A reader passes along this link to a discussion of waterboarding by Malcolm Nance at Small Wars Journal. Nance appears to have much more knowledge of waterboarding, and how it has been utilized in military training, than most who opine on the subject. It seems to me his perspective should be taken quite seriously. He writes:
As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.
The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American. [links omitted]
More here from Ed Morrissey.
UPDATE: Apparently Nance will soon testify at a Congressional hearing on U.S. interrogation techniques.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Confessions of a Waterboarder:
- "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime":
- DoJ Official Waterboarded:
Has any military person come forward and argued that this is not torture? I'd be interested to hear from any current members of the military whether waterboarding is torture.
Reports of any form of waterboarding are disturbing. But the most frustrating aspect of this debate is the guesswork involved in describing what we are actually doing to people.
General Russel Honore, of Hurricane Katrina fame.
Do you purport to be an expert on waterboarding? I'm not. Anecdotally, however, I imagine that ten seconds of being made to feel like I'm drowing would be terrifying. I would think 120 seconds would feel like an eternity.
Of course he hasn't. Who DOES have that knowledge?
I'm terribly sorry, but keeping the details of CIA waterboarding secret, and then saying "since you don't have the details, you can't say whether it's torture or not," is bullshit.
It's a process which is believed to put its victim in such an acute state of distress that he will beg for the process to stop and will start talking, whatever his reservations. Down here in my neck of the woods, we call that "torture."
Hard to talk to them when they're dead.
And how does this jibe with this?
Steve Harrigan gets "waterboarded"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227357,00.html
I am not close to being an expert and I agree that something lasting 10 seconds can be torture. Waterboarding may be torture (even for 10 seconds). But Nance's descriptions (follow the link) do not sound like something that is accomplished in less than two minutes. In that claim, I am relying on my own sense, which could be mistaken.
In any event, I recommend the Nance article to anyone who is undecided about waterboarding. Unquestionably Nance has some insight that I hope I never have.
Really? As if Bush/Cheney wouldn't just get another secret legal opinion that the Admin can do what it wants.
Besides, waterboarding is already illegal. The ball is in Bush's court and always has been. Nice try to blame the Dem's for Bush's transgressions, though. How about some of that famous Republican "Personal Responsibility?"
The Fox report who was waterboarded was no doubt relying on someone's guess about the substance of waterboarding. Since he was free to leave, it could not have been the same precise experience. They may have gotten it wrong. Obviously, we are getting contradictory reports.
But "drowning" does not mean death. It is suffocation by water. A drowning victim can often be revived. That is one of the horrors Nance describes, repeated resuscitation and drowning.
If you've got Saran Wrap over your nose and mouth and can't breathe, whether you get water in your lungs will likely seem immaterial to you, too.
I would love to see honest debate over the efficacy of torture techniques such as waterboarding. Many honest people fall into the "immoral but effective" camp, or "ineffective, forget morality" camp. What if it were both immoral and ineffective? So far the most prominent publicly acknowledged waterboarding victim, KSM, has "confessed" to many things, some of which he probably did and many of which he couldn't possibly have. Since the confessions are probably illegal, did we at least get some useful information out of the guy? If so where is the evidence of that? It won't do to simply say "this technique is necessary, but we can't tell you what we got and how we got it because then terrorists would adapt." At some point someone needs to call bullshit on the Jack Bauer fantasyland mystique and cough up hard and fast results.
Actually, Fox News reports that in connection with passage of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, Sen. Ted Kennedy proposed an amendment that would have expressly defined "waterboarding" (among other indignities) as a grave breach of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Amendment lost, 46-53. Now, the Dems control both houses, pass the law outlawing it.
So, I stand by that, ball is in your court now. Wouldn't that give you the ammo Kucinich wants to go after Darth Cheney?
Says the Dog.
The reason why it bothers me is because when we're involved in matters of operational security, we don't get to know what "waterboarding" actually means to US interrogators, and we don't get to know any prevalence or safety data related to the practice. All we know is that the Japanese, the North Vietnamese, and the Cambodians tortured people by drowning them and resuscitating them afterward -- and that this technique was broadly termed "waterboarding."
My point is that I'm worried this is a tempest in a tea pot. The leaked intel data only shows that a technique broadly described as "waterboarding" was used on 3 people, including KSM, that the longest duration of a "waterboarding" session was 120 seconds, and that it yielded good actionable intel. Whether you want to outlaw it is a good public policy question that I think does need to be seriously debated. I admit that I find the concept terribly disturbing and would need a lot of convincing to believe that it's a good thing for us to be doing.
But I just have a bad feeling that this has become a political football and that we're going to find out 3 years from now that the "waterboarding" technique we were using was an incredibly mild form and that the CIA decided to abandon it after the first 3 uses because they internally decided it didn't work or was a bad idea.
