I think Brian Beutler makes a good point: Mukasey can't say that waterboarding is torture because the job of Attorney-General in the Bush administration essentially requires one to sign off on torture. Conceding during nomination hearings that to do so would be a crime would doom any future criminal defense that Mukasey may need to mount.
« Third-Hand Rumor-Mongering | Main | Vouchers »
Why Mukasey Can't Answer
31 Oct 2007 03:18 pm
Comments (96)
So many crimes have been committed by people in this admininstration that nearly every policy or personnel decision has to be filtered through the "Will this help land me in jail?" prism.
BTW, has any of the Democratic presidential candidates been asked whether they are going to be prosecuting anyone in the CIA who engaged in, or approved, waterboarding, since it is "obviously" torture.
I mean, there are people in the CIA who are "obvious" torturers. Isn't a Democrat going to prosecute them? Can we get a committment on this?
Pay no attention to the paid shills.
matthew, you're just now realizing the problem? and it took some help? i'm surprised at you.
i'm not surprised that al is telling us that torture isn't torture; disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised. it is now a badge of honor among right-wingers to support torture.
that said, i would love a democratic committment to prosecture torturers, starting with those who permitted the torture to take place.
Anyone threatening the CIA at the moment better have a lot of pull. Anything less might find them residing in a Syrian gulag dodging electrical cord.
How has this not been patently obvious from the very beginning to any thinking individual?
We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003.
How do you know?
Besides, clearly Bush believes he reserves the right to order waterboarding, since (a) he's approved it before, and (b) he insists nothing he's approved before is torture. Therefore, Mukasey knows there's a decent chance he'll be called upon to sign off on waterboarding. So his situation is, indeed, as Beutler describes it.
BTW, has any of the Democratic presidential candidates been asked whether they are going to be prosecuting anyone in the CIA who engaged in, or approved, waterboarding, since it is "obviously" torture.
I mean, there are people in the CIA who are "obvious" torturers. Isn't a Democrat going to prosecute them? Can we get a committment on this?
Though of course he has to preface it with the idiotic argument that somehow waterboarding isn't torture, for once Al makes a good point here. It's legitimate to ask Democratic candidates whether they'd let torturers in our government get off scot-free. Of course, the key would be to prosecute anyone who engaged in or approved torture, going all the way up the ladder to the Cabinet, the Vice President, or Bush himself. The fact that it wouldn't help the Democrats politically doesn't mean it isn't fair to expect real action rather than risk-free grandstanding.
Meanwhile, under this administration, no Attorney Generals who won't commit to prosecuting obvious crimes because they might have to prosecute the wrong people.
Then, um, don't confirm him. Yes, we'll get a recess appointment in December. So what? As I think you sort of put it the other day, Matt, any Democrat voting to confirm at this point is implicitly signing off on waterboarding. (Or maybe it was Ezra, who knows at this point.)
We all know he'll be placed into the office regardless, so that's really not the point. Dems aren't holding the office hostage. What they are doing is retaining moral authority here. Obviously, Mukasey can't tell the truth and also have this job. But Democrats can't let him refuse to tell the truth and confirm him for the job.
"I mean, there are people in the CIA who are "obvious" torturers. Isn't a Democrat going to prosecute them? Can we get a committment on this?"
we're just waiting on rove to realease those names, then it's a go.
AL you better believe it, we're going after those assess. BTW, I'll give a waterboarding lesson free of charge,let me know when you're available.
Of course he can't answer, which is why it is so great that the Dems are demanding that he does. Kudos to them for painting him into a corner. Well played.
I've never understood the need for extreme interrogation techniques. A guy in my office used to listen to CDs at his desk. He played the same two Celine Dion and Michael Bolton discs continously for 8 hours every day, day after day. Before a halt was finally put to it I was prepared (had I possessed them) to spill our nation's most critical nuclear secrets to make it stop.
Why never any talk about a torture warrant? It seems like it could satisfy all the ticking time bomb scenarios and still keep torture from being an official policy.
Great point, Matt!
How do you know?
I read it in the paper today (which also said it has been on only three prisoners). Of course, it could be a lie, given that it comes from a "knowledgable official".
Honestly, those ticking bomb scenarios are just so stupid. Since it's a given that we already waterboarded some people in the past, can anyone step up and assert that it was under the "ticking bomb" conditions that people LOVE to trot out? If not, then let us hear no more about the ticking bomb. And since the administration won't even bother to let FISA courts know after the fact that they were wiretapping, don't count on them to report that they tortured people after the fact, either.
Why even have such a thing as torture warrant? Even that goes too far toward institutioanlizing the practice.
There is already a perfectly good mechanism in place to deal with the Jack Bauer time-bomb scenario. If asked about such a hypothetical, a candidate should respond, "That would certainly weigh heavily in my pardon/clemency considerations."
Al: "We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003."
And Dennis "BTK" Rader hasn't killed anyone since 1991. Guess we should let him out, eh?
Do they report torture stats in the sports section?
...and that's if you assume Al's statement is accurate in the first place. Which I don't.
"Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said in recent speeches that of about 100 Qaeda suspects held since 2002 at the agency’s secret jails, harsh interrogation techniques were used on fewer than one-third. A knowledgeable official said on Tuesday that waterboarding was used on three prisoners, the last time in 2003."
"Why never any talk about a torture warrant?"
Because such a thing would assume 1) torture is sometimes legal, which it's not, and 2) that it would, given that the torturee under the "ticking bomb" hypothesis for which a warrant would be sought knows he only has to hold out a short time in order to acheive his aim, not likely be successful, and is thought not even to be successful in general situations, obtaining false information more often than true.
