November 11, 2010
Bush says "damn right" he approved of the waterboarding of 3 detainees and he'd do it again — and the American people approve.
Overwhelmingly. Mostly silently. To the distress of the small sliver of the population that includes Dahlia Lithwick.
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271 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 271 of 271It's not torture, garage. You can keep deliberately missing that point, but it doesn't help you make your case.
garage, you wouldn't waterboard someone to save the lives of your wife and children?
I'd definitely waterboard to save the lives of your wife and children and live with my conscience, which is what Bush did.
What about liberals position on late term abortion when the health of the mother is at stake? Certainly they would agree that sucking out the brains of a baby who is this close to being born is torturous. Certainly more so than waterboarding. Yet they make an exception for the life of the mother. And not even the life of the mother, but the health of the mother (which could mean something as simple as her psychological health). BUt the premise is if the health of the mother is jeapordized then doctors can take more extreme measures to save the life of the mother.
Well, why can't we take that stance with regards to people like KSM? WHen the state of the nation is at risk, when he has intel that can literally save lves or cost lives, and when he necessarily knows who other people in Al Qaeda are and what actions they would carry out which would lead to the deaths of Americans and others, what's wrong with waterboarding them to prevent said attacks. It's not as harsh as jabbbing a scissor into a baby's brains, and is in fact a procedure benign enough that we already routinely use it to train our troops (despite its coercive nature).
Note this is not to suggest that late term abortions should be legalized, only they are far more common than terrorist waterboardings, are far more coercive and painful, are justified by a far lower pretext, and pro choicers are happy to jump on board and allow such barbarity.
Why not keep waterboarding safe, legal, and rare?
"I think if Afghan authorities capture an un-uniformed American terrorist who is a known mastermind, planner, financier and facilitator....
How are these things "known"?
How do we "know" that those we're torturing are guilty of anything?
If we can so easily know the evil that men do, why do we expend time and resouces conducting police investigations to determine likely suspects and find evidence to support indictments against them, investigations which can drag on for weeks, months, or years and which sometimes never produce clues or evidence sufficient either to find or name a suspect or to indict him? Why do we clog the courts with time consuming, expensive trials in order for juries to hear and appraise evidence and decide guilt or innocence of accused criminals?
How are we magically able to pinpoint and capture only the guilty parties to terrorist acts or planning such that we can break the law and inflict torture on them with the morally comforting certainty we have the bad guys?
Our government was built on the foundation that power is always suspect and to be feared, and that no men may be trusted to wield power without also being tempted into abusing that power. Our founding forebears wrote the Constitution to check egregious bullshit such as today's misled, dazed, insensate, and depraved American public so shamefully (if not surprisingly) supports.
Definition of torture:
This thread.
(sorry)
Our government was built on the foundation that power is always suspect and to be feared, and that no men may be trusted to wield power without also being tempted into abusing that power.
Yet Concern Troll supports an all encompassing Marxist state.
Brian constructs a straw man:
"This seems academic. We don't torture, right? Obama said so. We turned the page and America is back in right-standing with the world.
No moral ambiguities any more. We closed Guantanamo, got completely out of Iraq, winding down the war in Afghanistan. We're now less of a target because we don't waterboard any more.
If we were still doing these things, then Democrats in congress would have investigated it, and held the administration culpable."
Who said the Democrats, by and large, and Obama in particular, aren't equally complicit in the crimes of the past decade, (which are still ongoing, as I assume your irony is meant to suggest)?
Perfect Lib logic, Cook.
If the guy hasn't already been convicted then we have no right to investigate/interrogate him.
wv: corzine
(are politicians buying ad space now?)
Robert Cook wrote:
How are these things "known"?
How do we "know" that those we're torturing are guilty of anything?
Because intelligence agencies know who people in Al Qaeda are and their jobs, just as if terrorists captured a US senator and they had the tiniest bit of savvy and intel they would know he was a senator of a specific state. KSM is not some unknown quantity.
That's like saying if the police captured Bonnie & Clyde or Bonnie & Clydes accomplishes during their heydey they would somehow be in the dark as to who they had. THey would know their accomplices their crimes, their suspected crimes, who they were assumed of murdering or robbing. They would have a dossier an inch thick on Bonnie & Clyde.
What do you think intelligence agencies do?
Get off the idea that we are waterboarding some low level shmuck noone heard of. Stick to people of interest. Is it your contention that the head of logistics of Al Qaeda, the mastermind of 9/11 has no clue about people in Al Qaeda or the plans that are in the works?
"Typical lib logic: If the guy hasn't already been convicted then we have no right to investigate/interrogate him."