There is no law that can constrain an administration as legalistic and aggrandizing as this one. Either they find a nitpicky way through a specific provision, or they declare that what they're doing isn't bound by a general one. "No torture? Waterboarding isn't torture. No waterboarding? We're not using water. No making prisoners feel like they're drowning? On to non-torture interrogation technique #35."
Before any of us can reasonably claim to say that the CIA "tortured" anybody, we would need the facts. Seeing as how none of us has them the claims on the this thread and elsewhere on the Internet and in print are rank speculation.
Not exactly what you're looking for I'm sure, but I have class with a decorated Iraq War veteran whose take is basically, "They did it to me. Sure, it wasn't fun but it's not torture, just a hose in your face." One person's opinion anyway.
Can those in favor of waterboarding honestly answer that the DEA agent in the hypothetical is not being tortured?
And did anyone hear the hilarious O'Reilly take? he said "the issue is, Hillary Clinton, 10,000 American people are gonna die unless we waterboard this guy. are you gonna let those Americans die?" I'm serious - these were his near-exact words!
We really are losing our moral standing in the world.
Dear so-called "values voters": there are values involved in lots of issues other than condoms to kids in sex ed class, we are discovering. e.g., the decision whether to drop a 500 lb. bomb or the decision to waterboard. You are not a value voter if you support this policy, just a Bush lackey. Would the GOP congress allow Hillary to get away with this?
Stupid, America-hating Dems. I assume, of course, that by "Democrat politicians" you also mean McCain, Graham, etc.
Graham on the tempest in a teapot:
"If we allow our executive in certain rare circumstances to use techniques like waterboarding, then what do we say when a downed airman is in the hands of another enemy in another war, and they argue, 'Well, I had to do this, because I needed to know when the next air attack was going to occur,'" Graham said.
Outlaw water and they'd use orange juice! Bush and Cheney just can't wait to inflict pain on people! Bush wakes up every morning, thinks about more "horrors of the prisons of the innocent" and grins! There is nothing that this fascist won't do, I'll bet he watches the tapes to get ready for bed. Eli Roth calls him up on the red phone for ideas for Hostel III: Electric Boogaloo.
Janet Reno was confirmed in 13 days. Anyone recall any disputes in her interpretation of laws? Anyone? Bueller?
This is simply bad faith argument.
I think it already is illegal. That is why Gonzo got so nervous about Levin's memo that he insisted that a footnote be included to state that he was not saying the prior practices were illegal.
In my view, there is no need to pass new laws when the old ones cover a situation. We just need better enforcement of the existing laws.
Not really. GWB isn't as smart as Satan. However, GWB is an excellent demonstration of the banality of evil and how, little by little, an authoritarian regime plants its roots--adding a secret prison system free of oversight and rule of law and declaring itself above the laws and constitution of the country in the name of "national security." And how apologists for the authoritarian regime support it even to the point of justifying torture as being reasonable.
WHOI Jacket:
And Christopher Cooke:Does that also apply to so-called "hate" crimes, Mr Cooke?
KSM reportedly broke in less than two minutes of waterboarding. The other two al Qaeda broke in far less time.
These are hardly extended periods of time. Rather, these short periods are quite like the training which the author acknowledges is not dangerous.
But even if you take all of Nance at face value I say, so what? Nance says,
The excerpt above would surely describe most people's reaction to witnessing the results of a mass-murder suicide attack (take the WTC for example, or the Sbarro attack in Israel). The discrete use of techniques such as waterboarding should present no moral dilemna for civilized individuals when used to prevent the mass-murder of innocents.
A good discussion can be found here today, as well.
So you think this moral dilemma is "hilarious" do you?
Could you please volunteer to be one of the 10,000 sacrifices to maintain our "moral standing."
I suspect that, like Byomtov, Adler is is showing off his self-conscious, preening sense of moral superiority; to wit he says, "...seems to me his perspective should be taken quite seriously."
In general, yes. While I might enhance the punishments criminals receive for certain conduct targeted at certain groups, I would do so only if it appeared that these groups needed the protection. I think we have enough laws on the books to cover most situations.
WHOI Jacket:
It appears that Fox News is parroting, inaccurately, a WSJ editorial. I am going to steal from JukeBoxGrad's earlier post, but here is what the Kennedy Amendment actually proposed:
AS JBG points out, it seems a stretch to infer that Congress' defeat of this amendment means that Congress felt waterboarding was okay. By that logic, you could infer that Congress likewise felt that electric shocks and burns were okay as well. I think the Bush Administration needs to come up with some better talking points.
Personally, I thought Prof. Dershowitz' article in the WSJ today to state a better-reasoned argument for allowing torture in exceptional circumstances. I am not sure I agree with it, but at least his proposal has the benefit of encouraging an honest debate, rather than the current dishonest one where people deny that something is torture to evade the current legal restrictions.
