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I have an opinion that states trainees were subjected to the same treatment as detainees and, therefore, if it's not torture for trainees, it's not torture for detainees.
That's the opinion.
I am stating that trainees are not detainees.
Do you have a legal opinion stating trainees are detainees?
I have an opinion that states trainees were subjected to the same treatment as detainees and, therefore, if it's not torture for trainees, it's not torture for detainees.
That's the opinion.
So you don't have an opinion stating the trainees are detainees.
Trainees are not detainees.
If you could prove they were, you might have a point.
If you can't, you have nothing.
In the context of this argument, trainees and detainees are identically situated.
Except that trainees aren't detainees.
Except that you saying that doesn't change the fact that its not germane to the argument.
Trainees and detainees are subjected to identical procedures.
What makes it torture for detainees but, not for trainees?
Being detainees.
How so?
Because they are not trainees.
You really see no difference between American servicemen and suspected Islamic terrorists.
That's how twisted you have become.
So that's all that is needed to know.
No, it's not.
Being a detainee or a trainee doesn't change the quality of the procedure being used on you.
And, if you say it does, show me where.
Sure it is.
I guess I'll let that stand as your argument. Because ChumpDumper says so.
Not very compelling, if you ask me but, if there are those who find it persuasive, so be it.
UN Convention Against Torture, Part 1, Article 1:
For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
I didn't see training to resist torture as a definition of torture up there.
Now, you have to address the Bybee and Yoo memos that specifically exclude al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban militia from this convention.
I've got quotes from cons utional lawyers standing by to refute you. You'd better bring your A game.
Then, you have to prove the procedure being called waterboarding cons utes "severe" pain or suffering. Because, if it is, why would we subject our SERE trainees to severe pain or suffering?
Have at it.
Already did that.
I've got quotes from cons utional lawyers standing by to refute you. You'd better bring your A game.The fact you never noticed I already did that tells me this is already over.
Because they are being trained to resist severe pain and suffering -- and as I just proved, this training does not meet the definition of torture.Then, you have to prove the procedure being called waterboarding cons utes "severe" pain or suffering. Because, if it is, why would we subject our SERE trainees to severe pain or suffering?
You're welcome.
Actually, you didn't.
No, it doesn't. Your saying this, however, just demonstrates your argument are getting thin and you're in a hurry to quit the argument before you have to actually show proof of your drivel.
And detainees are being interrogated to gain information. Both of which perfectly legal intents.
Sure I did.
I have already given you the proof, just as I gave proof that training isn't torture. Really knocked you for a loop, eh? You thought you had something worth stealing a pretending you wrote this time.No, it doesn't. Your saying this, however, just demonstrates your argument are getting thin and you're in a hurry to quit the argument before you have to actually show proof of your drivel.
No. The waterboarding meets the criteria set forth in the CAT, the US Code and numerous court cases I have already posted. No amount of pouting and lying on your part will change that.And detainees are being interrogated to gain information. Both of which perfectly legal intents.
In an excellent article about the incompetence of Holder's Justice Department and the OPR attorneys making a bit stink, Michael Stokes Paulsen says this:
It's an excellent article, I recommend it.
Not surprising, since Mr Paulsen is a self-declared conservative Republican:
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/115-8/Paulsen.pdf
We talked and argued much that year and the next (Amar is a
liberal Democrat; I am a conservative Republican)
At least Yoni tells us which ponies he is riding. Sometimes, anyway. I appreciate that.
And that immediately invalidates the content of his opinion?
C'mon, that's stupid. Why bother arguing if you're just going to say you disagree because of a person's politics?
I'd like to know why you think his argument is flawed?
Since you care about the argument, now you're suddenly above ad hominems?
C'mon Yoni, you do this all the time.
Critics Still Haven't Read the 'Torture' Memos
The CIA proposed the methods. The Justice Department gave its advice.
By VICTORIA TOENSING
Sen. Patrick Leahy wants an independent commission to investigate them. Rep. John Conyers wants the Obama Justice Department to prosecute them. Liberal lawyers want to disbar them, and the media maligns them.
What did the Justice Department attorneys at George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) -- John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- do to garner such scorn? They analyzed a 1994 criminal statute prohibiting torture when the CIA asked for legal guidance on interrogation techniques for a high-level al Qaeda detainee (Abu Zubaydah).
In the mid-1980s, when I supervised the legality of apprehending terrorists to stand trial, I relied on a decades-old Supreme Court standard: Our capture and treatment could not "shock the conscience" of the court. The OLC lawyers, however, were not asked what treatment was legal to preserve a prosecution. They were asked what treatment was legal for a detainee who they were told had knowledge of future attacks on Americans.
