Torture: Still doesn't work

[Yonivore]

:lol this is actually pretty funny, because in this very same thread (page 3 and so on), 3 years ago, you made the same argument without actually knowing any of the laws. I had to actually list them to you, and when pressed on what's your definition of torture that doesn't violate any of these laws and conventions the US is a signatory of, you never responded...

The red-herring of "successful prosecution" was also tackled then. The difference is that it was actually challenged since then, but the challenges suppressed through state secrets. But the fact that it was not brought to justice, for whatever reason, has no bearing on it being legal or not. Some people get away with doing illegal stuff all the time. The fact that they don't get prosecuted doesn't make it any less illegal.
Three years? Wow!

Care to link the thread and posts, I'd like an opportunity to respond to something of which I have absolutely no recollection.

[Yonivore]

Nice of you to use crime in your comparison.


I have read them. The interpretation depends in no small part on the perceived effects of the methods.


Nah, does get your goat though.
I asked a simple question. You wrongly inferred my reasoning.

It's OK, you get preemptively defensive a lot.
I don't own a goat.

You really need to learn to read people emotions better. Or, perhaps, you could stick to the topic.

[ChumpDumper]

I don't own a goat.

You really need to learn to read people emotions better. Or, perhaps, you could stick to the topic.This is the topic.

I read your emotions just fine.

[ElNono]

Three years? Wow!

Care to link the thread and posts, I'd like an opportunity to respond to something of which I have absolutely no recollection.

:lol this very thread. But if there's something clear here, is that you're only interested in talking to yourself. So by all means, I'll get out of the way, and you can keep doing your thing, tbh...

[RandomGuy]

"They" have yet to concede it was torture. No court has made the legal determination it was torture. "They" went through a very deliberate process to make sure their techniques were not torture. No court has found otherwise.

Waterboarding is torture.

Lawyers can fuck themselves, especially when they write the position they are told to do so. The people who thought this would do any good went to great lengths to build some bullshit cover story, regardless of any real ethical or legal cover. AN argument is not the same as a GOOD or VALID argument.

Perhaps we could agree on a definition.
Immoral piece of shit-- one who advocates torture as somehow useful.

The lawyers that advocated this were immoral pieces of shit.

[RandomGuy]

Well, you should read the various domestic and international laws you believe apply here because they all have very specific definitions for torture. Your glib use of terms such as "intense" and "pain" and "fear" are all addressed and, as Bybee demonstrated, there are levels of acceptable pain and fear that is not outlawed but merely discouraged.

So, words have meanings and you should be precise when you try to argue -- beyond the emotional -- what was done constitutes torture.

Is waterboarding an acceptable technique when used on US service members by other countries?

[RandomGuy]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/waterboarding-is-torture-says-international-red-cross-1407449858


The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that waterboarding is torture, the first time the group has publicly declared that a specific interrogation technique—one employed by the U.S.—violates the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva-based humanitarian organization, which oversees the treaty, weighed in amid renewed U.S. debate over Central Intelligence Agency practices after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which included waterboarding several detainees at so-called black sites overseas. The CIA and lawmakers have been fighting over publication of portions of an extensive Senate Intelligence Committee report said to be critical of the spy agency's conduct.

"The definition of torture is any technique that causes severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, inflicted for a purpose, such as obtaining information or a confession, exerting pressure, intimidation or humiliation," said Anna Nelson, the International Red Cross spokeswoman in Washington. "Waterboarding fits into this category and therefore qualifies as torture" under U.S. and international law, she added.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/15/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-torture-banned-under-us-internationa/

Good bit that links a few of the relevant laws. FWIW.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1470200/waterboarding


Waterboarding, also called water torture, simulated drowning, interrupted drowning, and controlled drowning, method of torture in which water is poured into the nose and mouth of a victim who lies on his back on an inclined platform, with his feet above his head. As the victim’s sinus cavities and mouth fill with water, his gag reflex causes him to expel air from his lungs, leaving him unable to exhale and unable to inhale without aspirating water. Although water usually enters the lungs, it does not immediately fill them, owing to their elevated position with respect to the head and neck. In this way the victim can be made to drown for short periods without suffering asphyxiation. The victim’s mouth and nose are often covered with a cloth, which allows water to enter but prevents it from being expelled; alternatively, his mouth may be covered with cellophane or held shut for this purpose. The torture is eventually halted and the victim put in an upright position to allow him to cough and vomit (water usually enters the esophagus and stomach) or to revive him if he has become unconscious, after which the torture may be resumed. Waterboarding produces extreme physical suffering and an uncontrollable feeling of panic and terror, usually within seconds.


Seems pretty common sense to me.


Interesting website with other relevant information:


http://waterboarding.org/torture_definition

Interesting website. Neutral on the subject, just informational.

[Yonivore]

Waterboarding is torture.

Lawyers can fuck themselves, especially when they write the position they are told to do so. The people who thought this would do any good went to great lengths to build some bullshit cover story, regardless of any real ethical or legal cover. AN argument is not the same as a GOOD or VALID argument.

Perhaps we could agree on a definition.
Immoral piece of shit-- one who advocates torture as somehow useful.

The lawyers that advocated this were immoral pieces of shit.
Perhaps we can agree that the term "waterboarding" is a universal descriptor of just one act.

A Lear Jet and an Cessna are both airplanes.

Is some waterboarding torture? Sure. I am persuaded the iteration used by the CIA was not torture.

And, no one has found otherwise.

[Yonivore]

Is waterboarding an acceptable technique when used on US service members by other countries?
How about when it's used on U. S. Service members by their trainers?

[RandomGuy]

How about when it's used on U. S. Service members by their trainers?

Not really an answer to my question. Why is it so hard for you to answer simple questions honestly?
Well meant and freely given:
Being honest with such things, both with yourself and others really does improve critical thinking.

I will ask again, if other countries or terrorists used waterboarding on our servicemembers, would you find that acceptable?

[Yonivore]

Not really an answer to my question. Why is it so hard for you to answer simple questions honestly?
Well meant and freely given:
Being honest with such things, both with yourself and others really does improve critical thinking.

I will ask again, if other countries or terrorists used waterboarding on our servicemembers, would you find that acceptable?
Except your question is neither germane to the conversation nor is the hypothetical equivalent.

My response was meant to demonstrate there are different types of waterboarding. A topic germane to the conversation.

[RandomGuy]

Perhaps we can agree that the term "waterboarding" is a universal descriptor of just one act.

A Lear Jet and an Cessna are both airplanes.

Is some waterboarding torture? Sure. I am persuaded the iteration used by the CIA was not torture.

And, no one has found otherwise.

The people responsible for overseeing the geneva convention have.

Simulated drowning, despite what any lawyer paid for their opinion, might say, is traumatic to the point of being evil, and is certainly immoral.

It takes some mental gymnastics to convince yourself it isn't.

You really are making me ashamed of my country, we are better than that.

[boutons_deux]

"we are better than that"

all evidence, years of evidence says: You Lie

[Yonivore]

The people responsible for overseeing the geneva convention have.
So, the UN or ICC has rendered an opinion on whether or not the enhanced interrogation techniques, used by the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11, constituted torture, under their convention? I'd like to see that.


Simulated drowning, despite what any lawyer paid for their opinion, might say, is traumatic to the point of being evil, and is certainly immoral.
But, may not be torture. And, is certainly not more evil or immoral than murdering 3,000 innocent people.


It takes some mental gymnastics to convince yourself it isn't.
Actually, all it would take is an honest hearing in a court of competent jurisdiction completely rebutting the Department of Justice's opinion on how the enhanced interrogation techniques did not constitute torture.


You really are making me ashamed of my country, we are better than that.
Wow, you are easily moved.

All I've ever said is that in the context of the time, the United States did their due diligence in crafting a set of interrogation techniques they believed would elicit (and did elicit) information crucial to the protection of their country. The CIA developed the techniques, the Department of Justice exhaustively vetted the techniques against existing law and international conventions and found them to be legal.

In different time and under different circumstances, I might not be so forgiving. You're obviously not moved by the context in which these acts were developed and used.

However, the fact remains, the enhanced interrogation techniques and the legal opinions that kept the on the good side of torture have yet to be challenged anywhere but in the court of public opinion. Forgive me if that doesn't carry much weight with me in the current climate of our body politic.

[ChumpDumper]

No court challenge was necessary; the Bush administration walked back from the precious memos themselves.

They just wrote more memos that superseded the precious memos.

It was that easy. No need to challenge anything that has been rescinded.

[Yonivore]

No court challenge was necessary; the Bush administration walked back from the precious memos themselves.

They just wrote more memos that superseded the precious memos.

It was that easy. No need to challenge anything that has been rescinded.
And, the last memo affirms the opinions of the first.

[ChumpDumper]

And, the last memo affirms the opinions of the first.And the practices were abandoned, evidence destroyed, officials lied to, oversight thwarted, victims silenced indefinitely -- on the whole it's a steaming pile of shit that they have been ashamed of and have been dishonest about from the start and at all points thereafter.

[Yonivore]

And the practices were abandoned, evidence destroyed, officials lied to, oversight thwarted, victims silenced indefinitely -- on the whole it's a steaming pile of shit that they have been ashamed of and have been dishonest about from the start and at all points thereafter.
Nice opinion you have there, where is the court judgment affirming any of it?

Look, we can keep going in circles, I'm not the least bit bothered by what the Bush Administration's CIA did to a handful of terrorists in the months following 9/11. Not the least bit bothered. You're not going to make me bothered by it either.

What you can do, is leave out all the emotional bull crap and show me where a court had issued a finding that what the Bush Administration's CIA did to a handful of terrorists in the months following 9/11 was torture, in violation of International or U.S. Law. I have on my side, an unchallenged DOJ opinion saying it wasn't.

You have on your side a bunch of people who want to believe it is because they hate George W. Bush.

[ChumpDumper]

Nice opinion you have there, where is the court judgment affirming any of it?Doesn't have to be one. They gave up.


Look, we can keep going in circles, I'm not the least bit bothered by what the Bush Administration's CIA did to a handful of terrorists in the months following 9/11. Not the least bit bothered. You're not going to make me bothered by it either.I never thought I would.

You simply aren't a good American. That's fine, there is nothing requiring you to be one.


What you can do, is leave out all the emotional bull crap and show me where a court had issued a finding that what the Bush Administration's CIA did to a handful of terrorists in the months following 9/11 was torture, in violation of International or U.S. Law. I have on my side, an unchallenged DOJ opinion saying it wasn't.

You have on your side a bunch of people who want to believe it is because they hate George W. Bush.Actually, the only reason we started torturing was out of pure emotion. You kept bringing up the feelings of people after 9/11. I agree, weak minds break down and do stupid shit when face with a real crisis. The Bush administration did a lot of stupid shit out of pure emotion because they failed so miserably in even attempting to prevent the 9/11 attacks. So they went too far in their response. It has happened before and will happen again, and people like you will refuse to acknowledge just how stupid it all is because you work on pure emotion and fear.

[Yonivore]

Blah, blah, blah....
You couldn't shine the shoes of people like Judge Jay Bybee or anyone else left to make some very difficult decisions at a very difficult time.


The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct.

The legal question was and is difficult and the stakes for the country were significant no matter what our opinion. In that context, we gave our best, honest advice, based on our good-faith analysis of the law.

And, your assertion the techniques have been abandoned may not hold up, either.

This guy seems to believe Bush-era interrogation techniques have survived even the Obama administration...

The Torture Memo Obama Never Rescinded (http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/05/01/the-torture-memo-obama-never-rescinded/)

[ChumpDumper]

You couldn't shine the shoes of people like Judge Jay Bybee or anyone else left to make some very difficult decisions at a very difficult time.He and they got it wrong, no matter how shiny their shoes.

Fear has made Americans do stupid, reprehensible things in the past though there was also the added shame of dismissing the threat of AQ in the first place and the resulting overcompensation.

Bushy did some things right after 9/11. This was not one of them. If the Obama administration is still torturing people, he's wrong too.

[Yonivore]

He and they got it wrong, no matter how shiny their shoes.

Fear has made Americans do stupid, reprehensible things in the past though there was also the added shame of dismissing the threat of AQ in the first place and the resulting overcompensation.

Bushy did some things right after 9/11. This was not one of them. If the Obama administration is still torturing people, he's wrong too.
All I can say is Thank God you're in the minority and I hope people like you never get the reigns of power in this country.

[ChumpDumper]

All I can say is Thank God you're in the minority and I hope people like you never get the reigns of power in this country.Eh, I would have taken the AQ threat more seriously than the Bush administration did in the first place -- but I can see how you would be totally against anyone who has morals and principles. Your partisan hackery simply will never allow for it.

[ElNono]

All I can say is Thank God you're in the minority and I hope people like you never get the reigns of power in this country.

I don't think his overall thoughts on the matter are in the minority at all...

[Yonivore]

I don't think his overall thoughts on the matter are in the minority at all...
Want to compare polls?

[Yonivore]

Eh, I would have taken the AQ threat more seriously than the Bush administration did in the first place -- but I can see how you would be totally against anyone who has morals and principles. Your partisan hackery simply will never allow for it.
The Bush administration spent the first 8 months of it's tenure trying to get a handle on a threat Clinton spent the previous 8 years all but ignoring. They ran out of time. Maybe if they had started using EITs on January 21, 2001 we could have prevented 9/11.

[boutons_deux]

"The Bush administration spent the first 8 months of it's tenure trying to get a handle on a threat Clinton spent the previous 8 years all but ignoring."

holy shit! :lol

Cunti Rice had NOT ONE NSA meeting!

Repugs IGNORED EVERYTHING about terrorism that the Dem WH told them about OBL, terrorism because ... it was Dem info.

Clinton ignored OBL ... by trying to Cruise missile him to death

:lol

[Yonivore]

"The Bush administration spent the first 8 months of it's tenure trying to get a handle on a threat Clinton spent the previous 8 years all but ignoring."

holy shit! :lol

Cunti Rice had NOT ONE NSA meeting!

Repugs IGNORED EVERYTHING about terrorism that the Dem WH told them about OBL, terrorism because ... it was Dem info.

Clinton ignored OBL ... by trying to Cruise missile him to death

:lol


You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion but, you're not entitled to your own set of facts. I can't explain the hypocrisy and lies of Richard A. Clarke, later in his career, but immediately after 9/11 when it was fresh on everyone's minds and the Left had yet to take up the anti-Bush strategy they continue to cling to, to this day, Richard A. Clarke was in a position to know exactly what the Bush administration did do, with respect to anti-terrorism activities during the first 8 months of the presidency.

Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush Team in '02 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/03/24/transcript-clarke-praises-bush-team-in-02/)


The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters, including Fox News' Jim Angle. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.CLARKE: January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

Then there was another Clinton appointee that worsened the situation...

Memos show Gorelick involvement in ‘wall’ (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/29/20040429-122228-6538r/?page=all)


As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995.

“It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney’s Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required,” U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

“Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an investigation as intelligence or law enforcement can be quite arbitrary, depending upon the personnel involved and that the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating,” she wrote.
It's still a confounding mystery for me (and many others) how she was allowed to serve on the 9/11 Commission and, then, remain there after these revelations.

I think it's appropriate to point out she was Eric Holder's predecessor as Assistant U. S. Attorney General.

[boutons_deux]

dickhead SEVERELY circumscribed the 9/11 report (IIRC, he didn't even trust dubya to speak the commission without dickhead there, too), but still the report listed a bunch of stuff The Defenders of America failed to do between 20 Jan 2001 and 11 Sep 2001, if they had been serious about defending rather than HOPING for an attack so they had a pretext to invade Iraq-for-oil.

OBL and terrorism just weren't on WH radar, at all. Their priorities were

1) ramming through, with Senate reconciliation, the biggest tax cuts in history for themselves (and of course the tax created NO JOBS, and greatly increased the supposely Repug-hated deficit and national debt)

2) invading Iraq for oil

Iraq's oil was OBVIOUSLY much more important to BigOil man dickhead, and his SECRET "national energy policy (invade Iraq)", than OBL and terrorism.