How do you know those 10,000 people are "gonna die"? There were lots of clues and bits of intelligence relating to 9/11 that were ignored. Would we listen better if the information comes from torture? Why?
I'm not so concerned about the morality of waterboarding - as a WSJ oped noted a few days ago, we've done far worse in the name of war and have survived...i.e. the atomic bombing of civilian populations. However, some would argue that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was instrumental in ending the war...I want to see evidence that American torture has ever been instrumental in gaining useful intelligence.
People pull numbers out the air for effect.
Nor did it rise to the Geneva convention definition of torture. I don't think that waterboarding should be part of the standard suite of interrogation techniques, nor has it been, I'm would be very uncomfortable with the idea that the CIA routinely tortures terror suspects.
I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that scum like KSM ("I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the Jew") lives out his life in relative comfort with a cot and 4000 calories a day. And I'm not so dehumanized that I won't admit that I like the idea of him being terrified and in physical fear, and spilling his guts to make it stop.
Amen to that.
I want to see evidence that American torture has ever been instrumental in gaining useful intelligence.
Ikes, the problem is that the people who claim it's been instrumental (1) say they can't reveal it b/c it's so secret, and (2) are precisely the people guilty of violating the torture statute.
I don't think one has to be a liberal to have some reservations about the veracity of people whose # 1 priority is to stay out of prison.
Well, Kaz, let me explain it to you:
(1) I myself would be delighted to see him put to death.
(2) To get a death penalty, you have to have a reasonably fair trial, unless we're just going to wholeheartedly embrace the Soviet way of life.
(3) You can't have a reasonably fair trial where the evidence against you is produced by waterboarding you until you beg the torturers to stop.
(4) Thus, the main reason that KSM can't be put on trial for his life today, is that Bush, Cheney, Yoo and Addington completely screwed things up.
Why would the evidence against KSM necessarily include the info that was produced by waterboarding? If an airtight case can't be made without excluding that info, then something's seriously wrong.
The "short periods" the author refers to are a few seconds. Far, far fewer than two minutes.
This is both hackneyed and morally irresponsible w/o a sound argument to back it up.
Is the reference to "the world" that turned a blind eye to the internal and exported terror of Hussein & Sons and was content with that status quo? Is it "the world," reflected in Belgium and Europe, that turned a blind eye to the Rwandan genocide? Is it to "the world" that turns a willful blind eye to all the sex scandals that have manifested themselves in the U.N., in addition to the bribery scandals and the absurdist farce that is the UNHRC? Is it "the world" that was willing to placate Soviet and Maoist initiatives in an earlier era? Or "the world" that happily acceded to Chomsky & Herman's and others' apologetics for the Khmer Rouge during that era? Is it the Arab and Persian Muslim and broader muslim "world" wherein we've lost our standing? Or "the world" that gains it's knowledge from Hollywood and other ideologically constricted and fabulist confines? This litany could be extended at great length; suffice to say "the world," as such, hasn't much moral standing in the first place, certainly not at any prima facie level of evidence - rather, and decidedly, to the contrary.
The world, the real world, presents manifold and manifest moral conundrums that are not resolved via rhetorical fiat and flourish, BDS, sticking one's head in the sand, etc.
Nice of you to interpret for us, but being a native english speaker I can read his actual words:
The author -- Malcolm Nance -- appeared on Warren Olney's radio show ("To The Point") yesterday on KCRW, one of the Los Angeles NPR stations. I don't have a transcript, but the recording is available at kcrw.com and through iTunes.
On the show, he made quite clear that the training operations they ran lasted a few seconds. He also used words like "unimaginable" to describe a two-minute-long session.
Also many pointed out that waterboarding does not involve pints and pints of water entering the lungs. Less than a pint will kill. Interogation over.
But as to the law. Many can/should participate in the discussion of what constitutes torture, but I think only Congress can define it legally.
Too and tellingly, this from Andrew McCarthy, via a link at CQ. Firstly, reflecting on the Senate Dems' treatment of Mukasey:
"The White House just put out some telling information. Janet Reno, with no prior federal law enforcement experience (she was a state prosecutor in Florida) waited only 13 days for the Senate to take action on her nomination and was asked to respond to exactly zero post-hearing questions. By contrast, Michael Mukasey, having had over two decades' experience as a federal prosecutor and a distinguished federal judge, has now had his nomination pending for 39 days (the longest stretch in 20 years) and has responded in writing to 495 questions after his two-day hearing."
Then, on waterboarding, two passages are revealing:
"Congress had two recent opportunities to specify that waterboarding was illegal and declined to do so both times. But I just learned something I hadn't known: this was not just a mere omission. It was a positive, conscious decision not to do what Senate Democrats are demanding that Mukasey do: declare waterboarding a war crime."
