Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

http://www.youtube.com/v/hCWN9UWtWkc&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1


http://www.youtube.com/v/IG2VF4a0LWs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

I liked what Shepherd Smith said in one of these videos: "This is not a right or left (meaning political) issue. This is a right or wrong issue." I agree. America is the shining example to all the world. We..don't..torture.

GOP Leader Calls It Torture

While cable news outlets and major newspapers continue to use euphemisms such as "harsh interrogation tactics" to describe the Bush administration's approach to intelligence gathering, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) used a more succinct term Thursday: "torture."

"Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director," Boehner said at a press conference in the Capitol.

The techniques discussed include waterboarding, slamming detainees into walls, and depriving them of sleep for up to 11 days.

Boehner argued that a discussion of such torture techniques was "inappropriate," as it could tip off U.S. enemies to the tactics used and "denigrate" the United States and its allies. Torture is illegal under U.S. and international law.

MORE (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/boehner-memos-outline-tor_n_190547.html)...

U.S. Soldier Killed Herself -- After Refusing to Take Part in Torture

Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge."

A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian." And that might have ended it right there.

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, not satisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told me in late 2006 (there's a chapter about it in my book on Iraq and the media, So Wrong for So Long). He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here's what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported:

"Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."

She was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. "But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle," the documents disclose.

The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told me: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."

Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, which suggested that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note.

Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003.

LINK (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/us-soldier-killed-herself_b_190517.html)

Rice, Cheney Approved Waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) - Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice verbally OK'd the CIA's request to subject alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, a decision memorialized a few days later in a secret memo that the Obama administration declassified last week.

Rice's role was detailed in a narrative released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It provides the most detailed timeline yet for how the CIA's harsh interrogation program was conceived and approved at the highest levels in the Bush White House.

The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The narrative also shows that dissenting legal views about the severe interrogation methods were brushed aside repeatedly.

But even the new timeline has yet to resolve the central question of who inside the Bush administration first broached the idea of using waterboarding and other brutal tactics against terror detainees in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The Intelligence Committee's timeline comes a day after the Senate Armed Services Committee released an exhaustive report detailing direct links between the CIA's harsh interrogation program and abuses of prisoners at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Afghanistan and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Both revelations follow President Barack Obama's release of internal Bush administration legal memos that justified the use of severe methods by the CIA, a move that kicked up a firestorm from opposing sides of the ideological spectrum.

[...]

Days after Rice gave Tenet the nod, the Justice Department approved the use of waterboarding in a top secret Aug. 1 memo. Zubaydah underwent waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002.

In the years that followed, according to the narrative issued Wednesday, there were numerous internal legal reviews of the program, suggesting government attorneys raised concerns that the harsh methods, particularly waterboarding, might violate federal laws against torture and the U.S. Constitution.

But Bush administration lawyers continued to validate the program. The CIA voluntarily dropped the use of waterboarding, which has a long history as a torture tactic, from its arsenal of techniques after 2005.

MORE (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/condoleezza-rice-cheney-a_n_190340.html)...

Lawmakers: Congress Will Investigate Torture, Bipartisan Support In Place

The central debate dominating discussions of a possible investigation into torture by the Bush administration seems to have shifted sharply in the past few days: from whether such an investigation should take place, to now what form it will have when it comes.

If investigations actually do go forward, there seem to be three clear options: creating an independent commission, launching a congressional probe, or having the Department of Justice tackle the topic, likely by appointing a special prosecutor.

Each form has its champions, its benefits and shortcomings. Of the three, the Obama White House -- which still prefers no investigation at all -- is the least enthusiastic about Congress handling the matter. The president has said that if an investigation were to happen, he wanted it done in an independent and non-partisan matter by people above reproach -- qualities sometimes tough to come by in Congress.

MORE (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/lawmakers-congress-will-i_n_190497.html)

New Report: Bush Officials Tried to Shift Blame for Detainee Abuse to Low-Ranking Soldiers

by Senator Carl Levin

Today we're releasing the declassified report of the Senate Armed Services Committee's investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The report was approved by the Armed Services Committee on November 20, 2008 and has, in the intervening period, been under review at the Department of Defense for declassification.

In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse - such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan - to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as that made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a "few bad apples," were simply false.

The truth is that, early on, it was senior civilian leaders who set the tone. On September 16, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that the United States turn to the "dark side" in our response to 9/11. Not long after that, after White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales called parts of the Geneva Conventions "quaint," President Bush determined that provisions of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to certain detainees. Other senior officials followed the President and Vice President's lead, authorizing policies that included harsh and abusive interrogation techniques.

The record established by the Committee's investigation shows that senior officials sought out information on, were aware of training in, and authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques. Those senior officials bear significant responsibility for creating the legal and operational framework for the abuses. As the Committee report concluded, authorizations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody.

In a May 10, 2007, letter to his troops, General David Petraeus said that "what sets us apart from our enemies in this fight... is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings."

MORE (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-carl-levin/new-report-bush-officials_b_189823.html)...

...it would seem orders for torture came from the top...

I recall very well and I'm sure all of you recall as well when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the "higher-ups" were quick to affix blame on the lower-ranking soldiers on duty at that prison. Right-wing pundits were quick to dismiss the gravity of the charges by calling the whole mess a case of "high spiritedness" and mischevious behavior by those soldiers. You all know that you remember this.

When the storm of public outrage demanded that persons in positions of responsibility actually claim that responsibility, at that time the highest-up we could get was the female general in charge of the prison. I believe that ultimately she was fired from her position there and discharged.

And the real higher-ups in the Bush administration who were really responsible breathed a sigh of relief that they'd dodged a big mess. So they thought.

Not only has our President released certain relevant documents, so have other agencies and committees of our government released some of what they'd had to hold onto until the facts became declassified by President Obama.

What becomes immediately obvious is that two entirely separate branches of government (the civilian CIA and the military) both started using the same means of torture at the same time in violation of American law and the Geneva Conventions (our Supreme Court declared that treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo was to be guided by the Geneva Conventions). In order to believe that this was a mere low-level "high-spirited and mischevious" grunt soldier operation, you would also have to believe that the grunts at Guantanamo were in cahoots with the grunts at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and anywhere else Americans were engaged in administering torture.

And that just isn't possible. The extensive torture program was not the brainchild of some low-level Pfc in Iraq or Cuba who then spread his/her torture program around the globe.

So you have to look for the common link between the CIA and the military. You have to look for that magic connection between what the CIA does in their prisons and what the military does in their prisons and why did two prison systems under entirely different jurisdictions spontaneously implement the same torture program? Where..do..they..connect.

Yeah, that would be Washington, D.C. and the Bush Administration.

It was the Bush Administration that gave the go-ahead for the specialized training required to implement the torture program and then demanded that it be put into use.

But, it gets worse.

Cheney and Bush and Rummy and Rice and the rest of that White House gang told America there was no shadow of doubt that there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and that reason was sufficient to invade Iraq (and lose more than 4,000 American lives) in order to avenge 9/11 and to prevent future 9/11's. Even after Bush himself was forced to publically concede that there never had been a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam, Cheney was still repeating that lie. Many times.

In the run up to the Iraq invasion, it was essential to Bush's plans that "evidence" of the Saddam-Al Qaeda link be found and shown to America and the world. The CIA was sent out to collect said "proof" but they came back with "Sorry, no such evidence exists."

Bush and company had to do something to make it be true. And so the torture program was born even before the invasion of Iraq began.

With torture, they figured, they'd get terrorist suspects to reveal the "evidence" they so desperately needed. And so the torture program got itself born and with the highest level of government sponsoring such a program, then is it any wonder that different branches of government began instituting said program at relatively the same time?

Ron Suskind, author of The One-Percent Doctrine, noted that the "impetus was not to foil potential al Qaeda attacks. The impetus here was largely political and diplomatic. The White House had a political/diplomatic problem. It wanted it solved in the run up to the war."

People were tortured for the sake of "spin."

You can read more of Mr. Suskind's comments and see the video of him here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/ron-suskind-torture-emplo_n_190510.html).

FBI Weren't the Only Ones Objecting to Torture in 2002 -- So Did the Army, Marines & Air Force

There were already serious objections  (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/grown-ups-by-digby-marcy-reported-this.html) to the use of torture when the Bush administration made it legal in 2002 -- FBI chief Robert Mueller refused to let his agents participate in the CIA's "coercive interrogations" in June of that year (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/ssci-torture-document/), well before the Bybee memo made them legal on August 1.

But it's not like the FBI was alone in expressing those concerns. On October 1, the commander in charge of detainee interrogation at Guantanamo Bay wrote a memo requesting authority to use "aggressive interrogations techniques" that were similar to those outlined in the Bybee memo. It reached the desk of Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Joint Staff solicited opinions before making a decision. Here's what came back to them in November 2002 (PDF (http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Documents.SASC.061708.pdf)):

Air Force: Had "serious concerns regarding the legality of many of the proposed techniques...Some of these techniques could be construed as 'torture' as that crime is defined by 18 U.S.C 2340." Further, they were concerned that "implementation of these techniques could preclude the ability to prosecute the individuals interrogated," because "Level III techniques will almost certainly result in any statements obtained being declared as coerced and involuntary, and therefore inadmissible....Additionally, the techniques described may be subject to challenge as failing to meet the requirements outlined in military order to treat detainees humanely and to provide them with adequate food, water, shelter and medical treatment." They called for an in-depth legal review.

Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITM): Chief Legal Advisor to the CITF at Gitmo, Maj Sam W. McCahon, writes "Both the utility and the legality of applying certain techniques identified in the memorandum listed above are, in my opinion, questionable. Any policy decision to use the Tier III techniques, or any techniques inconsistent with the analysis herein, will be contrary to my recommendation. The aggressive techniques should not occur at GTMO where both CITF and the intelligence community are conducting interviews and interrogations." He calls for further review and concludes by saying "I cannot advocate any action, interrogation or otherwise, that is predicated upon the principal that all is well if the ends justify the means and others are not aware of how we conduct our business."

Army: The Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans writes: "As set forth in the enclosed memoranda, the Army interposes significant legal, policy and practical concerns regarding most of the Category II and all of the Category III techniques proposed." They recommend "a comprehensive legal review of this proposal in its entirety by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice."

Navy: recommends that "more detailed interagency legal and political review be conducted on proposed techniques."

Marine Corp: expressed strong reservations, since "several of the Category II and III techniques arguably violate federal law, and would expose our service members to possible prosecution." Called for further review.

Legal adviser to the Joint Chiefs, Jane Dalton, commenced the review that was requested by the military services. But before it was concluded, Myers put a stop to it -- at the request of Jim Haynes, the Department of Defense General Counsel, who was told by Rumsfeld that things were "taking too long." Over the objections of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Criminal Investigation Task Force, Haynes recommended that the "aggressive technique" be approved without further investigation. He testified that Wolfowitz, Feith and Myers concurred.

On December 2, 2002 Rumsfeld approved Haynes' recommendation with the famous comment "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"

One of the conclusions of the Senate Armed Services Committee report is that Myers screwed up:

Conclusion 11: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers's decision to cut short the legal and policy review of the October 11,2002 GTMO request initiated by his Legal Counsel, then-Captain Jane Dalton, undermined the military's review process. Subsequent conclusions reached by Chairman Myers and Captain Dalton regarding the legality of interrogation techniques in the request followed a grossly deficient review and were at odds with conclusions previously reached by the Anny, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Criminal Investigative Task Force.

They also conclude that "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there. Secretary Rumsfeld's December 2,2002 approval of Mr. Haynes's recommendation that most of the techniques contained in GTMO's October 11, 2002 request be authorized, influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Objections to torture aren't the exclusive terrain, as Bill Kristol likes to pretend, of "President Obama" and his "leftist lawyers" looking back on a "bright, sunny safe day in April" with "preening self-righteousness" and forgetting how "dark and painful" that chapter in our history was.

When Donald Rumsfeld approved "enhanced interrogation techniques" for Guantanamo Bay in 2002, he did so in defiance of the recommendations of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Criminal Investigation Task Force.

LINK (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/fbi-werent-the-only-ones_b_190708.html)

WASHINGTON TIMES:

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Top legislators knew of interrogations
Kara Rowland (Contact)

The CIA briefed top Democrats and Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees more than 30 times about enhanced interrogation techniques, according to intelligence sources who said the lawmakers tacitly approved the techniques that some Democrats in Congress now say should land Bush administration officials in jail.
Between 2002 and 2006, the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees "each got complete, benchmark briefings on the program," said one of the intelligence sources who is familiar with the briefings.

"If Congress wanted to kill this program, all it had to do was withhold funding," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the closed-door briefings.
Those who were briefed included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Rep. Jane Harman of California, all Democrats, and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama and Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, all Republicans.

The Democratic and Republican staff directors for both committees also were briefed, according to the intelligence source and to a declassified memo released Wednesday that detailed some of the Senate committee briefings.

President Obama last week released a series of memos that were the basis for the CIA's program and that laid out specific tactics, such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding, and their release has pushed the issue of blame to the forefront of the political discussion.

Some Democrats and liberal pressure groups have called for Bush administration officials who wrote the rules allowing enhanced techniques to be prosecuted, saying the tactics amounted to torture. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi have both left the door open for such prosecutions.

Seeking the facts about congressional approval, Mr. Hoekstra, the ranking member of the House committee, sent a letter Monday asking National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair, a retired admiral, to provide an unclassified list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who were briefed on the techniques.

"I believe their response was probably, 'Well, that's OK,' or otherwise they wouldn't have signed off on it," Mr. Hoekstra said when asked about other members who received briefings.

Members of Congress who were briefed have offered different recollections for what they were briefed on and what their responsibilities were for addressing the information.

Mrs. Pelosi has said she was briefed on waterboarding techniques only once, when she was ranking member of the House committee, and said that in that briefing CIA officials said they thought the tactic was legal and that the agency was considering using it.

"They come in to us and represent certain things. We can't talk to other people about it. We don't know whether it is true or false. We just know that it is a fact that that is what they have told us in these closed hearings and people hear different things in the same room, depending on their own experience," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters Wednesday.

Spokesmen for Mrs. Harman and Mr. Rockefeller didn't return calls seeking comment, but in a statement accompanying the declassified memo detailing Senate committee briefings Mr. Rockefeller said they weren't always told the truth.

"In the wake of 9/11 we all wanted to leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of terrorists to prevent future attacks. At that time and since, the Senate intelligence committee sought to work in partnership with the administration to keep America safe," he said. "But we now know that essential information was withheld from the Congress on many matters and decisions were made in secret by senior Bush administration officials to obscure the complete picture."

Also briefed on the tactics were former Rep. Porter J. Goss, a Republican, and former Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, who were both chairmen of their respective intelligence committees.

Mr. Graham told the Huffington Post on Wednesday that prosecutions "should not be taken off the table."

Mr. Blair, in a memo last week to his staff, also said Congress had been notified of the tactics: "From 2002 to 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques."

That line, in an April 16 memo to the intelligence community, was later deleted from a statement released to the public by the Obama administration.
The briefings to Congress were opened to the full intelligence committees after September 2006, when President Bush publicly acknowledged the program. But at least one of the Democrats privy to early briefings by the CIA has expressed an openness to prosecution of former Bush administration officials for their roles in approving the techniques.

Some in Congress have called for appointing a "truth commission" to examine the interrogation program and other Bush administration activities. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, has called for a bipartisan panel to look into the matter, as has his House counterpart, Chairman John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat.

Mr. Obama said this week he prefers to avoid retribution and that if Congress does appoint a commission it must avoid charges of politicization. The president also said any decision on prosecutions will be made by the attorney general.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and chairman of the Senate intelligence panel since January, earlier this week sent Mr. Obama a letter urging him to be open to prosecution of former Justice officials who wrote the memos. Her committee is conducting an investigation into the interrogation techniques.

A congressional aide, defending Mrs. Feinstein, said the senator was not briefed on the techniques until 2006 and she soon after took action to oppose them by drafting a bill to curb the tactics the CIA was allowed to use.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday, refused to answer questions from Republicans about her advice to Mr. Obama on the publication of the interrogation memos.

"I'm not going to share that with you," she told Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican.

Asked by Mr. Rohrabacher about former Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that the harsh interrogations had produced valuable intelligence, Mrs. Clinton said, "It won't surprise you that I don't consider [Mr. Cheney] a particularly reliable source."

Separately, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, and two other senators sent a letter Wednesday to Mr. Obama criticizing some of the interrogation techniques but urging Mr. Obama not to prosecute the former Justice Department officials who approved them.

"Moving in such a direction would have a deeply chilling effect on the ability of lawyers in any administration to provide their client - the U.S. government - with their best legal advice," said the letter, also signed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/23/top-legislators-knew-of-interrogations/print/

In the interest of disclosure, I think it's a good idea to show the source of articles as I have done here, to make it easier to discern the leanings of the publications. The above videos are obviously from Fox News. Having followed the links in the previous posts, they are primarily in the Huffington Post. Thank You.

Even the Washington Post is calling out Pelosi........this time I think she's bitten off more than she can chew.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
 
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A01

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange. .......

Pentagon may have up to 2,000 photographs of prisoner abuse

[...] The pictures were taken between 2001 and 2006 at detention centres other than Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison, confirming that abuse was much more widespread than the US has so far been prepared to admit.

The Bush administration had repeatedly blocked through legal channels appeals from human rights groups for release of the pictures, which are held by the Army Criminal Investigation Division. But the Obama administration late yesterday lifted all legal obstacles and the pictures are to be published by 28 May.

The justice department has initially agreed to the release of 21 images of abuse at detention centres in Iraq and Afghanistan other than at Abu Ghraib and 23 other pictures. It added "the government is also processing for release a substantial number of other images". Up to 2,000 could be released.

The pictures are similar to those from Abu Ghraib that in 2004 created shock around the world, caused a backlash in the Middle East and eventually led to jail sentences for the US military personnel involved.

[...]

Obama has consistently said he does not want to rake over history, fearing that it will deflect attention from his heavy domestic and foreign policy programme. But this week he opened the way for the prosecution of senior figures in the Bush administration and the establishment of a congressional inquiry.

[...]