We have the right to investigate and question suspects; we do not have the right to strip them of due process, to imprison them indefinitely, to torture them to elicit confessions or extract information we merely assume or hope they may have, or even information we may know they have.
jr565 exercises circular logic by answering the question as to how we know terrorist suspects are guilty and thus may be tortured by answering "because we know they are the guilty ones."
He also displays astonishing credulousness by accepting the government line that the only torture we have conducted has been waterboarding and then "only on three suspects."
Obama authorizes air raids on villages using drone attacks when he suspects that there are terrorists there, even though it sometimes leads to the deaths of innocents and even though it may radicalize the families of the dead terrorists.
But how does he know that these people he's bombing are terrorists? If KSM were still at large, or if the target were OBL and we had intel that he was in a location that could be taken out by a drone attack would Obama not pull the trigger? So, absent any info other than what we know about KSM based on intel already gathered (or people like him) the military will drop a bomb on their head, despite no interrogation or court involvement.
Doesn't that suggest that we already know who some of these participants are. If we captured them instead of killing them, we'd already have plenty of info to question them about (the same info used to justify dropping a bomb on their head).
For those people who we would take out with smart bombs and drone attacks it stands to reason then that we would also be beyond the whole introductory phase of getting to know the accused brand of interrogation. If we capture KSM he has intel, if we kill him on the battlefield with a smart bomb, it's because he's a known commodity.
How many prisoners were really waterboarded, Cookie? Hundreds, thousands, millions? Please, oh noble Gitmo Truther, tell us.
Or is it just an amorphous imaginary number that waxes and wanes with your mood/political fortunes? Thought so.
Robert Cook wrote:
jr565 exercises circular logic by answering the question as to how we know terrorist suspects are guilty and thus may be tortured by answering "because we know they are the guilty ones."
We may not know everyone in Al Qaeda, but we certainly know the members in the upper ranks. Even though he keeps getting killed, we always know the number three guy in Al Qaeda.
We know the top mob bosses and their henchmen, we know the CEO's of companies and we know the heads of state. To suggest we are so clueless that we don't know this information is simply baffling.
We know that Al Qaeda has been conducting terrorist attacks on our interests since the 90s. We know that KSM, until captured was one of the key members of Al Qaeda, and was responsible for many of the logistics of the plans themselves.
Robert Cook wrote:
We have the right to investigate and question suspects; we do not have the right to strip them of due process, to imprison them indefinitely, to torture them to elicit confessions or extract information we merely assume or hope they may have, or even information we may know they have.
Well under Geneva we do have the right to hold combatants for the duration of hostilities. And Al Qaeda are not signatories to Geneva. Certainly they shouldn't get less detention due to their roles as non signatories than legitimate war prisoners should. And, despite the arguments to the contrary, most people at Gitmo have in fact been let go, meaning they weren't held indefnitely. Despite the idea that they had no due process, they were interrogated, determined to not be dangerous, and released. Many of whom went back to the battlefield to continue their jihad.
As to info we know they have, I would disagree. What is the purpose of interrogating them? So that we know who they are, and we know what they know. IN many respects it's to weed out the enemies from the friendlies. If we dtermine they are not in fact dangerous they can then, once we determine the logistics, be released. But in certain cases we simply don't know anything. Then the info is to gather enough intel to get to their roles. Most people are going to deny involvement, but a certain amount of coercion (short of enhanced interrogation techniques) are required to get them to open up. Then the interrogators have to determine if their information is credible. If it isn't then more coercive techniques may be required (still short of enhanced interrogation techniques).
But what about the known quantities? We get a target who we know has intel, simply because of who they are. We can skip the formalities of getting to know them and jump right to the chase. In the case of a KSM, we don't need to determine his role in Al Qaeda, we need to know if there are plans in the works and who his allies are, and what plans they may have in the works (plans which will necessarily cause the death of Americans and our allies).
Fourth Geneva Convention protects "Spies, Saboteurs, and Irregular Combatants
Neither the Taliban government of Afghanistan nor Al Qaeda are signatories to the Geneva Convention.
So it doesn't actually matter what the Convention says; it doesn't apply to non-signatories.
former law student said...
"A terrorist is not the same thing as a saboteur, spy or irregular combatant. You can be all three and not be a terrorist."
I agree. Terrorists are civilian criminals and should be prosecuted in civilian courts
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FLS makes a determination that if someone who works as a saboteur, spy, irregular combatant by blending into the enemy population is an agent of an official organized state - they cannot be a terrorist. But one doing so at the behest of a non-official movement, cause, ideology - is just a civilian criminal.
To be tried in civilian courts or military ones if civilian courts are not in charge but martial law is, during an Occupation.
Interestingly, that is the tactic the Nazis, Bolsheviks, Apartheid S Africa, French Colonial Empire, and the Israelis have used.