And, with emphasis added:
"In recent media accounts, it is suggested, as one would hope, that waterboarding has scarcely been used (on perhaps three detainees since 9/11) and hasn't been used in a long time (perhaps not in four years). I hope that's true — the tactic should be considered illegal and shocking to the conscience (a violation of the McCain amendment) in almost all circumstances. But the Democrats want to go further. They want the law to be that we must never, ever resort to waterboarding, no matter how imminent and grave the threat of mass-slaughter. That is a worthy debate to have. And if they win it, we will all honor the result whether we like it or not. But they have to win it first — by convincing the country and passing legislation. They shouldn't get to pretend they already won by trying to coerce a nominee into helping them rewrite history ... and law."
Here is video of part of a 20 minute session on a reporter who didn't break after 20 minutes, and I do think 20 minutes is torture.
I have formulated the definitive test of what constitutes torture. It is the "Latte Test". If the subject of the "torture" is capable of composing himself and sitting down and enjoying a latte within 15 minutes of the end of the interogation session then it isn't torture.
Agreed.
By mid-2002, several former [FBI] agents and senior bureau officials said, they had begun complaining that the CIA-run interrogation program amounted to torture and was going to create significant problems down the road -- particularly if the Bush administration was ever forced to allow the Al Qaeda suspects to face their accusers in court.
Some went to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, according to the former bureau officials. They said Mueller pulled many of the agents back from playing even a supporting role in the interrogations to avoid exposing them to legal jeopardy, in the belief that White House and Justice Department opinions authorizing the coercive techniques might be overturned.
"Those guys were using techniques that we didn't even want to be in the room for," one senior federal law enforcement official said. "The CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved."
A senior FBI official who since has retired said he also complained about the lack of usable evidence and admissible statements being gathered. "We knew there were going to be problems back then. But nobody was listening," he said. "Now they have to live with the policy that they have adopted. I don't know if anyone thought of the consequences."
Another retired FBI agent who helped lead the bureau's Al Qaeda investigations said one fundamental flaw in the tribunal process was that the accused terrorists might be granted the right to confront their accusers in court -- even a military one. And the CIA is likely to prohibit its officers from taking the stand to face cross-examination about their interrogation techniques and other highly classified aspects of the spy agency's detainee program.
"They have put themselves in a very bad situation here," the former agent said. "They have to redo everything because they have to come up with clean statements from these [detainees], if they can get them, obtained by law enforcement people who can actually testify. The CIA agents are not going to testify, nor should they."
Read the whole thing, as they say.
2) Re Congress's failure to specifically define waterboarding as torture in 2006:
a) That was a Congress with more Republicans in it, as I recall.
b) That was a Congress that had had several previous pieces of legislation signed by the president with a statement that of course the executive reserved to itself to the power to do whatever was necessary to fulfill its duties.
c) Therefore an AG who promises to treat waterboarding as torture and to enforce that rule on the rest of the executive branch may be more effective than a law that the executive claims doesn't apply when it doesn't want it to.
That said, thanks for posting this.
Here's an account from a victim of waterboarding:
What patent idiocy.
Nobody has a clue how long any of these people waterboarded.
"Reported"? Give me a effin' break.
We are the US. We are supposed to be the good guys; the country with the moral authority to condemn human rights violations. Waterboarding is torture. No ifs ands or buts. Its sole purpose is to terrorize the victim via the the painful sensation and very real threat of imminent death. We are better than that. Or at least we used to be, before Bush/Cheney and the authoritarian/torture apologists.
Leave the torture to countries we look down upon with contempt lest we be worthy of the same. And let us also refrain from outsourcing torture by sending people to those countries for that purpose.
ABC broke the KSM waterboarding story months ago and several news outlets have reported on the results of the KSM interrogation.
Were we better than the nasty other countries when the Clinton admin was doing the outsourcing starting in 1995?
Anybody who ignores the Clinton admin's role in this and pretends that only Bush has done it is entirely without good faith and need not be engaged.
Read up on PO Box 1142, the secret interrogation center during WW2.
Stephen Grey:
Covert extraordinary rendition began as a systematic tactic on September 22, 1995, with the capture of terrorist Abu Talal al-Qasimi in Croatia; he was later transferred to Egypt for execution. The largest pre-9/11 CIA rendition occurred in 1998, when five suspects in Albania and Bulgaria were captured and rendered to Egypt. Two were hanged without trial; all were brutally tortured.
Renditions after 9/11 were different, however. The numbers expanded dramatically, each rendition no longer required presidential approval, and it was no longer a requirement that a prisoner be 'wanted' for some offense in the country where he was sent.
