president is the one who delegates authority so that NSC decisions and policies are implemented.

Thus, it's very likely George W. Bush signed an NSC document authorizing specific torture methods. In doing so Bush would have authorized, as official United States national policy, torture methods judged both by the Geneva Conventions, and also United States anti-torture legislation signed by Bill Clinton in the mid 1990's, to be illegal and which were treated, per the US prosecution of Japanese military officers for waterboarding, as war crimes.

As quoted by ABC, then Attorney General John Ashcroft's outburst during one of the NSC meetings on torture highlights the legally dubious nature of the torture techniques: "WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE ! --HISTORY WILL NOT JUDGE THIS KINDLY."

[Below: part one (10 minutes) of my interview with George E. Lowe. Bottom and also a (5 minute) video based on an excerpt from a previous interview with Lowe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8TI_HZ_sdk

Based on his 30 years of experience in government, as someone who has written National Security Council decision memos and is quite familiar with the National Security Council, George E. Lowe last week walked me through the process by which the Bush Administration torture program was probably first conceived of, as a legal opinion, and then turned into a National Security Council action memo, which presented a range of options, that got sent up the line to Bush.

As Lowe describes in the interview, "it's an art form", the writing of these things and the idea is to craft them in such a way (and to whisper in his ear to this end) so the president picks the right option.

Then, that act memo gets converted, probably, into a National Security Council resolution or other NSC document and it sets the official government policy and, as Lowe stresses, that's what this is all about, "it's about controlling the <h3>policy"</h3>.

Here's the basic situation, as George Lowe describes it to me:

The torture techniques that were devised, sanctioned and implemented by the Bush Administration are widely recognized to violate the Geneva Conventions and international law, and this presented a bureacratic problem because the torture program, implemented at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and throughout a network of secret US detention centers established around the world, was massive.

The torture program was global policy, there were lots of people involved in implementing it. So, simply on a "cover your ass" basis, civil servants and people in the professional military, whomever was involved in the program in any capacity, needed the best possible legal cover. That's the subtext to Former CIA Director Gerge Tenet's resistance to authorizing torture based on a mere ruling from the Justice Department. Tenet wanted direct orders from the White House and he appears to have gotten them as, described in the ABC story, Condaleeza Rice instructed Tenet "This is your baby. Go do it!". Rice was delegating the authority to Tenet and ordering him to implement the new NSC torture policy.

As Lowe explains, is about process, there's an established process by which government policy gets set, and then authority to implement that policy gets delegated, from Bush down the line.
According to Lowe, the only person who has the level of authority necessary to sign off on National Security memos and resolutions is the president. So, at the White House level, <h5>there are two possibilities: Bush signed off on the torture policy or top members of his administration, Cheney, Rumsfeld and maybe others illegally usurped the authority, in effect staging a virtual coup. That would also indicate the president to be oblivious and incompetent, and we have to take such a possibility seriously, yes, but the greater likelihood is that George W. Bush signed off on torture and a National Security policy document got generated.</h5> Then Bush delegated to Rumsfeld the authority to implement the torture policy and from there Rumsfeld delegated down the line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPtePKZs9kQ

<img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg53/lauraderrick/020207p1.jpg">

<img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg53/lauraderrick/020207.jpg">

filtherton · 04-16-2008, 10:02 AM

"Depends on what you're definition of 'torture' is" which seems to be the common excuse to torture people presently, sounds suspiciously like "Depends on what you're definition of 'is' is."

Why is it that there seems to be a great deal of group overlap between the people who can't fathom any justifications for complex, nuanced perspectives on race relations and the people who also feel that we need complex, nuanced justifications for torture? I know it's a threadjack, so please forgive.

This shouldn't be the type of thing we should be having complex, nuanced discussions about. Intellectually honest people don't need the law to define torture for them. If folks think torture is useful they should just say that. Enough of this bullshit, "Well, we only stuck pins under the nail on the pinky finger, so that's not really torture" business. If we're going to torture people, we should admit it openly, and go from there.

Then again, admitting the utility of torture would seem to take a bit of the wind out of the "We needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was evil" justification for the invasion of Iraq, which is something I'm not sure the current admin wants to do (despite the fact that the current admin has very little credibility left anyway). It's difficult to convincingly complain about your enemies' rape rooms when you essentially set up one of your own following your invasion.

Willravel · 04-16-2008, 10:04 AM

Why aren't more people disgusted that we have to argue over what is or isn't torture? This is insane.

allaboutmusic · 04-16-2008, 10:20 AM

Common sense should be enough, but in all matters where some kind of law is invovled, common sense isn't exactly prominent.

host · 04-16-2008, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Why aren't more people disgusted that we have to argue over what is or isn't torture? This is insane.

There is an answer at the top of the page I linked to in the main article in my last post, and this is a reaction <h5>BY the news organization leading the investigation</h5> of white house approval of torture...consider the "coverage" of the less committed news media, if this is how the "best" is behaving?

Quote:

<img src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c219/talk2action/abc_snapshot.jpg">
image above: implicit message, from ABC News website, Monday April 14, 2008: Story on body of dog 'taken out with the trash', and other info-trivia & human interest/tragedy tales trump story of how a sitting US President signed off on a torture program that violated US and international laws concerning war crimes.