Resistance, by a French partisan, a Nelson Mandela, anti-Shah Iranians, a Palestinian whose farm has been seized for a new Zionist Settler colony, a "counter-revolutionary" - is a civilian crime. To be dealt with by the civilian secret police. The Gestapo, the Afrikkaner Special Police Unit, the Shin Bet, the Savak, the CHecka or NKVD.
And if captured, the "criminal insurrectionists" are properly sentenced, nice and legal and tidy - by a majestic Civilian court or civilian revolutionary tribunal or a panel of distinguished civilian jurists under military supervision.
To the rope, the firing squad, a Negev Desert hellhole, or Robbins Island.
Liberals and progressive Jews at places like the ACLU or Human Rights Watch think that labeling civilian armed resistance is more "enlightened" when you ape Bolshevik or Nazi tactics and brand all terrorists not enemy - but civilian criminals.
Of course, in the present situation, what comes out of their mouths doesn't match their actions.
Name a progressive Jewish lawyer in NYC, a foaming at the mouth campus Lefty, or faithful French EuroLeft PoMo deconstrictionist willing to take a sabbatical from a university or the ACLU/EU Human Rights Tribunal etc. to serve criminal warrants in Yemen or NW Pakistan. Or serve as armed police going there to "arrest criminals".
I sort of like the Departure Bush made from Nazi, Bolshevik, Zionist, and Afrikaner tactics. That the terrorists we face are enemy - not criminals -But he only made it halfway. He was "fine" with FBI making "criminal cases" and trying Islamoid enemy in civilian courts if it was CONVENIENT.
Where Bush failed was with an incoherent message that he was fine with both systems - civilian criminal justice, and the military system of neutralizing enemy. Setting off a giant turf battle as lawyers battled to get the Islamoids in their system and get the government funds.
Garage Mahal wrote:
"Our torture isn't as bad as Egypt's!"
If we don't use enhanced interrogations in the few cases where it's needed but instead, as Obama is doing, outsource said interrogations to Egypt where it is in fact worse, then it kind of does matter that our interrogations aren't as bad. Because we will still need to get that information, no? And since we're not getting it using our less corrosive techniques they'll get it using theirs. So which is worse?
Obama would have to argue that it's better, in those limited circumstances where an enhanced interrogation is needed (ie where someone might have intel important enough that we would have to get it out of him using an enhanced technique), to not bother getting said information then go through with the interrogation.
Which might look bad. As in, "yes, we knew he was aware (based on previous interrogations) that so and so had information about a potential upcoming attack, but we didn't think it was important enough to actuallly get the info out of him if he didn't want to divulge it, so we didn't press him on it. And because we didnt' have the information the attack went forward and x number of americans died and x number of americans were wounded. But, though they died a horrible death, and though the wounded will be suffering in agony, at the very least we should take comfort that the person who could have given us the info to stop said attack was not harmed in any way."
Cook:
'How are these things "known"?'
Well, you keep fingerpainting with your own feces in your own little deconstructionist intellectual cesspool and pretending we can never know anything.
The grown-ups have responsibilities. Just stay out of the way, libtard. Your betters have work to do.
WV: Imence. Dealing with the imence ignorance of FLS and the sheer cult-like intellectual depravity of Cook is a chore.
@FLS:
I agree. Terrorists are civilian criminals and should be prosecuted in civilian courts.
Which I assume means the detainees at Guantanamo should all be released. It is unlikely they were Mirandized, that evidence was gathered with an adequate chain-of-custody that is required in federal court.
Because if those criteria were met, then the detainees could have been tried by now, under an Obama administration, with Eric Holder proclaiming that we were on schedule to close Guantanamo.
However, the Obama administration has already let it be known that of the trials already scheduled, even if they are found not guilty, they go back to Guantanamo.
That completely undermines the concept of civilian prosecution, and the right of the accused to be set free when no other charges are pending, and not be in "double jeopardy."
Another note: I don't think anyone condemning the waterboarding has actually made the case that it doesn't work.
The Japanese "water cure" as demonstrated by three elderly American missionaries upon the repatriation ship Gripsholm, as described by Ambassador Joseph Grew, in 1942:
"We went up to the bow of the ship early in the morning, where a friend posed as the subject of the torture. He was tied up with his knees drawn up to his chin, his neck being attached to his knees, and his hands securely bound behind him so that the cords in the actual torture had penetrated deep under the skin. He was then rolled over with his face up and water was poured into his nose and mouth. It was a realistic performance, but only from the oral description of those men could I visualize what the actual torture must have been.
"Six large buckets of water were used by the Japanese police, so that the subject lost consciousness and then was brought back to consciousness merely to have the same thing repeated. One of these elderly missionaries was given the water cure six separate times in order to make him divulge informatoin which he was supposed to have acquired as an alleged spy. Nearly all of the American missionaries, teachers, newspaper correspondents and business men were regarded as potential spies."