So: (1) yeah, Clinton did it too; (2) there were important differences, such as the rendered person's actually being charged by that country; and (3) so what -- it was wrong when Clinton did it, it's wrong when Bush does it.
Reflexive defenders of Bush and torture seem to imagine that liberals thought Bill Clinton was the greatest thing since FDR. Actually, he was a disappointment in many respects, and rendering people outside the normal judicial process to almost-certain torture was one of those.
It has not to my knowledge, however, been alleged that any of Clinton's victims were actually innocent people grabbed by mistake. That's what's happened under Bush, presumably because each rendition doesn't require the highest approval (and corresponding showing of need) and because we're doing it in much greater numbers so that we're more likely to screw up big time.
Nice weasel wording. And then your side wonders why people don't take their criticisims seriously.
But then, BushCo could just substitute rabid weasels and back to the committee room it is! He's quite dastardly that way, you know.
Ahem:
Since they're the same people who also say "The enemy does it!" in similar circumstances, all I can conclude is that they don't care about the moral high ground and haven't learned anything after 3rd grade recess.
"He started it!" works when you're complaining to your mommy. Not when you're running the world.
These are suspects, not convicts, and the bar for being a suspect is pretty low these days. It could be you they are waterboarding next--you never know when your father in law may send an e-mail to the FBI outing you as a terrorist because he doesn't want you to leave his daughter alone with the kids to go on a business trip. (The didn't waterboard him, but they could have based on your rationale--and they might next time. Who knows? )
If someone doesn't complain about an action until someone they don't like anyway does it, then it is fair to ask if they do not actually like the action, but are rather using whatever comes to hand to attack their enemies.
Ask your mommy how she'd handle that situation.
Yes, they could. The extent to which the Bush administration will go to evade the constitution is parody proof.
And as to 1984. Orwell didn't manage to anticipate the level of surveillance possible today.
Big BrotherBush tells us "We don't torture" and secretly has torture redefined. Maybe if Clinton had just had the OLC issue a secret memo that fellatio is not sexual relations or adultery the Republicans wouldn't have given him such a hard time? Perhaps he should have declared that Lewinsky could not testify due to executive privilege? Oh, but wait...how many people died because of Clinton's dalliance? Um, was it NONE? Why, yes, it was. How about under Bush's authoritarian incompetence? In Iraq? In New Orleans? Being "harshly interrogated" in Afghanistan?Remember, we have always been at war with Oceania. Sadam was behind 9/11. War is Peace. Attacking Iran will make us safer. Ignorance is Strength. Waterboarding is not torture. Freedom is slavery.
Ryan, had you even heard of "extraordinary rendition" until after 9/11? I hadn't. Any pre-9/11 hyperlinks you may know to outraged Republicans condemning Clinton for that practice would be very much appreciated.
I used to spear-fish, free diving, and used to spend a lot of time in the water. I have had many instances where I experienced a brief period when I reached the desperation point.
The surfing incident I was almost to the point of breathing-in water.
Do I qualify to comment on the experience of simulated drowning?
Hint: I have instructed my children that they are not, never, to play by holding people under water. That, if they are being held under water, and they are prevented to come up for air that they have my permission to use whaever action is necessary. That includes bodily injury to whomever.
BTW, I used to be able hold my breath for over 4 minutes. Today I can hold my breath for over 2 minutes.
Essentially, you're suggesting political opportunism is not the primary factor?
People can judge for themselves; here's an Andrew McCarthy report and commentary. McCarthy's summarizing, concluding commentary, after first covering Hillary's flip-flop, after covering the executive during "the 90's," and after covering a particularly telling account of the Left/Dems' view - or rather alternative views, depending upon which party occupies the executive - of FISA:
"In connection with the tension between FISA and presidential power, Judge Mukasey has filed still another post-hearing letter, responding to questions from Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. The submission thoroughly and ably assesses the applicable law — in which the only significant development since Gorelick’s testimony is the FISA Court of Review’s reaffirmation of presidential authority. Mukasey concludes that presidents maintain their Article II powers despite FISA. Still, he qualifies that the president does not stand above the law — in this case, the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which requires all searches to be reasonable.
"For today’s leading Democrats, this position is somehow a call for “unchecked Executive power.” In years when the leading Democrat happens to occupy the Oval Office, though, it is what is known as the position of the Democratic party."
Quite obviously, 9/11 didn't "change everying," for example it didn't change political opportunism. To the contrary, it helped to expose just how low Left/Dem politicos have been willing to stoop when exercising that opportunism as they attempt to cater to formally fringe elements that have successfully coopted the Democratic establishment, for other reasons as well.
Boy, you can't even get that right. While "Drinking the Kool-Aid" has be come a metaphor for people who become irrationally devoted to a position (as evidenced, for example, in your posts) the metaphor comes from the Jonestown mass murder/suicide where the victims were induced to drink poisoned Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid.
