Waterboarding

[Aontan 0]

Bush set to veto bill on interrogation

Saturday, 8 March 2008 10:14

The White House has said US President George W Bush will veto proposed legislation that would have banned US intelligence agents from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation methods.

Waterboarding, in which suspects are subjected to simulated drowning, has been widely criticised by many members of congress, human rights organisations and other countries.

Last month, congress sent Mr Bush a broad intelligence authorisation bill that contained new limits on CIA interrogation techniques.

The Bush administration has countered that the CIA should not be held to the US military's interrogation standards because intelligence agents are dealing with terrorists who are not lawful combatants operating under traditional battlefield tactics.

Story from RTÉ News:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0308/torture.html

---

I saw this story and was surprised there wasn't a thread about it here already; just remember to talk about the issue and not each other.

[patriots_1228 51]

Well, I beleive waterboarding should only be used on terrorists.

If we are fighting a war with say, China, and we are interrogating a Chinese Soldier, we shouldn't waterboard him because he plays by the rules of wars and he is a respectable soldier, not some idiot who raps as much cloth around his body as possible, runs into a market hollering at the top of his lungs, then blows himself up.

Plus, waterboarding has done alot to help give us information.

[TheQuiltedLlama 34]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

Plus, waterboarding has done alot to help give us information.quote>

I don't quite understand this, surely any information obtained by torture is extremely unreliable? People being tortured will say whatever they think the interrogator  wants to hear.

[ilikehotdogsalot 307]

Ugh, Bush really pisses me off. No matter how many people say this everyday, he's really a *insert curse word here*

He goes off and says we don't torture, then he does something like this. We should have impeached him years ago.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Okay, rehashing a point I made in another thread... The controversy over it has made it ineffective. The torture is psychological, not physical. Special Forces and other covert ops groups are waterboarded as part of their training, and know it can be endured if you know you're not going to die. Al-Qaeda has copied this. Waterboarding is now part of terrorist training.

Also, it was the waterboarding of 'top Al-Qaeda suspects' that stopped other attacks. It did work, under the 'ticking bomb' theory of rule-bending techniques. To say the end absolutely does not justify the means is easy if it's not your family on the line. 

Despite the wealth of techniques available to Federal interrogators, they used waterboarding effectively. Keeping things simple evidently works for anti-terrorism efforts, too. I personally think they could do far worse than waterboarding. 

The mind-cracking drugs, sensory deprivation chambers, and extreme sleep denial will make one far more miserable than 2 cups of water poured into their face. As far as I know, the advanced interrogation methods are perfectly legal.

For the most part, these kinds of discussions do not belong in the court of public opinion. The general public in America just isn't educated enough about anything other than sound bites between Britney stories to have anything to add. 

Europe (in general) loves to act in a self-righteous manner over this topic, but few countries on the globe can point any fingers.

There is also the political angle here in the US, as it's been used as a political football shamelessly. This has only muddied the waters (sorry). 

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: TheQuiltedLlama

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

Plus, waterboarding has done alot to help give us information.quote>

I don't quite understand this, surely any information obtained by torture is extremely unreliable? People being tortured will say whatever they think the interrogator  wants to hear.quote>

People who lie under interrogation quickly learn it was the wrong thing to do.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228 Well, I beleive waterboarding should only be used on terrorists.quote>

Why? Are terrorists the only bad people? Are waterboarding the only torture technique you can use to obtain information?

But the good thing about waterboarding is that you can do it with primitive means. Here from Vietnam:

And if the CIA still feel they lack techniques for what the Gestapo called intense questioning, they have a presidential candidate that's probably more than happy to help out.

[patriots_1228 51]

Originally posted by: hym

Originally posted by: TheQuiltedLlama

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

Plus, waterboarding has done alot to help give us information.quote>

I don't quite understand this, surely any information obtained by torture is extremely unreliable? People being tortured will say whatever they think the interrogator  wants to hear.quote>

People who lie under interrogation quickly learn it was the wrong thing to do.quote>

 

Couldn't have said it better. When they realize you lied your going to get it worse than you did before.

[gabry85 2]

Originally posted by: ilikehotdogsalot Ugh, Bush really pisses me off. No matter how many people say this everyday, he's really a *insert curse word here*

He goes off and says we don't torture, then he does something like this. We should have impeached him years ago.quote>

Yeah, and I still don't get how didn't his countless scandals (lies on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah chemical bombings to name a few...) get him out of the office. I even regret Mr. Nixon...