From the text of the radio address made August 30, 1942, from Washington by Joseph C. Grew, as recorded by the New York Times
One of the missionaries was the 60 year old Presbyterian, Edwin Koons, who recalled passing out. The water cure was administered to make him agree he was involved in espionage. Koons had served in Korea, then occupied by the Japanese.
Well under Geneva we do have the right to hold combatants for the duration of hostilities. And Al Qaeda are not signatories to Geneva.
Al-Qaeda are barred from being signatories to the Geneva Conventions because they are not a nation. This is a main weakness in the GWOT model, which more closely resembles the War on Drugs than an actual war. But it would be interesting to try interning drug traffickers until no more illegal drugs are sold.
Afghanistan ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1956, but nice try.
Which I assume means the detainees at Guantanamo should all be released.
How did the detainees all get there? You'd have to know the history before you can decide how to treat them.
Former Law student wrote:
Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting, and is sometimes beaten until the victim vomits and the torture begins again.
You're talking about a different type of water torture. This is the one where they pour enough water down your stomach so that it becomes distended, and you pass out. They often beat their prisoners while their bellies were full so as to cause their insides to break. You're talking about buckets of water being poured directly into the stomach as opposed to water being poured over their face, some of which they get in their nostrils and throat.
Former Law student wrote:
Al-Qaeda are barred from being signatories to the Geneva Conventions because they are not a nation. This is a main weakness in the GWOT model, which more closely resembles the War on Drugs than an actual war. But it would be interesting to try interning drug traffickers until no more illegal drugs are sold.
So should we have police officers mirandize terrorist suspects on battlefields?
Former law student wrote:
How did the detainees all get there? You'd have to know the history before you can decide how to treat them.
doesn't that mean holding them for the duration until their status can be established, and doesn't that mean interrogating them to determine their status?
We can determine a signatory to the GEneva convention because they have a name and a rank and a uniform, but a jihadist terrorist could be a goat herder caught accidentally or he could be a hardened terrorist who is dressed like a goat herder. how are you determining their status other than through interrogations, potentially harsh interrogations (and I'm not even talking about enhanced interrogations, standard interrogations can be tough and terrifying in their own right).
Another note: I don't think anyone condemning the waterboarding has actually made the case that it doesn't work.
FBI interrogator Ali Soufan said "enhanced interrogation techniques" provided no more information than did conventional techniques:
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
Further, use of "EIT" often backfired:
In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
New York Times Op-Ed, April 22, 2009
Also, the terrorist is not simply a domestic prisoner. Many of the terrorists caught in afghanistan are caught on battlefields. KSM has never set foot in the US, why should we necessarily get jurisdiction over say Africa, which had their embassies bombed. Terrorism, and terrorism trials very often fall into a gray area, much like piracy.
Despite the assertions to the contrary, such prosecutions are actually pretty complicated. Are they tried under local jurisdictions, are they tried under maritime law, if they are in international waters does a new form of court need to be created?
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52609
You stating that such trials are easily resolved only shows that you are simply pushing the liberal agenda. Even Obama's administration relies on military tribunals more often than not.
Former Law student wrote:
Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open,
What nonsense. I never wrote anything like that.
Also, the terrorist is not simply a domestic prisoner. Many of the terrorists caught in afghanistan are caught on battlefields.
That was my point. How did the detainee get to Guantanamo? There's a difference between an irregular shooting at US troops in Afghanistan and a guy renting a van to load with explosives in New Jersey.
Robert Cook wrote:
We have the right to investigate and question suspects; we do not have the right to strip them of due process, to imprison them indefinitely, to torture them to elicit confessions or extract information we merely assume or hope they may have, or even information we may know they have.
Cookie assumes that war, and protecting our people from enemy is only to be fought in a law enforcement, innocent vs. guilty, due process - lawyer's construct.
War is not waged by Cookie's fantasy construct. There is no such thing as "innocent civilians" vs. universally guilty soldiers. Lincoln did not fight the US citizen rebels in the South with warrants, due process, and a determination to only fire on indvidual rebels or torch buildings or confiscate confederate farmers supplies "after a wise Court ruled on the individual rebel's rights".
================
Former law student wrote:
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
They are succesful in uncovering plots and saving lives, except when they're not. Which is why an interrogator would move on to an ehanced interrogation. If traditional interrogation worked, then there wouldn't need to be a discussion about what to do next. But what if it doesn't work? What do you do then?
Sometimes getting information is time sensitive, and you can't slowly build confidence with someone (like Sadaam Hussein's handler did) over the course of months. Sometimes you have detainees trained to withstand interrogation. What if traditional interrogation techniques are simply not effective.