It is the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in general, even without waterboarding, that he says are torture when performed over an extended time period. It was not related to the length of time the captive is waterboarded.
You had no way of knowing that, but you also had no way of knowing I hadn't complained about Clinton too.
Most of the non-combatants who died on 9/11 were asphixiated. What waterboarding most resembles is the fate of the "jumpers" -- except for the landing, of course. They were in the WTC, there was no way out, the smoke was choking, there was no place to go, they leaned further and further out the broken window, desperate for oxygen, finally, they leaned far enough so that for a few precious seconds they could breathe again.
My only real problem with them waterboarding KSM is that they stopped before he was dead.
When do the black helicopters come, again? Being as this is an Orwellian nightmare we're living in and here you are heaping insult on the Dear Leader. Goldstein can't save you now.
That said, I have serious problems with the article.
Who will complain about the new world-wide embrace of torture?
This hyperbole is hard to square with ABCs report that it's only been used three times, and the longest was for two minutes.
These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraieb, Baghram and Guantanamo
Guantanamo? I thought the canard that prisoners were abused at Guantanamo was discredited a long time ago, along with reports of the Koran being flushed down a toilet.
We live at a time where Americans, completely uninformed by an incurious media and enthralled by vengeance-based fantasy television shows like “24”, are actually cheering and encouraging such torture as justifiable revenge for the September 11 attacks ... brought it down to the level of a college prank and then bragged about it. The echo chamber that is the American media now views torture as a heroic and macho ... [etc.]
More of the kind of reckless hyperbole that, in my eyes, suggests that the author is not an objective, reliable source of information.
According to the President, this is not a torture, so future torturers in other countries now have an American legal basis to perform the acts ... Forget threats, poor food, the occasional face slap and sexual assaults ... Brutal interrogation, flash murder and extreme humiliation of American citizens, agents and members of the armed forces may now be guaranteed.
You mean like beheadings, with the bodies strung up or dragged through the streets? The "enemies" we are talking about here ALREADY torture. Past enemies also tortured -- including the Vietnamese, whose official practices the author elsewhere notes INCLUDED WATERBOARDING. I understand the position that we shouldn't lower ourselves to the level of the "bad guys." But that's not the argument the author makes here. He is making a practical argument based on reciprocity. The very essence of reciprocity is that we agree not to torture soldiers from countries WHO AGREE NOT TO TORTURE *OUR* SOLDIERS. I fail to see what is so complicated about this concept.
Finally,
Yet, once captive I believe that the better angels of our nature and our nation’s core values would eventually convince any terrorist that they indeed have erred in their murderous ways.
I want to believe this too. And yet I could come right back and say that the author shows a grievous lack of respect for our enemies by suggesting that their core values would be so easily swayed. The author obviously does not believe that mercy and kindness are symptoms of contemptible weakness. Not every person -- or culture -- sees things that way.
- Alaska Jack
Proposition B: "9/119/119/119/119/119/119/11"
Conclusion: Torture is legal/moral/right/just/mom/apple pie. QED.
Really? How do you know? They must have a tatoo or something that clearly identifies them as Al Quada terrorists.
The fact is that the Administration reserves the right to secretly detain anyone and torture anyone in the interests of national security.
And it wouldn't matter if all of them were "un-lawfull" combatants--that wouldn't make torturing right.
How the F' can you be so blatantly pro torture????? Is that what America stands for? I find your pro torture position deeply regressive. Remember, it could be you or your family members being tortured next--this Administration has already had people tortured due to mistaken information so you can't claim that your innocence protects you.
Here you are committing the logical fallacy that the more offensive the crime the lower the rights of suspects should be. By extension of this tortured logic, the police should simply execute suspects on the spot so long as the crime they are suspected of is heinous enough.
AK Jack is right about this - we're not going to persuade the terrorists. That's not the point.
We're not aiming at the terrorists, except with our weapons. We're aiming our values at the great majority of people who aren't terrorists but who vaguely sympathize with anyone opposed to the U.S.
We're aiming our values at the disaffected young men who are smart enough (and thus dangerous too) to ignore blatant pro-terrorist propaganda, but who are repulsed by American torture and warmongering so that they find themselves agreeing with, and joining, the terrorists.
We don't win against the terrorists by killing them all. We win by turning their own people against them.
Yes, this is just one more reason why the Bush Administration's claims that detailing our secret "enhanced interrogation" techniques will enable the enemy to evade them is just so much bunk. They already know how to torture, so the Bush interrogation techniques will come as no surprise to them. The only people the Bush Administration is desperate to keep in the dark are the American People.