The pictures will increase pressure for pardons for military personnel who were punished for abuses at Abu Ghraib. Their lawyers are arguing that the Bush administration portrayed it as an isolated incident, whereas in fact it was widespread and approved at the highest levels.

"This will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration's claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU.

[...]

The Bush administration, in blocking release of the pictures, had argued that they would create outrage but also that they would contravene the Geneva conventions obligation not to show pictures of prisoners*.

About a quarter of a million petitions were delivered to the attorney-general, Eric Holder, yesterday calling for prosecution of Bush administration officials responsible for approving waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

LINK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/24/photographs-abuse-iraq-afghanistan)

*I find this to be just a bit ironic... using the Geneva Conventions to block release of the pictures because, after all, the Bush administration wouldn't want to violate their human rights...

America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding

...On November 29, 2007, Sen. John McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/):

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

The folks at Politifact interviewed R. John Pritchard, the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. They also interviewed Yuma Totani, history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and consulted the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, which published a law review article entitled, "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts." Bottom line: Sen. McCain was right in 2007 and National Review Online is wrong today. America did execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding.

Ronald Reagan on Torture:

From his signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:


I found the above at Andrew Sullivan's blog (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/reagan-on-torture-prosecutions.html) (for those who don't know, he is a well-known conservative blogger).

PAY ATTENTION TO BUSH'S COMMENT AT THE TAIL END OF THIS CLIP:
http://www.youtube.com/v/zcbEuHGsQI4&hl=en&fs=1

Connect the dots...

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

Cases of waterboarding have occurred on U.S. soil, as well. In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834

neither Sheriff Parker nor his deputies
were pardoned by TX Gov Bush

that gosh darn Nancy Pelosi!

she didn't use her tremendous power/influence
to confront/overcome the machinations of
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/et al

someone indeed has too big a mouthful to chew
but I'm fairly certain it's not Pelosi

Shep is right on:
we are America and we. do. not. torture.

this issue isn't going away anytime soon
(fasten your seatbelts)

I would hasten to point out the human garbage referred to as "illegal combatants" are NOT covered under the Geneva Conventions nor are they entitled to the protection of the U.S. Constitution.  They are, literally, OUTLAWS, in the sense that they are completely beyond the protection of any law.  Their disposition, then, is completely at the discretion of those whose custody they find themselves in, in this case the U.S. Government in the person of the President and his assigns.  The President may order their immediate release.  He may order their detention in perpetuity.  He may order their summary execution.  He is at liberty, also, to order that they be tortured in accordance with whatever protocol he deems fitting and expedient.  This has been the legal standard for over 200 years -- until now. 

Affording these terrorists any legal protections whatsoever puts the U.S. at a grave disadvantage.  Consider; for their part, they exercise absolutely no restraint whatsoever in their depredations.  They represent no state.  They wear no uniforms.  They target non-combatants -- including women and children -- as a matter of first recourse.  They cheerfully torture, mutilate, and kill those unfortunates who fall into their clutches.  What does it benefit this country to afford them any legal status superior to that of a cockroach?  It benefits us NOTHING.  It only impedes the defense of U.S. interests, encourages more terrorism, and costs American lives.  Obama and the Democrats, by expending their energy in defense of the enemy, have demonstrated to the whole world their foolishness and complete unfitness to govern. 

America, along with other nations, has a number of individuals who have been the target of things like waterboarding. 

I have never been waterboarded and I wonder how many giving testimony have ever undergone that treatment?

Why not ask those that have had that experience, if the ends justified the means in the cases of these individuals?

I have not the experience, how can I cast a stone one way or the other?

I also know that sometimes, tough decisions have to be made. 

After waterboarding, will they be going after people who make guns?  Bigger and better bullets?

Historically ~

How many have died as part of the technique?  How many were damaged?

How many cultures still consider this an effective means of questioning?

Waterboarding wasn't invented by Americans (that I know of), so why would anyone want to do something that doesn't work?

the geopolitics of the region
(lack of a stable central government)
dictate that illegal combatants are the enemy

warlords/tribal factions are the norm
and we are engaged in a war w/ those who follow
an ancient/uncivilized mindset

I have no sympathy/empathy
for how they conduct their lives

they bastardize religious teachings
to justify the rejection of enlightenment,
while they enjoy/ensure their stranglehold
over the powerless in their societies

but having said that,
I cling to the notion that torture harms us
in ways that aren't readily apparent

there is a philosophy
which teaches that hostile/violent acts
harm the perpretrator
more than the victims of the acts

the harm/damage is done to the soul

I believe that our nation is a living being
and that it possesses a soul

torture by the US is the best recruitment tool
any Gulf region fanatic could ask for

sleep deprivation/noise bombardment/etc
are well w/in acceptable limits IMO

I specifically have waterboarding
and the other more extreme acts in mind
when I classify something as torture,
which can/will also be used to justify heinous acts
against our personnel anywhere on the planet

the parameters of conflict have evolved,
(or they have reverse-evolved to a primitive level)
and our conduct must evolve as well,
re our treatment of those who wage war against us,
whether or not they are issued a uniform

I completely understand your sentiment however, the United States is a nation of laws. Our Supreme Court declared that treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners is to be governed by the Geneva Conventions.

I don't really care about the fate of the terrorists held there (which does not include 100% of the prison population) but I very much do care about the "fate" of the law and how we, as a nation of laws, uphold our own laws and are guided by our own Constitution which states tha tthe Supreme Court has the final say in the matter and they did speak.

If any Senate or House or military commission finds that our laws have been broken, then we shall see how the law dictates what happens next. I don't know why any American would be against enforcing the law.

We can show the world just how strong a nation we are by following our own laws.

I would be interested in knowing what fate awaits any terrorist found guilty of acts of terrorism against the USA. Guantanamo is being closed. Where will they be shipped? Where will they serve out their prison sentences?

Not only that, it retroactively "justifies" in the minds of terrorists and their sympathizers all past and future acts of terrorism against the innocent such as the beheading of Daniel Perl or the massacre of schoolchildren at a spelling bee or the gunning down of tourists at a Greek airline counter or the homicide bombing of a teenage disco hangout or the slaughter of Israeli athletes... past, present, future acts of terror all now officially justified because America did it, too (so they say). And that is what they will say.

finngirl: 

I understand perfectly your aversion to torture and other harsh methods, but no one is compelling you to participate.  No one, either, is demanding that you participate in killings on the battlefield, which I suspect you also understandably find repulsive.  Though these things be repulsive, they're absolutely essential to the protection and survival of the American people. 

I ask you; if there were a nuclear device hidden in a U.S. city and you had in your custody an enemy combatant who might know the whereabouts of that device, what would you not do in order to prevent the ensuing holocaust, to prevent the horrific murder of hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens?  Personally, there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do in seeking to obtain information crucial to foiling such an attack.  Waterboarding, actually, could well be among the least abusive techniques in my toolkit under those circumstances.  Effectiveness would be my only criterion in evaluating any approach to interrogating the subject.  Frankly, I'd run the terrorists live through woodchippers -- feet first -- if I thought it were the fastest, best way to the information. 

My advice to those, such as yourself, who are too squeamish to confront the brutal realities of the world is to simply put it all out of your mind.  Avoid thinking about it, much the same way as most people avoid thinking about slaughterhouses while enjoying a steak dinner.  Leave the defense of the nation to the professionals who've volunteered for the task and thank God you're privileged to enjoy the protection and safety they provide. 

Like good German citizens during the Holocaust.


The "professionals" are still not entitled to commit torture. That is against our laws. Torture is un-American. You don't defend America by violating the essence of America. America is not a country that tortures. Except we did. And now the American people are entitled to answers about what crimes were done in their name. We are a nation of laws. We do not torture.

It is not simply some flip sentiment I express, but, rather, my well considered professional opinion.  Given my nearly 25 years' experience as a U.S. intelligence officer, that opinion is infinitely more valuable and worthy of heed than anything Barack Obama could offer.  As President, his opinion may form the basis of Government policy, but that doesn't alter the simple fact that he's wrong. 

As for ours being a nation of laws, this is true.  It is also true that the terrorists enjoy the protection of none of them, and, contrary to your assertion, under the Constitution the Supreme Court absolutely does not have the final say.  If you had bothered to actually read the U.S. Constitution, you would have learned that the judiciary is but one of three co-equal branches of government and, moreover, it was specifically intended by the framers to be the least influential.  Go ahead; read Article III.  It establishes but one court, the Supreme Court, and defines its jurisdiction, which is tightly circumscribed since all courts in the U.S. are courts of limited jurisdiction.  All other courts in the land -- as well as their jurisdictions -- are established by acts of Congress.  Now, I defy you to name the law under which any court in the United States has jurisdiction over the treatment and disposition of international outlaws, in particular those apprehended and detained overseas, in time of war, no less. 

Indeed, I agree we can demonstrate our strength by following our laws, not however by allowing 5 political hacks to make them up as they going along.  In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, "The Constitution is not a Suicide Pact."  Keep this in mind as members of the judiciary -- the un-elected, un-accountable branch of government -- seek to manufacture enemy rights designed to confer political advantage on leftist politicians at the expense of the public safety.  These vile usurpers already have American blood on their hands, and they will have more, much more, I fear. 