Here's a list of some of the top stories according to ABC -

"Polygamy Custody Battle Set For 416 Kids"
"Two Illinois Babies Switched at Birth"
"Butter Knife in Boy's Head"
"35,000 For An Allergy Free Cat ?"
"Dead Dog Taken Out With Trash"
"Granny Fights Off Armed Robber"
"Can Mint Lead To Alcoholism?"
"Barton's Beach Pix Likely a Publicity Ploy"
"Lively 'Doogie' and Their Doggies"

<h5>Turn off your TV. Cancel your cable contract.</h5>

There are other reasons for doing this, sure. TV watching is one of the top risk factors for Alzheimers. Television may, quite literally, shrivel your brain.

But if the American mainstream media's concerted effort to bury the Bush/White House creation of a torture program...

......... that led to abuses including, according to Senator Lindsey Graham, rape and murder and, according to Seymour Hersh, also the rape of Iraqi children isn't good enough reason for trimming your expenses, starting with whatever paid television service that pads your monthly budget I don't know what is.

Does torture matter ? Why should you care ?

Sure, it's true that US government human rights violations have been going on a long time, especially abroad. Following the "good war" of WW2 the United States proceeded to fight a lot of "dirty" wars and the effort, which was supposed to be about fighting communism, devolved into wars against nationalism and resulted in attempted counter-insurgency tactics, in Vietnam, including mass internment of Vietnamese civilians in concentration camps and "counter-insurgency" via napalm and carpet bombing. Not to mention a huge Vietnam-era torture and assassination operation called the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/13/141846/121/378/494911">"Phoenix Program".</a>
<h5> "Torture and abuse also took many other forms, all of them criminal. Federal government documents obtained by the ACLU through our Freedom of Information Act litigation and reports of the International Committee of the Red Cross documented torture or abuse against U.S.-held detainees, including acts such as: soaking a prisoner’s hand in alcohol and setting it on fire, administering electric shocks, subjecting prisoners to repeated sexual abuse and assault, including sodomy with a bottle, raping a juvenile prisoner, kicking and beating prisoners in the head and groin, putting lit cigarettes inside a prisoner’s ear, force-feeding a baseball to a prisoner, chaining a prisoner hands-to-feet in a fetal position for 24 hours without food or water or access to a toilet, and breaking a prisoner’s shoulders.

But unpunished crimes go even further, to include possible homicides..." [from ACLU Letter calling for an independent prosecutor, linked at bottom of post]</h5>

So, isn't this business as usual ?

Well, even if you're morally comfortable with a government that behaves like a mafia you should consider your own personal safety well being:

In the Bush Administration's heady days of working to roll back American civil rights, to about the 13th Century [by trying to bury Habeus Corpus] the sorts of memos flowing from John Yoo's lawyerly pen included claims that a US President, George W. Bush at the time, could order that the testicles of US citizens be crushed, their eyes gouged out, their limbs lopped off or their skin burnt off with acid. As long as those methods were "non-lethal".

So much government secrecy has arisen during the Presidency of George W. Bush that it's very hard to determine, regardless of administration disavowals, whether such patently sadistic, pre-13th Century brutality has been repudiated or not.

What can we do ?

Well, this has been said before but ultimately one of the most direct forms of power we still possess is the power we wield as consumers.

Are you concerned about government claims, on being able to pluck you off the street and torture you with acid, blind you or hack off parts of your body as if that could be some rational approach to fighting terrorism rather than terrorism itself ?

Turn off your TV. Cancel the contract.

[image, right: "boy survives butter knife in head, girl survives screwdriver to head" beats 4-5 million Iraqis internally displaced, 4-5 million made into orphans, God knows how many wounded and killed, tens of thousands of US troops killed, wounded and suffering PTSD with some now unable now to get proper medical care... plus news that George W. Bush signed off on war crimes ?]

Much of what can be seen on TV is junk, but some of what is good can be watched now for free. South Park is free, the best bits of Olberman and Bill Maher tend to pop up soon enough on YouTube and, let's face it :

If you're watching TV while your government is torturing around the world in wretched prisons and secret detention centers, while government lawyers are writing memos on how they want to bring such a debasement of basic human rights to the US and institute a torture regime, in America, that sounds about on par with the torture abuses of Saddam Hussein's Iraq the the Bush Administration used as a pretext for invading Iraq...

If you're watching TV, letting your brain slowly shrivel (because the activity is so passive) while your government tries to fashion legal excuses for the psycho-sexual sadistic impulses of its top executives who apparently get sexually turned on by torture, given their obsession with the practice, then you've got a terminal reality gap.

Last Wednesday, ABC News broke the story of how top members of the Bush White House discussed, in graphic detail, proposed torture methods.

On Friday, ABC broke the news that, in an interview, George W. Bush had admitted he knew of an "approved" of the torture discussions.

Since that convenient emptying of the garbage on a Friday at the end of the weekly news cycle, ABC and all the other major networks have worked overtime to bury the story, the fact that President George W. Bush almost certainly signed off on torture (probably sexual torture too).

So, here's a picture of what we've come to:

[image, right: ABC says "Lively doogie and their doggies" beats presidentially authorized torture.]

It's been openly admitted that a sitting US President committed war crimes. Lawyers in the president's administration have written legal justifications claiming the president can gouge out US citizen's eyes, chop off their limbs, crush their testicles and douse them with acid.