Indeed, cathyf. I believe we should waterboard everyone that we round up as an "(unlawful) combatant." Alas, thanks to the soft on terror Democrats, people like Maher Arar were only beaten with shredded cables. At least he admitted to being a member of al Qaeda.
There was also the case of Khalid El-Masri (that's a terrorist name if I've ever heard one). We don't know if he was waterboarded, but he should have been. Apparently the beatings and rape weren't enough to make him confess as being an al Qaeda member.
Beatings, rape, waterboarding...whatever it takes to whomever we choose. 9/11 changed everything.
Don't visit the slaughterhouse if you want to eat meat.
Again, historically, hostes humani generis can be summarily executed under LOAC.
A question for those against waterboarding: Do you want it to be a) unequivocally declared illegal and never performed; or b) unequivocally declared illegal but performed - illegally - in particularly dire situations (ticking nuclear bomb, etc.)? (I realize there are more possible options than those two.)
Hmmm. Interesting point. Does it apply in Iraq?
It is unequivocally illegal. Although it is performed.
Best,
Ben
(I should have phrased it more carefully above.)
Yeah, I thought that LA Times article was pretty unconvincing. An FBI guy is complaining that they couldn't get any "usable evidence and admissible statements" from KSM? Waaaah. How exactly did this idiotic FBI guy think they were going to get "usable evidence and admissible statements" from him??? As noted elsewhere, KSM didn't respond to regular interroation techniques - he just recited the Koran. So I'd like to know what this asinine FBI guy thought we should have done? I mean, where exactly were this vaunted "usable evidence and admissible statements" coming from???
Really, now I see why the FBI has been so pathetically lame. The article said that this FBI guy had retired - good riddance. We need people in the FBI with IQs above 50.
If only such a standard could be applied to commenters in this thread perhaps there would be less advocacy of torture...
Waterboarding, or any other method of torture, is illegal and should remain so. If government agents break the law, under the threat of imminent danger (pick your favorite plot from 24), they should still be prosecuted for their crimes. The agents can present an affirmative defense and a jury can decide if the agents are culpable.
Or the President can pardon, which presumably he would gladly do in a real ticking-time-bomb scenario. In either case, there is accountability (either criminal or democratic) for the decision to take extra-legal action.
*Several* FBI people were quoted ... each of whom knows more about what it takes to convict somebody than A.S. or I do.
But I would think the mere fact of the effort to rebuild the cases would make some impression. Guess not.
I have no idea what counts as evidence with some people. It's like arguing with creationists who say, "well, you weren't THERE when the species supposedly evolved, so how do you know?"
Why isn't he suing Syria?
In what court? Collecting his judgment how? (My own dumb questions. I myself would start in the U.S. courts -- for the time being, they still have a better reputation than those of Syria.)
- AJ
that's not to say there aren't helpful comments here - alaska jack, even michael b (the latter being someone i disagree with vehemently, but respect) - but it's becoming unbearably difficult to spend the time finding this helpful, thought-provoking material when you have to suffer the galactic stupidity of people like WHOI Jacket.
It's already been outlawed. Waterboarding is a form of asphyxiation. Asphyxiation entails the threat of imminent death. US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C establishes torture as a felony, and defines it, among other things, as "the threat of imminent death." And this is aside from UCMJ and GC, which also outlaw torture, and define torture in a manner that clearly encompasses waterboarding.
"Steve Harrigan gets 'waterboarded' "
When we waterboard our own guys in SERE, or when reporters submit to it, all these people are essentially volunteers. All of those volunteers are in a position to be 100% sure that the procedure will stop the moment they wish it to. They are in control (and doing something not very different than choosing to hold their breath for a certain period of time). Our captives are not. This distinction is so simple and crucial that even you should be able to grasp it.
"Ted Kennedy proposed an amendment"
Just to underline what Christopher already pointed out. This talking point, being pushed in lots of places, is utterly bogus. If this event (the rejection of the Kennedy amendment, by a GOP Congress) made waterboarding legal, then it also legalized burning and electric shock. Really? More details here.
"Spare me the 'We used to be...' maudlin. Read up on PO Box 1142, the secret interrogation center during WW2."
I've done so, here, here, here and elsewhere. There's no indication that they tortured anyone. Ever. Since that seems to be your claim, show us your proof.
Do you think we're all idiots, or did you come here to be laughed at?
All this "leaked intel data" amounts to leaks from within the Bush administration, that are very likely intended to create the kind of complacency you're exhibiting. With Bush's track record for twisting the truth, let us know why these leaks should be considered credible.
"Whether you want to outlaw it is a good public policy question that I think does need to be seriously debated."