[Yonivore]

dickhead SEVERELY circumscribed the 9/11 report (IIRC, he didn't even trust dubya to speak the commission without dickhead there, too), but still the report listed a bunch of stuff The Defenders of America failed to do between 20 Jan 2001 and 11 Sep 2001, if they had been serious about defending rather than HOPING for an attack so they had a pretext to invade Iraq-for-oil.

OBL and terrorism just weren't on WH radar, at all. Their priorities were

1) ramming through, with Senate reconciliation, the biggest tax cuts in history for themselves (and of course the tax created NO JOBS, and greatly increased the supposely Repug-hated deficit and national debt)

2) invading Iraq for oil

Iraq's oil was OBVIOUSLY much more important to BigOil man dickhead, and his SECRET "national energy policy (invade Iraq)", than OBL and terrorism.



I notice no links to any supporting source. Care to share? Or, shall this remain your unqualified opinion?

[boutons_deux]

I notice no links to any supporting source. Care to share? Or, shall this remain your unqualified opinion?

it's all in the forum, 10 years ago.

[Yonivore]

it's all in the forum, 10 years ago.
So, you should have no problem producing them.

[ChumpDumper]

The Bush administration spent the first 8 months of it's tenure trying to get a handle on a threat Clinton spent the previous 8 years all but ignoring. :lmao That is the worst attempt at partisan spin that has ever been posted on this board.


They ran out of time. Maybe if they had started using EITs on January 21, 2001 we could have prevented 9/11.Maybe if they had a NSC principals meeting about Al Qaeda on January 21, they could have authorized it.

They didn't even discuss AQ until one week before 9/11.

[Yonivore]

:lmao That is the worst attempt at partisan spin that has ever been posted on this board.
Spin? That's out of the mouth of Richard A. Clarke. Not exactly a partisan Republican or Bush apologist.


Maybe if they had a NSC principals meeting about Al Qaeda on January 21, they could have authorized it.

They didn't even discuss AQ until one week before 9/11.
That's not what Mr. Clarke claims. They increased authority, counter-terrorism efforts, and spending, from day one.

[ElNono]

Want to compare polls?

http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/articles/us_public_opinion_torture_gronke_rejali.pdf

[ElNono]

But, besides historical polling supporting the notion that the US general public opposed torture on years on end, simply looking at the public reaction when the abuses in Abu Ghraib were made available I think gives a solid pulse on where Americans in general stand on prisoner torture/abuse. Fortunately, torture apologists are indeed a minority, and hopefully it continues to dwindle into an even smaller minority. IMO, their position causes real damage to America.

[ChumpDumper]

Spin? That's out of the mouth of Richard A. Clarke. Not exactly a partisan Republican or Bush apologist.
I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know....

I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years.http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clarkes-take-on-terror/

That's what Clarke actually said, but thanks for establishing him as a credible authority.

Your complete lack of knowledge of the most basic facts after all this time continues to amaze.

[Yonivore]

http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/articles/us_public_opinion_torture_gronke_rejali.pdf

I notice your "pollster" approached the question much like a Global Warming Alarmists approaches climate modeling. Why not just ask people what they think right now.

Do Americans Back CIA Or Feinstein On Enhanced Interrogation? (http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/2014/12/12/polls/do-americans-back-cia-or-feinstein-on-enhanced-interrogation/)


But how do Americans feel about enhanced interrogation, or “torture”? While soon-to-be released polling from the usual suspects will add to this conversation — for better or worse — those results will no doubt depend on how the pollsters word their questions to respondents.

For instance, a new poll released by Rasmussen Reports finds voters strongly believe it would have been better for Congress to keep the CIA’s interrogation methods a secret, particularly if the disclosures put the American public at risk.

A whole 69 percent of likely voters say they feel it is more important to protect the safety of Americans from terrorist attacks than for the public to know the full details of how the CIA got its information. Further, just 23 percent say it’s more important to publicly disclose the full extent of the CIA’s interrogation methods.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on December 9-10, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

A 2012 FOX Poll found roughly two-thirds of registered voters supported enhanced interrogation to prevent terrorist attacks, as well. A a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds Americans are more likely than not (48 – 42 percent) to say torture is sometimes justified, but are less likely to support some of the specific tactics used against detainees.

However, according to Gallup, who has never found majority support for the tactic, getting specific on the tactics will result in even less support for the CIA program.

Gallup first asked Americans if they were willing to allow the CIA to torture “terrorists if they know details about future attacks in the U.S.” in October 2001, when 53 percent of Americans said they would not be willing to allow such tactics.

We had a problem with all of the questioning formats, because we felt they didn’t truly get to the heart of the issue, nor accurately depict the choice. So, we conducted a PPD Poll from December 9 – 11, posing to 1,010 American adults several questions that varied in language. The results are clear — words matter. Gallup consistently uses the word torture, as did the Huffington Post/YouGov poll, despite a significant number of Americans changing their response when enhanced interrogation is used?

Here was the first question and the results:


Would you support the CIA using enhanced interrogation techniques on ISIS or other radical Islamic terrorists if it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001?

When posed the initial question above, which made the honest choice to focus only on radical Islam for the obvious reason, 52 percent said they would while 38 percent said they would not. Perhaps a reflection of the ongoing debate, a significant 10 percent said they aren’t sure, of which, 7 percent said they previously had an opinion on the issue.

It would appear many Americans are having second thoughts.

Among a sub-sample of adults who correctly identified at least three of the specific tactics, nearly-thirds (65 percent) said they support enhanced interrogation, while 21 percent said they do not. The results indicate that those who oppose enhanced interrogation due so despite caring a whole lot about the specific facts or tactics. Instead, opposition is based on ideological grounds.

An even more accurate wording was posed to respondents next:


Would you support the CIA using enhanced interrogation techniques if they were required to have a doctor present, detainees were told they would not be physically harmed or killed, and it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001?

This question resulted in a significant increase in support, as 63 percent said they would support the use of enhanced interrogation, while just 22 percent said they would not under these conditions and circumstances. Still, 15 percent of American adults indicated they were unsure.

Despite the telling results from these two questions, they still do not strike at the heart of the moral arguments made by both sides of this issue. The final question was tailored to do just that, and the results were both surprising and unsurprising.


Would you support the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques if it was required to have a doctor present, it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, and it would save the life of your closest relative or significant other?

Interestingly, even though the level of support among those who correctly identified at least three of the specific tacts remained relatively stable (66 percent), the overall spread from the first question increased significantly. Unsurprisingly, when pressed, those who previously expressed uncertainty, suddenly aren’t so unsure whether they want their loved ones to live, as a total of 73 percent said they would support enhanced interrogation under these circumstances. However, 21 percent still claim a moral objection under these circumstances.

[ElNono]

I notice your "pollster" approached the question much like a Global Warming Alarmists approaches climate modeling. Why not just ask people what they think right now.

It's an academic report of multiple polls throughout a 9 yer period, from pollsters all over the spectrum. It's not a poll, there's no "pollster" and there's no "modeling"...

It includes a big sampling period, which is exactly what you want to get a solid sense of opinion over time.

But, the report, which I thought was a good read, also includes the self-delusion aspect of politics over an imaginary consensus that was never there, and the disconnect between politics and what people actually think.

It's a disconnect that's well reflected in a lot of your posts here throughout the years... actually bolstering the point of the report.

[ElNono]

FWIW, Feinstein is another two-face liar that has caused her own share of damage to America under the guise of national security.

I haven't even read the report, as it's immaterial to the position that torture isn't justified in any case. If anybody wants to advance that's a political piece, I certainly take their word for it.

[Yonivore]

It's an academic report of multiple polls throughout a 9 yer period, from pollsters all over the spectrum. It's not a poll, there's no "pollster" and there's no "modeling"...

It includes a big sampling period, which is exactly what you want to get a solid sense of opinion over time.

But, the report, which I thought was a good read, also includes the self-delusion aspect of politics over an imaginary consensus that was never there, and the disconnect between politics and what people actually think.

It's a disconnect that's well reflected in a lot of your posts here throughout the years... actually bolstering the point of the report.
Hence the "scare" quotes I put around the term "pollster."

So, you don't actually have a poll that asks the question, do you?

No, you post some academic paper; probably of a guy that had a bias he was trying to validate. (Just like the Climateers -- which was my point.)

I posted the results of a poll that asked the specific question.

[ElNono]

Hence the "scare" quotes I put around the term "pollster."

So, you don't actually have a poll that asks the question, do you?

No, you post some academic paper; probably of a guy that had a bias he was trying to validate. (Just like the Climateers -- which was my point.)

I posted the results of a poll that asked the specific question.

The questions from all the polls are included in the report you didn't read.

[ElNono]

Appendix A, if you have trouble finding it...

[ElNono]

BTW, I don't claim any non-bias on the report (I didn't write it, don't have to defend it).

I do think it's a fairly comprehensive view, considering that include polls from pollsters as varied as Fox News, Gallup, Pew, ABC/WaPo, etc, and samples from different years.

[Yonivore]

Appendix A, if you have trouble finding it...
No, I read. None of them asked the question...and, all of them biased the questions they did ask by calling the techniques torture and using terms such as "by any means" etc..., when the enhance interrogation techniques have never been legally classified as such.

Like I said, this is an academic looking for a specific outcome. Did he analyze all polls? Or, did he just pick a few that fed his bias?

It's just like the climateers obfuscating the topic with a bunch of superfluous nonsense.

Why didn't he conduct a poll such as what I posted? Simple, clear questions.

[Yonivore]

BTW, I don't claim any non-bias on the report (I didn't write it, don't have to defend it).

I do think it's a fairly comprehensive view, considering that include polls from pollsters as varied as Fox News, Gallup, Pew, ABC/WaPo, etc, and samples from different years.
You're right, but I challenged you to produce a poll -- not a white paper.

[ElNono]

No, I read. None of them asked the question...and, all of them biased the questions they did ask by calling the techniques torture and using terms such as "by any means" etc..., when the enhance interrogation techniques have never been legally classified as such.

Like I said, this is an academic looking for a specific outcome. Did he analyze all polls? Or, did he just pick a few that fed his bias?

It's just like the climateers obfuscating the topic with a bunch of superfluous nonsense.

Why didn't he conduct a poll such as what I posted? Simple, clear questions.

There's 10+ pollsters included on the report, each with their own questions. As any statistical analysis, more samples are actually conducive to better quality.

I think your problem is that you don't think some of that stuff is torture where the majority of people do feel that way (also reflected on the report). Part of the disconnect I was mentioning earlier, IMO.

[ElNono]

You're right, but I challenged you to produce a poll -- not a white paper.

I produced 10+ polls. That's much better than one, statistically speaking.

[spurraider21]

If Australia tortured more they could have prevented the current Sydney hostage situation

[Yonivore]

There's 10+ pollsters included on the report, each with their own questions. As any statistical analysis, more samples are actually conducive to better quality.
And, my charge is your paper writer picked polls that asked questions the way he thought they should be asked. And, no, more samples are not necessarily conducive to better quality, they can be conducive to reaching a pre-conceived notion if you choose from the available samples very carefully.


I think your problem is that you don't think some of that stuff is torture where the majority of people do feel that way (also reflected on the report). Part of the disconnect I was mentioning earlier, IMO.
You're right, I don't believe the enhanced interrogation techniques, designed by the CIA and vetted by the DOJ, constitute torture. And, I think people only believe it is torture because others, such as yourself, continue to conflate the techniques with torture. As designed by the CIA, waterboarding is different that the waterboarding conducted by others that often resulted in permanent injury and death.

[ElNono]

:lol We already know your opinion, Yoni, it's written in some blog somewhere. You asked me to support my contention, and I did. I have no expectations that you'll agree with it.

[Yonivore]

:lol We already know your opinion, Yoni, it's written in some blog somewhere. You asked me to support my contention, and I did. I have no expectations that you'll agree with it.
You supported your position with an academic paper written by someone who, even you admitted, has an unknown position and could be biased.

10 polls out of how many conducted during those years? Why those 10? There were thing mentioned in some of the questions that aren't even a part of the enhanced interrogation program; electric shock? Hell, even I agree that's torture.

Do you at least see my point?

I supported my position by posting a poll that asked the specific question that aligns with my understanding of the program and a majority of people are okay with the program as I understand it. You can continue to conflate the issue with torture but, those of us who support it (the majority of Americans) understand it for what it is; a carefully proscribed set of 7 techniques that were developed so as not to cross the line into torture.

[ElNono]

You supported your position with an academic paper written by someone who, even you admitted, has an unknown position and could be biased.

10 polls out of how many conducted during those years? Why those 10? There were thing mentioned in some of the questions that aren't even a part of the enhanced interrogation program; electric shock? Hell, even I agree that's torture.

Do you at least see my point?

I supported my position by posting a poll that asked the specific question that aligns with my understanding of the program and a majority of people are okay with the program as I understand it. You can continue to conflate the issue with torture but, those of us who support it (the majority of Americans) understand it for what it is; a carefully proscribed set of 7 techniques that were developed so as not to cross the line into torture.

You have not substantiated your claims that the report is inaccurate. It's your claim, the onus is on you to prove it. Until then, I think the report is comprehensive enough.

I also disagree with the question asked in your blog post, as I don't think it reflects what the majority of Americans feel is what happened during the torture sessions of the past.

[Yonivore]

You have not substantiated your claims that the report is inaccurate. It's your claim, the onus is on you to prove it. Until then, I think the report is comprehensive enough.

I also disagree with the question asked in your blog post, as I don't think it reflects what the majority of Americans feel is what happened during the torture sessions of the past.
Okay, almost 2/3 of those polled disagree with you.

[ElNono]

:lol okay

[Yonivore]

:lol okay
Yep, okay.

You picked a report that gave you the result you wanted. I picked a poll that asked the right question.

Unless, of course, you want to argue the people were tricked by the question being asked that way.


Would you support the CIA using enhanced interrogation techniques on ISIS or other radical Islamic terrorists if it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001?
Everyone asked that question was free to infer "enhanced interrogation techniques" to mean torture, just like you. And, even if they did, the majority were still okay with it.

The questions in your polls included elements that weren't part of the program and then biased the polls with use of the word torture.

[ElNono]

:lol If you think the report is inaccurate, please feel free to prove it. So far, you established you didn't like the questions asked by multiple pollsters. You don't have to like them. They don't make the polls any less accurate.

[Yonivore]

:lol If you think the report is inaccurate, please feel free to prove it. So far, you established you didn't like the questions asked by multiple pollsters. You don't have to like them. They don't make the polls any less accurate.
I didn't say it was inaccurate for what it represented. I merely said, there are more than 10 polls from that time period and the questions I read seemed biased. You conceded not knowing if the author was biased.

My poll, on the other hand, was straightforward. If you wanted to infer EIT were torture, you could.

Is that smiley emoticon a nervous tic or something?

[ElNono]

I thought those polls were generally straightforward too... if anything, we were talking about Chump's point of view, not your point of view. His point of view was that it was torture, thus those polls accurately reflect that in the questions asked.

[Yonivore]

I thought those polls were generally straightforward too... if anything, we were talking about Chump's point of view, not your point of view. His point of view was that it was torture, thus those polls accurately reflect that in the questions asked.
Yeah, I know.

Had I been asked any of the question I read in Appendix A, I would have said no, too. The questions don't define what they consider to be torture, they could have been referring to (as was listed in appendix B) applying electrical shock which isn't one of the 7 specifically defined enhanced interrogation techniques.

[ElNono]

Yeah, I know.

Had I been asked any of the question I read in Appendix A, I would have said no, too. The questions don't define what they consider to be torture, they could have been referring to (as was listed in appendix B) applying electrical shock which isn't one of the 7 specifically defined enhanced interrogation techniques.

There's another appendix with specific questions about different methods and whether they approve or not... which largely do not approve save a few exceptions...

[Yonivore]

There's another appendix with specific questions about different methods and whether they approve or not... which largely do not approve save a few exceptions...
And, they didn't define any of them, except to stipulate they constituted torture.

None of the techniques that were included in the 7 vetted by the DOJ were put in the context of the restrictions placed on their use to prevent if from being classified as torture. And, then they just threw in a few real torture techniques, such as electrical shock, to bias the crowd.

Sorry, you're not convincing me of the validity of your white paper.