[panthersimcity4 162]

Originally posted by: ilikehotdogsalot Ugh, Bush really pisses me off. No matter how many people say this everyday, he's really a *insert curse word here*

He goes off and says we don't torture, then he does something like this. We should have impeached him years ago.quote>

A voice of reason!

Seriously though, torture is wrong no matter what it is. If we torture prisoners we're just as bad as  al Qaeda and other "enemy" groups who torture their prisoners.

Originally posted by: gabry85 [i even regret Mr. Nixon...quote>

At least Nixon apologized! Bush doesn't give a *insert curse word here* about anybody but himself.

[toxicpiano 125]

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

Originally posted by: hym

Originally posted by: TheQuiltedLlama

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

Plus, waterboarding has done alot to help give us information.quote>

I don't quite understand this, surely any information obtained by torture is extremely unreliable? People being tortured will say whatever they think the interrogator  wants to hear.quote>

People who lie under interrogation quickly learn it was the wrong thing to do.quote>

 

Couldn't have said it better. When they realize you lied your going to get it worse than you did before.quote>

There was a report on BBC's newsnight a while back about the training that Al Quaeda carries out. One section of the training was to train people not to break under torture and tell lies convincingly under immense pressure etc. Also what if those doing the waterboarding are attempting to extract false information out of them (for whatever reason)?

[Duke87 1,070]

Whenever someone says "waterboarding isn't torture", I can't help but look at it as a rationalization. So far as I'm concerned, that goes in the same bin as claims like "oral sex isn't sex", "it's okay if you don't get caught", "everyone else is doing it, so it's okay for me to do it too", etc. Let's call a spade a spade here. It's torture, even if it is more psychological than physical. Thus, it's wrong for us to do it, no matter who the person is or what they know.

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Well, I beleive waterboarding should only be used on terrorists.quote>

Why not child molesters?  Afterall, if someone knows where one is, and it is immediately critical that we catch them before another innocent and helpless child is brutally victimized, why not justify a supposedly non-lethal technique like waterboarding on material witnesses?  How about those non-Islamic domestic terrorists?  How many of us have watched "The Siege," where such justifications led to secretly electrocuting innocent citizens because they had peculiar names or ethnic hair?

I can't wait till that prelude build-up to the oncoming war with Iran, where the U.S. pilots are downed in Iranian territory, and then are tortured and the torture video released.  After Abu Ghraib's scenes of electrodes to naked prisoners' genitals, and of which many of those prisoners were released as non-terrorists and non-insurgents anyway, what could the U.S. say?  Is it not in the Iranian national interest to protect their citizens by determining the next U.S. bombing plans, and under such potential imminent threat, does that not in someway justify Iranian torture of captured U.S. personnel in order to save innocent lives?  What is good for the goose is good for the gander!

Oh well, it is all irrelevant anyway.  "Induced cooperation" while avoiding legal jurisdiction is the reason we have Secret Rendition.  The difference between citizen and victim is just a few alphabet letters in the agency's name, but we can all rest easy knowing mistakes are never made.

Moral relativism indeed!

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Odainsaker makes a good point about the slippery slope. I do believe that America needs to have the moral high ground on this issue. 

Before 9/11, it is likely that such tactics were used, but only in isolated cases. Everyone involved knew that if it got out, they would take the fall. I don't believe that it should be considered technically legal, the gov't needs plausible deniability in extreme judgement calls. It's not unreasonable to err on the side of propriety; if an agent on the ground makes the call to break the law, there's got to be a penalty for being wrong. 

To officially sanction methods perceived as torture is not a line the US should cross IMO. Perception is everything.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: Odainsaker

Well, I beleive waterboarding should only be used on terrorists.quote>

Why not child molesters?  Afterall, if someone knows where one is, and it is immediately critical that we catch them before another innocent and helpless child is brutally victimized, why not justify a supposedly non-lethal technique like waterboarding on material witnesses?  How about those non-Islamic domestic terrorists?  How many of us have watched "The Siege," where such justifications led to secretly electrocuting innocent citizens because they had peculiar names or ethnic hair?quote>

Why not let NBC add that as a segment to that pedohile show they have?