And finally, admitting that a warrant could be sought under the usual "ticking bomb" scenario would be contrary to the right wing's view that one should never seek approval of a judge because it might take too much time and the bomb would explode. Torture first is their motto, explain later.
So, Al, you believe everything you read in the papers from unnamed sources?
And you're conveniently ignoring my second point, which was that *regardless* of whether the US has waterboarded anyone since 2003, Mukasey knows full well that Bush believes he retains the right to order it again, and thus Mukasey can't say it constitutes torture. So Beutler's point stands.
Ignoring rebuttals of your argument doesn't make them go away.
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said in recent speeches that of about 100 Qaeda suspects held since 2002 at the agency’s secret jails, harsh interrogation techniques were used on fewer than one-third. A knowledgeable official said on Tuesday that waterboarding was used on three prisoners, the last time in 2003."
Well, geez, Al. Given your assertions (in this thread and in the past) that waterboarding is A) not torture and B) effective, shouldn't we have been waterboarding much more? Please advise.
If water boarding is torture, why aren't anti-waterboarding zealots demanding that the military stop doing it on American troops during SERE training? For that matter, why don't they review what happens in the Ranger Indoctrination Program? I'm sure they will find things they consider torture there too.
From my perspective, if we aren't doing anything worse to captured terrorists than we do to U.S. servicemen, I find it hard to get worked up about it, no matter how you want to label it.
Well, Fred, if I may quote a former SERE instructor:
Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.
Wasn't this patently obvious all along? Of course he can't say that it's torture, because he knows (as do all of us, unofficially) that it has been going on, and if he gets the job he will become an official "knower". If he states now that it's torture, he'll be duty bound to reveal the practice and prosecute the perpetrators and all who signed off on it, or be complicit in a war crime himself (no hyperbole here, that's what it would have to be called).
I don't understand your comment about "...doom[ing] any future criminal defense he may need to mount." Surely, as AG, he'd need to prosecute. Or is the AG role now fully recast as that of the President's personal attorney?
SERE participants can almost certainly stop the waterboarding any time they want, if they're willing to wash out of whatever program sent them there to begin with.
If water boarding is torture, why aren't anti-waterboarding zealots demanding that the military stop doing it on American troops during SERE training?
Do they detain each soldier indefinitely and waterboard him until- to invent another lurid example- he signs a disclaimer permitting his mother to be raped? The difference here is between massive pain and discomfort endured for a short period of time, and massive pain and discomfort applied open-endedly until the subject breaks.
(I realize I've written this same comment several times before, but the topic keeps coming up.)
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said in recent speeches that of about 100 Qaeda suspects held since 2002 at the agency’s secret jails, harsh interrogation techniques were used on fewer than one-third. A knowledgeable official said on Tuesday that waterboarding was used on three prisoners, the last time in 2003."
So haw many other non-"Qaeda" suspects have been held in those secret jails, how many of those have had to endure "harsh interrogation," and how many of those have been waterboarded? And how many others have been waterboarded in other countries by the agents in whose custody we have placed them? That is the very legalistic phrasing we have come to expect this administration to use to cover up their manifold crimes against humanity.
Fred -
Let's say you visited China to distribute Bibles.
And the Chinese government decided you were a spy and arrested and waterboarded you.
Would your attitude be that you weren't tortured, since US servicemen are trained to endure such treatment?
Eric Jaffa,
If I were arrested in China or another authoritarian country, and the worst they did to me was waterboard me, I'd say a prayer of thanks.
Fred:
SERE training subjects personnel to waterboarding because our enemies might do it to them. And if our enemies *did* capture our men and *did* waterboard them, wouldn't you denounce it as torture? Wouldn't you? Be honest. Have our troops always been fair game for this treatment? Waterboarding of US troops in Vietnam -- not an atrocity?
We train our people to expect law-breaking by the enemy. The fact that we do doesn't make it not law-breaking.
Or does the criminality of the act depend on who does it?
And as Mark said, using a particular method for demonstration purposes (and with the chance to opt out) is not morally equivalent to using it openendedly on unwilling subjects. Is it? Tell me how it is equivalent.
So, Al, you believe everything you read in the papers from unnamed sources?
Of course not. That's why I noted above that it could be a lie.
And you're conveniently ignoring my second point, which was that *regardless* of whether the US has waterboarded anyone since 2003, Mukasey knows full well that Bush believes he retains the right to order it again, and thus Mukasey can't say it constitutes torture. So Beutler's point stands.
Huh? I don't follow the logic from "Bush believes he retains the right to order it again" to "thus Mukasey can't say it constitutes torture". Why can't he? Even if he didn't want to be on opposite sides of the legal question from Bush, why couldn't he just say what he believes and hope the issue won't come up in practice during the next year? After all, if it is true that we haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003, then it seems likely that nobody's going to be asking Mukasey to sign off on it during 2008 either.
One meta point here: having a public discussion in the Senate about what interrogation methods should be legal is incredibly stupid: if future terrorists know the limits of what our interrogators are allowed to do, they can prepare themselves for it, and rest assured they won't face anything worse. Then they will have less motivation to talk.
The difference here is between massive pain and discomfort endured for a short period of time, and massive pain and discomfort applied open-endedly until the subject breaks.
But, of course, you have no idea which of those two options applies to what we did to the al Qaeda personnel.
Fred -
A suspected terrorist is a criminal suspect.
A criminal suspect shouldn't be physically coerced into confessing.
Ryan,
The "criminality" of an act is determined by laws. If you are referring to morality and general sensibilities, then sure, waterboarding is bad. You want to call it torture, you've got a semantic issue to deal with: there are some forms of torture that are common in other parts of the world but no one is advocating doing here; these often involve serious permanent bodily injury. Clearly, waterboarding isn't even in that ballpark. If you want to call waterboarding "torture", you need another word to differentiate this form of "torture" from the damaging stuff.