[Yonivore]

I particularly love this qualifier on Table 3:


Note. *indicates technique approved by Bybee or Bradbury memoranda; + indicates technique similar to techniques
approved by the Bybee and Bradbury memoranda. For details on polling questions, see appendix B.
+ = similar? How similar? define the differences.

* = technique approved by Bybee or Bradbury? Which is it, Bradbury or Bybee because most of the techniques had been discontinued before Bradbury came along and, whatever he put in his memos has not been put into practice that we know of.

[ElNono]

And, they didn't define any of them, except to stipulate they constituted torture.

Again, your opinion of what constitutes torture or not is immaterial. That's a full list of well known torture methods, most (all?) of which existed prior to 9/11...

I have no interest in going in circles on this. You're certainly entitled to whatever reality you want to live in.

[Yonivore]

Again, your opinion of what constitutes torture or not is immaterial. That's a full list of well known torture methods, most (all?) of which existed prior to 9/11...
What matters is what constitutes torture. Calling something torture doesn't make it so -- even if the name is similar to something that is torture.


I have no interest in going in circles on this. You're certainly entitled to whatever reality you want to live in.
I'll be here with the majority.

[ElNono]

:lol okay

[ChumpDumper]

lol nervous tic

[boutons_deux]

new poll for The American Sheeple: Do you approve of CIA torture, gratuitous enemas, indefinitely repeated waterboarding, etc applied by Muslims to US citizens?

and of course, like the US police do to young blacks, and probably done to CIA victims, kidney pounding until pee turns to blood.

replace enema of pureed hummus,nuts, raisins, etc with pureed BigMac value menu, maybe add some habaneros.

The American Sheeple are reputed to be "fair play" so how could the be against torture of Americans for years?

[boutons_deux]

holy shit, Repugs will always say just anything

Incoming Senate Intelligence Chief Plans ‘Real Time’ Scrutiny Of CIA (http://www.nationalmemo.com/incoming-senate-intelligence-chief-plans-real-time-scrutiny-cia/)
http://www.nationalmemo.com/incoming-senate-intelligence-chief-plans-real-time-scrutiny-cia/

All Talk, and very clear No Walk

of course, for Repugs, CIA torture doesn't require scrutiny.

[boutons_deux]

scumbag Yoo

John Yoo, author of interrogation memo and UC Berkeley law professor, says CIA maybe went too far

“If these things happened as they’re described in the report … they were not supposed to be done. And the people who did those are at risk legally because they were acting outside their orders,”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/john-yoo-author-of-interrogation-memo-and-uc-berkeley-law-professor-says-cia-maybe-went-too-far/

like any lawyer whore, Bybee, Yoo will "just follow orders" by fabricating any bullshit their employers want.

[Winehole23]

checked against the CIA's own records, their pronunciamentos about the efficacy of torture and lives saved by it evaporate:



The Senate’s report lists the plots the CIA has relied most heavily on when making the case for the efficacy of torture:


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/cia-plots.png?w=580&h=358

The report goes on to debunk torture’s role in each of these cases. Here are the key points:


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tall-buildings.png?w=580&h=231

So in this case, all the intelligence necessary to thwart a barely existent plot by utterly unserious criminals was discovered before torture was instigated at all.

https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/karachi-plots.png?w=580&h=193

Another claim eviscerated by the CIA’s own evidence.

https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/second-wave-combined.jpg?w=580&h=253

Again: torture was utterly irrelevant to this amorphous plot far from being operational.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/uk-plot-four.jpg?w=580&h=344 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/uk-plot-four.jpg)

Another phantasm of a plot revealed by sources independent of the torture program.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/faris.png?w=580&h=223

So this canary sang without any torture at all.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/badat.png?w=580&h=160 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/badat.png)

And so it goes. Notice that all of this evidence is taken from the CIA’s own internal documents. This is not the Senate Committee’s conclusion; it is the CIA’s.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/heathrow-combined.jpg?w=580&h=226 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/heathrow-combined.jpg)

Yet another dud. And therefore yet another lie.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/hambali-capture.png?w=580&h=209 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/hambali-capture.png)
Look: if every single one of the CIA’s own purported successes evaporates upon inspecting the CIA’s own records, what’s left?

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/12/john-brennan-is-still-lying-ctd/

[Winehole23]

McClatchy, 2009: Cheney and Rumsfeld pushed EITs designed by communists to elicit false confessions, to try to get evidence of operational ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They failed to so.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.


"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."


Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.
A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/04/21/66622_report-abusive-tactics-used-to.html?rh=1

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/04/21/66622_report-abusive-tactics-used-to.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

[Winehole23]

the US relied on false confessions elicited by torture to justify the war:


The truth is that torture did work, but not the way its defenders claim. It worked to produce justifications for policies the establishment wanted, like the Iraq war. This is actually tacitly acknowledged in the report -- or one should say, it's buried in it. Footnote 857 (https://twitter.com/samhusseini/status/542435002420432898) of the report is about Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured in Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. invasion and was interrogated by the FBI. He told them all he knew, but then the CIA rendered him to the brutal Mubarak regime in Egypt, in effect outsourcing their torture. From the footnote:

"Ibn Shaykh al-Libi reported while in [censored: 'Egyptian'] custody that Iraq was supporting al-Qa'ida and providing assistance with chemical and biological weapons. Some of this information was cited by Secretary Powell in his speech at the United Nations, and was used as a justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ibn Shaykh al-Libi recanted the claim after he was rendered to CIA custody on February [censored], 2003, claiming that he had been tortured by the [censored, likely 'Egyptians'], and only told them what he assessed they wanted to hear. For more more details, see Volume III." Of course, Volume III has not been made public.


So, while CIA head John Brennan now says it's "unknowable" if torture led to information that actually saved lives, it's provable that torture led to information that helped lead to war and destroyed lives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-husseini/what-both-sides-are-ignor_b_6315678.html

[boutons_deux]

typical garbage from a typical Repug garbage judge

Scalia Is Wrong: The Constitution Prohibits Torture and GOP Civil Rights Violations

Since it was first revealed that George W. Bush authorized and approved the use of torture, Republicans and so-called “patriots” condemned the criticism against the illegal acts as despicable, self-righteous whining from un-American traitors.

obviously, in Scalia’s mind torture is not wrong because it is legal on television.

Last week, Scalia reiterated his support for torture in an interview with Radio Television Suisse in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Bush-directed CIA torture of “suspected” Islamic terrorists. According to Scalia, although there are U.S. laws against torture, it is still perfectly legal and acceptable because there is nothing in the United States Constitution that prohibits torture of suspected terrorists. “I don’t know what article of the Constitution that would contravene, so I don’t think it’s so clear at all. Listen, I think it’s very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible.’ You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get information out of a suspected terrorist?”

The so-called Constitutional originalist, and alleged scholar, Scalia, has once again revealed he is as ignorant of the nation’s founding document as he is vacant of compassion for anyone but evangelical extremists and the Koch brothers.

In an effort to protect convicted war criminals George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Bush’s national security team, Scalia claimed because the words “do not torture” are not in the Constitution that Americans can torture captured enemy combatants, innocent Muslims, or American citizens with impunity. Any so-called American citizen that supports and defends torture is a humiliation to this country, but for a Supreme Court Justice to make such an absurd remark is an abomination. Worse, Antonin Scalia is patently incorrect.

It is too bad that Scalia’s reading of the Constitution is limited to serving the uber-rich, corporate fascists, and religious extremists, because if he actually read the document sans his Koch-Vatican blinders on, he would know the

Constitution does, in fact, prohibit torture; among a variety of human rights violations his conservative cohorts on the High Court and Republicans fervently support.In Article Six, Clause 2 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi) of the Constitution, it clearly states that, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.” Therefore, since the U.N. Convention on Torture, and the Geneva Conventions, expressly prohibits torture in any form and for any reason, and because those documents are valid treaties America signed after ratification in the U.S. Senate,

Article Six makes “the prohibition on torture the Supreme Law of the Land.” Plus, there is also the Eighth Amendment (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/eighth_amendment) that prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments;” particularly of “suspected criminal” activity or “alleged terror suspects.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/15/scalia-wrong-constitution-prohibits-torture-gop-civil-rights-violations.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[Yonivore]

I know I discounted John McCain's views on what constitutes torture because, well, he is understandably biased about how prisoners are and should be treated. I get that and I don't fault him for his view; I simply disagree.

So does, apparently, two of his compatriots that suffered the same (and possibly worse) treatment at the hands of their captors.

LEO THORSNESS: TORTURE THOUGHTS ON MEMORIAL DAY (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/05/leo-thorsness-torture-thoughts-on-memorial-day.php)


Of the 350 “old timer” Vietnam POWs, the majority were severely tortured by the North Vietnamese. Ironically the Department of Defense did not formally study torture after the POWs were released in 1973. We provided our military an actual “torture database library” but to this day, the Pentagon has never tapped the resource to help clarify national debate about “what is torture.”

I and many other Vietnam POWs were tortured severely – some were tortured to death. Several POWs wrote books after our release in 1973 describing the torture in detail. Mike McGrath’s book had extensive drawings vividly depicting types of torture the North Vietnamese used. (A gallery of McGrath’s drawings is accessible here.)

When I wrote Surviving Hell in 2008, initially I did not include discussions of torture, knowing that others had earlier described it. My editors encouraged me to add it; if our younger population reads only current books, they may perceive that the treatment at Abu Grab and Gitmo was real torture. I added my experience being tortured so that readers will know that there is abuse and humiliation, and there is torture.

If someone surveyed the surviving Vietnam POWs, we would likely not agree on one definition of torture. In fact, we wouldn’t agree if waterboarding is torture. For example, John McCain, Bud Day and I were recently together. Bud is one of the toughest and most tortured Vietnam POWs. John thinks waterboarding is torture; Bud and I believe it is harsh treatment, but not torture. Other POWs would have varying opinions. I don’t claim to be right; we just disagree. But as someone who has been severely tortured over an extended time, my first hand view on torture is this:

Torture, when used by an expert, can produce useful, truthful information. I base that on my experience. I believe that during torture, there is a narrow “window of truth” as pain (often multiple kinds) is increased. Beyond that point, if torture increases, the person breaks, or dies if he continues to resist.

Everyone has a different physical and mental threshold of pain that he can tolerate. If the interrogator is well trained he can identify when that point is reached – the point when if slightly more pain is inflicted, a person no longer can “hold out,” just giving (following the Geneva Convention) name, rank, serial number and date of birth. At that precise point, a very narrow torture “window of truth” exists. At that moment a person may give useful or truthful information to stop the pain. As slightly more pain is applied, the person “loses it” and will say anything he thinks will stop the torture – any lie, any story, and any random words or sounds

This torture “window of truth” is theory to some. Having been there, it is fact to me. While in torture I had the sickening feeling deep within my soul that maybe I would tell the truth as that horrendous pain increased. It is unpleasant, but I can still dredge up the memory of that window of truth feeling as the pain level intensified.

Our world is not completely good or evil. To proclaim we will never use any form of enhanced interrogations causes our friends to think we are naive and eases our enemies’ recruitment of radical terrorists to plot attacks on innocent kids, men and women – or any infidel. If I were to catch a “mad bomber” running away from an explosive I would not hesitate a second to use “enhanced interrogation,” including waterboarding, if it would save lives of innocent people.

Our [president] does not impress radical terrorists like those who slit the throat of Daniel Pearl in 2002 simply because he was Jewish, and broadcast the sight and sound of his dying gurgling. Publicizing our enhanced interrogation techniques only emboldens those who will hurt us.

[Yonivore]

:lol okay
Let me rephrase my last response to you, ElNono; I'll be here with Col. Thorsness.

You can stand with these savages:

Pakistan School Attack: Taliban Militants Kill 126 in Peshawar, Take Hostages (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistan-school-attack-taliban-militants-kill-126-peshawar-take-hostages-n269011)

[Th'Pusher]

Let me rephrase my last response to you, ElNono; I'll be here with Col. Thorsness.

You can stand with these savages:

Pakistan School Attack: Taliban Militants Kill 126 in Peshawar, Take Hostages (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistan-school-attack-taliban-militants-kill-126-peshawar-take-hostages-n269011)

Wait. How is he "standing with the savages"?

[Yonivore]

Wait. How is he "standing with the savages"?
He's defending their "right" to be treated as we would our own citizens.

He's also the one getting the flop sweats over a little harsh interrogation of a bunch of savages.

[Winehole23]

protip: Yonivore ignores whatever he cannot rebut

[ChumpDumper]

protip: Yonivore ignores whatever he cannot rebutInstead furiously builds a straw man worse than any he has accused others of building.

lol stands with savages

[Yonivore]

Instead furiously builds a straw man worse than any he has accused others of building.

lol stands with savages
Meh, it's no different that me being accused of being a torturer and loving torture, tbh.

Perhaps I welcomed the diversion from my post by poking at ElNono so, I'll retract that and ask for some feedback on what Colonel Thorsness says about torture. After all, y'all were throwing around John McCain's earlier.

[ChumpDumper]

Meh, it's no different that me being accused of being a torturer and loving torture, tbh.

Perhaps I welcomed the diversion from my post by poking at ElNono so, I'll retract that and ask for some feedback on what Colonel Thorsness says about torture. After all, y'all were throwing around John McCain's earlier.So you say John McCain stands with savages.

And are still ignoring the big one.


lol

[Yonivore]

So you say John McCain stands with savages.

And are still ignoring the big one.


lol
So, you've go no response to Colonel Thorsness?

And, as for John McCain; he's the only one of the three that's a politician so, I'll suggest his view may also be colored by that. But, you'll have to worry about that yourself because, I wasn't the one that brought him up, I merely offered Colonel Thorsness as an example of someone similarly situated that has a different view than the politician you guys put out there as having absolute moral authority on the issue.

[ChumpDumper]

So, you've go no response to Colonel Thorsness?He has a nice anecdotal theory about torture's sweet spot. Perhaps if he told us what actionable intel torture got out of him.


And, as for John McCain; he's the only one of the three that's a politician so, I'll suggest his view may also be colored by that. But, you'll have to worry about that yourself because, I wasn't the one that brought him up, I merely offered Colonel Thorsness as an example of someone similarly situated that has a different view than the politician you guys put out there as having absolute moral authority on the issue.So you say McCain stands with savages.

lol

[Yonivore]

He has a nice anecdotal theory about torture's sweet spot. Perhaps if he told us what actionable intel torture got out of him.
So, now, you're calling him a liar?


So you say McCain stands with savages.

lol
Y'all agree with McCain, I have no idea if McCain shares all the views expressed by those that invoked him in this forum so, I don't make that assertion.

http://westchestertownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Straw-Man_500.gif

[ChumpDumper]

So, now, you're calling him a liar?http://westchestertownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Straw-Man_500.gif



Y'all agree with McCain, I have no idea if McCain shares all the views expressed by those that invoked him in this forum so, I don't make that assertion.So why did you say posters stand with savages?

List all the reasons and why McCain would be excluded from your list of those who stand with savages.

[Yonivore]

http://westchestertownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Straw-Man_500.gif
That's right, I posted a Strawman, in deference to it being the only form of communication in which you tend to engage.

So, was Colonel Thorsness lying when he said, "Torture, when used by an expert, can produce useful, truthful information. I base that on my experience. I believe that during torture, there is a narrow “window of truth” as pain (often multiple kinds) is increased. Beyond that point, if torture increases, the person breaks, or dies if he continues to resist?" Or, when he said, "This torture 'window of truth is theory to some. Having been there, it is fact to me. While in torture I had the sickening feeling deep within my soul that maybe I would tell the truth as that horrendous pain increased. It is unpleasant, but I can still dredge up the memory of that window of truth feeling as the pain level intensified.



So why did you say posters stand with savages?
Because it was analogous to what is being said about those of us who disagree and believe the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques were warranted, justified, and effective and, that they didn't constitute torture.


List all the reasons and why McCain would be excluded from your list of those who stand with savages.
Sorry, you can review the thread if you're interested, I don't owe you a rehashing of the entire conversation we've had here. You should keep up.

[ChumpDumper]

That's right, I posted a Strawman, in deference to it being the only form of communication in which you tend to engage.