Excuse me, but the massacres and beheadings -- not to mention the 9/11 attacks -- all began long, long before any detainees were subjected to waterboarding.  The terrorists therefore obviously thought that they already had all the justification they needed.  It is their unprovoked and utterly inhuman depredations that justify the application of whatever means might be necessary to stop them. 

Specifically, what law forbids it?  The answer is NONE.  Illegal combatants are beyond the protection of any law.  Moreover, the enemy routinely tortures, mutilates, and murders.  As they have sewn, so should they reap.  By the way, what is torture.  One man's torture is another's day at the beach, after all.  I hear some people actually pay good money to be whipped.   ::MonkeyWink:: 

If you're so committed to the righteous cause of ending torture in the world, why haven't you pursued your agenda where it would do the most good?  Why haven't you travelled to, say, Teheran to protest against the Iranian government?  Perhaps a protest in Sudan would be more to your liking?  No?  Why not?  Don't bother to answer.  The reason is because taking a real stand against real evil entails real risks, the kind that those fighting the Global War On Terrorism run every single day.  It is they who are the genuine heroes of American righteousness -- not those who opportunistically criticize them from luxurious safety their heroism has provided. 

America does not torture. There is no justification for torture. We may simply agree to disagree.

‘Abu Ghraib US prison guards were scapegoats for Bush’ lawyers claim

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration.

The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.

The decision by President Obama to release the memos showed that the harsh interrogation tactics were approved and authorised at the highest levels of the White House.

Some of the guards who were convicted of abuse want to return to court and argue that the previous administration sanctioned the abuse but withheld its role from their trials.

The latest reaction to the released memos came as it emerged that the two psychologists hired by the CIA to craft the techniques that were used on terror suspects were paid $1,000 (£673) a day. Neither had carried out nor overseen an interrogation.

Twelve guards at Abu Ghraib were convicted on charges related to the abuse, which included attaching leads to naked prisoners, terrifying them with dogs, beatings and slamming them into walls. The wall-slamming was a technique authorised by Justice Department officials at the time, who also said that the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding was not considered to be torture.

Charles Gittins, a lawyer who represents Charles Graner, the ringleader of the guards who is serving a ten-year sentence, said that the memos proved his long-held contention that Graner and the other defendants, including his former lover Lynndie England, could never have invented tactics such as stress positions and the use of dogs on their own.

“Once the pictures came out, the senior officials involved in the decision-making, they knew. They knew they had to have a cover story. It was the ‘bad apples’ led by Charles Graner,” Mr Gittins told The Washington Post.

Ms England, a poorly educated Army reservist, was pictured holding a dog leash attached to a naked detainee, and also pointing at another being forced to masturbate. She was convicted in September 2005 of abusing prisoners and one count of an indecent act. She was sentenced to three years in a military prison and was paroled after 521 days. Shortly after leaving Iraq she gave birth to a son fathered by Graner. She lives in her home state of West Virginia.

Mr Gittins said the refusal by the Bush Administration to acknowledge that it had authorised such techniques during the trials of the prison guards — and the judges’ refusal to call senior administration officials to testify — undermined their defences.

Mr Gittins wants to take the case of Graner, who is halfway through his sentence, to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to argue that top Bush Administration officials kept their complicity from the defence.

Gary Myers, a lawyer who represented Ivan L “Chip” Frederick on the abuse charges, said that he was going to try to use the memos to have his client’s dishonourable discharge removed from his record.

“What we know is that we had at the time a rogue government that created an environment where this sort of conduct was condoned, if not encouraged,” he said.

He added, however, that relying on illegal opinions or orders would probably not be a defence.

LINK (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6207484.ece)

When the Nazis were put on trial after the Holocaust, many of them offered the defense, "We were just following orders." That defense didn't do them much good. That's because the orders the Nazis were given were illegal in the first place. Following an illegal order is not a defense.

Whatever was the appropriate military justice to be meted out to the American soldiers who participated in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and let's assume (for the moment here) the judgements and procedures were correct and fair, then if they were found guilty and sentenced, they should do their time.

But, if that's only the tip of the iceberg as in there are higher-ups in the chain of command even unto the White House that are responsible for authorizing, financing, training and administering a program of abuse, then those individuals responsible also ought to be put on trial. Don't just send the rank and file off to jail. If it's a jail-worthy offense - and obviously it is because people are sitting in jail right now because of it - then the persons who were actually in control need to face up to their own deeds.

President Obama seems to want to have the facts be known to the American people but he seems reluctant to pursue the matter as far as holding Bush administration officials accountable. Congress (Senate and House) are also getting into the mix. So we shall see what we shall see.

I personally wouldn't burden those serving in the military or in law enforcement with the task of extracting information from illegal combatants.  It's not within the scope of their duties.  Such matters are the exclusive province of the CIA, and it was precisely for such missions that the Agency was created in the first place. 

Please don't think that I am disrespectful of your views because I am not. I simply will never agree that torture is acceptable.

The American government post-WWII also was adamant that torture was not acceptable and executed Japanese military personnel for having committed the torture of waterboarding against our American soldiers. The American government called it torture then. They made it a "death penalty offense" then.

And now we are doing the exact same thing that was once considered so heinous by our government that it was a death-penalty offense? Not acceptable. America does not torture.

And yes, terrorists will warp truth and history and all their filthy deeds of the past become pure and justified as "freedom fighting" or standing up for Islam if, at any point, America indulges in the same acts or worse. America doesn't gun down tourists at airline counters or slaughter Olympic athletes or send suicide bombers into discos BUT, the terrorists will say, America DOES torture so all our terrorist murders of the past have become justified. Terrorists don't care about truth or logic. They just want to kill you.

The Bush administration developed and put into action this whole torture program as a "Plan B" in its run-up to the invasion of Iraq. They weren't just picking on terrorists for the sake of being meanyheads to terrorists, they wanted proof of a direct link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. When they could not get that evidence (because it never existed) from all available intelligence resources, they went to this Plan B, a.k.a. torture, in the vain hope they would get what they needed to convince Congress, the American people, and the world that an invasion of Iraq was a military necessity. Even with torture in place, they still were not able to squeeze out that magic Osama-Saddam link.

The Bush administration was quite willing to burn the CIA and its individual agents. Not only did they do dirty to Valerie Plame, they burned every CIA operative and informant and any other individual that could be identified as having worked with Ms. Plame (just because she may have "retired" from active field duty, that does not magically erase her face or any memories of her associations from the minds of unfriendly-to-America agents).

I found this interesting excerpt from this article (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus26-2009apr26,0,7993273.column):

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23220

“Train like you Fight, Fight like you Train” is the motto of the world’s most elite pilots, the US Navy’s. Based on lessons learned from survivors of the brutal North Korean and North Vietnam torture of US military prisoners of war, the Department of Defense ordered all branches of the services to implement comprehensive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs. Every member of Congress should be extremely well versed on the military S.E.R.E. programs since they have had direct oversight and funding of these programs for over 40 years. Viewing the most recent Congressional hearing, one must assume that they are ignorant of or intentionally misrepresent the very programs that they fund and support.

My personal experience with S.E.R.E. training came as a junior pilot flying the F-14A “Tomcat” at NAS Miramar, California. The US Navy S.E.R.E. program requires all Aircrew Members and members of Special Operation Teams (SOF) to undergo both classroom and field experience in these vital techniques. Classroom and field training was accomplished by a cadre of highly trained and disciplined personnel, many of whom had been held as POW’s and tortured by the North Vietnamese.

What actually happens in S.E.R.E. in the field? Classes of 40 or more “students” are put through beach and water (swimming) survival techniques, similar to the TV show “Survivor” but without the rewards challenges. The class is then moved to a remote location to survive and evade prior to entering the US Navy run POW camp. The operation of the evasion complex is based on the trainee being briefed on the enemy position and the location of friendly forces. The object, “to make like a bush”, be patient and deliberate and use all your new taught skills to evade a large contingent of simulated enemy combatants in uniform. They speak like the enemy, act like the enemy, and most importantly train you on how to react to the enemy. While they fire AK-47’s over your head, and search for the ugly “American War Criminals” (thanks Jane), you spend agonizing hours crawling and hiding in an attempt to reach safety. As in real life, few if any make it to safety when behind enemy lines.

When captured you are brought to an initial holding facility. Hands and feet bound and hooded you are thrown into a barbed wire holding cell. As a former football player and wrestler I felt confident that I had that “John Wayne” attitude, Name, Rank and Serial Number….nothing more. Life and the Navy were about to teach this million dollar trained, blond headed, college, Fly Boy a new and most important lesson.

When brought into the first “interrogation”, hooded and hands bound, I was asked the basic questions, no problems...then I was asked a question -- the first among many not permitted under the Geneva Convention. Congress, the media and some of the public have forgotten a very basic and important tenant of the Geneva Convention. Terrorists, insurgents, IED Specialists, Suicide Bombers and all those not wearing a uniform in war are not in any form protected by the Geneva Convention. I did not answer the interrogators’ questions: then the fun and games began.