As a general rule of thumb, if it's done legally to U.S. servicemen during training, I'm not troubled by it being done to terrorists. You want to yell at them, deprive them of sleep, put them in stress positions? Go right ahead -- all that was done to me when I was in basic training. Shit, I was in a couple of stress positions last night, during my kick boxing class. In a few extreme cases, you want to waterboard them like we do to Air Force pilots and special ops troops? I have no problem with that.
As for waterboarding in Vietnam: A day of waterboarding at the Hanoi Hilton must have been like a spa day compared to their usual treatment.
Hey, Al, chew on this:
"A knowledgeable official said..."
It has come to mean that when "a knowledgeable official" says something in regards to any policy of the current government what he is actually knowledgeable about is the current line of bullshit the administration wants to spew. Whether this has any relation to actual fact is another question, generally to be answered in the negative. This is even more probable when the quote in question is printed in the NY Times. One has only to remember aluminum tubes which had "no other purpose" according to "knowledgeable officials" than atomic centrifuges, or that Saddam had, "without a doubt" reconstituted his nuclear weapons programs or had mobile biological labs. Knowledgeable officials also told us that no one in the White House leaked Valerie Plame's name. The list is nearly endless.
I'm prepared to accept Beutler's argument as proper logic and even as an acceptable outcome, with one proviso. That is that he also accept that the Senate cannot confirm a nominee to the position of Attorney General when that nominee refuses to answer so fundamental a question.
IOW, what this all amounts to is yet another reminder that while a president can implement national security policies alone, without support from congress, doing so has really bad consequences. It's a corollary to Justice Jackson's famous dictum.
In this case, it has resulted in it being literally impossible to fill the position of Attorney General -- because, as Beutler notes, any nominee must remain silent about these presidential policies, and the Senate cannot confirm any nominee who doesn't answer questions about those same policies.
We refer to this as a check and/or balance.
Ultimately, presidents do have to have congressional support for their policies, even if they can, in the short term, implement those policies without congress. It's the difference between having power to do a thing, and having authority to do it.
President Bush has accumulated a lot of power, but at the expense of having any authority.
I shall now sumarize Fred:
We're doing better than some pretty vile totalitarian regimes; within that limitation, who gives a fuck how we treat people? But we can't tell terrorists how far we're willing to go since they might prepare for it.
Now the unsaid logical conclusion of the above: therefore, we might be worse than totalitarian regimes, otherwise that would set an upper limit the terrorists could prepare for.
Bask in the glory of his paradoxical logic!
Lead poisoning is a real problem in this country.
As for waterboarding in Vietnam: A day of waterboarding at the Hanoi Hilton must have been like a spa day compared to their usual treatment.
Funny how John McCain doesn't think so. Hilarious, even.
if it is true that we haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003, then it seems likely that nobody's going to be asking Mukasey to sign off on it during 2008 either.
Uh, this does not follow at all. It depends entirely on the reason for the cessation -- maybe they ran out of (what they see as) suitable subjects, and maybe they'll capture more. If they stopped because they no longer believe they have the right to use this method -- well, that rather undermines your whole case, doesn't it?
"If I were arrested in China or another authoritarian country, and the worst they did to me was waterboard me, I'd say a prayer of thanks."
But we wouldn't. We'd be sending our Embassy CIA people over to make sure you got the full treatment.
Read this moron desperately trying to come up with some hair-splitting that works:
The difference here is between massive pain and discomfort endured for a short period of time, and massive pain and discomfort applied open-endedly until the subject breaks.But, of course, you have no idea which of those two options applies to what we did to the al Qaeda personnel.
Right, nitwit. We just applied it for a short time with no intention of doing it until he actually told us something useful.
Which means we do it just for fun, apparently, or maybe he called us motherfuckers so we did it for "punishment."
Moron.
if future terrorists know the limits of what our interrogators are allowed to do, they can prepare themselves for it, and rest assured they won't face anything worse.
"Worse" in terms of abusiveness, yes. "Worse" in terms of effectiveness, no. Non-abusive, non-torture methods are plenty effective at extracting information. They also generate far fewer false confessions. Ask any experienced interrogator. Among that fraternity this is not even arguable.
serious permanent bodily injury
...is an entirely arbitary standard you've chosen. What makes it torture, one might argue with equal foundation, is the sheer, concentrated terror that the experience induces. And to anticipate an objection: Yes, battle -- e.g. being under an artillery barrage -- can often induce the same sheer, concentrated terror. So that makes it OK to do it to prisoners, right? No, because a prisoner is supposed to be hors de combat, sheltered from its hazards. This is the very basis of international law governing war captives.
Don't like irregular militants having the rights of uniformed POWs? You started it -- by defining acceptable treatment for the former in terms of acceptable treatment for the latter.
"Lead poisoning is a real problem in this country."
No, the problem is there isn't enough "lead poisoning" of the right people.
As Chiun once said, "Armies create problems by killing many. The solution to all problems is to kill one - the right one."
Al and Fred are basically trolls. They come up with this crap just to piss people off whose general philosophy they don't agree with. The philosophy they do agree with is that alpha males can do anything and they'll just bend over for it while fantasizing that that makes them part of the "alpha male community".
In reality, they're just ass-raped cowards who are submissive to their masters Bush and Cheney.
In other words, punks. And I use the term in the prison sense as well as the street sense.
Al and Fred are the sort of people who become SS concentration camp guards - or US Bureau of Prisons Correctional Officers. They're the sort of people who need to be put out of our misery and that of the rest of the world.
And BTW Fred I note that you evaded my question, which I'll pose again:
And if our enemies *did* capture our men and *did* waterboard them, wouldn't you denounce it as torture? Wouldn't you?