<h3>The media finds this unremarkable. Especially the war crimes part.</h3>.....

Does that "clear up" your question? We live in a "fucked" country, will:

"Regular" "good Americans"...they elected a president who they consider a "regular guy", someone who they could sit down and drink a beer with, and then torture whoever he told them to torture.....

Quote:

http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/....html?nv=ct_cb
<img src="http://img2.stern.de/_content/61/43/614356/england250_250.jpg">

...... How do you get by? What do you live on?
We just got our taxes back. Thank God. Otherwise, I don't know. I live in a trailer with my parents. My Dad works for the railway and he tries to help out with bills and my Mom helps me with what she gets.

You live in Ashby, a small town with a population of 1300. How do people treat you now?
They don't treat me any different. I haven't met a person yet that's been negative to me. Not since I got home. Most of them back me up one hundred percent. They say, "What happened to you was wrong." And some even say they would have done the same thing.

What do they mean by "They would have done the same thing"?
That they would have followed orders, just as I did in Abu Ghraib......

Willravel · 04-16-2008, 10:37 AM

After what's happened since 2001, I expect this kinda of sheepish crap from the mainstream media. What surprises me are the reactions here on TFP and on other forums.

host · 04-16-2008, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

After what's happened since 2001, I expect this kinda of sheepish crap from the mainstream media. What surprises me are the reactions here on TFP and on other forums.

Don't be surprised. Every republican in American thinks Colin Powell would make an excellent running mate choice for John McCain, and many would support Powell if he decided to run for president. How many have even heard of the late Hugh Thompson?

Quote:

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPoli...ory?id=4635175

Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks
President Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE
April 11, 2008

...Contacted by ABC News, spokesmen for Tenet and Rumsfeld declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals meetings. The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney. Ashcroft could not be reached.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer sat down with Powell this week for a previously scheduled interview and asked him about the ABC News report.

Powell said that he didn't have "sufficient memory recall" about the meetings and that he had participated in "many meetings on how to deal with detainees." ....

Quote:

http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/Publicati...1-28_Final.pdf

After a long letter-writing campaign begun by Professor David
Egan of Clemson University, who thought Hugh Thompson was
a true American hero who had yet to get the recognition he
deserved, Hugh Thompson was awarded the Soldier’s Medal in
Washington, D.C. on March 6, 1998. This ceremony was days
before Hugh Thompson and fellow crewman Larry Colburn
were scheduled to return to Vietnam to visit My Lai and some
of the people they had saved, 30 years after that dark day in
American history.
1

Page 5
Later, the Army tried to cover up the fact that the victims, all of
them, were unarmed women, old men, children. Even more
would have been murdered if Thompson and Colburn had not
intervened, landing their helicopter near a rice paddy to rescue
some of the villagers.

Page 6
Mr. Thompson
One hundred seventy people were marched down in there,
women, old men, babies. GIs stood up on the side with their
weapons on full automatic and machine gun fire.
Mr. Colburn
There were no weapons captured. There were no draft-age males
killed. They were civilians.
Mike Wallace
And then, as the chopper hovered, Glenn Andreotta saw a young
child still alive in the ditch.
Mr. Colburn
Glenn without hesitation went into the ditch and waded over to
the child, who was still—
Mike Wallace
Ditch full of bodies?
Mr. Colburn
Yes, sir.
Mr. Thompson
Oh, it was full, sir.
Mike Wallace
Full of blood?
Mr. Colburn
Yes, sir. Some of the people were still—they were dying. They
weren’t all dead, and Glenn got to the child and picked him up
and—
Mike Wallace
It was a boy?
Mr. Colburn
I think it was a little boy, yes.
7
Mr. Thompson
I remember thinking that I had a son, you know, that same age.
Mike Wallace
As Thompson was recalling the horrors of that day, an elderly
woman walked toward us. She said that she had been dumped in
a ditch back in 1968 but had survived, shielded by the bodies of
the dead and dying.
Mr. Thompson
Sorry we couldn’t help you that day. Thank you very much.
Woman
Thank you very much.
Mr. Thompson
Yes, ma’am.
Mike Wallace
Why, she wanted to know, were so many villagers killed that day,
and why was Thompson different from the rest of the Americans?
Mr. Thompson
I saved the people because I wasn’t taught to murder and kill. I
can’t answer for the people who took part in it. I apologize for
the ones who did, and I just wish we could have helped more
people that day.
Mike Wallace
In fact, they did help more people. Thompson and Colburn
found 10 villagers cowering in a bunker. They radioed for a
couple of choppers, which airlifted all of them to safety.
And we managed to find two of the women they had saved.
Mrs. Nhung, who is 73 now, was 43 when she was rescued.
Mrs. Nhanh was only six.
Mr. Thompson
You were very small then. You were at the entrance. This is
Larry. This is Larry. He was with me that day.