And why would an enhanced interrogation somehow be less successful than a non enhanced one? I keep hearing libs saying that detainee would say whatever they interrogators wanted so as to stop the interrogations. Is such data gathered unverifiabled, whereas the data gathered by traditional means is? A detainee will tell you something or not. If he doesnt', but you need to get that info, then you have to apply enough pressure so that he does. But what if he tells you something. Don't you have to verify if it's true or not regardless of whether you're using traditional interrogation techniques or enhanced techniques? If someone lies to you when being waterboarded and you determine he's not being truthful, you then go back to waterboarding him or try a different technique.
But doesn't it make sense that the more stressful the situation the more likely the detainee will not like to go through with it and thus the more likely that he would divulge info.
If the guy on the Grisholm volunteered to have it demonstrated on him, how bad could it have been?
What the Japanese did was something much beyond that, fls.
Former Law student wrote:
That was my point. How did the detainee get to Guantanamo? There's a difference between an irregular shooting at US troops in Afghanistan and a guy renting a van to load with explosives in New Jersey.
How did KSM get to new york? Was he here and picked up by cops during a routine traffic stop, or was he in another country, and then brougtht here, after a rendition and an interrogation. Why should he be tried in a US court if he never actually set foot on US soil?
If someone lies to you when being waterboarded and you determine he's not being truthful, you then go back to waterboarding him or try a different technique.
Right, the Rev. Edwin Koons was an American spy, and once he refused to confess, the Japanese were right to administer the water cure to make him describe his espionage.
Koons is just lucky he wasn't hanged, I suppose.
and former law student,
you never responded to the point about SERE training not being torture because it's training. You made the point that sex isn't necessarily rape, but is that an apt comparison?
Is waterboarding during training coercive or not coercive?
You made the point that sex isn't necessarily rape, but is that an apt comparison?
The argument I responded to was that if the physical sensation was the same, then the effect on the individual was the same.
Former Law Student,
Let me educate you further on what Ambassador Grew actually said, because you seem so incapable of educating yourself:
But there is the other side to the picture, the ugly side of cruelty, brutality and utter bestiality, the ruthlessness and rapaciousness of the Japanese military machine which brought on this war. That Japanese military machine and military caste and military system must be utterly crushed, their credit and predominance must be utterly broken, for the future safety and welfare of the United States and of the United Nations, and for the future safety and welfare of civilization and humanity. Let us put it in a nutshell: there is not sufficient room in the area of the Pacific Ocean for a peaceful America, for any and all of the peace-loving United Nations, and a swashbuckling Japan."
Now, libtard, answer this question: Which came first: the war crimes trials of Tojo and Yamashita? Or the rain of ruin that leveled almost every city in Japan, the fireboming of scores of Japanese tinderbox cities, the naval blockade that left the Japanese people half-starved? Which came first - the due process niceties afforded to Tojo (which he denied to literally millions of others)? Or the total and complete military victory and the destruction of the Japanese ability to wage war?
Which came first, libtard? It's not rocket science.
fls said:
"It's legal if you can find someone to say it's legal -- the GW Bush legacy."
This is a higher standard than the Al Gore legacy: No controlling legal authority.
Former Law student wrote:
Right, the Rev. Edwin Koons was an American spy, and once he refused to confess, the Japanese were right to administer the water cure to make him describe his espionage.
Koons is just lucky he wasn't hanged, I suppose.
Would the Japanese be in the right to administer any coercive technique on him? Or would we be in the right to adminster any coercive technique to a goat herder who denies he is a terrorist? You're actually arguing against any interrogation technique. Suppose we have someone who may or may not be a terrorist (we simply don't know), are interrogators allowed to question him in a loud manner, keep asking him tough questions over and over for hours on end, play good cop bad cop? Lie to him?
You're arguing a known fact, that a non spy is being accused of being a spy and then is forced to confess to his spying through coercive means. But what about when his status is unknown? He may or may not be a spy. Will the authorities not have to go through an interrogation which is coercive to get him to reveal info which may determine his staus?
And then there is the case of someone who is a known spy or terrorist (becasue we have past knowledge of their activities) and the issue becomes, do they have information that we NEED to save lives or thwart an attack. And here, you will probably need to apply greater force because the subject is less likely to divulge info, and because the stakes are higher.
Former law student, since you brought up Grew's "10 Years in Japan," I'm going to educate you further on the topic, because your knowledge of the subject is obviously only talking-point deep:
Here's Grew, toward the end of his book:
They [the Japanese] have put great store in what they consider to be the white man's flabbiness. They look upon us Americans as constitutional weaklings, demanding our daily comforts and unwilling to make the sacrifices demanded for victory in war against a military machine which has prepared and trained itself in Spartan simplicity and the harness and toughness demanded by war. They attach great importance to the former disunity in the United States over the war issue and they still count on an appreciable interval before an aroused nation can find itself and develop a fighting spirit of its own.