Well?
"Funny how John McCain doesn't think so. Hilarious, even."
I think it's sad that McCain can't raise his arms above his head anymore; that's not waterboarding, but from the real torture he was subjected to.
"But we wouldn't. We'd be sending our Embassy CIA people over to make sure you got the full treatment."
Thanks, Hack. I guess I deserve that for giving you a stock tip related to your nanotech obsession. No good deed goes unpunished.
"Don't like irregular militants having the rights of uniformed POWs? You started it -- by defining acceptable treatment for the former in terms of acceptable treatment for the latter."
Was this comment directed at me? I never wrote anything about the rights of uniformed POWs.
"And BTW Fred I note that you evaded my question, which I'll pose again:
And if our enemies *did* capture our men and *did* waterboard them, wouldn't you denounce it as torture? Wouldn't you?"
If our enemies captured our men and all they did was waterboarded them, I'd be too busy breathing a sigh of relief and saying a prayer of thanks to denounce them.
Some clarity on this issue from a former Navy SEAL:
NY Daily News
I know waterboarding is torture - because I did it myself
By MALCOLM NANCE
Wednesday, October 31st 2007, 4:00 AM
Last week, attorney general nominee Judge Michael Mukasey dodged the question of whether waterboarding terror suspects is necessarily torture. Americans can disagree as to whether or not this should disqualify him for the top job in the Justice Department. But they should be under no illusions about what waterboarding is.
As a former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, I know the waterboard personally and intimately. Our staff was required to 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 employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.
Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.
In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.
Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
How much of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.
The lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again. Call it "Chinese water torture," "the barrel," or "the waterfall." It is all the same.
One has to overcome basic human decency to endure causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you questioning the meaning of what it is to be an American.
Is there a place for the waterboard? Yes. It must go back to the realm of training our operatives, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines - to prepare for its uncontrolled use by our future enemies. Brutal interrogation, flash murder and extreme humiliation of Americans may now be guaranteed because we have mindlessly, but happily, broken the seal on the Pandora's box of indignity, cruelty and hatred in the name ofprotecting America.
Torture advocates hide behind the argument that an open discussion about specific American interrogation techniques will aid the enemy. Yet convicted Al Qaeda members and innocent captives who were released to their host nations have already debriefed the world through hundreds of interviews, movies and documentaries on exactly what methods they were subjected to and how they endured.
Our own missteps have already created a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda's own virtual school for terrorists.
I agree with Sen. John McCain. Waterboarding should never be used as an interrogation tool. It is beneath our values.
Nance is a counterterrorism consultant for the government's special operations, homeland security and intelligence agencies. A longer version of this essay appeared on www.smallwarsjournal
I never wrote anything about the rights of uniformed POWs.
The SERE training, which (because it sometimes includes waterboarding) you said makes it OK to waterboard terrorist suspects, is training for conduct as *uniformed POWs*. You said standards of treatment for one are good enough as standards of treatment for the other. You can't then reverse yourself and claim that the two groups are not, in fact, comparable in terms of their status and associated rights. (Not that you did -- I was trying to head off an argument I thought you might make in response to mine. Probably not srictly cricket of me.)
But then again, this...
If our enemies captured our men and all they did was waterboarded them, I'd be too busy breathing a sigh of relief and saying a prayer of thanks to denounce them.
... is simply implausible. Obviously it's an unprovable hypothetical but I seriously doubt this is true. Let's just say waterboarding advocacy and a sanguine attitude toward abuse of American troops by terrorists are never, in my experience, traits found in the same person.
If the Democrats approve Mukasey they are doing so because they are sharing in the 2.4 trillion dollars that has gone or going into the Iraq sewer. You can't have people being put on trial for torture, they might talk about other things.
So if Mukasey is confirmed the US Government is probably a criminal conspiracy, and should be tried under Ricco.
If our enemies captured our men and all they did was waterboarded them, I'd be too busy breathing a sigh of relief and saying a prayer of thanks to denounce them.
Don't fucking do it around me. If anyone said anything like and I heard it, I would find the nearest toilet and give them a lesson in exactly what the hell they were talking about.
Fred: You missed the part where I basically stated that what you really deserve is a bullet in the head.
Not torture - although there is a certain sense in which torturing a torturer would seem appropriate, in reality it's pointless. And I never do anything that is pointless.
Just a straight bullet in the upper left portion of the forehead (as facing you), so you drop without a sound or any voluntary movement.
Anybody who advocates or supports or uses torture for any reason should get the same. And yes, that includes Saddam, the Iranian mullahs, the Vietnamese who tortured McCain, and anybody else you can name - including every single one of the US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantanamo who engaged in such behavior, and the officers who condoned it.
Execution is the appropriate way to deal with a torturer or someone who commits war crimes.
If our enemies captured our men and all they did was waterboarded them, I'd be too busy breathing a sigh of relief and saying a prayer of thanks to denounce them.
Don't fucking do it around me. If anyone said anything like and I heard it, I would find the nearest toilet and give them a lesson in exactly what the hell they were talking about.
Posted by Ed Marshall
Watch who you do it with, Ed. Choose your target very carefully. After the Gulf War, an enlisted guy in our sister division was threatened by 3 UCLA campus Lefties at a party as a "baby killer" and "moron slave shedding innocent blood for oil". Things were OK until they jumped him wielding weapons. One went down with crushed facial bones and badly bruised testicles. The 2nd, the smart one, ran. The 3rd had the wrist holding his club snapped then compound fractured from twisting to disarm him as the judo arm bar he used popped out the Lefty's shoulder socket. Guy was very calm and I was assigned as a "neutral" O-2 outside his reporting path to talk to the lawyers.