So, was Colonel Thorsness lying when he said, "Torture, when used by an expert, can produce useful, truthful information. I base that on my experience. I believe that during torture, there is a narrow “window of truth” as pain (often multiple kinds) is increased. Beyond that point, if torture increases, the person breaks, or dies if he continues to resist?" Or, when he said, "This torture 'window of truth is theory to some. Having been there, it is fact to me. While in torture I had the sickening feeling deep within my soul that maybe I would tell the truth as that horrendous pain increased. It is unpleasant, but I can still dredge up the memory of that window of truth feeling as the pain level intensified.So what actionable intel did he provide the enemy when they tortured him just right?


Because it was analogous to what is being said about those of us who disagree and believe the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques were warranted, justified, and effective and, that they didn't constitute torture.


Sorry, you can review the thread if you're interested, I don't owe you a rehashing of the entire conversation we've had here. You should keep up.Ok, so you say McCain stands with the savages.

Not a straw man.

Classy as always.

[ElNono]

protip: Yonivore ignores whatever he cannot rebut

:lol yah, typical case of talking to himself... I forgot it's like talking to boutons, my mistake, tbh...

[Yonivore]

So what actionable intel did he provide the enemy when they tortured him just right?
I don't know, you'll have to ask him.


Ok, so you say McCain stands with the savages.
Nope.


Not a straw man.
Yep, it was.


Classy as always.
Thanks.

[ChumpDumper]

I don't know, you'll have to ask him.i can't really buy his anecdote at face value.



Nope.Yep.



Yep, it was.Nope.



Thanks.You're welcome.

[Yonivore]

i can't really buy his anecdote at face value.
Okay. Fair enough. I can't make you.


Yep.
When did I say John McCain stood with savages?


Nope.
You need to reacquaint yourself with the definition of "strawman."

[Winehole23]

http://www.truth-out.org/media/k2/items/cache/5f9a6fe52bf50f24ccb72e2a419cc80a_L.jpg (http://www.truth-out.org/media/k2/items/src/5f9a6fe52bf50f24ccb72e2a419cc80a.jpg)

[Yonivore]

http://www.truth-out.org/media/k2/items/cache/5f9a6fe52bf50f24ccb72e2a419cc80a_L.jpg (http://www.truth-out.org/media/k2/items/src/5f9a6fe52bf50f24ccb72e2a419cc80a.jpg)
As if Al Qaeda and/or ISIS would torture our troops. They'd simply kill them.

I'll let Vice President Cheney respond, (he speaks to the direct question of "what if our enemy waterboarded our troops, beginning at about :25):

E3pK5IPJrv0

Tell me, have any of our captured soldiers come back to tell of being waterboarded by al Qaeda or ISIS?

[ChumpDumper]

As if Al Qaeda and/or ISIS would torture our troops. They'd simply kill them.

I'll let Vice President Cheney respond, (he speaks to the direct question of "what if our enemy waterboarded our troops, beginning at about :25):

E3pK5IPJrv0

Tell me, have any of our captured soldiers come back to tell of being waterboarded by al Qaeda or ISIS?He didn't answer the question that you wouldn't answer either.

It's OK, we've already prosecuted enemies and our own for waterboarding, so we have our answer.

[Winehole23]

As if Al Qaeda and/or ISIS would torture our troops.how can you be sure they wouldn't?

[Yonivore]

how can you be sure they wouldn't?
Oh, I'm sure they do torture those they capture. But, they're not worrying about having their techniques vetted for legality. Nor do they have lawyers and medical staff present to ensure the safety of the techniques they use. And, as far as I know, all of our soldier that have had the misfortune to be captured have been killed.

[Yonivore]

He didn't answer the question that you wouldn't answer either.

It's OK, we've already prosecuted enemies and our own for waterboarding, so we have our answer.
It was a stupid hypothetical.

[Winehole23]

On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/):


"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191153.html

[ChumpDumper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191153.htmlBut--but that waterboarding was different!

[Winehole23]

because doctors were present to make sure the people we were torturing didn't die from it. odd thing for a doctor to be doing...

[ChumpDumper]

And they had a plan in place if the detainee died to burn the evidence. Odd contingency for such a safe practice.

[ElNono]

because doctors were present to make sure the people we were torturing didn't die from it. odd thing for a doctor to be doing...

didn't one of the interrogation subjects did die? maybe it was Dr. Seuss watching over det one...

[ChumpDumper]

didn't one of the interrogation subjects did die? maybe it was Dr. Seuss watching over det one...Air conditioning isn't torture! I have it in my house!

[Yonivore]

On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact:


"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191153.html

Sorry, Paul Begala -- You’re Still Wrong (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/180923/sorry-paul-begala-youre-still-wrong/mark-hemingway)


Over at Huffington Post, Paul Begala has responded to my post from a few days ago questioning his claim the the U.S. executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding — “Yes, National Review, We Did Execute Japanese for Waterboarding.“

Given that a number of the responses I’ve received have been less than fair, Begala’s response is a model of civilized debate and I appreciate that he mounted a factual response.

Alas, he’s still wrong.

But first, a necessary clarification. I had assumed that Begala had sourced his claim that the U.S. executed Japanese war criminals to Ted Kennedy, since that was the only popular mention I could find of someone citing a Japanese war criminal by name being punished for the specific crime of waterboarding. Begala says that his claim stems from this statement from John McCain:


Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding.

What McCain is saying is accurate. However, McCain’s third sentence here doesn’t necessarily follow the second. Japanese war criminals were convicted for crimes against U.S. POWs — including waterboarding. But, unlike Begala, McCain doesn’t go so far as to say they were executed for waterboarding. Here’s what Begala actually said:


Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves.

At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trials, that Begala says McCain is referring to, only seven Japanese war criminals were executed. Every one of them was convicted of either being complicit in or directly comitting atrocities and murder on a grand scale.

Koki Hirota: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/koki_hirota_549.html)


During Hirota’s second tenure as foreign minister, late in 1937, Japanese forces marched into Nanking. Thousands of innocent civilians were buried alive, used as targets for bayonet practice, shot in large groups and thrown into the Yangtze River. Rampant rapes (and gang rapes) of women ranging from age seven to over seventy were reported. The international community estimated that within the six weeks of the Massacre, 20,000 women were raped, many of them subsequently murdered or mutilated; and over 300,000 people were killed, often with the most inhumane brutality.

While Hirota was not in charge of the army units that invaded Nanjing, he was well informed about the massacre. The international community had filed many protests to the Japanese Embassy. Bates, an American professor of history at the University of Nanking during the Japanese occupation, provided evidence that the protests were forwarded to Tokyo and were discussed in great detail between Japanese officials and the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo.

Seishiro Itagaki: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/seishiro_itagaki_73.html)


Itagaki was moreover responsible for the supply of food and medical care to prisoners of war and civilian internees, in particular on various Indonesian islands during the last months of the war. It has been established that, over that period, thousands of people died due to lack of food or adequate care, while the camp guards suffered no undue hardship.

Kenji Dohihara: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/kenji_dohihara_764.html?AC=1)


Kenji Dohihara voted in favour of the attack on Pearl Harbour … He commanded the Army of the 7th Region, which includes parts of Malaysia and the islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo in Indonesia. In this capacity, he was responsible for supplying food and medicines to not only the Japanese troops, but also to prisoners of war.

Heitaro Kimura: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/heitaro_kimura_765.html)


It is alleged that in carrying out his functions, Kimura allegedly violated the laws and customs of war in approving the use of prisoners of war for hazardous work, from which they are usually prohibited. They were forced to work in very dangerous conditions and several thousands died. Heitaro Kimura allegedly gave the order and approved the use of prisoners of war for the construction of the railway between Burma and the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand). In addition, he did not take the necessary disciplinary measures to prevent or to punish the commission of atrocities by his troops.

Iwane Matsui: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/iwane_matsui_85.html)


His troops took Nanking on 13 December 1937. The Chinese army had evacuated the city just before it was taken. The ensuing occupation was therefore that of a defenceless city. The Japanese troops nevertheless carried out unspeakable atrocities: massacre, rape, pillaging and destruction were routinely committed. During a six to seven week period, more than 100’000 civilians were killed and thousands of women raped. Against this backdrop, Matsui marched triumphantly into Nanking on 17 December 1937 and remained there for several days.

Akira Muto: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/akira_muto_82.html)


Moreover, as an officer serving under General Matsui between November 1937 and July 1938, he was charged with war crimes for his participation in the atrocities committed at Nanking.

The seventh Japanese war criminal to be hanged was Hideki Tojo, and I presume his reputation precedes him. But it seems pretty clear we executed these men for charges that far surpass concerns about waterboarding.

Now it does appear that various forms of torture were a consideration in some of these cases that resulted in death sentences at the Tokyo Trials. Media Matters marshals some evidence (http://mediamatters.org/items/200904240035) to that effect, but again waterboarding was presented as just one of several types of torture, many of which appear to be more severe. (Media Matters also appears to cavalierly lump all forms of Japanese water torture together and, say, forced ingestion of water — an execution method centuries ago — is obviously very different from waterboarding.) This is why McCain appears to be accurate when he says waterboarding is “among the charges” and Begala is wrong to suggest it’s the reason why the death sentences were handed down. There are examples of war criminals convicted of waterboarding, even alongside convictions for a number of harsh forms of torture, who were not put to death.

In no way, shape or form could waterboarding be said to have been the predominate reason any one of these people were hanged. Begala suggesting people at the Tokyo Trials were hanged for waterboarding is akin to noting that Charles Manson is guilty of trespassing on Roman Polanski’s home and then insisting that’s the reason he got a death sentence. (Not that I’m suggesting trespassing and waterboarding are equivalent crimes; I’m just making a logical point.)

Ultimately, even evidence Begala cites to defend himself doesn’t validate his charge. It does validate McCain’s statement, which Begala doesn’t seem to recognize as materially different the one he made. Then again, while the PolitiFact article (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/) Begala references doesn’t prove his claim — it’s otherwise clear as mud on the distinctions and specific crimes involved.

Again, to be clear: I am not trying to suggest that waterboarding isn’t torture. Those opposed to waterboarding should be content to argue the indisputable fact that it was considered a crime as practiced by the Japanese. But Begala’s insistence that Japanese war criminals were executed for waterboarding just does not appear to be true.

Now shifting gears a bit, let me add one final bit about waterboarding. In my discussion of waterboarding from a few days ago, I wrote (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTA5Mjk2NDM0NTJmYzEyOGMxYzRiZmY1ZjRhYjBmODk=):


In waterboarding as it is practiced by the U.S., cellophane or cloth is placed over the subject’s mouth to keep water out of nose and mouth. Asano was pouring water directly into the mouths and noses of subjects which is considerably more harsh and dangerous.

A reader notes that a cloth barrier, doesn’t necessarily prevent water from going into the mouth and nose as described in the Stephen J. Bradbury memo (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-methods-list-for-interrogation/):


Either in the normal application, or where countermeasures are used, we understand that water may enter — and may accumulate in — the detainee’s mouth and nasal cavity, preventing him from breathing. In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities.

Obviously, a cellophane barrier would keep water out altogether and I think a cloth barrier is probably still better than none. But the reader makes a fair point about a cloth not necessarily keeping water out of the nose and mouth, and is certainly a distinction worth noting if you’re trying to decide how severe the practice is.
Not that y'all ever bother with distinctions...

[Yonivore]

But--but that waterboarding was different!
Yes, as a matter of fact, it was.

[Yonivore]

http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2014/12/RAMclr-121614-enhanced-IBD-COLOR-FINAL-147.gif.cms_.gif

[spurraider21]

^appeal to emotion

[ChumpDumper]

So classy.

[Yonivore]

^appeal to emotion
Bumping thread back up because the National Review response to Begala seemed to slow down the discourse.

[Yonivore]

So classy.
So, National Review puts the lie to Begala's misquoting of John McCain and then, further explains how no Japanese were executed for waterboarding. Rounds it out by, once again, trying to enlighten the unenlightenable by stating what the vast majority of sentient human beings already know; that the water torture used by the Japanese (while sometimes called waterboarding - among other things) was not the same as the enhanced interrogation technique described and approved by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

No response? Or, are you going to wait for Paul Begala to take another stab at it?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2014/12/RAMclr-121614-enhanced-IBD-COLOR-FINAL-147.gif.cms_.gif

'They did it first' is the justification of a child.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

So, National Review puts the lie to Begala's misquoting of John McCain and then, further explains how no Japanese were executed for waterboarding. Rounds it out by, once again, trying to enlighten the unenlightenable by stating what the vast majority of sentient human beings already know; that the water torture used by the Japanese (while sometimes called waterboarding - among other things) was not the same as the enhanced interrogation technique described and approved by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

No response? Or, are you going to wait for Paul Begala to take another stab at it?

Hand waving at the red herring is a nice touch.

[Yonivore]

'They did it first' is the justification of a child.
But, they didn't do it first. They murdered 3,000 people and were planning a second wave of attacks to do it all over again.

You missed the point of the cartoon. But it was only a bumping mechanism to try and get a response to the National Review response to Paul Begala.

[Yonivore]

Hand waving at the red herring is a nice touch.
What red herring? The National Review article specifically responded to the Huffington Post article Winehole posted.

[ChumpDumper]

So, National Review puts the lie to Begala's misquoting of John McCain and then, further explains how no Japanese were executed for waterboarding. Rounds it out by, once again, trying to enlighten the unenlightenable by stating what the vast majority of sentient human beings already know; that the water torture used by the Japanese (while sometimes called waterboarding - among other things) was not the same as the enhanced interrogation technique described and approved by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

No response? Or, are you going to wait for Paul Begala to take another stab at it?They were certainly prosecuted for "enhanced" type waterboarding, as have been Americans.

No one else needs to take a stab at it. Unlike you, I can speak for myself.

[Yonivore]

They were certainly prosecuted for "enhanced" type waterboarding, as have been Americans.

No one else needs to take a stab at it. Unlike you, I can speak for myself.
You're right, you can speak for yourself. A distinct minority.

[ChumpDumper]

You're right, you can speak for yourself. A distinct minority.Actually the case law speaks for itself. Americans and foreigners have been prosecuted for your kinder, gentler waterboarding. And you can't spin it away.

[Yonivore]

Actually the case law speaks for itself. Americans and foreigners have been prosecuted for your kinder, gentler waterboarding. And you can't spin it away.
Except they haven't.

[ChumpDumper]

Except they haven't.Of course they have.

[Yonivore]

On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact:


"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/yes-inational-reviewi-we_b_191153.html

Sorry, Paul Begala -- You’re Still Wrong (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/180923/sorry-paul-begala-youre-still-wrong/mark-hemingway)


Over at Huffington Post, Paul Begala has responded to my post from a few days ago questioning his claim the the U.S. executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding — “Yes, National Review, We Did Execute Japanese for Waterboarding.“

Given that a number of the responses I’ve received have been less than fair, Begala’s response is a model of civilized debate and I appreciate that he mounted a factual response.

Alas, he’s still wrong.

But first, a necessary clarification. I had assumed that Begala had sourced his claim that the U.S. executed Japanese war criminals to Ted Kennedy, since that was the only popular mention I could find of someone citing a Japanese war criminal by name being punished for the specific crime of waterboarding. Begala says that his claim stems from this statement from John McCain:


Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding.

What McCain is saying is accurate. However, McCain’s third sentence here doesn’t necessarily follow the second. Japanese war criminals were convicted for crimes against U.S. POWs — including waterboarding. But, unlike Begala, McCain doesn’t go so far as to say they were executed for waterboarding. Here’s what Begala actually said:


Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves.

At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trials, that Begala says McCain is referring to, only seven Japanese war criminals were executed. Every one of them was convicted of either being complicit in or directly comitting atrocities and murder on a grand scale.

Koki Hirota: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/koki_hirota_549.html)


During Hirota’s second tenure as foreign minister, late in 1937, Japanese forces marched into Nanking. Thousands of innocent civilians were buried alive, used as targets for bayonet practice, shot in large groups and thrown into the Yangtze River. Rampant rapes (and gang rapes) of women ranging from age seven to over seventy were reported. The international community estimated that within the six weeks of the Massacre, 20,000 women were raped, many of them subsequently murdered or mutilated; and over 300,000 people were killed, often with the most inhumane brutality.