It's libtards like you that cause our enemies to make that calculation, and invite them to strike.
Former law student wrote:
The argument I responded to was that if the physical sensation was the same, then the effect on the individual was the same.
Well no, In the case of sex with your husband, the effect is pleasurable, In the ccase of rape it's an assault. In the case of waterboarding through SERE training the effect is you feel like your'e drowning. In the case of waterboarding because you are a detainee the effect is you feel like you're drowning. There is no case where waterboarding is anything but coercive. So Im' asking you, how can the militarly get away with calling something training, when it's objectively coercive and since we all know that waterboarding is objectively torture?
Is it or isn't it torture in the context of training. Would the military ever tear people toe nails out or gang rape them in the context of training, and wouldn't someone like you say "how can you call it training if you are gang raping them? Rape is rape".
The military wouldn't go that far because they military doesn't torture it's charges, and we wouldn't let them get away with calling torture training if we really thought it was torture.
FLS repeats the liberal talking point that the ONLY rationale for coercion is to obtain what Leftys moan is "False Confessions".
One of the missionaries was the 60 year old Presbyterian, Edwin Koons, who recalled passing out. The water cure was administered to make him agree he was involved in espionage. Koons had served in Korea, then occupied by the Japanese.
Total crap. The state - even families routinely apply coercion as a standard tool. Coercion starts as a threat, then moves into action, then threat of more action if behavior is not corrected.
Parents do not spank kids after they ignore warnings to obtain false confessions. Prisons do not force prisoners to stand in line, not climb walls to force false confessions, but control them.
War is complex. It has many different rules than what a Lefty who never served imagines. It spans the full customary civilian forms of coercion in certain circumstances and adds more on what coercion can be employed against the enemy.
Virtually none of that coercion is designed to elicit false confessions to boost the careers of MPs, prosecutors, and only a subset of coercion is for the Commie or Kempetai sort or confessions aimed at bolstering show trials for propaganda.
Most coercion is meant to punish the enemy, on agreed upon rules of Hague and Geneva. In targeting the enemy, we do far, far worse to them and inflict far worse physical pain and suffering than "Koran handling humiliation" or waterboarding or accidentally giving an Islamoid a pork&beans MRE.
We all have weapons that preferentially maim more than they kill. It ties up enemy resources. Prefer waterboarding to having your head shot off, limbs blown off by 20mm fire, a white-hot piece of shrapnel that bisects your liver and leads you to painfully die over 5 days in a Jihadi cave? If you prefer waterboarding to the fate visited on other enemy, you are rational.
And Coercion on the enemy can be beastial - even by our practices of warfare endorsed by the American people from inception - (1) House British prisoners in high death, deplorable conditions to save lives by deterring the Brits from continuing to use their abominable prison ships. (2)Leaving wounded enemy to die slowly and painfully on the battlefield as a deterrent to other enemy charges - to save our guy's lives. (Every war) (3) Interrogating enemy brutally to save our guys lives (Civil War, WWII, Korea, Vietnam by proxy to the ARVN and S Korean forces there, the badly named GWOT.) (4) Use of weapons that inflict high fear in the enemy - Churchill and FDR's endorsement of napalm and white phosporus on the battlefield and roasting enemy civilians in their cities. (5)Tit for tat with enemy prisoners. You kill our side's soldiers taken prisoner, we will kill those on your side we capture (S Pacific against Japs, Korea), you physically torture and maim (the Japs) we will retaliate - Marines on Guadacanal finding buddies strung up and carved up went into knifework on living Japs, certain islands with enemy garrisons were bypassed, surrender not accepted...and visited 6 months later to ensure the Japs had starved to death after running out of dead fellow Japs to eat.
War is unspeakably ugly.
It is not a courtroom.
Sometimes, bad things are done to save lives on "our side".
The Rev Martin Niemoller of the famous "1st they came...cliche`" wrote about the grim altered morality of war. As WWI submarine officer, he saved lives by "morally by rules of war" killing as many non-Germans as possible. In ways moral in war but which violated every tenent of peacetime "decency". The standout moment was when his boat torpedo's a British troopship carrying 5,500 soldiers to the Front. The boat did not finish with the sinking, but stayed to bravely, at considerable risk, harass 3 British warships to block them from rescuing soldiers in the freezing water until all the many thousands of Brits were dead.
Niemoller said that it went against every tenent as a mariner outside war - yet the mass death was moral under God and by war - because ensuring the helpless Brits drowned or froze to death prevented them from getting to the Front lines to kill Other god-fearing German boys.
That, Niemoller concluded, is why war is so awful and best avoided. Because once engaged, a new morality is created entirely different than fat dumb and happy people brought up in peacetime think should be carried over into warfare. And the men fighting are bound by duty to follow actions from a wartime set of values they cannot morally resist engaging in.