Page 10
Mike Wallace
For more than 30 years, those horrible images have haunted
Hugh Thompson. Until our trip to Vietnam, though, he was
reluctant to talk publicly about My Lai, and it wasn’t until after
we broadcast the story you’ve just seen that we discovered why.
For now we have learned that the years after the war were almost
as much a nightmare for Thompson as the massacre itself.
<h5>In 1970, Thompson was called to testify on Capitol Hill where he
feels he was treated like a criminal. Mendel Rivers, he was the
Chairman of the House Armed Services Commission.
Mr. Thompson
Yes, sir.
Mike Wallace
And pro-military.
Mr. Thompson
Yes, sir. It was not pleasant going before Congress. The war
effort at that time couldn’t stand any bad press, so they tried to
whitewash it as much as they could.
Mike Wallace
In fact, according to a new biography of Thompson, The
Forgotten Hero of My Lai, Chairman Rivers did everything he
could to protect the GIs who were responsible for the massacre.
Let me read something to you that Mendel Rivers said after you
testified before the Armed Services Committee. “Thompson,” he

said, “gave us no information to lead us to believe that anyone
committed a massacre at My Lai.” Right?
Mr. Thompson
Yes, sir. That’s what I heard he said, and they had everything
classified so you couldn’t say—
Mike Wallace
What do you mean they had it classified?
Mr. Thompson
It was secret hearings.
Mike Wallace
So the American public could not know what went on?
Mr. Thompson
No, sir, and I sure couldn’t say anything, because I was one
scared little guy at that particular time.
Mike Wallace
And then Congressman Rivers went after you personally, no?
Mr. Thompson
Well, he tried to get me to say that I had, you know, threatened to
kill a lieutenant. It was kind of plain that he wanted me to go to
jail. He even made that statement in public.
Mike Wallace
What did your buddies in the Army think of you?
Mr. Thompson
That I was a traitor—they didn’t know the magnitude of My Lai.
Some of them would say, “Oh, that stuff happened all the time.”
I’d say, “No, it can’t happen all the time.” I don’t think I could
live with myself if I thought that was an everyday thing that I was
part of.
Mike Wallace
But recently, the military establishment, which had given
Thompson the cold shoulder for 30 years, has been inviting him
to give lectures on military ethics.</h5> At the U.S. Marine Base in
Quantico, Virginia, he told a stunned audience of Marine officers
some grisly details about the My Lai massacre.
Mr. Thompson in lecture
A lot of the girls didn’t scream too much either, because they had
already cut their tongues out, and a bayonet can kill two real
quick if they’re pregnant. Ain’t that nasty that they—I personally—
I mean, I wish I was a big enough man to say I forgive them, but
I swear to God I can’t....

Quote:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/112807a.html

....A pilot named Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. from Stone Mountain, Georgia, was furious at the killings he saw happening on the ground. He landed his helicopter between one group of fleeing civilians and American soldiers in pursuit.

Thompson ordered his helicopter door gunner to shoot the Americans if they tried to harm the Vietnamese. After a tense confrontation, the soldiers backed off.

Later, two of Thompson’s men climbed into one ditch filled with corpses and pulled out a three-year-old boy whom they flew to safety.

Several months later, the Americal’s brutality would become a moral test for Major Powell, too. A letter had been written by a young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen, who had served in an Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of his Army tour.

In the letter to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal Division of routine brutality against civilians. Glen’s letter was forwarded to the Americal headquarters at Chu Lai where it landed on Major Powell’s desk.

“The average GI’s attitude toward and treatment of the Vietnamese people all too often is a complete denial of all our country is attempting to accomplish in the realm of human relations,” Glen wrote.

He added that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who “for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves. …

“What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated.”

When interviewed in 1995, Glen said he had heard second-hand about the My Lai massacre, though he did not mention it specifically. The massacre was just one part of the abusive pattern that had become routine in the division, he said.

The letter’s troubling allegations were not well received at Americal headquarters. Major Powell undertook the assignment to review Glen’s letter, but did so without questioning Glen or assigning anyone else to talk with him.

Powell simply accepted a claim from Glen’s superior officer that Glen was not close enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about, an assertion Glen denied.

After that cursory investigation, Powell drafted a response on December 13, 1968. He admitted to no pattern of wrongdoing. Powell claimed that U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were taught to treat Vietnamese courteously and respectfully.

“There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs,” Powell wrote. But “this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the Division. … In direct refutation of this [Glen’s] portrayal … is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”

Ridenhour’s Probe

It would take another Americal veteran, an infantryman named Ron Ridenhour, to piece together the truth about the atrocity at My Lai. After returning to the United States, Ridenhour interviewed Americal comrades who had participated in the massacre.

On his own, Ridenhour compiled this shocking information into a report and forwarded it to the Army inspector general. <h3>The IG’s office conducted an aggressive official investigation, in contrast to Powell’s review.</h3>

Courts martial were held against officers and enlisted men who were implicated in the murder of the My Lai civilians. <h3>But Powell’s peripheral role in the My Lai cover-up did not slow his climb up the Army’s ladder.

Luckily for Powell, Glen’s letter also disappeared into the National Archives – to be unearthed only years later by British journalists Michael Bilton and Kevin Sims for their book, Four Hours in My Lai.

In his memoirs, Powell did not mention his brush-off of Tom Glen’s complaint. Powell did include, however, another troubling recollection that belied his 1968 official denial of Glen’s allegation that American soldiers “without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves.”

After a brief mention of the My Lai massacre, Powell penned a partial justification of the Americal’s brutality. Powell explained the routine practice of murdering unarmed male Vietnamese.</h3>

“I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male,” Powell wrote. “If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him.

“If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter.

“And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.”

