Torture: Still doesn't work

[ChumpDumper]

There's actually legal precedent saying it's torture.

[mingus]

Capital punishment achieves something, it stops people from committing a crime again, doesn't it?

Of course, I'm sure you could rationally waterboard someone. :p

And not surprisingly, you sidestepped the entire point of my post.

again, you're wrong and you're putting words into my mouth. capital punishment achieves nothing.

and tbh i don't know what the point of your post was. it wasn't clear to me.

[Wild Cobra]

again, you're wrong and you're putting words into my mouth. capital punishment achieves nothing.

What do you mean it does nothing.

If we actually carried the sentence out in a timely fashion, and actually executed lowlife animals that cannot integrate in society, we would save several million each year.

[LnGrrrR]

again, you're wrong and you're putting words into my mouth. capital punishment achieves nothing.

It surely accomplishes something. It kills a person, thereby preventing them from committing a crime in the future.

and tbh i don't know what the point of your post was. it wasn't clear to me.

Whether or not YOU would waterboard someone has no bearing on whether or not that should be allowed. I would've thought it rather obvious.

[Yonivore]

Whether or not YOU would waterboard someone has no bearing on whether or not that should be allowed. I would've thought it rather obvious.

And, whether or not YOU would waterboard someone has no bearing on whether or not that should be allowed. I would've thought it rather obvious, as well.

Wow, see how that works?

[ChumpDumper]

You said you were waterboarded, yoni.

Describe it.

[LnGrrrR]

And, whether or not YOU would waterboard someone has no bearing on whether or not that should be allowed. I would've thought it rather obvious, as well.

Wow, see how that works?

And if I had used that as the sole basis of my argument, you might have a point. Thankfully, there's also testimony from former interrogators, legal precedent, expert opinion, etc etc on my side of the issue.

[Yonivore]

And if I had used that as the sole basis of my argument, you might have a point. Thankfully, there's also testimony from former interrogators, legal precedent, expert opinion, etc etc on my side of the issue.

There's no legal precedent that says the enhanced interrogation technique, known as waterboarding, used on detainees is either illegal or that it cons utes torture.

[ChumpDumper]

There's no legal precedent that says the enhanced interrogation technique, known as waterboarding, used on detainees is either illegal or that it cons utes torture.

So, you didn't read this the first time I posted this two years ago when you didn't have me on ignore.

Here's what an actual lawyer who bothered to look things up says about the past waterboarding cases.

Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime

By Evan Wallach
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page B01

As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I'd always conclude by saying, "I know you won't remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." That's a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to "waterboarding."

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as "simulated drowning." That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding's effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years.

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:

Q: Was it painful?

A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.

Q: Like you were drowning?

A: Drowning -- you could hardly breathe.

Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:

They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.

And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. . . . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.
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More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they cons uted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.

Evan Wallach, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, teaches the law

of war as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110201170.html

You must have blocked this out of your mind. Even gtown ran away from that thread after moving the goalposts for you.

[Blake]

You said you were waterboarded, yoni.

Describe it.

[ChumpDumper]

Meh, he can't even remember a discussion in which he actively participated.

[RandomGuy]

Give me a quote from ANY interrogator or intelligence professional with direct experience that says it works better than other methods.

Ex-CIA agent says 'waterboarding' worked
His personal conversion to believing it is torture, albeit effective, notwithstanding; there's your quote.

However, I don't think it's a cut and dried as you'd like to believe. Remedies to all sorts of challenges are situational. What may work better in one cir stance with a particular individual may not work as effectively as another technique in other cir stances with another individual.

That we only used this technique on four individuals when there were thousands interrogated between the beginning of hostilities and the time these enhanced techniques were abandoned, tells me there was considerable thought given to the situation and individual upon which they would be used.

Was that the right decision in every case? Apparently not. But, I'm comfortable with that. Especially knowing this was not a dangerous life-threatening technique and that our own soldiers had been subjected to it.

We can continue to disagree but, I doubt I'll be persuaded otherwise.

I emphasized those two words on purpose.

Nothing in the linked article say that professional thought it was more effective than conventional interrogation. There is also nothing in the link that says that the information provided wouldn't have been provided without the torture.

I have already more than acceded it can work.

That is not the question.

I am asserting that,

1) overall, torture, including waterboarding is less effective, and
2) more to the point, unnecessary and counter productive to our overall strategic interests.

The OP speaks to the 1), and more than one career diplomat and military professional will tell you 2). If you want, I will provide some quotes to that effect.

If you can't prove it is more effective than alternatives, spending time trying to legally justify an immoral act seems pointless to me.

Give me a quote from ANY interrogator or intelligence professional with direct experience that says it works better than other methods.

[Yonivore]

I emphasized those two words on purpose.