Carefully using a technique of grabbing your shirt at the pockets and wrapping his fists so that his knuckles pressed into the muscles of my breast plate, the instructor flung me across the room karate style and into a corrugated wall. No more questions; around and around the room I flew, a dance which while blind folded and hooded made me feel like “Raggedy Andy” in a tug of war with two bullying kids. Following the first interrogation we were loaded into trucks, bound and hooded, head to who knows were...for the first time real fear starts to set in and you look for inner strength in your heart, training and comrades.

Arriving at the POW Camp I was kept hooded and placed in a small box, 2 feet wide, 3 feet long and maybe 3 feet high. I was left the fetal position, sitting on my butt, stripped nearly naked (just week old BVD’s) and left sealed with your defecation can inside your box. Heat, cold, isolation, no communications, and constant noise, music, propaganda, coupled with verbal abuse by your captors is the norm, 24/7. Every twenty minutes or so the guards come by your box and rattle it, sneaking up and demanding to hear your War Criminal Number (thanks again, Jane, for the classification). No more name, rank or serial number, they want some real answers to real security questions. You agonize in your isolation as your hear other members of your group being pulled out for more “personal one on one interrogation”. Then it’s your turn. Pulled from your box you are again brought in for questioning. If unhappy with your answers or no answers, the “Raggedy Andy” dance began again with vigor in the cold night air.

Then it was time for the dreaded waterboard. What I didn’t know then, but I do now, is that as in all interrogations, both for real world hostile terrorists (non-uniformed combatants) and in S.E.R.E. a highly trained group of doctors, psychologists, interrogators, and strap-in and strap-out rescue teams are always present. My first experience on the “waterboard” was to be laying on my back, on a board with my body at a 30 degree slope, feet in the air, head down, face-up. The straps are all-confining, with the only movement of your body that of the ability to move your head. Slowly water is poured in your face, up your nose, and some in your mouth. The questions from interrogators and amounts of water increase with each unsuccessful response. Soon they have your complete attention as you begin to believe you are going to drown.

Scared, alone, cold and in total lack of control, you learn to “cooperate” to the best of your ability to protect your life. For each person that level of cooperation or resistance is different. You must be tested and trained to know how to respond in the real combat world. Escape was the key to freedom and reward.

Those students escaping would be rewarded with a meal (apple, and PB&J sandwich) was what we had been told by our instructors. On my next journey to interrogation I saw an opportunity to escape. I fled into the woods, naked and cold, and hid. My captors came searching with AK-47’s blazing, and calls to “kill the American War Criminal” in broken English. After an hour of successfully evading, the voices called out in perfect English. “O.K., problem’s over…you escaped, come in for your sandwich.” When I stood up and revealed my position I was met by a crowd of angry enemy guards, “stupid American Criminal”! Back to the Waterboard I went.

This time we went right to the water hose in the face, and a wet towel held tightly on my forehead so that I could not move my head. I had embarrassed my captors and they would now show me that they had total control. The most agonizing and frightful moments are when the wet towel is placed over your nose and mouth and the water hose is placed directly over your mouth. Holding your breath, bucking at the straps, straining to remain conscious, you believe with all your heart that, that, you are going to die.

S.E.R.E. training is not pleasant, but it is critical to properly prepare our most endangered combat forces for the reality of enemy capture. Was I “tortured” by the US military? No. Was I trained in an effort to protect my life and the lives of other American fighting men? Yes! Freedom is not Free, nor does it come without sacrifice. Every good American understands this basic principle of our country and prays for the young men and women who have sacrificed and are out on the front lines protecting us today.

Now, let’s see Congress: Maybe forty or so students per week, let’s say 100 minimum per month, 1,200 per year for over twenty or thirty years? It could be as many as 40,000 students trained in S.E.R.E. and “tortured” at the direction of, and under the watchful eye of the Congressional Majorities on both sides of the aisle. Be careful that the 40,000 of us who you have “tortured” don’t come after you today with tort claims. I heard it pays about $3 million per claim.

Congress, you need to get the politics out of the war zone and focus on your job. Gaining information in non-lethal interrogations against non-uniformed terrorists is what is protecting our country today. If you had done your job the past twenty years perhaps one of my favorite wingmen in the F-14A would be alive today.

Lt Tom “Stout” McGuinness of the VF-21 “Freelancers” went through S.E.R.E. training during my tenure. But when it came down to the crisis moment, his “interrogators” did not give him the waterboard. They merely went into the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11, slashed Tom’s throat, and flew the first aircraft into the North Tower of World Trade Center on 9/11.

Congress, let me ask you a very simple question about your leadership and your sworn responsibility. It is a yes or no question, and you have a personal choice to make.

Would you endorse the use of a waterboard interrogation technique against a terrorist like Mohamed Atta al Sayed, the leader of the highjacking of American Airlines Flight 11 or not. The answer for me is simple: “turn on the hose.” If you answer anything else, then God help America because Tom died in vain.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The original Frank "Spig" Wead graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1917 and was a founder of Naval aviation. "Cdr. "Spig" Wead is the pseudonym of a retired naval aviator who served in the post-Vietnam era.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

McCain Unequivocally Says That Waterboarding is Torture
4/20/2009 02:24:00 PM

Sen. John McCain on Fox News this morning said, in no uncertain terms, that waterboarding is undoubtedly torture. Reacting to the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, McCain had this to say:

"One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can assure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us."

http://www.youtube.com/v/imIMJjhHqQQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

McCain: We Violated the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture
4/26/2009 10:58:00 AM

On Face the Nation this morning, Sen. John McCain just said that the U.S., under Bush, violated the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. He underscored his comments by saying that torture is wrong, counterproductive and doesn't work.

MCCAIN: [Torture memo author Jay Bybee] falls into the same category as everybody else, as far as giving very bad advice and misinterpreting fundamentally what the United States is all about, much less things like the Geneva Conventions. Under President Reagan, we signed [the Convention] Against Torture. We were in violation of that."

After my recent link to a video of waterboarding, I got an email from a Harvard Law classmate with some thoughts:
Stuart -- Just read your comment on waterboarding. I can't help but mention the fact that waterboarding's presence as an integral part of US military training has been completely ignored (as far as I can tell) in the discussion of this practice. I have many, many friends that were waterboarded as part of the POW resistance training program the USMC used in the mid-nineties. (I was not subjected to it becase as a line infantry officer, I was not thought a likely candidate for being taken prisoner; when things go badly, line infantry officers generally die instead of getting taken prisoner. However, anyone who was expected to operate behind enemy lines, like pilots and reconnaissance types, had to go through the training.)

In fact, our classmate ________ (who you probably know [Yes.]) waterboarded himself when he was working on the Church report on interrogation techniques; he concluded that he would talk immediately, as has everyone I have known who has undergone this treatment. This highlights one of the amazing things about waterboarding: it is basically impossible to resist, yet does no lasting damage (as opposed to, say, pulling out someone's fingernails), assuming it's administered correctly.
I emailed my classmate back with some concerns, and here are his responses:
I would respond by saying that we don't shoot troops in the kneecaps in training, we don't use thumbscrews in training and we don't pull out people's fingernails in training. Why is that? Because those treatments all do lasting damage to the recipient. On the other hand, US military POW resistance training routinely uses sleep deprivation, temperature change, and waterboarding. The reason these get used is because even though they can be highly, highly unpleasant, they don't do any lasting damage to the recipient. They all also seem to have very positive results in getting people to talk. Waterboarding is unique because it works so quickly, so in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, it's especially valuable. But I don't see a meaningful distinction between waterboarding and sleep dep/ temperature change (anyone who has been seriously sleep deprived, e.g. Darkness at Noon, or experienced real cold, knows how unpleasant that treatment can be). I look at it as our military does this in a controlled, highly thought-out manner to our own troops, and doesn't consider it treatment that your average 23-year-old Marine can't handle; why would we see it as treatment that your average insurgent can't handle?

* * *

Also, I should note that I am not 100% sold on the coercive techniques outlined above, but it is striking to me that among all the media horror about waterboarding, it seems to have been totally ignored that we do this to our own troops all the time.

You also asked about an innocent guy who would say anything to make it stop. That's a problem, no question. I think in order to use any of these techniques you would have to meet some threshold for believing that the person had crucial information. That's why it's essential that this all be done in an out-in-the-open, highly thoughtful way, and not in the sub-rosa way that the McCain approach ("we'll make these techniques illegal, but we won't charge people who use them in really important times") would encourage. When people can put their heads together and determine whether someone is of a level that warrants this treatment, it will decrease (but not eliminate) the chances of innocents being waterboarded.

http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2006/10/more-on-waterboarding.html

I guess if it's good enough for our guys...................

President Obama has banned the use of the interrogation techniques described in the memos. The White House did not respond to inquiries Monday and Tuesday on whether the president would ban the use of waterboarding during military training as well.
 
A Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005, released by the Obama administration, revealed that the CIA, in waterboarding al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was able to gather information that allowed the U.S. government to stop a 9/11-type attack on Los Angeles.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46974

Where's the outrage that our own military is/have been 'tortured'? Thousands and thousands of them! They all lived to tell the tale.

Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, "You do what you have to do." And then take the responsibility

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043003108_pf.html

As far as inaccuracies are concerned, you're perfection itself!  Where does one begin?  Lets start with Japanese war criminals.  The U.S. and Japan were both signatories to the Geneva Conventions and the uniformed service members of each were entitled to the full protections thereof.  The Japanese, however, treated U.S. POWs with complete barbarity, withholding medicine & medical treatment, and subjecting them to starvation and murder.  Have you never heard of the Bataan Death March???  That was why some Japanese officers were put to death at war's end, not because of some stupid waterboarding incident.  By contrast, the Al Qaeda terrorists, are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions, nor do they represent any state, nor do they make any effort at all to abide by the Geneva Conventions.  In fact, the terrorists strenuously endeavor in all their actions to violate every standard of armed conflict they embody.  No one in his right mind would afford them the protection of conventions they so notoriously flout.  Finally, U.S. law is completely silent regarding their treatment and status.  The Al Qaeda terrorists are therefore entitled to nothing, not even humane treatment.  Some died in captivity, you say?  Cry me a river.  My only possible regret would be if they somehow managed to take valuable secrets with them on their journey straight to Hell.  Other than that, why should anyone care? 

Valerie Plame burned?  Surely you jest.  Valerie Plame was absolutely not a covert operative.  She was a headquarters desk jockey who hadn't served in the field for years.  She was, however, married to a political operative for the John Kerry Campaign -- Joseph C. Wilson -- and she used her position to insinuate him into the foreign policy debate.  Wilson then publicly and deliberately lied about U.S. intelligence in order to undermine public confidence in the Bush Administration and thereby enhance John Kerry's electoral prospects.  Wilson and Plame did grave injury to this country and are deserving of every good citizen's contempt. 

Finally, I would hasten to point out that U.S. servicemen in defense of freedom have routinely been subjected to the most barbaric treatment by practically every enemy this country has faced since the Revolutionary War.  Why don't you devote your energies to investigating those abuses and to holding the perpetrators accountable?  Why not work to help someone who actually deserves your sympathy?  I suspect it's because you're really not at all interested in eliminating torture or promoting humane treatment, per se.  Rather, I suspect you have a political agenda and that you will readily promote the interests of this country's enemies if you consider it advantageous to your cause.  In 1943, if anyone in this country had dared to publicly denounce the government's "unfair" or "brutal" treatment of NAZI spies, he would have been immediately shouted down and kicked to the curb by his fellow citizens.  Since then, our society has lost its way.  We no longer demand fidelity to the Constitution and homefront solidarity in the face of our enemies.  No, we tolerate and even reward those who make common cause with the enemy.  It's a disgrace, and it might very well be our undoing. 

I have been respectful toward you and everyone else on this website regardless of their political point of view. I enjoy healthy debate. I have looked for common ground with you in spite of any differences of opinion. I have shown you respect.

Your comment is an extreme personal attack and a clear violation of SM's TOS for use of this forum. You have imagined up some "cause" in your own mind that your wish-fulfillment fantasy demands that I believe in and you use that to accuse me of the crime of treason. I have no connection to your fantasies so leave me out of them. Making a false accusation of the worst sort of crime that any American citizen can commit ought to get you banned from this website.

Please address no further comment to me and I will not respond to you. I think that is best. I can see that you are not interested in respectful debate and perhaps you never really were.

One thing you will never do is to make me act like you so with that said, adios.

What are Democrats doing to keep America safe?" It charged that Mr. Obama's decision to close Guantanamo and end harsh interrogation techniques that some criticize as torture would put the United States at risk of another terror 9/11-type attack.


http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/04/democrats-dont-fund-obamas-bid-close-guantanamo/

Dems don't fund bid to close Guantanamo

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2244037/posts

Dodd open to torture investigation.

"If people in fact did something that was illegal, they should be pursued," Dodd said.

 ::MonkeyLaugh::  That's funny.

Although it may be out of context . . . it's still funny!

 ::MonkeyLaugh:: can you say..."hypocrite" ...

 ::MonkeyLaugh::

Yeah, and we can (both) spell it; see it; label it.

(Dodd foot says, "Please don't shoot me . . . again!"  )

Source: Charges Unlikely for Lawyers Over Interrogation Memos
A person familiar with the inquiry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says investigators recommended referring two of the three lawyers to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/05/justice-nears-end-interrogation-memo-probe/

Odd, that lawyers will be referred to bar associations? Why are they not to be given their day in court? They should be able to face their accusors in open court, rather than likely having lives/careers destroyed by state bar associations.

oldie, of course it isn't.

SteveinMD has been a long-time poster at SM and personally I find his posts insightful. Torture in theory and in the reality of the world we now live in, simply isn't an easy debate for anyone. I abhor torture theoretically but Steve has provided a great deal of thought-provoking information regarding our realistic posture in dealing with heinous terrorists that as you said, just want to kill us. I would take that one step further however, they want to maim and make us suffer heinously and in agony while they kill us.

When I think of the images of Daniel Pearl going to his death after torturous captivity, I do struggle to consider those types of terrorists as human, frankly I think sub-human may be more accurate. Some evil in this modern world the normal rules do not apply to. We also are no longer discussing the threats of standard or even high-tech warfare, but rather extreme masochists with no respect for human life in our form as US citizens.

I will also admit you lost me when you defended Valerie Plame.

Toler has also raised a most compelling caveat - how do we reconcile that some of our military are trained with torture practice to equip them with critical skills necessary to prepare them for what they may face in captivity? This is experiential training that many would state there is no substitute for.

I think this has been an important conversation on this thread and I do not feel anyone has insulted you, disagreed with you yes, but not insulted you. IMO

These are difficult issues and it requires a thick skin to peel the onion.

I went to bed thinking about this topic and I wanted to clarify that when we think of terrorists as purveyors of mass murder, I think it is equal to the holocaust to great degree. Was torture ever utilized with the Nazi war criminals? If so, by what countries?

My daughter saw this feed on AOL today and forwarded to me, for it's a bit unique in that now the terrorists (yes US and Canadian youth now joining up with Al Qaeda), is using rap to evangelize their message and recruit. The entire video is worth a look see.

http://news.aol.com/article/al-qaida-hip-hop-video/464007?icid=main|main|dl8|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fal-qaida-hip-hop-video%2F464007

well I didn't even get the music genre correct, it's hip hop not rap.....

finngirl . . .It's your flag, and his flag, and my flag.

What is your solution?  Beg for equal treatment of our legitimate, uniformed soldiers?  Serve tea at four?

We attempt to be civilized; but, there is a limit.  You would hamper and hogtie US.  What will you do to our Al Qaeda enemy that would dissuade them from actions far worse than we use?  Make them adhere to the Geneva Convention?  They didn't sign.

Tell us your solution, and prove it will succeed.

Nonesy, my late husband underwent airborn survival training in Washington State and the Phillipines. I never once heard him use the word 'torture', he said he was interrogated.
I think it's time to shelve the word..torture!!

On his second day in office, President Obama ordered the Pentagon to mothball Guantanamo within one year, purportedly to reclaim the "moral high ground." That earned applause from the anti-antiterror squadrons, yet it is now causing all kinds of practical and political problems in what used to be known as the war on terror.

 
APThis mess grew even more chaotic this week, when Democrats refused the Administration's $50 million budget request to transfer some of the remaining 241 Gitmo detainees to a prison likely to be somewhere in the U.S. and perhaps to a new one built with taxpayer dollars. "What do we do with the 50 to 100 -- probably in that ballpark -- who we cannot release and cannot try?" Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently asked Congress.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165410800493933.html

 Jessica Lynch's hospital bed was located near a window overlooking a soccer field near the grounds of the hospital. She had been forced to watch as some of her team members were tortured, beheaded and buried.


http://frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34730

THAT"S torture.

chemically enhanced interrogation

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-babbin031703.asp

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/07/60II/main548221.shtml

I agree Toler.

Clearly a decision made for the "effect" and not the wisdom needed to plan for all the required next steps.

I don't disagree, oldie and Finngirl were terming it torture and I was trying to speak to those concerns. My late husband served in the first Gulf War and died from chemical impacts he suffered there. I would term having to hear his oncologist state this was the most "virulent case of melanoma I have ever seen and the accelerant was clearly the chemical exposures in the war".........I would call that torture for those who loved him.

Please extend my thanks to your husband for his valiant service to his country for our benefit.

TORTURE

If you would rather weaken US than weaken our enemies . . . what kind of world will you produce?  In this war, our enemy believes in kidnapping, robbery, murder, slavery, suppression, complete dictation, no freedom and absolute power.  We will not be able to fight the oncoming tide of these radicals with overwhelming goodness, or kill them with kindness.  You can’t solve this problem with “Political Correctness”—the other side is not listening.

Yes, there should be some careful limits; but, those limits should not be dictated by groups of the unwilling around the World.  The unwilling of the World will tell US what we can or cannot do because we will listen and weigh the information.  They fear the Radicals who would lop their heads off.

We should add to the toolbag; be careful what we use on whom; and not broadcast our secrets.

Crikey, not only did I state it badly the first time, screwed up my post the scond time!   ::MonkeyConfused::

having trouble locating one/or more of my posts,
where I advocated:

killing suspected terrorists w/ kindness
serving them tea at 4
interrogation via political correctness
hampering/hogtie-ing the US

TIA for any help in locating my post(s)

Although I was using the collective we (proponents of harsh treatment) and the collective you (opponents of harsh treatment,) feel free to tell us which measures you (singular) would approve to gain information.