While it’s certainly true that combat is brutal and judgments can be clouded by fear, the mowing down of unarmed civilians in cold blood does not constitute combat. It is murder and, indeed, a war crime.

Neither can the combat death of a fellow soldier be cited as an excuse to murder civilians. That was precisely the rationalization that the My Lai killers cited in their own defense.

Donaldson Case

After returning home from Vietnam in 1969, Powell was drawn into another Vietnam controversy involving the killing of civilians. In a court martial proceeding, Powell sided with an Americal Division general who was accused by the Army of murdering unarmed civilians while flying over Quang Ngai province.

Helicopter pilots who flew Brig. Gen. John W. Donaldson had alleged that the general gunned down civilian Vietnamese almost for sport.

In an interview in 1995, a senior investigator from the Donaldson case told Robert Parry that two of the Vietnamese victims were an old man and an old woman who were shot to death while bathing.

Though long retired – and quite elderly himself – the Army investigator still spoke with a raw disgust about the events of a quarter century earlier. He requested anonymity before talking about the behavior of senior Americal officers.

“They used to bet in the morning how many people they could kill – old people, civilians, it didn’t matter,” the investigator said. “Some of the stuff would curl your hair.”

For eight months in Chu Lai during 1968-69, Powell had worked with Donaldson and apparently developed a great respect for this superior officer. When the Army charged Donaldson with murder on June 2, 1971, Powell rose in the general’s defense.

Powell submitted an affidavit dated August 10, 1971, which lauded Donaldson as “an aggressive and courageous brigade commander.” Powell did not specifically refer to the murder allegations, but added that helicopter forays in Vietnam had been an “effective means of separating hostiles from the general population.”

The old Army investigator claimed that “we had him [Donaldson] dead to rights,” with the testimony of two helicopter pilots who had flown Donaldson on his shooting expeditions.

Still, the investigation collapsed after the two pilot-witnesses were transferred to another Army base and apparently came under pressure from military superiors. The two pilots withdrew their testimony, and the Army dropped all charges against Donaldson.

While thousands of other Vietnam veterans joined the anti-war movement upon returning home and denounced the brutality of the war, Powell held his tongue.

To this day, Powell has avoided criticizing the Vietnam War other than to complain that the politicians should not have restrained the military high command.

Making Contacts

The middle years of Colin Powell’s military career – bordered roughly by the twin scandals of My Lai and Iran-Contra – were a time for networking and advancement.

Powell won a prized White House fellowship that put him inside Richard Nixon’s White House. Powell’s work with Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget brought Powell to the attention of senior Nixon aides, Frank Carlucci and Caspar Weinberger, who soon became Powell’s mentors.

When Ronald Reagan swept to victory in 1980, Powell’s allies – Weinberger and Carlucci – took over the Defense Department as secretary of defense and deputy secretary of defense, respectively.

When they arrived at the Pentagon, Powell, then a full colonel, was there to greet them. But before Powell could move to the top echelons of the U.S. military, he needed to earn his first general’s star.......

ratbastid · 04-16-2008, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Why aren't more people disgusted that we have to argue over what is or isn't torture? This is insane.

Because law (or, good law) isn't drawn from common sense, it's drawn from clear and thorough definition of terms.

I'm not disgusted at having a thorough and complete definition. I'm pretty disgusted at the thought of any definition that would EXCLUDE waterboarding.

Willravel · 04-16-2008, 10:58 AM

I can virtually guarantee you that they have no idea who Thompson is.

host · 04-16-2008, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I can virtually guarantee you that they have no idea who Thompson is.

willravel, in the America that you and I hope for, <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=my+lai++general+peers&hl=en&safe=off&start=10&sa=N">Lt. General William Peers</a> would have experienced Colin Powell's advancement and praise, instead of Powell.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

The contrast makes you wonder about the rot and mediocrity inside the military, and in politics, and in corporate board rooms. Gen. Petraeus's open partisanship and "yes man" attitude come to mind. Last month, the admiral who called Petraeus

Quote:

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that"

resigned, because he disagreed with Bush! It should have been Bush and Petraeus resigning, not Fallon. If there is an actual threat as grave as Bush describes....over and over...Fallon would be the leader I'd want in command.

Willravel · 04-16-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

willravel, in the America that you and I hope for, General Ridenhour would have experienced Colin Powell's advancement and praise, instead of Powell.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

Can you imagine how the runup to the Iraq war would have been had Ridenhour been in Powell's position? It'd be funny if it weren't so disappointing.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj..._hero.html#RON

host · 04-16-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Can you imagine how the runup to the Iraq war would have been had Ridenhour been in Powell's position? It'd be funny if it weren't so disappointing.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj..._hero.html#RON

I made a mistake....Ridenhour's exposure of the massacre was important, but Colin Powell is not fit to be called a general, next to Lt. Gen. William Peers:
http://www.google.com/search?q=my+la...&start=10&sa=N

aceventura3 · 04-16-2008, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Why aren't more people disgusted that we have to argue over what is or isn't torture? This is insane.

I assume your view of torture is like that old commonly held view of pornography, "I know it when I see it". Well that's really useful.

How is this:

Questioning Guidelines for CIA:

All terror suspects should be in air-conditioned or heated room at a temp of 70 degrees. They should be offered a comfortable chair or couch. If they have lower back issues and special seating is required, make sure it is available.