While Hirota was not in charge of the army units that invaded Nanjing, he was well informed about the massacre. The international community had filed many protests to the Japanese Embassy. Bates, an American professor of history at the University of Nanking during the Japanese occupation, provided evidence that the protests were forwarded to Tokyo and were discussed in great detail between Japanese officials and the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo.

Seishiro Itagaki: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/seishiro_itagaki_73.html)


Itagaki was moreover responsible for the supply of food and medical care to prisoners of war and civilian internees, in particular on various Indonesian islands during the last months of the war. It has been established that, over that period, thousands of people died due to lack of food or adequate care, while the camp guards suffered no undue hardship.

Kenji Dohihara: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/kenji_dohihara_764.html?AC=1)


Kenji Dohihara voted in favour of the attack on Pearl Harbour … He commanded the Army of the 7th Region, which includes parts of Malaysia and the islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo in Indonesia. In this capacity, he was responsible for supplying food and medicines to not only the Japanese troops, but also to prisoners of war.

Heitaro Kimura: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/heitaro_kimura_765.html)


It is alleged that in carrying out his functions, Kimura allegedly violated the laws and customs of war in approving the use of prisoners of war for hazardous work, from which they are usually prohibited. They were forced to work in very dangerous conditions and several thousands died. Heitaro Kimura allegedly gave the order and approved the use of prisoners of war for the construction of the railway between Burma and the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand). In addition, he did not take the necessary disciplinary measures to prevent or to punish the commission of atrocities by his troops.

Iwane Matsui: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/iwane_matsui_85.html)


His troops took Nanking on 13 December 1937. The Chinese army had evacuated the city just before it was taken. The ensuing occupation was therefore that of a defenceless city. The Japanese troops nevertheless carried out unspeakable atrocities: massacre, rape, pillaging and destruction were routinely committed. During a six to seven week period, more than 100’000 civilians were killed and thousands of women raped. Against this backdrop, Matsui marched triumphantly into Nanking on 17 December 1937 and remained there for several days.

Akira Muto: (http://www.trial-ch.org/en/trial-watch/profile/db/facts/akira_muto_82.html)


Moreover, as an officer serving under General Matsui between November 1937 and July 1938, he was charged with war crimes for his participation in the atrocities committed at Nanking.

The seventh Japanese war criminal to be hanged was Hideki Tojo, and I presume his reputation precedes him. But it seems pretty clear we executed these men for charges that far surpass concerns about waterboarding.

Now it does appear that various forms of torture were a consideration in some of these cases that resulted in death sentences at the Tokyo Trials. Media Matters marshals some evidence (http://mediamatters.org/items/200904240035) to that effect, but again waterboarding was presented as just one of several types of torture, many of which appear to be more severe. (Media Matters also appears to cavalierly lump all forms of Japanese water torture together and, say, forced ingestion of water — an execution method centuries ago — is obviously very different from waterboarding.) This is why McCain appears to be accurate when he says waterboarding is “among the charges” and Begala is wrong to suggest it’s the reason why the death sentences were handed down. There are examples of war criminals convicted of waterboarding, even alongside convictions for a number of harsh forms of torture, who were not put to death.

In no way, shape or form could waterboarding be said to have been the predominate reason any one of these people were hanged. Begala suggesting people at the Tokyo Trials were hanged for waterboarding is akin to noting that Charles Manson is guilty of trespassing on Roman Polanski’s home and then insisting that’s the reason he got a death sentence. (Not that I’m suggesting trespassing and waterboarding are equivalent crimes; I’m just making a logical point.)

Ultimately, even evidence Begala cites to defend himself doesn’t validate his charge. It does validate McCain’s statement, which Begala doesn’t seem to recognize as materially different the one he made. Then again, while the PolitiFact article (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/) Begala references doesn’t prove his claim — it’s otherwise clear as mud on the distinctions and specific crimes involved.

Again, to be clear: I am not trying to suggest that waterboarding isn’t torture. Those opposed to waterboarding should be content to argue the indisputable fact that it was considered a crime as practiced by the Japanese. But Begala’s insistence that Japanese war criminals were executed for waterboarding just does not appear to be true.

Now shifting gears a bit, let me add one final bit about waterboarding. In my discussion of waterboarding from a few days ago, I wrote (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTA5Mjk2NDM0NTJmYzEyOGMxYzRiZmY1ZjRhYjBmODk=):


In waterboarding as it is practiced by the U.S., cellophane or cloth is placed over the subject’s mouth to keep water out of nose and mouth. Asano was pouring water directly into the mouths and noses of subjects which is considerably more harsh and dangerous.

A reader notes that a cloth barrier, doesn’t necessarily prevent water from going into the mouth and nose as described in the Stephen J. Bradbury memo (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-methods-list-for-interrogation/):


Either in the normal application, or where countermeasures are used, we understand that water may enter — and may accumulate in — the detainee’s mouth and nasal cavity, preventing him from breathing. In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities.

Obviously, a cellophane barrier would keep water out altogether and I think a cloth barrier is probably still better than none. But the reader makes a fair point about a cloth not necessarily keeping water out of the nose and mouth, and is certainly a distinction worth noting if you’re trying to decide how severe the practice is.
Not that y'all ever bother with distinctions...

[Yonivore]

Megyn Kelly interviews Dr. James Mitchell, one of the men who developed the Enhanced Interrogation Tecnhiques and applied them to terrorist detainees.

7zpIGr8w85Y

I think the last segment is the most relevent to our discussion but, the whole interview is interesting. I don't particularly like Kelly's interview style - she interrupts too much.

IIRC, Dr. Mitchell said he was talking now after a gag order had been loosened over the weekend.

A few quotables:


“I do not mind giving my life for my country, but I do mind giving my life for a food fight for political reasons between two groups of people who should be able to work it out like adults.”

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has the opportunity to address the charges against him, but I don’t.”

“[The Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats' report] shows al Qaeda and the al Qaeda 2.0 folks, ISIL, that we’re divided and that we’re easy targets, that we don’t have the will to defeat them because that’s what they know. In fact, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told me personally, ‘Your country will turn on you, the liberal media will turn on you, the people will grow tired of this, they will turn on you, and when they do, you are going to be abandoned.”

For the anti-waterboarders in here, he did say he didn't think waterboarding was particularly effective on Khalid Sheik Mohammed. KSM was not affected by the technique and would count down on his fingers the number of seconds left in a pour. Yeah, he was really being tortured! Dr. Mitchell did allow that KSM was more compliant after other EITs were employed.

Also of interest:

James Mitchell, CIA's "Torture Teacher" Hits Back (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/12/16/james_mitchell_cias_torture_teacher_hits_back_1249 68.html)

[ElNono]

:lol walls of text

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Watch out he is now using Kelly and Fox!

[Yonivore]

:lol walls of text
Can't be bothered to read? Just want to stick to you narrative? I'm okay with that, you don't have to respond.

[Yonivore]

Watch out he is now using Kelly and Fox!
Well, I would have posted an MSNBC video if they had bothered to interview Dr. Mitchell and I became aware of it.

I posted Cheney on Meet the Press (Not a Fox program, in case you didn't know).

What is being said is relevant to the discussion, I don't understand the reference to the network as if it meant something.

[ElNono]

Can't be bothered to read? Just want to stick to you narrative? I'm okay with that, you don't have to respond.

:lol you don't even read what you post, why should I? Plus reposting the same thing over and over reeks of lack of actual arguments.

[ElNono]

Personally, I don't dwell on torture apologists nor want to invest time into their excuses.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

:lol you don't even read what you post, why should I? Plus reposting the same thing over and over reeks of lack of actual arguments.

Yup.

[Yonivore]

:lol you don't even read what you post, why should I? Plus reposting the same thing over and over reeks of lack of actual arguments.
Actually, I reposted it because of all the nonsense that took place between the two postings.

I read every word.

[Yonivore]

Personally, I don't dwell on torture apologists nor want to invest time into their excuses.
Yeah, you and the Senate Committee have no interest in hearing from the people they pretended to investigate.

[ElNono]

Yeah, you and the Senate Committee have no interest in hearing from the people they pretended to investigate.

I already commented on the report (which has no bearing on the fact that torture is torture, you seem to be confused about that)...

[Th'Pusher]

I posted Cheney on Meet the Press.


It's funny you thought that was a good response. I was cringing watching that on Sunday morning (not referenced from some blog).

Jon Stewart mocked it quite appropriately: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/6r9uao/immoral-kombat

[Yonivore]

I already commented on the report (which has no bearing on the fact that torture is torture, you seem to be confused about that)...
You seem to be confused about the difference between torture and harsh treatment.

[Yonivore]

It's funny you thought that was a good response. I was cringing watching that on Sunday morning (not referenced from some blog).

Jon Stewart mocked it quite appropriately: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/6r9uao/immoral-kombat
A comedy show? Oh yeah, I forgot that's where most of you idiots get your news.

[ChumpDumper]

You seem to be confused about the difference between torture and harsh treatment.What's the difference according to you?

[Th'Pusher]

You seem to be confused about the difference between torture and harsh treatment.

You seem incapable of accepting the difference of opinion. Why is it so important to you that everyone agree with you that EIT <> Torture?

[Th'Pusher]

A comedy show? Oh yeah, I forgot that's where most of you idiots get your news.

I watched him on MTP, then I saw Jon Stewart mock him appropriately.

[ChumpDumper]

He invoked 9/11 so many times I thought it was Giuliani.

[ElNono]

You seem to be confused about the difference between torture and harsh treatment.

Not confused at all, as already discussed on this thread 3+ years ago, the same position I have today on the matter.

This issue is strictly a humans rights issue for me, not a political issue (like it is for you).

The main difference is that I don't have sworn allegiance to some party/president/administration, so I don't have to constantly come up with excuses for them.

You're not going to convince me that there's some sort of gray area on this, and I'm not going to convince you otherwise, so it's unavoidable that we're going to go in circles on the matter.

[ElNono]

Actually, make that a humans right AND foreign relationship issue...

[Yonivore]

He invoked 9/11 so many times I thought it was Giuliani.
Well, that is the context in which these activities occurred.

[Yonivore]

Not confused at all, as already discussed on this thread 3+ years ago, the same position I have today on the matter.
Nor am I confused, I have the same position I had 3+ years ago. I have the same position I had 12 years ago.


This issue is strictly a humans rights issue for me, not a political issue (like it is for you).
This is a strictly legal issue for me.

The big question you seem unwilling to explore is whether or not the administration did what they claimed; Instead of asking their lawyers to justify torture, they asked their interrogation experts to devise harsh interrogation techniques that were effective but, that didn't cross the line into torture and then they had their Office of Legal Counsel review that. I'm persuaded and satisfied that's what they did.

Were there excesses? It appears there were. But, those are by people that were operating outside the legal framework that had been developed.

If you had bothered to read (or pay attention for the past 12 years), most of the worse abuses were promptly reported and investigated...


“A case in point was a contractor [David Passaro] who used a flashlight to beat a detainee...it was reported immediately and he was prosecuted and convicted in North Carolina and was sentenced to [eight years] prison [in 2004]."

Similarly, the CIA had reacted swiftly when the Gul Rahman died of hypothermia. “The agency made a big mistake. “It put a young officer into a position for which we had not prepared him. The incident was immediately turned over to the Department of Justice. It has been investigated twice and each time prosecution was declined.”
And, as much as it appears they want to, the current administration's Justice Department can find no cause to prosecute anyone from the Bush Administration for any of what they did with respect to the detention and interrogation of detainees.

The other questions on which you seem willing to remain ignorant are (and this is from where my appearance of partisanship may come), is whether or not the Democrats (particularly on the Senate Intelligence Committee) are lying about what they knew and when they knew and, further, about what they approved of then that they disapprove of now. If you had watched the interview with James Mitchell, he would have made the point that you don't need to trust him or the CIA on these questions but just look at the contemporaneous record that the CIA created they never thought would see the light of day. His charge is the Senate Committee had access to much more than what they included in the report and that they chose to cherry-pick a very few incidents and, even then, misrepresented the record on those.

I think even the public record will show the Democrats now wringing their hands over our interrogations of terrorist detainees were pretty much all on board when the EITs were being employed.

I continue to be amazed at how low Democrats are willing to stoop for partisan politics.


The main difference is that I don't have sworn allegiance to some party/president/administration, so I don't have to constantly come up with excuses for them.
I'm not excusing them, I'm trying to determine the truth. And, I make no apologies for believing the enhanced interrogation techniques were warranted, justified, and effective. I also don't believe they constituted torture just because they may have the same name as a torture used by Japan or some rogue GI in Vietnam.


You're not going to convince me that there's some sort of gray area on this, and I'm not going to convince you otherwise, so it's unavoidable that we're going to go in circles on the matter.
Well, you're still in the minority.

About Half See CIA Interrogation Methods as Justified (http://www.people-press.org/2014/12/15/about-half-see-cia-interrogation-methods-as-justified/)


http://www.people-press.org/files/2014/12/More-Say-CIA-Interrogation-Methods-Were-Justified-than-Unjustified.png
And that's during and after a pretty harsh beating in the Left Media news cycle, 24/7 for a week.

You go ahead with your sanctimonious self-righteousness. Most of us will continue to be satisfied the Bush Administration (at least) was willing to take on the most difficult issues at a time we needed a President to do just that. He, and the vast majority of those that served in his administration are just fine with what they did and would do it over again, in a heartbeat.

I'm sure you've lodged your complaint with the Human Rights Commission and International Criminal Court on the current President's "Killer Drone" program.

[Yonivore]

Actually, make that a humans right AND foreign relationship issue...
And, speaking of foreign relations; the Senate Report has (as has much of the partisan nonsense perpetrated by Democrats over the past decade) done real damage to our relationships with allies and others that cooperated with the U.S. in the Detention and Interrogation program.

[ChumpDumper]

Well, that is the context in which these activities occurred.Well, he decided to focus on Russia before 9/11 instead of terra, so I understand his impotent rage as a factor in deciding to overcompensate for his failure with torture.

[Yonivore]

Well, he decided to focus on Russia before 9/11 instead of terra, so I understand his impotent rage as a factor in deciding to overcompensate for his failure with torture.
Not according to one of those liberals I mentioned, Richard A. Clarke. He said the Bush administration quintupled the money and increased the effort to stop al Qaeda, over the Clinton administration (who, he claims, had no plan for al Qaeda to hand over to the Bush administration on January 21, 2001) that had allowed 4 major terrorist attacks (the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, two embassies, and the U.S.S. Cole) during his tenure.

[ChumpDumper]

Not according to one of those liberals I mentioned, Richard A. Clarke. He said the Bush administration quintupled the money and increased the effort to stop al Qaeda, over the Clinton administration (who, he claims, had no plan for al Qaeda to hand over to the Bush administration on January 21, 2001) that had allowed 4 major terrorist attacks (the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, two embassies, and the U.S.S. Cole) during his tenure.Sorry. I provided quotes from Clarke saying Bush ignored terrorism before 9/11.

You produced nothing.

Which blog told you Clarke said that?

[Yonivore]

Sorry. I provided quotes from Clarke saying Bush ignored terrorism before 9/11.

You produced nothing.

Which blog told you Clarke said that?
And I provided quotes from Clarke, contemporaneous to the events (and prior to the quotes you posted), that has him saying otherwise. I can't help that he took up company with the rest of the Democrats that chose to start lying and change their stories for political expedience.

You really don't pay attention, do you?

[ChumpDumper]

And I provided quotes from Clarke, contemporaneous to the events (and prior to the quotes you posted), that has him saying otherwise. I can't help that he took up company with the rest of the Democrats that chose to start lying and change their stories for political expedience.

You really don't pay attention, do you?"Clarke praises Bush while still working for Bush"

Wow.

So how many times did Bush and the principles meet about terra before 9/11? How often did the Clinton principals meet about it?

Why was Clarke's position reduced from cabinet level?

What was the main foreign policy issue according to Bush when he entered office?

[Yonivore]

"Clarke praises Bush..."
There you go, the rest is irrelevant.