I can't wait till that prelude build-up to the oncoming war with Iran, where the U.S. pilots are downed in Iranian territory, and then are tortured and the torture video released.  After Abu Ghraib's scenes of electrodes to naked prisoners' genitals, and of which many of those prisoners were released as non-terrorists and non-insurgents anyway, what could the U.S. say?  Is it not in the Iranian national interest to protect their citizens by determining the next U.S. bombing plans, and under such potential imminent threat, does that not in someway justify Iranian torture of captured U.S. personnel in order to save innocent lives?  What is good for the goose is good for the gander!quote>

It's probably just as likely that they won't; remember that American soldier that had to be rescued from those evil Iraqi doctors that treated her after her capture?

Oh well, it is all irrelevant anyway.  "Induced cooperation" while avoiding legal jurisdiction is the reason we have Secret Rendition.  The difference between citizen and victim is just a few alphabet letters in the agency's name, but we can all rest easy knowing mistakes are never made.

Moral relativism indeed!quote>

Agreed.

Originally posted by: manticorefan

To officially sanction methods perceived as torture is not a line the US should cross IMO. Perception is everything.quote>

But if it's alright to send people overseas to be tortured, it should be alright to do it at home.

[ilikehotdogsalot 307]

Unfortunately, something tells me this isn't the only thing the government does to terrorist to get answers.

[xmike1991 2]

Originally posted by: ilikehotdogsalot Unfortunately, something tells me this isn't the only thing the government does to terrorist to get answers.quote>

ha, its definately not. as much as the bush administration lies and deciets americans (my opinion)

and would someone care to tell me what waterboarding is?

i keep thinking its something like wave boarding

[Godzillaman 21]

Originally posted by: xmike1991and would someone care to tell me what waterboarding is?

i keep thinking its something like wave boardingquote>

LOL same...

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: xmike1991

and would someone care to tell me what waterboarding is?

i keep thinking its something like wave boardingquote>

I posted  picture of one form of waterboarding, from the Vietnam war, above (even though the 2005 CIA director calls it "professional interrogation technique). But you're right: As Mort Rosenblum puts it, it sounds like a fratenity prank. The Argentinians called it "el submarino", and Gestapo had a similar name for it.

Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.

"In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn't know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat," Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. "It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured."

Washington Post

quote>

Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.

Wikipedia

quote>

Know from the Spanish Inquistion, Gestapo and the Argentinian Junta.

We Americans reviled torture, as individuals and as a nation. When it was exposed, we reacted. Torture was one reason we invoked for overturning Saddam Hussein.

Today, we Americans have come up with "waterboarding," which sounds like a fraternity prank. It is el submarino: cruel and, for a people that respects itself, unusual.

Obviously, we are a far cry from an Argentine military which put thousands to death in a long nightmare of official terror. But what are we prepared to accept?

Our justification is the same that was used in Argentina: What Dick Cheney calls harsh interrogation is needed to protect innocent people from terrorism. Our government contracts some of this harsh interrogation to private mercenaries who pledge no allegiances. Not even the Argentines did that.

IHT

quote>

[GreekMan 246]

what is waterboarding?

[Shingure 56]

I come at it in two ways

Waterboarding is torture , and cruel and unusal punishment which has been written into the BOR.

1. You can't put lipstick on a pig and call it a woman."- Meaning that you cant try to decorate it and make it look like it does something or makes something else justifiable. If you ask me sensory deprication seems alittle more effective.Waterboarding just doesnt do it and it makes that person irrate and in some cases insane for the weak.

2. " If it quacks like a duck, Waddles like a duck , smells like a duck , looks like a duck , then it's a duck. " Meaning if it looks like torture , it has the same effects as torture , other people and cultures say it is torture , then it's torture , Which is unusual punishment . Which for someone being tried in America is not constitutional in the least.

[The Boy 0]

Waterboarding isn't torture, even people who are in our military that have been water boarded didn't say it was torture. 3 people have been water boarded, with those three, one being a mastermind behind 9/11 it took him or someone else, 30 seconds to give up info, it was reliable, and I do believe they acted on it. I'm not against putting water up peoples noses who want to cut our heads off with a pocket knife, then show the world. But. I know it does have other effects such as if we go into another war, who are we to tell them, you can't torture our prisoners (I'm saying another war such as when Iraq and the middle east thing is over)... I'm fine though with terrorists who kill thousands of innocent people or who plan/will do it... but as I said another war, well that'd be kinda bad on our part.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: The Boy Waterboarding isn't torture, even people who are in our military that have been water boarded didn't say it was torture. 3 people have been water boarded, with those three, one being a mastermind behind 9/11 it took him or someone else, 30 seconds to give up info, it was reliable, and I do believe they acted on it. I'm not against putting water up peoples noses who want to cut our heads off with a pocket knife, then show the world. But. I know it does have other effects such as if we go into another war, who are we to tell them, you can't torture our prisoners (I'm saying another war such as when Iraq and the middle east thing is over)... I'm fine though with terrorists who kill thousands of innocent people or who plan/will do it... but as I said another war, well that'd be kinda bad on our part.quote>

Most won't agree, including your own military, which has banned the practice. There even waas a time were the US punished people for doing this.

"Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering," said John Sifton, an attorney and researcher with the organization Human Rights Watch. "That would include water boarding."

On "Good Morning America" today, Goss told ABC News' Charles Gibson that the CIA does not inflict pain on prisoners.

Yet, in response to Gibson's inquiry if water boarding would come under the heading of torture, Goss simply replied, "I don't know."

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

"The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

"Even when you're fighting against belligerents who don't respect the laws of war, we are obliged to hold the laws of war," said Rejali. "And water torture is torture."

This morning, Goss insisted that the CIA and its officers are not breaking U.S. law.quote>

Good to see that not all Americans are put of byt having the same set of values as Gestapo, DINA, the Argentinian Military Junta and so on.

[xmike1991 2]

yea, getting water up your nose hurts like hell. thats just a little bit of water. imagine alot.

[Odainsaker 2,133]

For those who asked...waterboarding is a physically applied technique for simulating drowning.  In one version, a prisoner is held down immobile on the ground with their face up, and with a rag or cloth covering the head so that they cannot see.  Water is then poured onto the cloth over their faces such that it pours into the nose, mouth, and lungs in a scenario of temporary drowning.  A sequence of pouring water and then allowing the panicking victim to gag it out is repeated.  You can watch the wet cloth to see when the victim breathes air as a guide for when to pour for optimal intake.  This was the nice method I got to sample enduring, and is what you are seeing in the photograph.  Notice the victim has to be securely held immobile, because the physical shock and pain will make them wildly struggle out of instinctive reflex.

The old medieval method was to strap the person to a board or chair whose chairback was pinned to a water tank.  The sequence would be to repeatedly tilt the board or chair backwards to submerge the victim upside-side down in the water, making them feel the panicking effects of drowning, but always raising them back out just before they actually pass out or die.  Obviously, this method takes more setup equipment, usually housed in your old castle dungeon or, for modern organizations, secret Rooms of Special Purpose far out in Extrajudicial Territory.

Your henchmen have to be skilled enough not to accidently kill the prisoner, either directly by drowning or by unintentionally inducing some other medical problem.  And be absolutely sure you are doing it to the "bad" people, even if that means you have to cleverly redefine words like "torture" and "enemy combatant" or play ipso facto games of "if we got you, you must be guilty."  Just be sure your troops in the field are carrying their numerous excess "evidence" guns, so that if there are any of those Mistakes-Which-Never-Happen, they can conveniently plant an excess gun on the body and claim they had killed an armed insurgent.  Heaven is high above and CNN far far away...no one important will ever see.

Metal cage facial masks with caged hungry rats separated from succent cheek flesh by a trigger-latched cage door can be effective too!  That will get those terrorists to spill the beans.

[ilikehotdogsalot 307]

Waterboarding is when they blindfold you, and put throw water over your head so you think you're drowning.

[panthersimcity4 162]

Like I said before, if we torture prisoners we're just as bad as Al Qaeda and everyone else who tortures. It's a harsh thing to say but it's true.

It's actually revolting to think our government actually does this.

[nazaguy 0]

Why not rename it to Freedom-Boarding? That will stop the questions.

[The Boy 0]

Originally posted by: panthersimcity4 Like I said before, if we torture prisoners we're just as bad as Al Qaeda and everyone else who tortures. It's a harsh thing to say but it's true.

It's actually revolting to think our government actually does this.quote>

We aren't as bad as Al-Qaeda, we haven't killed thousands upon thousands of completely innocent people, not even in Iraq have we, http://thereligionofpeace.com thats something that will Justify my post here, its not torture either.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: panthersimcity4 Like I said before, if we torture prisoners we're just as bad as Al Qaeda and everyone else who tortures. It's a harsh thing to say but it's true.

It's actually revolting to think our government actually does this.quote>

Why is one only willing to sacrifice freedom and values in order to protect freedom and values? If you're not willing to defend your freedom and values with your life, they're not particularly important for you.