It was pretty simple. He was attacked by three guys with weapons after they provoked an argument with him due to his Armed Forces status. He tried backing away. Then, fearing for his life, defended himself. Using his hand-to-hand defense training. The assistant DA had no problem with it once she understood with my confirmation and training manual I supplied that they were legitimate disarming moves, and he feared for his saftey. No charges filed against him. 2 hospitalized Lefties. No big deal.
And, I think Fred said that given that radical Islamists never let their prisoners live. If I was captured by them, and all they did was waterboard me, "torture" me with a cold cell and shitty Arab music - I too would consider myself lucky.
*************************
Fred -
Let's say you visited China to distribute Bibles.
And the Chinese government decided you were a spy and arrested and waterboarded you.
Would your attitude be that you weren't tortured, since US servicemen are trained to endure such treatment?
Posted by Eric Jaffa
Jaffa - You do a common Lefty thing - "sanitizing" the terrorist, making him a peaceful, innocent civilian engaged in harmless ideological matters that could subject him to "torture and oppression" by Hitlerite countries like America unless all his "terrorist civil rights" for doing things as banal as distributing Bibles.
The reality...
American arrested for distributing Bibles in China w/o official China church permission is held for 1-3 days at most - then booted out of the country. If it was a harsh Islamoid place like KSA or Iran - he could be whipped and beaten - then let go. In China, the American would be questioned and the American would answer almost all questions without lying or holding back, except perhaps names of others - which might get him another day for pisssing off the low-level Interior Security Ministry or Tourist Branch official --as our Embassy worked his case...
On the other hand, if the Chinese arrested an American that was part of a plot to avenge Tibet by crashing planes into the Olympic events, distributing trillions of anthrax spores around? And many involved in the plot had done actions that had killed many CHinese?
Then you are in a completely different game. The American would refuse to talk about anything - and whether it was France with the DST, Indian Counterterror Force, Brazilian State Police, Japanese Interior Security Ministry, German Arbeit....the next step is to MAKE the deadly American talk. Same with China, same with us.
There is a reason why the Democrats in Congress have not addressed this with legislation that outright bans any or specific actions where we would do coercive interrogation on an unlawful enemy combatant outside Geneva Convention POW courtesies.
They don't want their name on it. They are scared to death to make a career-threatening vote and are content to just bully Executive Dept officials to take the accountability they avoid.
If radical Islamists kill US soldiers, thousands of US civilians...they do not want the enraged public seeing the names of Congressman X, Senator Y on legislation that holds terrorist civil rights higher than American's civil rights in wartime.
"Let's just say waterboarding advocacy and a sanguine attitude toward abuse of American troops by terrorists are never, in my experience, traits found in the same person."
Ryan,
On the rare occasions that American troops have been captured by terrorists, they would have been lucky only to have been waterboarded. You know this. Instead, they have been subjected to real torture and killed. Basing our policy on a hope of reciprocity from terrorists is daft. IMO, we have navigated a reasonable middle ground with the terrorists we have caught: we have treated them humanely, for the most part, and are attempting to have their cases adjudicated in some fashion (military tribunals), while not giving them the platform of civilian show trials or giving them Geneva Convention rights they don't deserve. When we have fought against conventional armies in the past (e.g., during the first Gulf War) we followed Geneva Conventions to a T with our EPWs, even though our POWs were tortured.
"Fred: You missed the part where I basically stated that what you really deserve is a bullet in the head."
How sweet of you. Say, just out of curiousity: do any of your customers read your comments here? I can't imagine them letting you into their houses if they did.
There's no point in taking Fred very seriously. He's more or less the least-common-denominator troll, instructive mostly in that he offers the purest distillation of whatever retarded troll talking point is going about on a given subject. For instance, I've read plenty of rightwing idiots give this line about how waterboarding isn't torture because American soldiers are subjected to it in training, as Fred does above. Obviously this is ludicrous: the whole reason they're subjected to it is because it's torture, and they're being trained to cope with torture if they're ever captured. Fred knows this. That's what makes him a troll.
"Obviously this is ludicrous: the whole reason they're subjected to it is because it's torture, and they're being trained to cope with torture if they're ever captured. Fred knows this. That's what makes him a troll."
You conveniently ignore the other examples I gave: verbal abuse, stress positions, and sleep deprivation. The last two, in particular, have been criticized as forms of torture, and yet these are used on American troops all the time -- and not just to train them to "cope with torture". Also, the reason why waterboarding is used in SERE training is because it can be done without causing any permanent injury. SERE trainers and trainees know that in reality, captured Americans would be lucky if waterboarding was the worst thing that happened to them.
Hey, Ford, I don't get into barroom brawls. I just shoot people straight in the head - preferably from 100 yards with a suppressed sniper rifle.
Never give a sucker an even break, I say.
I agree, Fred, Al, Chris - they're all right wing trolls. Their sole function is to go around and piss off everybody rational. This is their "contribution" to America. It's about as useful as dog shit on the street.
The "no permanent injury" crap is nonsense. You can kill somebody without otherwise causing "permanent injury" simply by sleep deprivation. And I imagine repeatedly flooding the lungs with water could easily cause permanent injury if not done under careful medical supervision. Not that these assholes care about causing permanent injury or not.
Not to mention that none of this nonsense about what other countries - or scumbags who are essentially identical to the right wing trolls - do is relevant to whether the US should do it for either reasons of competence or any other reasons.
The right wing trolls always like to take on the attitudes and procedures of America's enemies - whether it is torture, spying on citizens, removing civil liberties, vote fraud, getting American soldiers killed for no good reason, you name it. Ever notice that? Then they have the nerve to call themselves "American patriots".