[ChumpDumper]

There you go, the rest is irrelevant.Nah, it's pretty much the most important part. Had you read his book you'd know Clarke documented how he would spin his public pronouncements.

It's how people stay employed.

[Yonivore]

Nah, it's pretty much the most important part. Had you read his book you'd know Clarke documented how he would spin his public pronouncements.

It's how people stay employed.
For another 3 months?

He made those statements in October 2002 and resigned in January 2003.

And, what allegiance did Dianne Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller owe to the Bush administration?

[ChumpDumper]

For another 3 months?

He made those statements in October 2002 and resigned in January 2003.So he was still working for Bush.

Thanks for the confirmation.

[Yonivore]

So he was still working for Bush.

Thanks for the confirmation.
Sure, don't know what that has to do with anything.

Has Clarke actually admitted he was lying in his October 2002 interview? Or, like other Democrats, did he just start saying something different and pretend the public record of his previous statements didn't exist?

[ElNono]

This is a strictly legal issue for me.

No, it's clearly not. That's not what your posts reflect at all.


I'm not excusing them, I'm trying to determine the truth.

You *are* actively making excuses for them. We can all read your posts.


Well, you're still in the minority.

Incorrect.

[ElNono]

And, speaking of foreign relations; the Senate Report has (as has much of the partisan nonsense perpetrated by Democrats over the past decade) done real damage to our relationships with allies and others that cooperated with the U.S. in the Detention and Interrogation program.

I'm more concerned with the damage caused by unilaterally breaching international accords we're signatories of.

[ChumpDumper]

Sure, don't know what that has to do with anything.Because you're either stupid or disingenuous.


Has Clarke actually admitted he was lying in his October 2002 interview? Or, like other Democrats, did he just start saying something different and pretend the public record of his previous statements didn't exist?He explained it all very thoroughly.

Don't you read anything? It's a book.

[Yonivore]

Because you're either stupid or disingenuous.

He explained it all very thoroughly.

Don't you read anything? It's a book.
I read his statements contemporaneous to the events.

[ChumpDumper]

I read his statements contemporaneous to the events.And nothing else.

Ever.

Stupid or disingenuous.

[Yonivore]

I'm more concerned with the damage caused by unilaterally breaching international accords we're signatories of.
What damage has it caused other than turning us into a laughing stock for our enemies and destroying the trust we built with our allies who participated in the program with the understanding we wouldn't throw them under the bus.

[ChumpDumper]

What damage has it caused other than turning us into a laughing stock for our enemies and destroying the trust we built with our allies who participated in the program with the understanding we wouldn't throw them under the bus.Shouldn't have done it in the first place.

That'll teach us.

[Yonivore]

And nothing else.

Ever.

Stupid or disingenuous.
So, did he say he was lying when he gave that interview in 2002 or did he just change his story? I don't want to have to wade through his book to find the answer that you surely know.

[ChumpDumper]

So, did he say he was lying when he gave that interview in 2002 or did he just change his story? I don't want to have to wade through his book to find the answer that you surely know.It's a really good read. Self-serving sure, but so is every memoir. Takes more responsibility than anyone else in the Bush administration for sure.

He clearly states everything that was on the table from the Clinton administration; pretty much every suggestion about what to do about terra was adopted after 9/11.

Basically the spin comes down to what is your definition of a plan.

You can Google it. There are plenty of high profile interviews out there. Be a big boy now and find it yourself.

[Yonivore]

It's a really good read. Self-serving sure, but so is every memoir. Takes more responsibility than anyone else in the Bush administration for sure.

He clearly states everything that was on the table from the Clinton administration; pretty much every suggestion about what to do about terra was adopted after 9/11.

Basically the spin comes down to what is your definition of a plan.

You can Google it. There are plenty of high profile interviews out there. Be a big boy now and find it yourself.
I just want to know if he admitted to lying in the October 2002 interview.

People say a lot of shit in a memoir, I mean, look at Lena Dunham.

[ElNono]

What damage has it caused other than turning us into a laughing stock for our enemies and destroying the trust we built with our allies who participated in the program with the understanding we wouldn't throw them under the bus.

It set a bad precedent that the US will not honor it's commitments. The US lost any authority to go into the proper forums (UN, WTO, etc), which it often does, and point fingers at any other nation for breaching a signed treaty. It has caused a lot of damage in foreign relations, something the US is still recovering from.

[Yonivore]

It set a bad precedent that the US will not honor it's commitments.
Thanks to the Democrats it demonstrated to our allies that we can't be trusted to not throw them under the bus.


The US lost any authority to go into the proper forums (UN, WTO, etc), which it often does, and point fingers at any other nation for breaching a signed treaty.
As if any other nation takes their commitments to the UN and WTO seriously. They're just echo chambers that likes to talk high ideals and demand the nations that have implemented good governments that prosper to hand over their treasure to bad governments that can't seem to keep their monetary system afloat.

As happy as I would be to see Washington D.C. shuttered for a few years, seeing the U.N. kicked out of New York and forced to set up shop in one of the countries they seem to hold in higher esteem than the U.S. would really make my day.

Any body that would elect Libya as Chair if its Human Rights Commission is a farce.

And, when the preachy Europeans start abandoning their UN IPCC commitments (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10588121/European-Commission-to-ditch-legally-binding-renewable-energy-targets.html) you have to wonder, is the UN really even relevant anymore.


It has caused a lot of damage in foreign relations, something the US is still recovering from.
With who specifically? I don't recall anyone ejecting our diplomats and cutting off ties over anything we've done with respect to Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS, ISIL, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. Except of course, other countries that sympathize with those groups.

[ElNono]

As if any other nation takes their commitments to the UN and WTO seriously.

The US disputes breach of treaties on both forums consistently, ie:

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds478_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds465_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds456_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds450_e.htm

so do other countries:

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_status_e.htm

Through action, the United States and other countries disputes your contention.

Furthermore, the US Code specifically makes a crime severe breaches of both the Geneva and Hage treaties (18 U.S. Code § 2441).
Our own laws holds ourselves to a higher standard (as they should).


With who specifically? I don't recall anyone ejecting our diplomats and cutting off ties

We entered all sorts of diplomatic problems over the rendition program with allies and non-allies alike:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Investigations_by_national _governments

[ElNono]

Then again, I'm pretty sure you don't really care what other countries think.

[RandomGuy]

So, the UN or ICC has rendered an opinion on whether or not the enhanced interrogation techniques, used by the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11, constituted torture, under their convention? I'd like to see that.


But, may not be torture. And, is certainly not more evil or immoral than murdering 3,000 innocent people.
Actually, all it would take is an honest hearing in a court of competent jurisdiction completely rebutting the Department of Justice's opinion on how the enhanced interrogation techniques did not constitute torture.


Wow, you are easily moved.

All I've ever said is that in the context of the time, the United States did their due diligence in crafting a set of interrogation techniques they believed would elicit (and did elicit) information crucial to the protection of their country. The CIA developed the techniques, the Department of Justice exhaustively vetted the techniques against existing law and international conventions and found them to be legal.

In different time and under different circumstances, I might not be so forgiving. You're obviously not moved by the context in which these acts were developed and used.

However, the fact remains, the enhanced interrogation techniques and the legal opinions that kept the on the good side of torture have yet to be challenged anywhere but in the court of public opinion. Forgive me if that doesn't carry much weight with me in the current climate of our body politic.

The fact remains, apologizing for torture is a symptom of the moral decay of the modern right.

The kind of mental and ethical gymnastics you need to perform to believe this reminds me so much of those who try to make the case that the god of the bible is a moral authority.

I do not give up my principles for personal safety, and remain aghast at people who think that a country that should be a model and example for others to follow should walk the walk.

SMH, moral relatavism.

[Yonivore]

The fact remains, apologizing for torture is a symptom of the moral decay of the modern right.

The kind of mental and ethical gymnastics you need to perform to believe this reminds me so much of those who try to make the case that the god of the bible is a moral authority.

I do not give up my principles for personal safety, and remain aghast at people who think that a country that should be a model and example for others to follow should walk the walk.

SMH, moral relatavism.
Except it's never been proven or conceded what was done constituted torture.

[Yonivore]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/UN-Turning-back-the-clock-to-pre-1948-is-the-real-endgame-384912

To my point about the UN and its "Human Rights Commission."

[ElNono]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/UN-Turning-back-the-clock-to-pre-1948-is-the-real-endgame-384912

To my point about the UN and its "Human Rights Commission."

What's the point?

[Yonivore]

What's the point?
That the UN is an irrelevant farce.

[ElNono]

That the UN is an irrelevant farce.

You need a better article to make that point, IMO.

[ElNono]

"random people complain about exhibit in UN premises"

farce!

:lmao

[Yonivore]

You need a better article to make that point, IMO.
That was my earlier point, before I posted the article. It's just another example.

[ElNono]

:lol you're a caricature, Yoni

[spurraider21]

This issue is strictly a humans rights issue for me, not a political issue (like it is for you).


Actually, make that a humans right AND foreign relationship issue...
just for the sake of living up the the Philo moniker, wouldn't that make it a political issue for you too?

[ElNono]

just for the sake of living up the the Philo moniker, wouldn't that make it a political issue for you too?

In what sense? I think in that realm it's a diplomatic issue.

[spurraider21]

In what sense? I think in that realm it's a diplomatic issue.
you dont think foreign relations are of a political nature?

[ElNono]

you dont think foreign relations are of a political nature?

To a degree, sure. But in that realm, it's not internal politics (which is what I was referring to, perhaps, not clearly), it's nation to nation.

As I stated above, my main concern is on treaties, breaking them, the future impact of those unilateral actions, and the diplomatic damage that was well documented.

[ElNono]

Perhaps I should've used "partisan politics"? Would that be more clear?

[spurraider21]

Perhaps I should've used "partisan politics"? Would that be more clear?

lol perhaps

[ElNono]

:lol

[Winehole23]

To recur to Yonivore's point upstream, in no way does it exonerate us that we experimented on our own troops using torture and mind control techniques we borrowed from Communist enemies, before we used them on others.


No one has been held accountable for torture, beyond a handful of prosecutions of low-level troops and contractors. Indeed, impunity has been virtually guaranteed as a result of various Faustian bargains, which include “golden shield” legal memos written by government lawyers for the CIA; ex post facto immunity for war crimes that Congress inserted in the 2006 Military Commissions Act; classification and secrecy that still shrouds the torture program, as is apparent in the Senate report’s redactions; and the “look forward, not backward” position that President Obama has maintained through every wave of public revelations since 2009. An American majority, it seems, has come to accept the legacy of torture.

Human experimentation, in contrast, has not been politically refashioned into a legitimate or justifiable enterprise. Therefore, it would behoove us to appreciate the fact that the architects and implementers of black-site torments were authorized at the highest levels of the White House and CIA to experiment on human beings. Reading the report through this lens casts a different light on questions of accountability and impunity.


The “war on terror” is not the CIA’s first venture into human experimentation. At the dawn of the Cold War, German scientists and doctors with Nazi records of human experimentation were given new identities and brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip. During the Korean War, alarmed by the shocking rapidity of American POWs’ breakdowns and indoctrination by their communist captors, the CIA began investing in mind-control research. In 1953, the CIA established the MK-ULTRA program, whose earliest phase involved hypnosis, electroshock and hallucinogenic drugs. The program evolved into experiments in psychological torture that adapted elements of Soviet and Chinese models, including longtime standing, protracted isolation, sleep deprivation and humiliation. Those lessons soon became an applied “science” in the Cold War.


During the Vietnam War, the CIA developed the Phoenix program, which combined psychological torture with brutal interrogations, human experimentation and extrajudicial executions. In 1963, the CIA produced a manual titled “Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation” to guide agents in the art of extracting information from “resistant” sources by combining techniques to produce “debility, disorientation and dread.” Like the communists, the CIA largely eschewed tactics that violently target the body in favor of those that target the mind by systematically attacking all human senses in order to produce the desired state of compliance. The Phoenix program model was incorporated into the curriculum of the School of the Americas, and an updated version of the Kubark guide, produced in 1983 and titled “Human Resource Exploitation Manual,” was disseminated to the intelligence services of right-wing regimes in Latin America and Southeast Asia during the global “war on communism.”


In the mid-1980s, CIA practices became the subject of congressional investigations into US-supported atrocities in Central America. Both manuals became public in 1997 as a result of Freedom of Information Act litigation by The Baltimore Sun. That would have seemed like a “never again” moment.


But here we are again. This brings us back to Mitchell and Jessen. Because of their experience as trainers in the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program, after 9/11 they were contacted by high-ranking Pentagon officials and, later, by lawyers who wanted to know whether some of those SERE techniques could be reverse-engineered to get terrorism suspects to talk.


The road from abstract hypotheticals (can SERE be reverse-engineered?) to the authorized use of waterboarding and confinement boxes runs straight into the terrain of human experimentation. On April 15, 2002, Mitchell and Jessen arrived at a black site in Thailand to supervise the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value detainee” captured by the CIA. By July, Mitchell proposed more coercive techniques to CIA headquarters, and many of these were approved in late July. From then until the program was dry-docked in 2008, at least thirty-eight people were subjected to psychological and physical torments, and the results were methodically documented and analyzed. That is the textbook definition of human experimentation.


My point is not to minimize the illegality of torture or the legal imperatives to pursue accountability for perpetrators. Rather, because the concept of torture has been so muddled and disputed, I suggest that accountability would be more publicly palatable if we reframed the CIA’s program as one of human experimentation. If we did so, it would be more difficult to laud or excuse perpetrators as “patriots” who “acted in good faith.” Although torture has become a Rorschach test among political elites playing to public opinion on the Sunday morning talk shows, human experimentation has no such community of advocates and apologists.

http://www.thenation.com/article/193185/cia-didnt-just-torture-it-experimented-human-beings

[Winehole23]

In fact, that's doubly damning. We tortured our own warriors.

[Winehole23]

not mentioned in this thread that I've seen: according to the CIA's own records, 26 of the people we tortured were cases of mistaken identity or otherwise detained in error.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/us/politics/amid-details-on-torture-data-on-26-held-in-error-.html?_r=0

[Winehole23]

in other words, more than one fifth of the 119 who were tortured while in CIA custody -- N.B., this does not include Gitmo -- were innocent.

[Winehole23]

light should be thrown on the schemers who got the contract to design the interrogations, Bruce Jesson and James Mitchell


We now know that the CIA contracted out the torture to two individuals without “specialized knowledge of al Qaeda, a background in counterterrorism or any relevant cultural or linguistic experience.” They had never interrogated anyone – yet they got a $181 million contract to run the program. They were sadists:

(http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-torture-report/cia-paid-torture-teachers-more-80-million-n264756)
John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel who met with the psychologists, wrote in his book, “Company Man,” that he found some of what Mitchell and Jessen were recommending “sadistic and terrifying.” One technique, he wrote, was “so gruesome that the Justice Department later stopped short of approving it.”



They had a pecuniary interest in the criminal enterprise. And they were making things up (http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/dec/10/shawn-vestal-80-million-paid-to-spokane-firm-for/) as they went along:


One email from a CIA staff psychologist said “no professional in the field would credit” their judgments. Another said their “arrogance and narcissism” led to unnecessary conflicts in the field. The director of interrogations for the CIA called their program a “train wreck” and complained that they were blending the roles of doctor and interrogator inappropriately.


http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/10/the-truth-about-torture-revisited/

[Winehole23]

Once 9/11 happened, Dick Cheney ceased to believe that the CIA should be subject to the U.S. Constitution, statutes passed by Congress, international treaties, or moral prohibitions against torture. Those standards would be cast aside. In their place, moral relativism would reign. Any action undertaken by the United States would be subject to this test: Is it morally equivalent to what al-Qaeda did on 9/11? Is it as bad as murdering roughly 3,000 innocent people? If not, then no one should criticize it, let alone investigate, charge and prosecute the CIA. Did a prisoner freeze to death? Were others anally raped? Well, what if they were?


If it cannot be compared with 9/11, if it is not morally equivalent, then it should not be verboten.