After 2.5 hours of questioning they get a 15 minute break. Please supply coffee and donuts. Check for peanut allergies before offering donuts!

After 4 hours of questioning they get 1/2 hour for lunch. Play soft music, offer a 3 course meal that excludes pork.

Do not shout or raise your voice to the point were it may cause emotional pain or torment.

Etc.

Etc.

ObieX · 04-16-2008, 12:23 PM

Offering reasons for cooperation other than the ending of induced physical and mental torment? Showing these individuals that we really aren't evil sadistic psychopaths hellbent on the destruction of their people, religion, and way of life?

What the hell, it works on Star Trek!

hiredgun · 04-17-2008, 11:08 AM

Looking back through this thread I am having some trouble wrapping my head around how the question of what waterboarding fundamentally is is somehow escaping a decisive answer.

Forget the details. Waterboarding is the infliction of pain and terror for the purpose of extracting information. What possible definition of torture could exclude that activity? The only way this is possible is if the person answering the question is committed to the idea that 'torture' is by definition something done to us, whereas we by definition do not torture, and for this reason we must tweak the definition of torture in a way that emphasizes for all to see that what we do is not as bad as what they do and therefore cannot be classified as torture.

If you want to claim that waterboarding is justified, go ahead. I am more than willing to engage you in conversation about whether we can execute the form of torture known as waterboarding and still retain the moral high ground. But the therapeutic attempt to redefine the terms of debate in a way that leaves intact your increasingly dissonant framework of self-righteousness.... this seems to me kind of pathetic.

Ustwo · 04-17-2008, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredgun

If you want to claim that waterboarding is justified, go ahead. I am more than willing to engage you in conversation about whether we can execute the form of torture known as waterboarding and still retain the moral high ground. But the therapeutic attempt to redefine the terms of debate in a way that leaves intact your increasingly dissonant framework of self-righteousness.... this seems to me kind of pathetic.

I view it as a 'mild' form of torture, only I really don't care if we are using it or not.

We can maintain the moral high ground if we like, as unlike our opponents who behead people and put it on the internet, or cut off body parts, we do no permanent harm with it. They still have all their pieces in working order when its done, nor are they in a body bag.

We are fighting an unconventional UN-uniformed enemy who views civilians as targets. If we want to play geneva convention games, they should be shot as spies.

Willravel · 04-17-2008, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I view it as a 'mild' form of torture, only I really don't care if we are using it or not.

TFP Assignments: Waterboarding

Tonight, when you're done working, ask a trustworthy friend to come over. Give him a question to ask you that you're not comfortable answering (did you ever have sex with a man?). Put on a bathing suit, and lay in your bathtub with your head near the drain and your feet up. Put a blindfold on. Wrap your face in cellophane with just enough openings to breathe. Have your friend bind your feet and tie your hands to the spigots, to where you're incapable of escaping. Have your friend, without warning, slowly dump a few gallons of water over your face, trying to take as long as a minute or so. Have him refill the water container at a sink, and repeat. Have him repeat until you say yes, regardless of whether you've had sex with a man or not.

After you've regained your breath, think about all of the innocent people that have been released from Gitmo who were waterboarded. Welcome to being a liberal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

We can maintain the moral high ground if we like, as unlike our opponents who behead people and put it on the internet, or cut off body parts, we do no permanent harm with it. They still have all their pieces in working order when its done, nor are they in a body bag.

So if they're horrible that gives us permission to be horrible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

We are fighting an unconventional uniformed enemy who views civilians as targets. If we want to play geneva convention games, they should be shot as spies.

The Geneva Conventions are the core of international humanitarian law. To break them is to become all of those who have broken such laws before us.

aceventura3 · 04-17-2008, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredgun

Looking back through this thread I am having some trouble wrapping my head around how the question of what waterboarding fundamentally is is somehow escaping a decisive answer.

Forget the details. Waterboarding is the infliction of pain and terror for the purpose of extracting information. What possible definition of torture could exclude that activity? The only way this is possible is if the person answering the question is committed to the idea that 'torture' is by definition something done to us, whereas we by definition do not torture, and for this reason we must tweak the definition of torture in a way that emphasizes for all to see that what we do is not as bad as what they do and therefore cannot be classified as torture.

If you want to claim that waterboarding is justified, go ahead. I am more than willing to engage you in conversation about whether we can execute the form of torture known as waterboarding and still retain the moral high ground. But the therapeutic attempt to redefine the terms of debate in a way that leaves intact your increasingly dissonant framework of self-righteousness.... this seems to me kind of pathetic.

We can not avoid the fact that "torture" as a concept is unique to each individual. What may "torture" you may not "torture" me. In my mind the real question is not what "torture" is or isn't, but as it relates to our national need to make sure that people acting on our behalf have clear direction and guidelines. Isn't wrong to charge certain people with an unpleasant task that brings into question morality without clearly defining the moral limits?

And as it relates to the Bush administration, why didn't the CIA have clear guidelines prior to Bush taking office? Did other President's know what was going on and ignored it? Are you assuming questionable questioning techniques only started under the Bush Admin?

Seems to me Bush deserves some credit for attempting to add clarity to an issue while not pretending it was not happening. For that Host calls for his impeachment??? That seems pathetic in my book.

silent_jay · 04-17-2008, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I view it as a 'mild' form of torture, only I really don't care if we are using it or not.