In reality, they're traitors. They want to "destroy this country in order to save it."
You see, Fred, Al and Chris Ford are simply unprincipled sociopaths at best - there's no use talking to them on this matter.
Always fun to beat Lefties in their argument, and wait for the "trolls, trolls, trolls!!" shrieks to start.
The whole "Terrorist Rights" movement is at it's heart insincere. It is to politically damage Bush, and also, for many anti-Americans, a way to help the enemy and aid in America's defeat to teach the imperialists/baby killers/interventionists a lesson to not obey the Supreme Moral Authority of the UN and Lefty NGOs and lawyers.
The "torture argument" is for the most part made by people that know perfectly well what happens to any prisoner that falls in the hands of radical Islamists. But they make the argument because they hope to stampede sappy-headed people that think with their hearts instead of their brains that the world would be perfectly fine and they would be safe if "Only we talk more! Use Diplomacy! And be as Nice to Unlawful Combatants as We Wish They Would Be With Us!!"
"Even if we accept that waterboarding is torture (which it isn't, but accepting it arguendo), why does he have to "sign off" on it? We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003."
First, remember you think it isn't torture when an american soldier gets captured and films of him being waterboarded end up on the internet. Second, I didn't realize that the statute of limitations on prosecuting someone for torture was only 4 years.
Al - We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003.
– In 2005, the CIA subjected Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi to weeks of “enhanced interrogation.” CIA officials stated that he “finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.”
Please add to your fact book.
Shorter Fred/Al/Chris:
Its not torture, but anyone mind if we watch?
Let's just waterboard Bush and see if he still thinks it isn't tourture. That should solve the discussion.
Huh? Even if we accept that waterboarding is torture (which it isn't, but accepting it arguendo), why does he have to "sign off" on it? We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003.
This guy is obviously propagandized.
I think the only people that should be waterboarded are those who say it isn't torture. I believe they might change their minds after being subjected to it.
The US should not be torturing. They should be above that and criticizing those who do.
wow, all these tough guys who think being waterboarded is no big deal like going to a spa.
I wonder then, why it is employed?
If waterboarding is not torture, why did we prosecute and convict japanese war Criminals after WWII for it?
There are so many potential prosecutions the Dems could mount. Too many to count. I think the sad truth is that they don't want themselves or the public to see just how far they have allowed Bush to go in perverting the judicial system. I think they know that the legislative branch has been successfully neutered by Bush and don't want to face the consequences. They are kicking the can down the road.
Waterboarding isn't torture, but it is a tried and true method of identifying witches.
Throughout history, almost everyone who experienced the pleasant sensation of various forms of waterboarding confessed to having had sex with Satan.
From there they were able to experience the pleasant sensations of being cooked alive on an open pyre.
What I don't understand this time around is why everyone being waterboarded isn't confessing to being a consort of Satan. Only witches get the waterboarding treatment. If they weren't witches, then we wouldn't waterboard tehm.
So if someone in your neighborhood started waterboarding people for fun, they couldn't be arrested for this, because it isn't torture or a crime?
Pulling out fingernails probably does no permanent damage, either. It doesn't cause organ failure, so John Yoo and Bush would probably not consider it torture.
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has said in recent speeches that of about 100 Qaeda suspects held since 2002 at the agency’s secret jails, harsh interrogation techniques were used on fewer than one-third. A knowledgeable official said on Tuesday that waterboarding was used on three prisoners, the last time in 2003."
Assuming the statement is true (which I don't) the rebuttal is:
Semantical argument to avoid responsibility for misconduct. Considering the information we've received over the past five years, the procedure seems to be that the CIA will transfer the custody of the prisoner to the host country for interrogation. The torturers of the host country torture the prisoner during interrogation while the CIA watches and asks questions. At the end of the interrogation cycle (which may take months) the CIA takes back custody.
Presto, "We didn't torture."
However, we did. In reality. Because we were the prime actor in the process. Even if we didn't get, literally, blood on our hands.
For those of you arguing that waterboarding, stress positions, etc are not torture, do you have any idea what the precidents for their use are?
Waterboarding was used by the Spanish Inquisition.
Stress positions were used by Stalin in his gulags.
Sleep deprivation has been used by pretty much every totalitarian human rights violating group on earth, and it causes extreme mental damage, up to death.
Now, tell us more about how its not torture, and its cool that we use it.
Even if the CIA hasn't waterboarded anyone since 2003, does that mean no crime was committed?
Is the statue of limitations on torture less then four years?
And if waterboarding isn't torture, can I assume you'd let someone waterboard your loved ones until they begged for death?
And if you would like to see your children or mother waterboarded until they begged for death, then I can't place any value on your opinion.
Chris Ford, Fred and Al:
1) Waterboarding is torture, even though it's certainly milder than having your hand sawed off. So it doesn't really matter whether you would consider yourself lucky if you were only waterboarded instead of having your fingernails pulled out with pliers. You would still have been tortured under U.S. law. The debate about whether waterboarding constitutes torture, and your opinions about the question (or Mukasey's, for that matter), are quite irrelevant.
2) There are many U.S. laws currently in effect banning the use of torture. These include, at a minimum, the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 18 U.S.C. § 2340A) enacted in 1994, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our government has adopted the international laws, making them equivalent under our Constitution to domestically written law.
Once again, these are LAWS, not idealistic statements of how we wish things were in a perfect world and how we would like to behave if only the world weren't such a dangerous place.
They are LAWS, something Conservatives like yourselves normally have a reputation for respecting and believing in.
What is it you don't understand about "NO" ??
3) The shallow-minded "ticking time bomb" rationale seems to be enough to justify torture in the minds of a great many, perhaps most, Americans at this time in our history.