That is the moral standard Cheney is unabashedly invoking on national television. He doesn't want the United States to honor norms against torture. He doesn't want us to abide by the Ten Commandments, or to live up to the values in the Declaration of Independence, or to be restrained by the text of the Constitution. Instead, Cheney would have us take al-Qaeda as our moral and legal measuring stick. Did America torture dozens of innocents? So what. 9/11 was worse.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/dick-cheney-defends-the-torture-innocents/383741/?single_page=true

[Winehole23]

under norms established at Nuremberg, doctors and psychologists may have committed war crimes:


CIA health professionals may have committed war crimes by collecting and analyzing data on brutally interrogated detainees in potential violation of U.S. and international bans on research on human subjects without their consent, a human rights organization said Tuesday.

Physicians for Human Rights called on President Barack Obama and Congress to establish a commission of inquiry to examine the participation of CIA and private medical personnel in the interrogation program, including possible breaches of domestic and international laws.


“The CIA relied upon health professionals at every step to commit and conceal the brutal and systematic torture of national security detainees,” the organization said in an analysis of a four-year study (http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf) of the agency’s interrogation program released last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee. “While most of the acts detailed . . . violate international human rights and domestic laws prohibiting torture, several of these alleged violations can also constitute war crimes.”


In raising possible war crimes by medical personnel, the analysis cited bans on experimentation on prisoners that grew out of the trials of Nazi officials and doctors held in Nuremberg, Germany, after World War II.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/16/250260/did-cia-torture-violate-nuremberg.html

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/16/250260/did-cia-torture-violate-nuremberg.html#storylink=cpy

[Winehole23]

not mentioned in this thread that I've seen: according to the CIA's own records, 26 of the people we tortured were cases of mistaken identity or otherwise detained in error.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/us/politics/amid-details-on-torture-data-on-26-held-in-error-.html?_r=0Riposte, Yonivore?

[spurraider21]

Winehole with the 8 consecutive post bads

[Cry Havoc]

Winehole with the 8 consecutive post bads

Hilarious that you can't even try to refute what has been said.

[Cry Havoc]

Hard to have the "moral authority" when we did shit like this. Fucking terrifying.

[spurraider21]

Hilarious that you can't even try to refute what has been said.
i never said i disagreed with him. so why would that be hilarious, to not attempt to refute somebody i agree with?

[RandomGuy]

Except it's never been proven or conceded what was done constituted torture.

So if a government lawyer writes a memo saying "it isn't torture" that is sufficient for you?

I guess if a foreign government detained you, and showed you a letter saying some procedure was not torture, you wouldn't complain?

I also noticed you very pointedly dodged the question about this being done to our service members.


soph·ist·ry
ˈsäfəstrē/Submit
noun
the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
a fallacious argument.

[RandomGuy]

Hard to have the "moral authority" when we did shit like this. Fucking terrifying.

Pretty much. It is astonishing to me to see cowards who would have our country give up some very important principles at the first sign of danger.

I didn't think we had grown so soft and weak.

[Cry Havoc]

Winehole with the 8 consecutive post bads


i never said i disagreed with him. so why would that be hilarious, to not attempt to refute somebody i agree with?

Gee, where would I think that?

[spurraider21]

Gee, where would I think that?
i maintain that 8 consecutive posts in one thread is "a bad"

[Th'Pusher]

i maintain that 8 consecutive posts in one thread is "a bad"
Why?

[Cry Havoc]

Why?

Because hurr durr internet reasons.

[angrydude]

Americans are cowards who see their cowardice as strength or something.

That a majority of people seem to think this torture is fine sickens me.

[Winehole23]

Senator Wyden's reply to the WSJ op-ed denouncing the torture report is worth quoting in full:



Last week, Senator Ron Wyden picked apart (http://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7382087/torture-wyden) a Wall Street Journal "op ed" by former CIA directors, attacking the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's torture program (http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014.html). However, with more CIA defenders coming out of the woodwork, he's done so again. He's written the following for Techdirt in response to a misleading op-ed published by former CIA acting director and deputy director John McLaughlin that was published in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-interrogation-report-distorts-the-cias-success-foiling-terrorist-plots/2014/12/09/de5b72ca-7e1f-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html). As you can see, the Senator finds that if there are distortions being made, it is from these former CIA officials.


With the release of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's use of torture, many former CIA officials have rushed to defend themselves and their actions. Unfortunately, many of these responses mischaracterize the report's contents and continue to repeat inaccurate information about the results of torture and the CIA’s years of misrepresentations. Hopefully these responses, including specific citations, to former CIA official John McLaughlin will help set the record straight.


The most incredible and false claim in the Senate intelligence committee’s report on the CIA interrogation program is that the program was neither necessary nor effective in the agency’s post-9/11 pursuit of al-Qaeda.



Actually, the Committee's report does not include conclusions about the effectiveness of "the CIA interrogation program" -- its conclusions address the CIA's use of torture. The Committee's report identifies numerous instances in which detainees who had not been tortured (or not yet been tortured) provided useful information.


The report, written by the committee's Democratic majority and disputed by the Republican minority and the CIA, uses information selectively and distorts facts to “prove” its point.



The Committee's report was approved on a bipartisan vote of 9-6, and the Committee elected to release it on a bipartisan vote of 11-3, along with additional and minority views. When the report was publicly released on December 9, 2014, Senators from both parties, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke in favor of it on the Senate floor.


Furthermore, the Committee’s report is comprehensive, not selective. The public version of the Committee’s report is 499 pages and includes 2,725 footnotes. The full, classified version is over 6,700 pages, with approximately 38,000 footnotes, which appears to make it the largest Senate report in history.


Finally, the facts laid out in the Committee's report come almost entirely from the CIA's own internal records. And they show that the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the White House, the Justice Department, Congress and the public. Chairman Feinstein also noted in her March 2014 Senate floor statement that the CIA's own internal "Panetta Review" came to many of the same conclusions as the Committee's investigation. The Panetta Review currently remains classified.


I won’t try to convince you that the program was the right thing to do — reasonable people will differ. Nor will I discuss the management of the program, other than to say that the record clearly shows the agency went to extraordinary lengths to assure it was both legal and approved — and the CIA halted the program when uncertain.



The CIA received legal and policy approvals for coercive interrogations after it provided extensive inaccurate information to the Justice Department, the White House and Congress about their use and effectiveness.


The Committee's report documents this inaccurate information in detail. For example, on pp. 217-225, the report describes the CIA's inaccurate claim that coercive interrogations led to the discovery of particular terrorist plots, and on pp. 49-50, 59, and 69, the report describes the CIA's inaccurate claims about the training and qualifications of CIA interrogators.


The Democratic staffers who drafted the report assert the program contributed nothing important, apparently to bolster a bogus claim that the CIA lied.



The Committee’s report does not assert that CIA interrogations contributed "nothing important." The report evaluates the CIA's repeated claims that its coercive interrogations provided critical "otherwise unavailable" information, and finds that the CIA's own internal records do not support this claim. In all twenty cases that the Committee examined, the CIA had access to the information from more traditional intelligence sources, and later attributed it to the use of coercive interrogations.


The man who led the United States to bin Laden, a courier known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, was mentioned by earlier sources but only as one of many associates bin Laden had years before



This is not accurate. As detailed on pp. 378-400 of the Committee's report, the CIA had substantial intelligence on Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti prior to any CIA detainee reporting about him. In particular, CIA records show that in August 2002 a detainee in foreign custody with known links to al-Kuwaiti reported that al-Kuwaiti was "one of a few close associates of Usama bin Laden."


The most specific information about the courier came from a detainee, Hassan Ghul, who, after interrogation, strengthened the case by telling of a specific message the courier had delivered for bin Laden to operations chief Abu Faraj al-Libi



As detailed on pp. 395-396 of the Committee's report, Hassan Ghul provided the most accurate CIA detainee reporting on bin Laden BEFORE being subjected to the CIA's coercive interrogations. During this period Ghul told CIA debriefers that al-Kuwaiti was bin Laden's "closest assistant" and listed al-Kuwaiti as one of three individuals likely to be living with bin Laden. Ghul also discussed bin Laden's likely living arrangements, and made statements about al-Kuwaiti moving messages to Abu Faraj al-Libi. Some of this information was corroborative of intelligence collected by the CIA in 2002, which was also unrelated to the CIA’s coercive interrogations.


Finally, interrogated senior operatives such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who by that time was enormously cooperative, lied when confronted with what we had learned about the courier



As detailed in the Committee's report, CIA records describe in detail how the CIA assessed KSM was continually uncooperative before, during, and after the use of torture. See pp. 81-96 and 210-216.


The staffers who prepared the Senate draft do not appear to understand the role in analysis of accumulating detail, corroboration and levels of confidence in making momentous decisions like the May 2011 Abbottabad operation that killed bin Laden.


As detailed throughout the Committee's report, the CIA repeatedly told the Justice Department, Congress and the White House that coercive interrogations were necessary to obtain "otherwise unavailable" information. These statements were not supported by CIA records. In all cases cited by the CIA, the CIA had either obtained the information previously from other intelligence sources, or never obtained it from the detainee in question.


If the CIA had said only that tortured detainees provided information that corroborated other sources, or that they repeated information that they had provided before being tortured, this claim would have been accurate.


Capturing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. This led to disrupting numerous plots. But the committee says interrogation of detainees did not play a role in getting him because a CIA asset (not a terrorist detainee) helped us. This is astounding to those of us involved in capture operations. In fact, interrogated detainees were essential to connecting the source to Mohammed. The CIA will not permit me to reveal the operational details — a classic problem for intelligence officers seeking to defend against outlandish charges.



The capture of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (KSM) is detailed on pp. 326-333 of the Committee's report. This section clearly explains how a sensitive CIA asset led the CIA directly to KSM, and how the asset's access to KSM was described in CIA records from 2001.


This section of the report is based on both contemporaneous CIA internal communications as well as after-action interviews conducted by the CIA's Oral History Project. The CIA officer who 'handled' the sensitive asset and who was directly involved in the capture of KSM described it as "a HUMINT op pretty much from start to finish." (The CIA's claims regarding the role of detainee reporting are discussed in the footnotes to this section.)


After interrogation, Khalid Sheik Mohammed told us he transferred money to Hambali via a certain individual to finance attacks in Asia. This triggered a string of captures across two continents that led us to Hambali in Southeast Asia.



The capture of Hambali is described on pp. 301-311 of the Committee's report. CIA officials repeatedly told policymakers and the Justice Department that the information about this money transfer was first provided by KSM as a result of the use of the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques. However, CIA records show that the information about the money transfer was first obtained from a detainee in foreign government custody, who was questioned using non-coercive interrogation methods. (See footnote 1721 on pp. 307-308 for the CIA's description of these methods.)


The committee says a source run by another country mentioned a plot to use airplanes to strike West Coast targets. But that's all we knew — none of the details needed to stop it.


That information came from detainees, starting with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who told us after interrogation that Hambali would replace him in this plot.


The Committee's report discusses this plotting on pp. 246-258. CIA records actually show that this plotting was disrupted in early 2002, and that a CIA detainee in foreign government custody (who was questioned using non-coercive interrogation methods) provided detailed information about the plotting, operatives and proposed method of attack.


Of note, the President's Homeland Security Advisor stated in a February 2006 White House briefing that this plot had been disrupted in February 2002, which was over a year prior to the capture of KSM.


This drove our effort to find Hambali.



As noted on p. 302 of the Committee's report, internal CIA communications described Hambali as the CIA's "number one target" in Southeast Asia a year before the capture of KSM.


We located him and found he had recruited 17 Southeast Asians and was apparently trying to arrange flight training for them to attack the West Coast



As detailed on p. 255 of the Committee's report, the information that led to the capture of Hambali's brother came from Hambali himself, who provided his brother’s true name and location while still in foreign government custody. Furthermore, the report describes how Hambali's brother provided information about this group of Southeast Asians while in foreign government custody. A wide body of CIA records indicates that this group was not witting of or involved in the "second wave plotting." See p. 247-248 and pp. 483-484.


The committee says interrogation played no role in heading off attacks on the Pakistani hotels, where U.S. and other Western visitors stayed. But it leaves out the fact that detainee Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, provided information on how to locate al-Qaeda “safe houses” in Karachi. One of these provided us a letter that tipped us to the plots. That is how those famous “dots” really get connected.



As detailed on pp. 239-246 of the Committee's report, the CIA's own records state that the Karachi plotting was disrupted when key captures were made by Pakistani authorities based on "unrelated criminal leads."


To drive home their points, the committee frequently cherry-picks documents. It describes officers expressing concern via e-mail that they will be “ostracized” for saying that certain detainees “did not tell us everything.” But the staff leaves out the critical context: The CIA officers were actually discussing their dismay over the agency’s decision to cease the interrogation program, causing the loss of important intelligence information.



The Committee's report provides additional context about these communications on p. 213. The interrogator who wrote "I'm ostracized whenever I suggest those two [KSM and Abu Zubaydah] did not tell us everything" also wrote in the same exchange "I think it's a dangerous message to say we could do almost the same without measures. Begs the question -- then why did you use them before?" This interrogator also told the CIA inspector general that KSM had "beat the system" and that KSM responded better to "creature comforts and a sense of importance" than to "confrontational approaches."


Many administration and congressional officials ritualistically say we will never know whether we could have gotten important information another way. This is a dodge wrapped in political correctness



The Committee's report does not conclude that the answer to this question is unknowable. The report systematically examines the top twenty examples that the CIA used to justify its use of torture. In each of these twenty cases the CIA's claims were verifiably inaccurate – in every case the information that CIA officials later attributed to coercive interrogations was actually obtained from other sources. (See pp. 172-401 of the Committee’s report.)


The point is we did succeed in getting vital information — during a national emergency when time was limited by the great urgency of a clock ticking on the next plot.


Terrorists had just killed thousands of Americans, and we felt a deep responsibility for ensuring they could not do it again.


We succeeded.


The Committee's report includes substantial information about the counterterrorism threats faced by the United States, and the successes that the CIA and other US government agencies had in uncovering and disrupting those plots. The report also details how CIA officials often inaccurately claimed that coercive interrogations had produced "otherwise unavailable" information that was key to disrupting these plots. As detailed on pp. 172-401 of the Committee's report, these statements are not supported by CIA records.


The release of this report finally makes the facts about torture available to the American public, and is an important step toward making sure that the US never repeats these mistakes. Another important step is calling out the defenders of torture any time they distort or deny the facts. Correcting years of misrepresentations from these officials is the only way to ensure the informed public debate that is necessary to keep America safe.https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141217/12061129469/senator-wyden-responds-to-cia-defenders-distorting-truth-about-cia-torture.shtml

[Winehole23]

Want to compare polls?Honorable conduct and morality be damned, popularity is all that matters:


Now, an actual reporter might point out that (1) these Americans are wrong and (2) that it doesn't fucking matter whether or not torture works -- it's still reprehensible. But, instead, Blake concludes that, boy, this sure is a loss for the Democrats:


And as long as people believe torturing terrorism detainees leads to valuable information, the CIA's interrogation program — and torture in general — are unlikely to face a major public backlash.

This is the unhappy reality being confronted by Democrats who had hoped to make a splash with the CIA report.



So the only "reality" in the article is the fact that the public's depraved position is bad for one particular party. Apparently, it's not bad for "humanity" or common sense or human rights or America. It's just bad for one party? Rather than actually educating the public -- which reporters are supposed to be doing -- the focus is just on what these polling numbers mean for torture -- presented in the same way one might discuss the polling numbers for a regular election.https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141216/07023429449/washington-post-shrugs-off-torture-because-you-know-it-polls-well.shtml

[Winehole23]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146515 (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146515&highlight=torture)

[Winehole23]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111288

[Yonivore]

Americans are cowards who see their cowardice as strength or something.
Americans were justifiably concerned about a second wave of terrorism (thwarted because of enhanced interrogation techniques) and finding the people responsible (the chief of which was located due to enhanced interrogation techniques).


That a majority of people seem to think this torture is fine sickens me.
We'll survive your discomfort.

