USA Torture Memos Published

[newharper]

I remember a thread on waterboarding in which a Journo volunteered to be waterboarded, which was videoed and put on the web for people to see. He was given some kind of metal bar to hold in his hand and as soon as he showed distress he was to drop it, or something like that and they would stop it

One to two seconds in, the bar went flying. He couldn't stand it. You could see he was in a clear distressed state afterwards. It was sick to watch and this happened so quickly!! Cheney would try to defend himself.. but he knows, for all the bullshit he spouts, that it was wrong and sick and inhumane. But he doesn't care, because he is indifferent. It gives us a good insight however into how these peoples mind work. Plain and simple, they just don't give a shit.

Not just any Journo,

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
by Christopher Hitchens

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

This renegade is a hate figure to many, one of the polemical brothers along with his equally ridiculous sibling Peter.

Hitchens is a polemicist. While he was once identified with the British and American radical political left, he has more recently embraced some arguably centre right causes, notably the Iraq War. Formerly a Trotskyist and a fixture in the left-wing publications of both his native United Kingdom and the United States, Hitchens' departure from the political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the European left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11, 2001 attacks strengthened his embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he calls "fascism with an Islamic face." In 2007, on his 58th birthday, Hitchens became an American citizen after residing in the US for a quarter century.[3]

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

It was minutes before Galloway's Senate performance in May when he had his now famous run-in with Christopher Hitchens on the street. Hitchens, the Vanity Fair columnist and renegade from the left with a new career defending the 2003 invasion of Iraq, berated Galloway for his anti-war stance and his past ties to Saddam Hussein, upon which the MP called him "a drink-soaked former Trotskyite popinjay".

Such insults should not be left unattended, or so thought Hitchens, who subsequently challenged Galloway to join him in a public debate at a time and venue of his choosing. That moment came on Wednesday night at Baruch College. In the audience was the entire beau monde of the New York left, including the publisher and editor of The Nation magazine, Victor Navasky and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and the motion set forward was this: "The war in Iraq was necessary and just."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/hitchens-vs-galloway-the-big-debate-507007.html

 

[Jeff Robinson]

As an aside, this is why I have little time for Euro law. It's all quantity, not quality. It's not the quantity of pain that defines torture, but its purpose.

Well, that's as maybe but the point is that coercive and degrading treatments and punishments that fall short of the threshold required for torture are still absolutely prohibited.

 

[Azrael]

Which is good, but the needless distinction is unhelpful. Under the Euro definition, the British government can say, "We weren't found guilty of torture." They might be using the letter to defeat the spirit, but the law shouldn't aid them in this.

This sort of thing also lies behind the Bush administration's definition of "torture" as pain sufficient to cause organ failure. The press debates the quantity of pain, instead of whether it should be inflicted at all.

 

[likesfish]

there's a book written by a us army major who was appalled at abu grade not only because of the torture but also it didn't fucking work.
old fashioned interrogation took just as long and produced usable results directly lead to the chief of AL qaedia in Iraq getting killed in an air strike.

 

[newharper]

there's a book written by a us army major who was appalled at Abu grade not only because of the torture but also it didn't fucking work.
old fashioned interrogation took just as long and produced usable results directly lead to the chief of AL Qaeda in Iraq getting killed in an air strike.

While I don't doubt that there is at least one person in the U.S. command structure that can understand the bleeding obvious, could you pay us the respect of giving a link.

 

[TAE]

Some things are exempt from the necessity defense. In English law necessity can be no defence to murder (although it'd probably bag you manslaughter with diminished responsibility these days, ask a lawyer).

Strange how killing is allowed in certain circumstances - presumably because it was necessary for the police to do so.

I'd let the torturer argue necessity before a jury.

I wouldn't. It should never be allowed.

 

[newharper]

I wouldn't. It should never be allowed.

Of course it should never be allowed, but I'd allow people a jury trial.

 

[Azrael]

Strange how killing is allowed in certain circumstances - presumably because it was necessary for the police to do so.

Unless you're an absolute pacifist, killing has to be allowed in some circumstances: self-defence and stopping armed robbers, to give obvious examples. It's not killing that the law's against, but unlawful killing such as murder and manslaughter.

I wouldn't. It should never be allowed.

I agree. I don't support torture in any circumstance whatsoever. Allowing the torturer to put his case isn't endorsing it. It would actually help the fight against torture, in exposing the fallacy of the ticking bomb scenario.

If the necessity defence were suppressed, pro-torture people would argue that anti-torture people had something to hide. The situation is the reverse, so call their bluff.