Lucien said...
@Fen. You say: "America has decided that its not immoral to water-board to get actionable intelligence that would protect American civilians from attack."
First, don't pretend to speak on behalf of America.
I'm not pretending. America has decided that waterboarding is justified to prevent our families from being vicitmized from a terrorist attack.
I'm sorry you are in the minority, but thats the fact. Deal with it.
Second, your statement is only about the intent of the torturer, namely, to obtain "actionable intelligence to protect American civilians" .
So what do you say to the people you torture who turn out not to have any "actionable intelligence"?
See, that question shows you really don't understand the material. These people are already known to be guilty of acts of terror. You are using the "if we wrongly execute an innocent man" arguement. It does not apply here.
FLS: Al-Qaeda are barred from being signatories to the Geneva Conventions because they are not a nation.
Is the Libtard actually implying this is the reason Al Queda does not abide by the Geneva Conventions?
"Neither the Taliban government of Afghanistan nor Al Qaeda are signatories to the Geneva Convention."
Afghanistan ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1956, but nice try.
Which I why I said "the Taliban government". The Taliban government of Afghanistan repudiated the previous government along with its laws, treaties, allegiances and obligations.
Al-Qaeda are barred from being signatories to the Geneva Conventions because they are not a nation.
They're barred from being covered by the Geneva Conventions for the same reason.
FLS: Afghanistan ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1956
You write as if this matters. Its funny how you can fixate on technicalities of international law while ignoring Obama's non-birth certificate.
I mean, I don't care if he's legal, its too late now. But you guys sure are situational with your ethics.
Which brings us back to how The Left doesn't really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about. You're not against waterboarding out of some moral condition. Your reasons are far more base.
FLS: It's legal if you can find someone to say it's legal -- the GW Bush legacy.
Yes, you are a hack. Bush made a good faith attempt to defend America up to the boundry the Law allowed.
You turn that into something diabolical.
Hack.
Comrade X: garage, you wouldn't waterboard someone to save the lives of your wife and children?
I'd definitely waterboard to save the lives of your wife and children and live with my conscience, which is what Bush did.
Thats the rest of the hypocrisy from the Left - they want SOMEONE ELSE to stain his soul with blood. They don't want to make the hard calls, to wake up the rest of their lives from nightmares, to carry the burden of guilt and regret that comes with these decisions. When the question is asked:
Waterboard Mohammed OR allow dozens of innocents to be blown up?
The Left answers "Neither. Let someone else make that call. Just as long as I remain alive and free to be a backbiting morally righteous parasite"
What cowards.
Well said Fen! Semper Fi
America has, in the past, prosecuted and in some cases executed Germans and Japanese for the crime of waterboarding?
No, America has not.
You are a liar and an easily misled dupe.
"It's legal if you can find someone to say it's legal -- the GW Bush legacy."
Kind of like gay marriage, right?
Our government was built on the foundation that power is always suspect and to be feared
so says a supporter of government run health care, endless environmental regulations, higher taxes, and the regulation of political speech.
You simply have no leg to stand on here.
It's legal if you can find someone to say it's legal -- the GW Bush legacy.
Um, why didn't the party you vote for expressly make waterboarding illegal?
Oh, you're silly, lying hypocrites.
That's why.
'How are these things "known"?'
I love that.
Um, so when Nancy Pelosi takes to the house floor and says that the health care bill will create jobs you express doubt, right?
Right?
New York Times Op-Ed, April 22, 2009
Um, assertions aren't facts.
But of course when they fit your worldview they are.
To the distress of the small sliver of the population that includes Dahlia Lithwick.
Ann, its interesting how many of his points have been debunked here. Perhaps you could invite him over to explain himself?
I'm particularly interested in why he felt the need to conflate two different kinds of waterboarding to support his position.
What does it mean when someone deliberately lies while making an appeal to morality? Should we trust anything else they have to say on the topic?
Lets say there's a known terrorist on a terrorist watch list. Let's call him Zawahiri. Lets say he's rounded up and we have him awaiting interrogation. Lets say he's well trained to withstand interrogation (he's been following the debate and has studied the army field manual so knows what to expect) , and lets' say we've tried all the techniques that are in the field manual and he hasn't divulged any details other than to spit at his captors and threaten something big is going to happen. And lets say we know, due to his history we know that he has intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Al Qaeda. And lets' say, we've also heard on the wire that there is chatter about a big attack coming soon from Al Qaeda.
What then? We've gone through the traditional means of interrogation and have gotten nothing, and there is a threat of an attack. Is it FLS's argument that with that level of threat that nothing further can be done with Zawahiri? It's kind of time sensitive, so we don't have endless time to wait for him to divulge info, but we know he's a terrorist because he's Zawahiri and we've been following Al Qaeda for years and his name keeps popping up. There is no question of an innocent guy here. The sole point is, how much do we need the information that he has and isn't willing to give us?