[Yonivore]

Honorable conduct and morality be damned, popularity is all that matters:...
What you will never admit, because it suits you to just declare the extreme, is that the Bush administration approached harsh interrogations knowing they were balancing "honorable conduct and morality" against their obligation to keep the country safe from another attack. They were mindful of our standing in the world, knew all about the laws and conventions against torture and, so, developed a regimen of enhanced interrogation techniques, designed to elicit actionable intelligence (which they did) but, did not have all the elements necessary to be classified as torture (which, again, they did not).

You and others in here can spew your spittle-flecked condemnations in here all day long but, you have yet to show where a court -- an actual court of law -- has looked at the techniques, looked at the law, and looked at the Department of Justice opinions on why they did not constituted torture, and found the opposite. No, you have a bunch of whiners with their faux outrage or how this hurts our standing in the world and how it causes us to lose the moral high ground and how we're just like those we "torture," (which is the sickest comparison), and so on and on and on.

What you don't do, is demonstrate where these techniques and those who used them have been hauled into a court of law and tried. Because they haven't. And, according to our current Justice Department, they won't be.

You keep claiming torture doesn't work. Well, that's the best evidence yet that these techniques do not constitute torture because, in fact, they did work.

Let me pose a not-so-unrealistic hypothetical for you...

'We have killed all the children, now what do we do?' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2878723/We-killed-children-Taliban-death-squad-s-frantic-request-instructions-slaughtering-132-innocents-hunt-begins-Radio-Mullah-mastermind-ordered-massacre.html)

Do you think Boko Haram plans their attacks?

Do you think Boko Haram will perpetrate another atrocity such as this one?

Do you think the person on the other end of the phone call might have knowledge of Boko Haram's future plans?

If you were able to locate the person on the other end of that cell phone call, to whom the suicide bomber who had just murdered over a 130 children is asking, "what do we do now?," what would you be willing to do to find out if there was another massacre of schoolchildren in the works that could be stopped?

Just asking.

Me, I would instruct my intelligence apparatus to develop methods that are likely to produce that information without violating any laws or conventions and I would direct my legal counsel to make sure the developed methods are legal and then, I would tell them to go to it.

What would you do?

[Yonivore]

So if a government lawyer writes a memo saying "it isn't torture" that is sufficient for you?
No, what is sufficient, is that the techniques have yet to be taken to court. Why is that?


I guess if a foreign government detained you, and showed you a letter saying some procedure was not torture, you wouldn't complain?
Would they care if I did? The people subjected to the techniques weren't tourists randomly pulled out of a line and "tortured."


I also noticed you very pointedly dodged the question about this being done to our service members.
I didn't dodge it, I ignored it. Is this talking about SERE training and our use of waterboarding on trainees? Or, is it now being alleged we waterboarded our soldiers to extract information or punish them, somehow? Because, that would be a bigger deal than waterboarding KSM. I ignored it because, whatever you were posing about didn't seem to be new and, therefore, since it wasn't new, I assumed it was some rehashing of previously known information (such as that waterboarding is part of SERE training).

[Yonivore]

Pretty much. It is astonishing to me to see cowards who would have our country give up some very important principles at the first sign of danger.
First sign?

This group had been perpetrating deadly terrorist attacks against Americans for quite some time. 1993 World Trade Center bombing; two embassies, the U.S.S. Cole. They had just murdered 3,000 people, caused billions of dollars in damage to our financial district and our military headquarters; and, they were trying to take out our seat of government. AND, there were indications the attacks were not over.

First sign?

This is the type of hyperbole that discredits your arguments.


I didn't think we had grown so soft and weak.
Well, it isn't those that undertook the difficult task of trying to stop further attacks while walking a tightrope of laws and consequences that's gone weak.

Try talking to those college students that were so traumatized by the Michael Brown shooting that they had to have their finals postponed. There's your weakness in this country. Bleeding heart liberals.

[Winehole23]

What you will never admit, because it suits you to just declare the extreme, is that the Bush administration approached harsh interrogations knowing they were balancing "honorable conduct and morality" against their obligation to keep the country safe from another attack. They were mindful of our standing in the world, knew all about the laws and conventions against torture and, so, developed a regimen of enhanced interrogation techniques, designed to elicit actionable intelligence (which they did) but, did not have all the elements necessary to be classified as torture (which, again, they did not).It's not extreme to say EITs are torture according to relevant US law and that by using them we abandoned honorable conduct and morality. The rationales we crafted to justify them are a fig leaf for war crimes, the actionable intelligence resulting therefrom is exaggerated and would not be exculpating even were it not.

Our government and people like you have de-stigmatized an intrinsic evil. Even if it were effective -- which you claim over and over again but have by no means demonstrated -- it would still be evil.

[Yonivore]

It's not extreme to say EITs are torture according to relevant US law and that by using them we abandoned honorable conduct and morality.
I didn't say it was extreme, I said it was unproven the EIT's constituted torture according to relevant US law. In fact, I think it's a reasonable concern to have.


The rationales we crafted to justify them are a fig leaf for war crimes,...
I think we fundamentally disagree on the order of events. You're suggesting the OLC memos were crafted to justify torture when the public record suggests, the OLC memorandums were the last step in a process that designed techniques that, while harsh and walked a line, were specifically designed to not meet the elements of torture and the OLC was then asked if they had succeeded in doing so. Only when the OLC said, yes, you have; did they proceeded to use the techniques. And, in doing so, they met the legal framework of the opinions; going so far as to limit prisoner's exposure loud noises so as not to be in violation of OSHA standards. You're not going to convince me that an administration that bent over backwards, making sure, interrogators, interrogations resistance experts, linguists, medical staff, and lawyers were present when these techniques were administered, are a bunch of reactionary torturers.

Developing and using the EITs was a very deliberate and thorough undertaking. I applaud the effort and its results. I think that we were willing to go to such lengths to make sure we weren't torturing speaks to the character and honor of our country. Reasonable people can disagree, it doesn't make either of us evil.


...the actionable intelligence resulting therefrom is exaggerated and would not be exculpating even were it not.
Define exaggerated because, gaining information that thwarted an attack similar to the one on 9/11 on the West Coast and eliciting information that led to the location of Osama bin Laden are pretty significant interrogatory achievements, if you ask me.

But, on your secondary comment, no one is claiming the actionable intelligence exculpates those who used the techniques (well, I can't say nobody because, there are people on my side that are just as ready to say, "fuck 'em, torture the hell out of 'em" as there are people on your side willing to say, "EITs are torture, torture is torture, torture never works," etc...) what is being claimed is the legal opinion is exculpatory and, until a court decides otherwise, I'm inclined to agree. You're obviously inclined to disagree but, you don't have anything beyond the un-anchored opinions of (mostly) left-wing Bush Haters claiming the techniques were torture. It is enough for you that there is a chorus claiming so without actually having to have your arguments placed under the scrutiny of a legal forum.


Our government and people like you have de-stigmatized an intrinsic evil. Even if it were effective -- which you claim over and over again but have by no means demonstrated -- it would still be evil.
What's evil is what al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, ISIL, etc... are doing in the name of God.

[Winehole23]

sure, that's evil, too.

[Winehole23]

how does it justify torture?

[Winehole23]

does evil authorize evil, in your view?

[Winehole23]

compared with the CIA's own records, claims for the efficacy of torture evaporate:


The Senate’s report lists the plots the CIA has relied most heavily...:


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/cia-plots.png?w=580&h=358

The report goes on to debunk torture’s role in each of these cases. Here are the key points:


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tall-buildings.png?w=580&h=231

So in this case, all the intelligence necessary to thwart a barely existent plot by utterly unserious criminals was discovered before torture was instigated at all.

https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/karachi-plots.png?w=580&h=193

Another claim eviscerated by the CIA’s own evidence.

https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/second-wave-combined.jpg?w=580&h=253

Again: torture was utterly irrelevant to this amorphous plot far from being operational.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/uk-plot-four.jpg?w=580&h=344 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/uk-plot-four.jpg)

Another phantasm of a plot revealed by sources independent of the torture program.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/faris.png?w=580&h=223

So this canary sang without any torture at all.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/badat.png?w=580&h=160 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/badat.png)

And so it goes. Notice that all of this evidence is taken from the CIA’s own internal documents. This is not the Senate Committee’s conclusion; it is the CIA’s.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/heathrow-combined.jpg?w=580&h=226 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/heathrow-combined.jpg)

Yet another dud. And therefore yet another lie.


https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/hambali-capture.png?w=580&h=209 (https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/hambali-capture.png)
Look: if every single one of the CIA’s own purported successes evaporates upon inspecting the CIA’s own records, what’s left?
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/...ill-lying-ctd/ (http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/12/john-brennan-is-still-lying-ctd/)

[Winehole23]

Torture didn't stop second wave attacks.

[boutons_deux]

nyt editorial calls for prosecution of the torturers and the management, which for me includes dubya, dickhead, rummy, and the DoJ, and of course CIA and the $81M guys paid to create the torture techniques.

[Winehole23]

so much for the canard that EITs led to the elimiantion of UBL. the bolded is from the report.


But the report is pretty clear that they didn't get much, if anything, of value from these techniques. It's littered throughout with examples of mountains of false leads and vast stretches of time wasted. Moreover, many of the instances of intel that supposedly was gleaned by torture turned out, upon closer examination, to have come from information provided before the interrogators started putting people in boxes or revving cordless drills up near their genitalia. The case of the famous Usama bin Laden courier, who is supposed to have lead to the Evil One's capture, is one such example:


The most accurate information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti — a facilitator whose identification and tracking led to the identification of UBL's compound and the operation that resulted in UBL's death — obtained from a CIA detainee was provided by a CIA detainee who had not yet been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques; and CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques withheld and fabricated information about Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti.




Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...#ixzz3LbZssbKI (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/10-craziest-things-in-the-senate-report-on-torture-20141210#ixzz3LbZssbKI)

[boutons_deux]

NYT editorial calls for prosecution of US torturers and their chain of command

[Winehole23]

yeah, I saw that. it's very unlikely that'll happen.

[boutons_deux]

someone in Germany has filed a suit

[Yonivore]

so much for the canard that EITs led to the elimiantion of UBL. the bolded is from the report.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...#ixzz3LbZssbKI (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/10-craziest-things-in-the-senate-report-on-torture-20141210#ixzz3LbZssbKI)[/COLOR]

Your unwavering reliance on the U.S. Senate report, a clearly partisan hack job in which they interviewed no one at the agency they were investigating, and Rolling Stone Magazine is unpersuasive.

[ChumpDumper]

Your unwavering reliance on the U.S. Senate report, a clearly partisan hack job in which they interviewed no one at the agency they were investigating, and Rolling Stone Magazine is unpersuasive.They used the CIA's own records.

[Yonivore]

They used the CIA's own records.
There, fixed.

[ChumpDumper]

There, fixed.Nope. Actual records.

And no reason to interview the CIA. All they did was lie outside their own records.

[Yonivore]

Nope. Actual records.
You're welcome.

[Th'Pusher]

You're welcome.

You're disputing that the Senate report wasn't based on CIA records/cables?

[Yonivore]

You're disputing that the Senate report wasn't based on CIA records/cables?
I believe the Senate Committee has a conclusion in mind and only published CIA records/cables that supported that conclusion. I believe the Senate Committee took things out of context, manipulated records, and generally performed a hit job on the agency for partisan political reasons.

For instance, the conclusion in the report that the CIA performed a single rectal rehydration for non-medical reasons was based on a single e-mail. There's no record of whether or not the CIA agreed with that e-mail or whether or not other records may have existed that countered that e-mail.

That's why you talk to the agency.

No, I have zero confidence the Senate Report is even close to accurate.

[ChumpDumper]

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?

[Yonivore]

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?
Have politicians ever lied to you Chump?

[ChumpDumper]

Have politicians ever lied to you Chump?Sure.

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?

[Yonivore]

Sure.

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?
Can't say they've ever spoken to me. They're rather a private group.

[ChumpDumper]

Can't say they've ever spoken to me. They're rather a private group.Not the question.

Has the CIA ever lied in the history of the organization?

[Yonivore]

Not the question.

Has the CIA ever lied in the history of the organization?
You tell me.

In the context of the current argument, I'm more inclined to believe the CIA than the Senate.

[ChumpDumper]

You tell me.

In the context of the current argument, I'm more inclined to believe the CIA than the Senate.Not the question.

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?

[Yonivore]

Not the question.

Has the CIA ever lied, yoni?
Well, that's my answer, you'll just have to deal with it. But, if you're keeping score, I trust the Central Intelligence Agency over Senate Democrats, every day of the week.

[ChumpDumper]

Well, that's my answer, you'll just have to deal with it. But, if you're keeping score, I trust the Central Intelligence Agency over Senate Democrats, every day of the week.That's because you're a partisan hack who is afraid to answer a simple question.

[CosmicCowboy]

TBH both sides of this issue are ridiculously Partisan.

I find the current outrage over something everyone has known for years was going on to be pathetically humorous.

[Yonivore]

That's because you're a partisan hack who is afraid to answer a simple question.
It's an irrelevant question to the current conversation. The CIA has existed through both Democrat and Republican administrations; whether or not the CIA (an organization that only speaks publicly when forced) has ever forwarded a lie would require someone to know on what (usually highly classified) information the lie was based. Since we can't know everything, we can't make a judgment. You can argue no agency should enjoy that amount of secrecy but, that's a different argument.

I do think that sometimes works to their disadvantage because, well, Senate Democrats can pretty much say whatever they want and know the CIA will be reluctant to speak out against them because -- fucking secrets.

In the context of the current argument, I believe the CIA is more credible than the Senate Intelligence Committee. That career CIA officials are exposing themselves to personal, public persecution to set the records straight only bolsters my confidence.

I'm with for Clandestine Services Chief Jose Rodriguez and psychologist James Mitchell -- don't take their word for it, look at contemporaneous internal memos (which they claim were never intended to see the light of day) for proof of what Democrat members of Congress knew about their interrogation techniques.

Like I said, I'd trust the CIA over Democrats in the Senate all day long.

[ChumpDumper]

It's an irrelevant question to the current conversation. The CIA has existed through both Democrat and Republican administrations; whether or not the CIA (an organization that only speaks publicly when forced) has ever forwarded a lie would require someone to know on what (usually highly classified) information the lie was based. Since we can't know everything, we can't make a judgment. You can argue no agency should enjoy that amount of secrecy but, that's a different argument.

In the context of the current argument, I believe the CIA is more credible than the Senate Intelligence Committee. That career CIA officials are exposing themselves to personal, public persecution to set the records straight only bolsters my confidence.

I'm with for Clandestine Services Chief Jose Rodriguez and psychologist James Mitchell -- don't take their word for it, look at contemporaneous internal memos (which they claim were never intended to see the light of day) for proof of what Democrat members of Congress knew about their interrogation techniques.

Like I said, I'd trust the CIA over Democrats in the Senate all day long.Because you are a partisan hack that can't answer a simple question.

lol persecution

They shouldn't have been so eager to torture. If it's so harmless and effective they wouldn't have destroyed evidence of it and lied about it every chance they got.

Simple, nonpartisan answer: the CIA lies.

[Yonivore]

Because you are a partisan hack that can't answer a simple question.

lol persecution

They shouldn't have been so eager to torture. If it's so harmless and effective they wouldn't have destroyed evidence of it and lied about it every chance they got.

Simple, nonpartisan answer: the CIA lies.
In this case, I believe it's the politicians lying.

[Winehole23]

That's why you talk to the agency.The CIA did not allow its agents to be interviewed for the report. Attributing the CIA's non-cooperation to the investigators is dishonest.

[ChumpDumper]

The CIA did not allow its agents to be interviewed for the report. Attributing the CIA's noncompliance to the investigators is dishonest.Yoni also lies.

[Yonivore]

The CIA did not allow its agents to be interviewed for the report. Attributing the CIA's non-cooperation to the investigators is dishonest.
Not true. The CIA says the Senate committee told them they did not interview anyone from the agency because of some DOJ investigation that ended two years prior to the release of the report. Brennan, Hayden, and Rodriguez all claim there were no barriers to the CIA being available for the Senate Investigation.

[Yonivore]

Yoni also lies.
And, Winehole is mistaken.

That's not even Feinstein's excuse for not interviewing employees of the CIA.

[ChumpDumper]

The CIA says
lol