It is an intellectually lazy argument, and one that plays conveniently well for Bush. But it only takes another step in reasoning to see clearly that most of the torture we have perpetrated does not involve ticking time bombs at all. At Abu Graib, 90% of the torture was inflicted on innocent people caught up in dragnets--people such as hotel and store clerks who left work at the wrong moment--or who were turned in by personal rivals with grudges against them.
4) As a practical matter, even in the few genuine ticking time bomb cases that actually present themselves, professional interrogators seem unanimously opposed to the use of torture to get information, knowing as they do that psychological means are categorically more effective.
So, being obviously bright guys, what is it that you don't get about all of this?
Lets waterboard "Al". Ok, to be fair and in line with administration standards, lets simulate drowning only one third of him. Say, his fat head.
AlFredChris:
The point of us not torturing our prisoners is not to change the behavior of others, that's yet another GOP strawman.
We shouldn't do it because it's contrary to OUR values.
We shouldn't do it because it loses us the moral high ground to complain about others using it.
We shouldn't do it because it violates international treaties we signed and USED to honor.
We shouldn't do it because it produces unreliable information, AND produces significant blowback.
Does the entire GOP now jerk off to "24"?
How often does the "ticking time bomb" occur in reality? No, not reality TV, actual, in your face, reality. It's a convenient plot device on a fucking TeeVee show that already tries to fit 24 hours into 48 minutes.
The willing suspension of belief by the right has apparently turned the willing suspension of any rational thought.
Here is a video of water boarding in action (be warned, as you can imagine it is disturbing). It's sad for many conservatives this is OK and for wingnuts it's practically a litmus test. I agree with Court Jester, this behavior is not something I'm proud to be an American about. It reflects extremely poorly on the values and honor we hold as a Americans.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2007/11/01/bleh/index.html
"Unlawful Combatants!" "Terrorist Rights!"
Big Bad Chris just knows that these folks are guilty, even with no trial or conviction, so it is just fine to(not)torture them with impunity until they tell us what we want to hear.
Chris also likes hearing "Trolls, Trolls" and obviously hears it quite often. He is a scab picker who gets off on pus.
"Stress positions were used by Stalin in his gulags."
And they're used in basic training all the time - ask anyone who's served in the Army about the front leaning rest position. They're also used in the kick boxing class my girlfriend and I are taking at the gym. That doesn't make my drill sergeants or the kick boxing instructors Stalinists.
"We shouldn't do it because it's contrary to OUR values."
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to. Nevertheless, our values are why we use it so rarely, and don't use harsher methods.
"We shouldn't do it because it loses us the moral high ground to complain about others using it."
The moral high ground? You mean the sort of moral high ground we'd have if we deposed a brutal dictator and helped an oppressed people create a more pluralistic government for themselves? You can't hold that one out as an incentive when no matter how honorable the fight, the American left will seek to denigrate or devalue the efforts of our military.
"We shouldn't do it because it violates international treaties we signed and USED to honor."
Which international treaties? If you're talking about the Geneva Conventions, we'd be within our rights to summarily execute all captured terrorists as spies.
"We shouldn't do it because it produces unreliable information"
Do you really believe this?
"AND produces significant blowback."
Letting women vote in Afghanistan produced "significant blowback". Would you have preferred we didn't?
In Fred's world, letting women vote is the same as torture.
This is what the "Shining Beacon on the Hill" the USA, has been reduced to under this regime. We can't define torture because the government does it even though it is illegal around the world. We convicted Japanese citizens of "War Crimes" for performing it, and yet now in order to get a job in law enforcement with the federal government you have to be willing to say out loud that "There is no action that a government entity can execute that is illegal or immoral if it can be said that it was done to protect our country from a perceived threat." This idea is derived from the twisted thought that since we are "good" everything we do is good. If you are not on board with us, then you are "bad" and anything the good people do to you isn't their fault. The bad guy forced our hand. Besides if your bad you're feelings don't need to respected, YOU don't need to be respected.
Al: According the the Geneva conventions, waterboarding is most certainly torture. And regardless of that, its pretty damn obvious - do you actually know anything about waterboarding? Perhaps you should watch a video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kaj-larson/a-lesson-for-mukasey-why_b_70651.html
I think it is very telling that Fred has no problem being forced into a stress position (in a tiny cell not tall enough to stand in) for days at a time, while being forced to crap and urinate on himself.
A person like him that enjoys this, isn't sane to begin with.
His karate instructor should be jailed for doing this top him and his wife.
I don't believe that drill instructors cripple recruits in this fashion. They would be thrown in the brig for damaging government property.
That there is an argument about Waterboarding is absolutely insane.
Waterboarding is a criminal act. End of story.
I don't care if you had Hitler caught and needed info. Waterboarding is a crime. Simple as that.
Think of other ways to get the truth out of him, such as with mind-altering drugs and hypnosis. Painless and fruitful. Waterboarding is for assholes who simply want to visit their frustration onto someone else. They get off on hurt, get off on pain.
This is also why so many Republicans are S&M fetishists. They love to hurt other people.
Handsome Pete FTW.
Thats it, folks. Threads over. Comments are closed. Handsome Pete just PWNED it all.
Fred, you lose. Anything you say from now on about water boarding will merely be the cries of the loser, drowned out by the cheers for the victor.
Fred, Fred, Fred:
>"We shouldn't do it because it's contrary to OUR values."
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to. Nevertheless, our values are why we use it so rarely, and don't use harsher methods.
You can't be "a little" pregnant - torturing "rarely" means you torture people.