Nothing in the linked article say that professional thought it was more effective than conventional interrogation. There is also nothing in the link that says that the information provided wouldn't have been provided without the torture.

I have already more than acceded it can work.

That is not the question.

I am asserting that,

1) overall, torture, including waterboarding is less effective, and
2) more to the point, unnecessary and counter productive to our overall strategic interests.

The OP speaks to the 1), and more than one career diplomat and military professional will tell you 2). If you want, I will provide some quotes to that effect.

If you can't prove it is more effective than alternatives, spending time trying to legally justify an immoral act seems pointless to me.

Give me a quote from ANY interrogator or intelligence professional with direct experience that says it works better than other methods.

See you're cheating, like you accused others of doing to Manny in the other thread.

Fact is, I said (somewhere in this thread) the use of any technique was dependent on the situation and that enhanced interrogation might be good in one case but not in another. You ignored all that.

So, let me answer your question as directly as I can; In the case that resulted in actionable intelligence, I'd say it was better than other techniques...whether or not I have a quote stating such.

Because, as was also discussed; enhanced interrogation techniques weren't used until other methods failed so, if they waterboarded some terrorist turd who wasn't giving up actionable intelligence and then he was giving up actionable intelligence, that's better.

By the way, leave morality out. There are some that would argue war, itself, is immoral and where would that leave us?

[ChumpDumper]

You're a liar, yoni.

Lying is immoral.

[DMX7]

LMAO "enhanced interrogation"

Call it what it is, Yoni.

[ChumpDumper]

LMAO "enhanced interrogation"

Call it what it is, Yoni.

Yoni says anal rape is not torture if he uses his small .

[Yonivore]

LMAO "enhanced interrogation"

Call it what it is, Yoni.

Waterboarding. But, it wasn't the only enhanced interrogation technique; that's why I used the broader term.

[ChumpDumper]

Waterboarding. But, it wasn't the only enhanced interrogation technique; that's why I used the broader term.

The broader term is torture.

[DMX7]

The broader term is torture.

This.

Yoni says anal rape is not torture if he uses his small .

If it's Yoni's , then it probably isn't even rape. A rare instance in which I would agree with Yoni.

[Yonivore]

This.

No court has ever determined the enhanced interrogation technique, waterboarding, as defined an used by the Bush administration, to be torture. None.

The question has never been tried.

On the other side, however, the Bush administration went to great pains to make sure all their enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were within the various bodies of law having jurisdiction.

After the 2002 Yoo memorandum came under intense criticism from those opposed to Bush's policies, it was reviewed and revised in 2004, with the same conclusion; the enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were legal.

Now, before you start citing criminal cases and other bloviations about how waterboarding is illegal and torture; be sure to carefully compare those descriptions with the one provided by the Bush administration and then, make sure the victims of those techniques are identically situated as the detainees on which waterboarding was practiced.

That's never been done.

[DMX7]

So it's fair game to waterboard U.S. troops is what you're saying, huh Yoni?

[Yonivore]

So it's fair game to waterboard U.S. troops is what you're saying, huh Yoni?

Not what I'm saying at all. I would only wish that -- the version practiced by the Bush administration -- were the worst to which our soldiers are subjected.

And, incidentally, our U.S. Troops and intelligence officer are routinely subjected to waterboarding in training.

[Ignignokt]

I bet you would, tough guy.

No one better mess with you.

Would you give up information if you were being tortured? I mean, torture can't be that bad if it aint gonna make you give up information?

[ChumpDumper]

No court has ever determined the enhanced interrogation technique, waterboarding, as defined an used by the Bush administration, to be torture. None.

The question has never been tried.

Yes is has.

I posted an article describing the legal history.

Twice.

You didn't read it.

You are ignorant.

On the other side, however, the Bush administration went to great pains to make sure all their enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were within the various bodies of law having jurisdiction.

No, they didn't.

If they had they would have read the federal appeals court decision that use the word "torture" over a dozen times to describe what you are trying to characterize as harmless and fun waterboarding.

After the 2002 Yoo memorandum came under intense criticism from those opposed to Bush's policies, it was reviewed and revised in 2004, with the same conclusion; the enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were legal.

Let me get this straight, the Bush administration reviewed a decision made by the Bush administration and ended up vindicating the Bush administration?

Wow.

Now, before you start citing criminal cases and other bloviations about how waterboarding is illegal and torture; be sure to carefully compare those descriptions with the one provided by the Bush administration and then, make sure the victims of those techniques are identically situated as the detainees on which waterboarding was practiced.

That's never been done.

Except is has, you ignorant piece of .

[Ignignokt]

So it's fair game to waterboard U.S. troops is what you're saying, huh Yoni?

Hahahahaha, let's hope Alqueda just waterboards their captives instead of what they usually do.