The topic is more than interesting . . . it's vital to our Nation.

I appreciate the clarification ... thank you

a person's credo has many facets:
familial/cultural/social/political
and, hopefully, religious/spiritual

some religions have been twisted
to the point where zealots are created,
ready/eager to change/control the world

if you believe that righteousness = persecution,
then each/every act of violence against you
increases your sense of righteousness
and hardens your resolve

our enemy mistakes kindness for weakness
and we certainly must guard against that ...
by ignoring the inner voice which tells us
that it's possible to win hearts and minds

I totally support chemically enhanced interrogation:
sedatives/barbituates
amphetamines
psychedelics (LSD/STP/psilocybin)
burundanga (zombie dust)
cannabis/hashish

opioids would induce a "nod"
(and most likely no useful info)
but I would not be against instigating addiction
to create a bargaining tool

the use of alcohol is not an option
because the effects are not as easily controlled
and, given our enemy's religious mindset,
it would confirm our status as the great satan

the proper administration of pharmaceuticals can:
lower inhibitions
weaken the strongest opposition
produce amnesia of the event
(think: twilight dentistry)

it may not provide as much satisfaction
as cracked skulls/broken bones/internal bleeding
but, w/ fine tuning per each person's body chemistry,
it would produce the desired result:
bona fide information

perhaps pharmaceuticals, w/ enough trial/error,
could also be used to facilitate hypnosis

I would want official denial of those methods,
as their admitted use would invite misuse in return

let our enemy wonder how we achieve our success,
w/o techniques which fuel their persecution complex

we have many 21st century tools at our disposal
and I think they should be used
to blow these 6th century bastards into oblivion

there's a theory that Finns descend from Genghis Khan
but even while calling on my inner Mongol warrior,
I cannot support:
simulated drowning
sexual abuse/humiliation
lobotomy
electro-shock therapy

I would want official confirmation
that those acts are not being committed by us

::: pretty much anything else is OK :::

ps: could we hide the use of pharmaceuticals
from the Int'l Red Cross?

(nothing ventured/nothing gained) :wink:

This article is from a conservative columnist, so in the interest of disclosure, I wanted to say that up front. If that offends anyone, let me suggest you ignore the commentary but pay attention to the facts presented. Coulter is reliable for her research skills, and the facts here are relevant to the discussion on this thread. Thanks!


WATCHING MSNBC IS TORTURE
by Ann Coulter
May 6, 2009

The media wail about "torture," but are noticeably short on facts.

Liberals try to disguise the utter wussification of our interrogation techniques by constantly prattling on about "the banality of evil."

Um, no. In this case, it's actually the banality of the banal.

Start with the fact that the average Gitmo detainee has gained 20 pounds in captivity. There's even a medical term for it now: "the Gitmo gut." Some prisoners have been heard whispering, "If you think Allah is great, you should try these dinner rolls."

In terms of "torture," there was "the attention grasp," which you have seen in every department store you have ever been where a mother was trying to get her misbehaving child's attention. If "the attention grasp" doesn't work, the interrogators issue a stern warning: "Don't make me pull this car over."

Farther up the parade of horribles was "walling," which I will not describe except to say Elliot Spitzer paid extra for it.

And for the most hardened terrorists, CIA interrogators had "the caterpillar." Evidently, the terrorists have gotten so fat on the food at Guantanamo, now they can't even outrun a caterpillar.

Contrary to MSNBC hosts who are afraid of bugs, water and their own shadows, waterboarding was most definitely not a "war crime" for which the Japanese were prosecuted after World War II -- no matter how many times Mrs. Jonathan Turley, professor of cooking at George Washington University, says so.

All MSNBC hosts and guests were apparently reading "Little Women" rather than military books as children and therefore can be easily fooled about Japanese war crimes. (MSNBC: The Official Drama Queen Network of the 2012 Olympics.)

Given what the Japanese did to prisoners, waterboarding would be a reward for good behavior.

It might be: waterboarding PLUS amputating the prisoner's healthy arm, or waterboarding PLUS killing the prisoner. But waterboarding on the order of what we did at Guantanamo would be a reward in a Japanese POW camp.

To claim that the Japanese -- architects of the Bataan Death March -- were prosecuted for "waterboarding" would be like saying Ted Bundy was executed for engaging in sexual harassment.

What the Japanese did to their POWs made even the Nazis blanch. The Japanese routinely beheaded and bayoneted prisoners; forced prisoners to dig their own graves and then buried them alive; amputated prisoners' healthy arms and legs, one by one, for sport; force-fed prisoners dry rice and then filled their stomachs with water until their bowels exploded; and injected them with chemical weapons in order to observe, time and record their death throes before dumping them in mass graves.

While only 4 percent of British and American troops captured by German or Italian forces died in captivity, 27 percent of British and American POWs captured by the Japanese died in captivity. Japanese war crimes were so atrocious that even rape was treated as only a secondary war crime in the Tokyo trial, similar to what happens during an R. Kelly trial.

The Japanese "water cure" was to "waterboarding" as practiced at Guantanamo what rape at knifepoint is to calling your secretary "honey."

The Japanese version of "waterboarding" was to fill the prisoner's stomach with water until his stomach was distended -- and then pound on his stomach, causing the prisoner to vomit.

Or they would jam a stick into the prisoner's nose so he could breathe only through his mouth and then pour water in his mouth so he would choke to death.

Or they would "waterboard" the prisoner with saltwater, which would kill him.

Meanwhile, the alleged "torture" under the Bush administration consists of things like:

-- "failing to respect a Serbian national holiday"; or

-- "forgetting to wear plastic gloves while handling a Quran."

Finding out who started the tall tale about "waterboarding" being treated as a war crime after World War II would take the talents of a forensic historian, someone like Christina Hoff Sommers.

After years of hearing the feminist "fact" that emergency room admissions for women beaten by their husbands soared by 40 percent on Super Bowl Sundays, Sommers traced it back to an unsubstantiated rumination erupting from a feminist rap session.

But the lunatic claim was passed around with increasing credibility until it ended up being cited as hard fact in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and on "Good Morning America."

One of the earliest entries in the "waterboarding as war crimes" myth must be this October 2006 article in The Washington Post, citing a case raised by Sen. Teddy Kennedy -- and heaven knows Kennedy understands the horrors of a near-drowning:

"Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk."

Even if that description of what Asano did were true -- and it isn't -- the only relevant word in the entire paragraph is "civilian."

Any mistreatment of a civilian is a war crime. So every other part of that paragraph is utterly irrelevant to the treatment of prisoners of war, much less non-uniformed enemy combatants at Guantanamo, who could have been shot on sight under the laws of war.

What Americans need to understand is that under liberals' own "laws of war," they will invent apocryphal incidents from history in order to give aid and comfort to America's enemies and to undermine those who kept us safe for the past eight years.

COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

http://www.anncoulter.org/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=311

Exactly CBB, thank you for finding and posting this. It was time for a dose of reality.

FYI, Wanda Sykes said Rush Limbaugh should be waterboarded and our president smiled???

one set of rules for the goose yet another for a rabid republican?

Frankly I'm disgusted by all the double-talk

I used to like NBC.  At some point, it turned into a combination of late night television, Sponge Bob, and Third Rock from the Sun.  I try to get that alternative point of view, but it is just so alienating and painful.

 ::MonkeyNoNo:: ::MonkeyShocked::

Whoops! Lindsey Graham Cites Retracted Report As Proof Torture Worked

Hmm, not a great moment. While directing hostile questioning at a witness during the Senate torture hearing, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham cited an infamous ABC News report from 2007 that said a terror suspect broke under minimal waterboarding, and suggested it undercut the claim that torture didn’t work.

But Graham didn’t appear to be aware that the report has since been debunked, and that ABC itself has since corrected the record.

Graham referenced this ABC News story (http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3978231), which aired former CIA officer John Kiriakou’s unverified and second-hand claims that suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah broke after being waterboarded for under a minute. Graham said the suspect had been broken “within 35 seconds.”

Unfortunately for Graham, that ABC story is the same one that got lots of attention last month, including a front-page piece in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28abc.html?scp=1&sq=%22brian%20ross%22&st=cse), because it was contradicted by the revelation in the torture memos that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded over 80 times.

After that Times piece ran, ABC itself did another story  (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7471217&page=1) conceding that its earlier one had been wrong.

Graham didn’t seem to be aware of this during the hearing, however. When the witness pointed out that the story had been debunked, he stared into the distance without saying anything and moved right on to a new round of questioning.

LINK (http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/whoops-lindsey-graham-cites-retracted-report-as-proof-torture-worked/)

Soufan: Torture Is "Amateurish Technique"

Ali Soufan, who has participated in interrogations of high-level terror suspects including Abu Zubaydah, is giving a detailed explanation of superior intelligence methods, within the Army field manual, that don't involve torture.

Soufan said that when he used such methods on Zubaydah, they produced actionable intelligence in less than an hour.

As for torture, said Soufan: "This amateurish technique is harmful to our long-term interests. It plays into the enemies playbook."

Soufan made clear: "My interest is not to advocate the prosecution of anyone." Rather, he wants to see us learn from our mistakes.