>"We shouldn't do it because it loses us the moral high ground to complain about others using it."Wow, that's a lot of strawmen in one paragraph. I'm not surprised you have difficulty with the concept of a moral high ground. The GOP like to preach, they just have problems with the "practice" part. It's called "hypocrisy". If Bush *really* wanted to depose Saddam, he could have done so for $1B, as we learned recently. This was a war of choice. Saddam was no worse than other dictators that the US has supported. Hell, in Azerbaijan they apparently boil people to death - but they're one of the good guys!
The moral high ground? You mean the sort of moral high ground we'd have if we deposed a brutal dictator and helped an oppressed people create a more pluralistic government for themselves? You can't hold that one out as an incentive when no matter how honorable the fight, the American left will seek to denigrate or devalue the efforts of our military.
And just how is that "pluralistic government" coming along in Iraq? The US is currently arming at least one side (and possibly BOTH sides) in a civil war. Yeah, that's gonna turn out well.
Lastly, and *REALLY* slowly:
criticising..the..reasons..for..sending..troops..into..harms..way..does..not..denigrate..the..troops
Denigrating them would be sending them into battle without proper armor and sufficient ammunition - oh wait....
Devaluing them would be putting them in the middle of a civil war, and keeping them there solely to buy your administration time to sneak out of office - oh wait...
Has your enjoyment of stress positions restricted bloodflow to your brain?
>"We shouldn't do it because it violates international treaties we signed and USED to honor."
Which international treaties? If you're talking about the Geneva Conventions, we'd be within our rights to summarily execute all captured terrorists as spies.
Only according to the Bush administration. In Afghanistan, the US offered a bounty ($500?) for turning people in. It was a lot of money in that part of the world. It's just one reason why a large proportion of the people at Gitmo have no intelligence value and shouldn't be there.
>"We shouldn't do it because it produces unreliable information"Yes. Do you really *not*? Turn off the TV and do some reading. There are people not as manly as you who will say anything to make the torture stop. They end up telling their torturers whatever they want to hear.
Do you really believe this?
"AND produces significant blowback."They're not voting now, are they? Women teachers in Afghanistan are being killed just for teaching. But I digress. Even the army now admits that the majority of the insurgents in Iraq are just ordinary people who *somehow* became enraged with the US occupation of their country. Not foreign fighters, not AQI, just Iraqis. What could have made them take up arms? Stories of torture and aggressive interrogation? Seems at least possible to me. Bush's BFF Osama has stated that he wants the US to stay and fight in Iraq.
Letting women vote in Afghanistan produced "significant blowback". Would you have preferred we didn't?
Best. recruiting. drive. ever.
While B. Beutler makes a valid point concerning Mukasey's refusal to unequivocally answer the question, he misses the crux of the reason as to why he refuses to answer. If Mukasey were to say that waterboarding is torture, that would mean it is a crime according to the Geneva Accords to which the US is a signatory. He would also be required as the top US judicial official to open a criminal investigation into whether waterboarding was done, who did it, and ultimately who approved it, all the way up to and including Rumsfeld, Tenet, Cheney, Gonzalez, and Bush himself.
This would open up a legal quagmire the likes of which has not been seen in this country. The [CIA] practitioners of the act would first come under criminal scrutiny, and because of the precedent set during the Nuremburg trials, the "I was only following orders" would not indemnify them. They may have some criminal relief due to A. Gonzalez's and J. Yoo's written opinions, but it would not help them in civil litigations, especially if the waterboarding were conducted on innocent people.
Bush & Co. realize this so they are keeping Mukasey from answering this question to save their collective necks, and personal fortunes.
Water boarding is torture based on US and international laws.
At the end of WWII the US tried and executed officers and enlisted personel of the Axis nations for performing torture and they included the practice of "water boarding" as well as temperature modification, sexual humiliation, and use of dogs in the definition of torture.
During the Korean war the US said North Korea was "torturing" our captured service men and used "waterboarding" as one of the techniques WE as the US felt was against the law.
During the Vietnam War, whoops, we did the same.
And oddly enough it's one of the things we were so upset about Sadam H. doing to his own people in Iraq that George Bush had to have the US invade Iraq.
So just because the Bush administration says they can "redefine" torture to mean "shooting people into orbit around another star" which the US clearly has not done, does not mean that water boarding is not torture.
MadGordy
The problem I see with the torture fans who are typing away is that it has never been demonstrated that you actually get actionable intelligence as a result. The whole idea of compromising one's integrity to no avail seems a bit silly to me. If there is a god I am sure that she/he would not approve. Old fashioned police work seems to work just fine. There is no reason to believe that OBL and his fans can establish the Caliphate in America. If you don't believe me visit any fishing pier in North Carolina. They are very bad. They can cause damage. They can not win. I would prefer that we not become them out of fear.
"Old fashioned police work seems to work just fine."
Old fashioned police work includes 'enhanced interrogation'. So does new fashioned police work. If you don't realize that, you've never spoken candidly with an NYPD cop, or you're just naive. It's happening right now.
Yeah, If I had a nickel for every time I've been waterboarded by the NYPD . . .
Someone has posted the recent report by Malcolm Nance, an interrogator experienced in the technique, who makes it clear that waterboarding IS drowning: slow-motion drowning, in which the victim's lungs are slowly filled with water until he begins a death spiral; then he is resuscitated and the procedure is repeated.
I wish that a member of the Judiciary Committee had read aloud Mr Nance's description of waterboarding to Judge Mukasey and then asked, "If an enemy used that technique to interrogate a captured American agent... would it be illegal under international law?"
Comments closed November 14, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
because the job of Attorney-General in the Bush administration essentially requires one to sign off on torture
Huh? Even if we accept that waterboarding is torture (which it isn't, but accepting it arguendo), why does he have to "sign off" on it? We haven't waterboarded anyone since 2003.
Posted by Al | October 31, 2007 3:32 PM