We can maintain the moral high ground if we like, as unlike our opponents who behead people and put it on the internet, or cut off body parts, we do no permanent harm with it. They still have all their pieces in working order when its done, nor are they in a body bag.

We are fighting an unconventional uniformed enemy who views civilians as targets. If we want to play geneva convention games, they should be shot as spies.

You got some proof waterboarding causes no permanent harm?

Permanent harm doesn't have to be noticeable physical damage Ustwo, my shoulder has been separated 9 times, does that count as permanent injury? By you it doesn't because I still have all my pieces.

Willravel · 04-17-2008, 12:20 PM

People have died from waterboarding. There is no more permanent harm than that.

ratbastid · 04-17-2008, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Questioning Guidelines for CIA:

All terror suspects should be in air-conditioned or heated room at a temp of 70 degrees. They should be offered a comfortable chair or couch. If they have lower back issues and special seating is required, make sure it is available.

After 2.5 hours of questioning they get a 15 minute break. Please supply coffee and donuts. Check for peanut allergies before offering donuts!

After 4 hours of questioning they get 1/2 hour for lunch. Play soft music, offer a 3 course meal that excludes pork.

Do not shout or raise your voice to the point were it may cause emotional pain or torment.

Etc.

Etc.

I know you're amusing yourself with the idea of treating fellow human beings with respect and civility. I submit that demonstrating to these people that America isn't the evil oppressor they believe it to be MIGHT actually be more effective than other approaches.

These are human beings. Human beings respond to kindness one way, and cruelty another way. Let me put it like this: the people who did 9/11 didn't do it because they believe we're so kind to them. A beaten dog will eventually bite.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and Hate leads to suffering. No wonder Darth Cheney is so gung-ho for torture.

Ustwo · 04-17-2008, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

The Geneva Conventions are the core of international humanitarian law. To break them is to become all of those who have broken such laws before us.

Shooting spies I think is allowed under it.

silent_jay · 04-17-2008, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

People have died from waterboarding. There is no more permanent harm than that.

agreed will, the more I read on the subject the more I don't understand people like Ustwo who don't care if it's done or not.

Willravel · 04-17-2008, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Shooting spies I think is allowed under it.

I'll tell you what, if these people can be tried and convicted based on factual and verifiable evidence as spies in a legal and internationally recognized court, then you can kill them. Until we start having trials for these prisoners, they can't be called anything but kidnapped.

Ustwo · 04-17-2008, 12:34 PM

" The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album. The music was so foreign to them it made them frantic, sources said."

Hahaha now thats torture.

And I still don't care.

silent_jay · 04-17-2008, 12:36 PM

Don't care about one side doing it, but up in arms if the other side does it, what is it you call that again? Anybody? Anybody?

aceventura3 · 04-17-2008, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

I know you're amusing yourself with the idea of treating fellow human beings with respect and civility. I submit that demonstrating to these people that America isn't the evil oppressor they believe it to be MIGHT actually be more effective than other approaches.

These are human beings. Human beings respond to kindness one way, and cruelty another way. Let me put it like this: the people who did 9/11 didn't do it because they believe we're so kind to them. A beaten dog will eventually bite.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and Hate leads to suffering. No wonder Darth Cheney is so gung-ho for torture.

I personally don't think it is possible to torture a person who is willing to detonate a bomb killing himself, innocent - children, relief workers, woman, disabled, elderly, and non-combatant men. I think the mind set is incapable of being tortured. However I do agree with McCain when he says you don't get any valued information from "torture" and I am against it. But we still ignore the issue of guild lines. And the people who have the courage to issue specific guild lines will always run the risk of that one thing that is on the margin between being acceptable and unacceptable. as Yoda said to Luke in V: "That place... is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.”
“What's in there?”
“Only what you take with you."

We must face the question of torture in the face of an enemy that is ruthless. Human weakness is a reality, Bush has not hidden from the issue.

View Poll Results: Is Waterboarding, Torture? Has Pres. Bush Now Admitted to Approving Torture?
Waterboarding is a from of Torture and it is illegal to do	24	100.00%
Waterboarding is not a from of Torture and it is legal to do	0	0%
President Bush seems to admit knowing about & approving waterboarding	16	66.67%
President Bush seems NOT to admit knowing about & approving waterboarding	0	0%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 24. You may not vote on this poll

04-16-2008, 07:13 AM	#10 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	uh---i don't see how this is an ethically tenable position, ace, particularly since unless you have yourself been waterboarded, you are speculating--so have you been subjected to this yourself? if not, then you're aestheticizing the pain of another (by making it an abstract entity that you can contemplate, like a thing a toaster or a towel) on the one hand, and then diminishing it by comparing what you imagine it to be against some arbitrary standard---it'd be like having someone shove a pin into your fingernail while telling you that it didn't really hurt. seems an ugly road to go down if the only real basis for your position is that you think the bush people acted in good faith when they decided to make the argument that this was not torture--which was linked to their claim that the geneva conventions were "quaint"...and it doesn't seem to me that you have any actual information to go on beyond this assertion of good faith--hell, even the frontline series "bush's war" provides you with enough information to bring this assertion into serious question. i'd suggest you at least watch it. because the argument is the usual argument: these standards apply when they affect american troops--but when the states is reacting, anything goes. nearly. this is such a horrific idea, such a ridiculous precedent to set--think about it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 04-16-2008 at 07:17 AM..