Or is FLS willing to let the attack go forward, and accept the consequences of said attacks, knowing that it will most likely involve pain and suffering that far exceeds the waterboarding of one individual.
Zawahiri's under indictment for a bunch of serious crimes. Maybe he'd rat out his associates to escape the death penalty.
http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-dk3.txt
In high school, when we were really bored we used to have contests to see who could stop breathing for the longest time. Sitting in the back of class, holding our breath and watching the second hand go round and round. We would get to two minutes without any problem. Waterboarding is for forty seconds. I guess if you suffer from emphysema or your wind is otherwise shot to hell then maybe you couldn't do forty seconds.
Calling this 'torture' is like calling your lawn mower 'heavy equipment'.
FLS: Zawahiri's under indictment for a bunch of serious crimes. Maybe he'd rat out his associates to escape the death penalty.
Fail. You're going to take the word of a known suicide-bomber on the pretense that he's worried about the death penalty? A plea bargain?
Breaking News: 15 Children Dead In Sarin Attack. 42 Injured.
Drudge: FLS Knew of Imminent Attack, Duped By Zawahiri
FLS, take up painting or sculpture or somesuch. Stay far away from foreign policy. You're going to get alot of people killed.
AlphaLiberal said...
Bush admits to being a war criminal.
When the Japanese waterboarded an American soldier in WWII, they were prosecuted.
So, was is a mistake to prosecute that Japanese soldier?
And, Ann, you may not know this, but legal matters are not decided by vote.
When are you going to cop to you being a liar? You realize that no one here believes a word you say because you lie. I'd say it to your face if I knew where you were. Then I'd videotape your hissy fit.
Comrade X said...
garage, you wouldn't waterboard someone to save the lives of your wife and children?
I'd definitely waterboard to save the lives of your wife and children and live with my conscience, which is what Bush did.
You are talking to cowards. Garage, cookie, alphaliar, et al. these aren't men, they are coward-children in men's bodies gesticulating at the horror they perceive and do nothing about and instead would rail against those that take action to protect and do the heavy lifting while they criticize how the lifting is being done. Fuck them all.
jr565 said...
What about liberals position on late term abortion when the health of the mother is at stake? Certainly they would agree that sucking out the brains of a baby who is this close to being born is torturous.
Oh pish posh, that's just a collection of cells and stuff like that so it doesn't count.
Robert Cook said...
The Screaming Baby said:
"I still don't think it's torture and frankly if it was, I wouldn't care."
This aptly and succinctly expresses the position of those who support torture--apparently, a majority of Americans--which does not validate torture as either legal or morally acceptable, (just as slavery was never morally acceptable, even when it was validated by law and by broad public and commercial support), but simply reveals the thuggish barbarism that always lies just beneath the surface of ostensibly "civilized" people.
This is not unique to America, but is true of all people in all nations. We are still essentially circus animals: chimps in lab coats and overalls, feigning rationality but savage at heart, ready to inflict the most sickening violence on each other for any reason, or no reason.
Like I've said it before. You aren't a man, you are yellow coward. You are anti-american filth and scum. Please tell me what it would take for you to leave my country you hammer and sickle sucking communist. You aren't fit to walk the dirt of this country, you knuckle-dragging trog. You don't have the guts or the stomach to do what it takes to keep anyone, lest yourself, safe from those that don't give two rat shits about you.
Go. Go and curry favor with your muslim brethren to submit your neck and head to their jihad so the last thing you here in this life and to echo in whatever hell that you end up in is, Allah Ackbar, you piece of sub-human shit.
former law student said...
Sure. The origins of public international law -- the law we're talking about here -- as we now understand it go back to the time of the Protestant Reformation. So a good start would be Grotius' De Jure Belli ac Pacis.
For more current information I suggest starting with The Digest of the United States Practice in International Law , along with the parallel books from other countries.
No, I meant actual statutes you fucking retard. But I will look those up anyway.
Thats the rest of the hypocrisy from the Left - they want SOMEONE ELSE to stain his soul with blood. They don't want to make the hard calls, to wake up the rest of their lives from nightmares, to carry the burden of guilt and regret that comes with these decisions. When the question is asked:
Waterboard Mohammed OR allow dozens of innocents to be blown up?
The Left answers "Neither. Let someone else make that call. Just as long as I remain alive and free to be a backbiting morally righteous parasite"
Forgot to add: after you make the hard call that saves their ass, they'll throw you to the ICC to be tried for war "crimes"... so THEY can feel better about the incident.
So don't do it. Let them choke to death on their own blood.
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