 

[TAE]

I don't get it. If torture should be never be allowed, why would you let someone argue as a defence that it was necessary? That implies that the law should sometimes allow it.

 

[Azrael]

Not so; it implies only that the law should hear what they have to say, and decide if there's a compelling reason to change its mind. Necessity starts from the position that the act is unjustified, and invites the accused to show otherwise. Hypothetically, I suppose the torturer may come up with a hitherto unimagined circumstance, and convince a jury (a proper jury of adults, on a 12-0 vote) to acquit. But I don't expect it to happen this side of the crack of doom. I'd allow the torturer to make their defence for pragmatic reasons, in the expectation that it'll be exposed as a sham, thus calling the bluff of the "ticking time bomb" crowd.

What good reason is there to suppress a necessity defence? Allowing an argument to be put to a jury isn't endorsing it. If it's suppressed, the pro-torture brigade will cry foul. Don't give them the chance.

 

[TAE]

What good reason is there to suppress a necessity defence?

For the same reason that rapists etc are not allowed to make a 'necessity defence'.

 

[Azrael]

I don't know the law on rape, but murderers have been allowed to make a necessity defence. Given the nature of the crime, I'd imagine a necessity defence for rape would be impossible. Regarding murder, in a famous 19th century case where shipwrecked sailors murdered and ate (!) one of their crewmates, it was made and rejected.

As a necessity defence isn't approval, why stop the accused torturer make it?

 

[TAE]

We have already agreed that killing is sometimes considered necessary. Allowing a necessity defence only makes sense to me if the action is sometimes considered necessary.

 

[Azrael]

The sailors weren't arguing that their killing wasn't murder, though; they accepted it was, and argued that murder was necessary in the circumstances. Different thing.

What are we against when it comes to torture? The deliberate infliction of pain? Most people would support this in limited circumstances, if pressed: a policeman hitting a suspect who resists arrest, or to make him release a hostage; handcuffs cause pain, as does prison. We accept those things as necessary.

Torture is the infliction of pain with no justification. It doesn't produce reliable information, and even if it did, it'll inevitably become so extreme, and arbitary, that innocent people will be endangered in large numbers.

If a torturer wants to argue that his "craft" was necessary, let him. In all likelihood, he'll hurt both himself and the case for torture.

 

[TAE]

I think we are going around in circles.

 

[Azrael]

I think we are.

I oppose torture, but would allow torturers to make a necessity defence. You oppose it, and wouldn't, presumably because you see it as a manner of endorsement.

In short we both oppose what they've done, and merely disagree about how it should be fought.

 

[TAE]

Yes, that's a fair summary.

 

[newharper]

More bad apples!

"The Obama administration's adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president's stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government," said Anthony Romero, the group's executive director.

The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says that although President Obama has insisted on the need for open government, it appears that on this issue he has been persuaded that - for now at least - such transparency risks doing more harm than good.

US MEDIA REACTIONS TO OBAMA'S DECISION

Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predecessors' war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to prosecute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention. So Cheney begins to successfully co-opt his successor.

The Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan, an Obama supporter during the election, is disappointed by the actions of the president he backed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8048774.stm

 

[Azrael]

Pres. Obama seems hopelessly indecisive and weak here. Either he goes after people guilty of torture or he issues a general pardon. This fence-sitting will get him nowhere.

 

[London_Calling]

Dick Cheney 'suggested waterboarding' Iraqi prisoner - meaning torturing:

Two senior intelligence officials said that the April 2003 request was made regarding Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, head of the M-14 section of the Mukhabarat secret police, whose responsibilities included chemical weapons and contacts with terrorist groups.

They told the Daily Beast website that the request came from Mr Cheney's office but did not reveal who specifically had made it. At the time the Bush administration was anxious to support its principal case for the war, that the late Iraqi dictator was aiding plots against the US.

Charles Duelfer, who was leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction at the time and was also in charge of interrogations, said that he found the suggestion "reprehensible".

"To those who wanted or suspected a relationship, he would have been a guy who would know, so [White House officials] had particular interest," he said.

In a new book, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq, he said that officials in Washington let it be known that they considered Dulaymi's questioning had been "too gentle" and proposed harsher methods.

"They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used," Mr Duelfer wrote. Waterboarding simulates drowning and is widely regarded as torture and has been condemned by President Barack Obama. Mr Cheney has recently been a lone voice defending the practice, arguing that it saved American lives by gleaning information from terror suspects.

However the justice department had only approved that such techniques could applied to terrorism cases. "Our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related," he said.

He better not leave USA soil any time soon else he'll end up at The Hague.