It's a bit late for that debate, since it's already been outlawed. Of course there could be a debate about repealing that law. How odd that when GOP held Congress for several years they didn't lift a finger to do that.
bart: "KSM reportedly broke in less than two minutes of waterboarding"
Thanks for giving us another example of how the self-serving Bush-directed leaks are being spread far and wide, and getting lots of unearned acceptance.
alaska: "This hyperbole is hard to square with ABCs report that it's only been used three times, and the longest was for two minutes."
Thanks for giving us another example of how the self-serving Bush-directed leaks are being spread far and wide, and getting lots of unearned acceptance.
kaz: "I don't think that waterboarding should be part of the standard suite of interrogation techniques, nor has it been"
Really? And you know this how?
cathyf: "The claim that I have seen is that waterboarding puts its victim in such an acute state of distress that he cannot form the necessary coherent thought to lie."
Someone named cathyf posted exactly the proper response to this:
Where did you see that claim? On a blog somewhere?
"Gee, sorta like Janet Reno?"
Speaking of finding things on a blog somewhere.
When you grab text from whatreallyhappened.com, don't you think you should credit them?
Anyway, it's nice to know that you're careful about sticking with authoritative, well-known sources.
It would help if you could clarify "they." The enemy, or his trainers? If the latter, please refer to what I said above about the importance of control.
kaz: "Here is video of part of a 20 minute session on a reporter who didn't break after 20 minutes"
That video is a stunt. Some guy hired a couple of other guys to pour water on his face. It was obviously not continuous. All you see on video is that it lasted for a few seconds. Please refer to what I said above about the importance of control.
"I have formulated the definitive test of what constitutes torture."
Gosh, you're modest. I guess it's more definitive than what's in the statute. And of course you disappeared when I challenged you on this.
Your style is hit-and-run. You obviously don't intend to be taken seriously.
anton: "As with a number of commenters over at Captain's Quarters, I too question the veracity and resume of Nance."
Yes, we're all very easily impressed when a bunch of anonymous commenters swiftboat someone with a bunch of vague, undocumented, uncorroborated allegations.
If you can show proof that torture ever saved one life, that would be helpful.
As ikes said: "I want to see evidence that American torture has ever been instrumental in gaining useful intelligence." Guess what: there is no such evidence. If it existed, Cheney would have been waving it under Brit Hume's nose, long ago.
Anyway, the proper answer to the tired old 'ticking time-bomb' hypothetical was provided by felix, in an earlier thread:
Bingo.
If Bush had an ounce of courage and integrity, he would say something like this: "yes, we tortured even though we knew it was illegal. We felt we had to. Now we are ready to pay the price, and we trust that the court will consider the extenuating circumstances after we explain them in detail."
And that's the outcome that Congress would demand if they had courage and integrity.
This was also very well-said by PC in this thread:
And I think this is also worth emphasis (from tarheel):
Here's a moral conundrum. Why are you ducking the simple questions you've been asked?
"Congress had two recent opportunities to specify that waterboarding was illegal"
I notice you're repeating this nonsense even after christopher posted proof that it's nonsense. Another moral conundrum.
hotel: "Worth the trip to Captain's Quarters … many pointed out that waterboarding does not involve pints and pints of water entering the lungs. Less than a pint will kill."
Nonsense:
Nice job demonstrating that you're inclined to uncritically accept random comments you saw on a blog somewhere, without lifting a finger to find some independent verification.
"I think only Congress can define it legally."
Congress already did so, via US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, UCMJ and GC.
I guess you must be thinking about the way Bushists complain that any criticism of Bush is a betrayal of the troops, even though Bush himself (along with lots of other Republicans) threw all sorts of criticisms at Clinton's war policy while Americans were held as POWs in 1999. One example (out of a long list): "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is" (Dubya, 4/9/99).
Our soldiers are now in greater danger of being waterboarded because we have announced to the world that we consider waterboarding to be a legitimate interrogation technique. "As both McCain and Colin Powell have noted, all a POW has going for him is the hope of reciprocity. If we don't torture, maybe they won't either" [link]. Any future enemy who may have, for whatever reason, felt some inhibition about waterboarding our guys now has good reason to be much less inhibited. Likewise with regard to the use of what we euphemistically describe as other "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
anderson: "General Russel Honore [has … argued that this is not torture]"
His words are pretty oblique, but I don't think he's saying it's not torture. I think he's saying we should do it even if it is.
steve: "I like to think I'm not the only person in the 'immoral, forget effectiveness' camp."
Of course that's where all moral people are. Morality doesn't mean much if it's something you hang onto only when it's easy and free to do so. Adults understand that morality has a price, and that the price is worth paying.
Living as a free society entails accepting risk that could be avoided if you handed your freedom to a king. Freedom isn't free, and neither is morality.
Clinton was not impeached for sexual relations, for fellatio, or for sexually harrassing a female subordinate.
President Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Got it now?
And Kovarsky says:Funny, I never heard WHOI Jacket refer