The 1994 law was passed pursuant to an international treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The law's definition of torture is circular. Torture under that law means "severe physical or mental pain or suffering," which in turn means "prolonged mental harm," which must be caused by one of four prohibited acts. The only relevant one to the CIA inquiry was threatening or inflicting "severe physical pain or suffering." What is "prolonged mental suffering"? The term appears nowhere else in the U.S. Code.
Congress required, in order for there to be a violation of the law, that an interrogator specifically intend that the detainee suffer prolonged physical or mental suffering as a result of the prohibited conduct. Just knowing a person could be injured from the interrogation method is not a violation under Supreme Court rulings interpreting "specific intent" in other criminal statutes.
In the summer of 2002, the CIA outlined 10 interrogation methods that would be used only on Abu Zubaydah, who it told the lawyers was "one of the highest ranking members of" al Qaeda, serving as "Usama Bin Laden's senior lieutenant." According to the CIA, Zubaydah had "been involved in every major" al Qaeda terrorist operation including 9/11, and was "planning future terrorist attacks" against U.S. interests.
Most importantly, the lawyers were told that Zubaydah -- who was well-versed in American interrogation techniques, having written al Qaeda's manual on the subject -- "displays no signs of willingness" to provide information and "has come to expect that no physical harm will be done to him." When the usual interrogation methods were used, he had maintained his "unabated desire to kill Americans and Jews."
The CIA and Department of Justice lawyers had two options: continue questioning Zubaydah by a process that had not worked or escalate the interrogation techniques in compliance with U.S. law. They chose the latter.
The Justice Department lawyers wrote two opinions totaling 54 pages. One went to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, the other to the CIA general counsel.
Both memos noted that the legislative history of the 1994 torture statute was "scant." Neither house of Congress had hearings, debates or amendments, or provided clarification about terms such as "severe" or "prolonged mental harm." There is no record of Rep. Jerrold Nadler -- who now calls for impeachment and a criminal investigation of the lawyers -- trying to make any act (e.g., waterboarding) illegal, or attempting to lessen the specific intent standard.
The Gonzales memo analyzed "torture" under American and international law. It noted that our courts, under a civil statute, have interpreted "severe" physical or mental pain or suffering to require extreme acts: The person had to be shot, beaten or raped, threatened with death or removal of extremities, or denied medical care. One federal court distinguished between torture and acts that were "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." So have international courts. The European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ireland v. United Kingdom (1978) specifically found that wall standing (to produce muscle fatigue), hooding, and sleep and food deprivation were not torture.
The U.N. treaty defined torture as "severe pain and suffering." The Justice Department witness for the Senate treaty hearings testified that "[t]orture is understood to be barbaric cruelty . . . the mere mention of which sends chills down one's spine." He gave examples of "the needle under the fingernail, the application of electrical shock to the genital area, the piercing of eyeballs. . . ." Mental torture was an act "designed to damage and destroy the human personality."
The treaty had a specific provision stating that nothing, not even war, justifies torture. Congress removed that provision when drafting the 1994 law against torture, thereby permitting someone accused of violating the statute to invoke the long-established defense of necessity.
The memo to the CIA discussed 10 requested interrogation techniques and how each should be limited so as not to violate the statute. The lawyers warned that no procedure could be used that "interferes with the proper healing of Zubaydah's wound," which he incurred during capture. They observed that all the techniques, including waterboarding, were used on our military trainees, and that the CIA had conducted an "extensive inquiry" with experts and psychologists.
But now, safe in ivory towers eight years removed from 9/11, critics demand criminalization of the techniques and the prosecution or disbarment of the lawyers who advised the CIA. Contrary to columnist Frank Rich's uninformed accusation in the New York Times that the lawyers "proposed using" the techniques, they did no such thing. They were asked to provide legal guidance on whether the CIA's proposed methods violated the law.
Then there is Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who declared that "waterboarding will almost certainly be deemed illegal if put under judicial scrutiny," depending on which "of several possibly applicable legal standards" apply. Does he know the Senate rejected a bill in 2006 to make waterboarding illegal? That fact alone negates criminalization of the act. So quick to condemn, Mr. Robinson later replied to a TV interview question that he did not know how long sleep deprivation could go before it was "immoral." It is "a nuance," he said.
Yet the CIA asked those OLC lawyers to figure out exactly where that nuance stopped in the context of preventing another attack. There should be a rule that all persons proposing investigation, prosecution or disbarment must read the two memos and all underlying do ents and then draft a dissenting analysis.
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