04-16-2008, 07:42 AM	#11 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	Roachboy, All I am saying is the law needs to be specific. I don't want to be water boarded, I don't even think I would have the ability to do it to a living being - human or animal. However, being at war is an ugly business, a life and death business. Those executing a war deserve clear and specific guildlines. If what we are saying is that we disagree on whether or not water boarding a person willing to attach a bomb to his body and explode the bomb killing himself, innocent children, women, elderly, disabled, relief workers, etc., is putting that person in "severe" pain and suffering that is one thing. I can accept that as a legitimate criticism of the administration. However, to suggest that Bush deserves to be impeached because he attempted to add clarity to the issue of torture for the CIA is something else - and I find that hard to accept. __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

04-16-2008, 12:23 PM	#27 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	Offering reasons for cooperation other than the ending of induced physical and mental torment? Showing these individuals that we really aren't evil sadistic psychopaths hellbent on the destruction of their people, religion, and way of life? What the hell, it works on Star Trek! __________________ We Must Dissent.

04-17-2008, 12:34 PM	#38 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	" The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album. The music was so foreign to them it made them frantic, sources said." Hahaha now thats torture. And I still don't care. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

04-14-2008, 08:27 AM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	This would be grounds for impeachment... if a liberal party grew some balls and stepped forward, insisting on an investigation leading to impeachment.

04-14-2008, 06:06 PM	#5 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	I don't know enough to say who knew how much and when, although recent accounts (such as the new Frontline 'Bush's War') seem to indicate that prisoner abuses were the result of a deliberate and high-level redefinition of 'torture' carried out amid a pervasive government-wide feeling that 'the gloves should come off'. On the question of waterboarding, it is absolutely and unmistakably a form of torture, period. Malcolm Nance has an informative piece over at Small Wars Journal on this subject: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...torture-perio/ Nance should know, as he has conducted waterboardings himself. The common mantra of waterboarding as a 'simulation' is vastly misleading. It is not a simulated drowning but a controlled drowning.

04-15-2008, 04:32 PM	#7 (permalink)
allaboutmusic Aurally Fixated	Those guys seem very sure that waterboarding is not torture, does not inflict pain etc. Well if that is the case, I'd like to see them experience it for themselves. If it's not torture, what are they afraid of?

04-16-2008, 10:02 AM	#15 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	"Depends on what you're definition of 'torture' is" which seems to be the common excuse to torture people presently, sounds suspiciously like "Depends on what you're definition of 'is' is." Why is it that there seems to be a great deal of group overlap between the people who can't fathom any justifications for complex, nuanced perspectives on race relations and the people who also feel that we need complex, nuanced justifications for torture? I know it's a threadjack, so please forgive. This shouldn't be the type of thing we should be having complex, nuanced discussions about. Intellectually honest people don't need the law to define torture for them. If folks think torture is useful they should just say that. Enough of this bullshit, "Well, we only stuck pins under the nail on the pinky finger, so that's not really torture" business. If we're going to torture people, we should admit it openly, and go from there. Then again, admitting the utility of torture would seem to take a bit of the wind out of the "We needed to invade Iraq because Saddam was evil" justification for the invasion of Iraq, which is something I'm not sure the current admin wants to do (despite the fact that the current admin has very little credibility left anyway). It's difficult to convincingly complain about your enemies' rape rooms when you essentially set up one of your own following your invasion.

04-16-2008, 10:04 AM	#16 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Why aren't more people disgusted that we have to argue over what is or isn't torture? This is insane.

04-16-2008, 10:20 AM	#17 (permalink)
allaboutmusic Aurally Fixated	Common sense should be enough, but in all matters where some kind of law is invovled, common sense isn't exactly prominent.

04-16-2008, 10:37 AM	#19 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	After what's happened since 2001, I expect this kinda of sheepish crap from the mainstream media. What surprises me are the reactions here on TFP and on other forums.

04-16-2008, 10:58 AM	#22 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I can virtually guarantee you that they have no idea who Thompson is.

04-17-2008, 11:08 AM	#28 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	Looking back through this thread I am having some trouble wrapping my head around how the question of what waterboarding fundamentally is is somehow escaping a decisive answer. Forget the details. Waterboarding is the infliction of pain and terror for the purpose of extracting information. What possible definition of torture could exclude that activity? The only way this is possible is if the person answering the question is committed to the idea that 'torture' is by definition something done to us, whereas we by definition do not torture, and for this reason we must tweak the definition of torture in a way that emphasizes for all to see that what we do is not as bad as what they do and therefore cannot be classified as torture. If you want to claim that waterboarding is justified, go ahead. I am more than willing to engage you in conversation about whether we can execute the form of torture known as waterboarding and still retain the moral high ground. But the therapeutic attempt to redefine the terms of debate in a way that leaves intact your increasingly dissonant framework of self-righteousness.... this seems to me kind of pathetic.

04-17-2008, 12:20 PM	#33 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	People have died from waterboarding. There is no more permanent harm than that.

04-17-2008, 12:36 PM	#39 (permalink)
silent_jay Her Jay Location: Ontario for now....	Don't care about one side doing it, but up in arms if the other side does it, what is it you call that again? Anybody? Anybody? __________________ Absence makes the heart grow fonder