LINK (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/soufan_torture_is_amateurish_technique.php)

From conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan:

A Convenient Death

The torture victim who gave Cheney the false evidence that Saddam and al Qaeda were operationally linked - a person who might have shed new light on why Washington ordered his torture - committed "suicide" in his Libyan jail yesterday after months of being missing. My take on what this could mean here (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/tortured-to-justify-a-war.html).

Thank you for giving your opinion, finngirl!

I'm getting really frustrated with the "torture" controversy. I might be guilty of oversimplifying, but to me, it is simple.

I make a distinction between military POW's captured on a battlefield and terrorists. Military forces have military targets and everybody is armed, and everybody expects the presence of enemies and everybody knows and understands what their purpose is. Our military is there on a voluntary basis and they go in knowing the risks and the rules and they get paid to be there.

Terrorists have civilian targets. Most terrorists have stated a purpose of world dominion and a destruction of civilization that is different than their own ideal. They speak of annihilation of religions and cultures that challenge their own beliefs, if only by virtue of being different their own.

OK. Having said that, I believe there's a parallel to bring the torture controversy down to a level that is easier to assess by looking at a hypothetical:

If 2 hours ago YOUR CHILD were kidnapped by a proven murdering kidnapper (Guy had done it before and killed his victim by burying alive with only enough oxygen for 4 hours), and the police captured him, what exactly would you instruct the police not to do in order to get the information of your child's whereabouts from the kidnapper?

I don't see a difference in the stated intentions of terrorists (to destroy the US and Israel, bolstered by the reality of their intentions: 3,000 Americans at work and play were murdered in a day when our country became victim to a determined philosophy that freedom and individual liberty must not survive) and the kidnapping of a child. Terrorist organizations STATE their constant threats and strategies and plotting to kill American citizens. If those plots can be averted by obtaining information from those terrorists that aided the last mass murders, then I believe we have an obligation to OUR citizens as well as to a determined moral threshold we will not cross. According to the terrorists themselves, the clock is ticking.

I agree, some good alternate suggestions.  Use chemicals to enhance interrogation.  I think that idea has been around for a while.

If Terrorist interrogation practices are reduced to questioning while a lawyer is present, we might as well call in the 3rd graders of a local elementary school to conduct the procedures.  Time outs will be restricted to daylight hours.

(imo) Very little should be off the table, and none of it should be telegraphed.  Whatever level the current Administration cares to place the limits should be determined by the President.  The “Buck Stops Here” means the responsibility is with the President; and, the President should be very concerned with his/her position to protect the People.  I don’t see that concern with the current Presidency.

This is WAR, not a school playground dispute.

Conservative Radio Host After Being Waterboarded: "Absolutely Torture"

Conservative radio host Eric "Mancow" Muller decided to have himself waterboarded to show it's no big deal.

His response after enduring several seconds of having water poured on his face?

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke." He added: "Had I known that it was that bad I wouldn't have done this ... I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

http://www.youtube.com/v/qUkj9pjx3H0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

And remember: this was in a controlled setting where the victim knew he wasn't going to be harmed.

 ::MonkeyDance:: Now THIS is what an independent sounds like!!! You go, Jesse!!!!  ::MonkeyDance::

http://www.youtube.com/v/FSra-McRZEc&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

US violated Geneva Conventions, Bush Iraq commander says

The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, said Friday that the US had violated the Geneva Conventions in a stunning admission from President Bush’s onetime top general in Iraq that the US may have violated international law.

“When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those,” Gen. Petraeus said on Fox News Friday afternoon.

[...]

Asked about a “ticking time bomb” scenario — which is often employed by torture’s defenders — Petraeus said that interrogation methods approved for use in the Army Field Manual were generally sufficient.

“There might be an exception and that would require extraordinary but very rapid approval to deal with but for the vast majority of the cases our experience… is that the techniques that are in the Army Field Manual that lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them, those techniques work, that’s our experience in this business,” he said.

He also acknowledged that the US prison at Guantanamo Bay has inflamed anti-US hostility.

“I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo,” Petraeus said. “Gitmo has caused us problems, there’s no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard.”

“I don’t think we should be afraid of our values we’re fighting for,” he added. “What we stand for and so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to ope rationalize them in how we carry out what it is we’re doing on the battle field and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith I think in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.”

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/JDPMCDfdqQk&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1

New report appears to directly contradict White House denial on abuse photos

A new report appears to directly contradict denials by the White House and the Pentagon that abuse photographs the Obama administration has withheld are worse than previously known.

In a posting Friday, an American reporter says he’s confirmed allegations printed in British newspapers that unreleased photographs of US servicemembers abusing prisoners include graphic images of rape, sexually explicit acts, sodomy and forced masturbation.

Probably most notable is an alleged photograph showing a man in a US military uniform receiving oral sex from a female prisoner.

The detailed descriptions of the photographs may provide new insight into what’s actually included among the images the administration has said it won’t release in response to a civil liberties group’s lawsuit.

Scott Horton, a journalist for Harper’s Magazine who also writes for The Daily Beast, wrote that (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/) the photographs “depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.”

Specifically, Horton writes of a photograph that allegedly shows Specialist Charles Graner, the convicted Abu Ghraib guard made famous in already released images, suturing the face of a prisoner.

“The suturing appeared to serve no ostensible medical purpose than perhaps Graner’s attempts to humiliate or terrorize the prisoner,” he writes. “A number of the withheld photographs, according to reliable sources, show Graner engaged in sexual acts with Specialist Lynndie A. England, another soldier assigned to duty at Abu Ghraib.”

England received widespread press coverage for the iconic photograph of her walking a prisoner like a dog.

If true, the images also would seem likely to enrage key constituencies of the Middle East — and be particularly offensive to Muslims. One picture, Horton says, shows a female prisoner “assuming sexually suggestive poses in a chair.” Sexual humiliation is seen as particularly degrading in many Muslim countries, particularly when it involves women.

Horton’s account does not include allegations floated by New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh, who said in 2004 that the Pentagon has video of children being sodomized at Abu Ghraib.

“Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about,” Hersh said (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/15/hersh/index.html). “The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.”

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs vehemently denied British media reports which alleged that some of the photos show the rape of detainees.

“I don’t want to speak generally about some reports I’ve seen over the past few years in the British media,” he said. “And, in some ways I’m surprised it filtered down. Let’s just say if I wanted to read — if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper.

“Are you saying the report is completely false?” asked CBS reporter Chip Reid.

“I would refer you … to the statement that [Pentagon] put out, that the article is wrong and mischaracterizes the photos that are in question,” said Gibbs. “None of the photographs in question depict the images described in the article.”

A careful examination of Gibbs’ remarks shows that he deliberately couched his response to refer to specific “photos that are in question,” which means the White House could conceivably claim at a later date that even if images show graphic sexual acts they weren’t the ones they specifically intended to suppress.

The Pentagon’s spokesman, however, made no such caveat

“Whitman said he did not know if the Telegraph had quoted [a former general who spoke about the images] accurately,” Reuters wrote Thursday (http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN28341544). “But he said he was not aware that any such photographs had been uncovered as part of the investigation into Abu Ghraib or abuses at other prisons.”

The British newspaper The Telegraph averred Thursday  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html) that “at least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.”

Whitman said he did not know if the Telegraph had quoted Taguba accurately. But he said he was not aware that any such photographs had been uncovered as part of the investigation into Abu Ghraib or abuses at other prisons.

Horton’s detailed account is available here (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/).

On Thursday, after the White House spokesman denied the Telegraph report, RAW STORY ran a detailed story  (http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/28/flashback-torture-photos/) including multiple accounts from 2004 which suggested that - although these particular photos might not show rape or sexual assaults - there appear to be many unreleased photos and videos which do show such acts.

“The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), telling reporters in 2004  (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/05/08/RUMSFELD.TMP&type=printable) why the Abu Ghraib photos should not be released as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld faced calls for his resignation. “We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.”

LINK (http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/29/report-contradicts-white-house-photos/)

Cookies, not torture, convinced al Qaeda suspect to talk, FBI interrogator says

The practice of torturing suspected terrorists received fresh blows Friday after a magazine reported that a key al Qaeda suspect offered useful intelligence after receiving sugar-free cookies.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator, revealed in an article being released in June that Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard opened up about the 9/11 terror attacks only after being offered -- sugar free cookies.

Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Jandal is a diabetic, Soufan said, and wouldn't eat sugar cookies he'd been offered.

"Soufan noticed that he didn't touch any of the cookies that had been served with tea: 'He was a diabetic and couldn't eat anything with sugar in it,' Time's Bobby Ghosh wrote (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901491-1,00.html). "At their next meeting, the Americans brought him some sugar-free cookies, a gesture that took the edge off Abu Jandal's angry demeanor.

"We had showed him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him," Soufan told Ghosh. "So he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures."

The seemingly absurd report calls into question the efficacy of the Bush administration's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques." A 2005 memo by a Bush administration official revealed that CIA interrogators had waterboarded alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in one month.

Waterboarding -- or partial drowning -- also drew fire late last week when a conservative radio host voluntarily underwent the procedure and lasted just six seconds before calling off the procedure. He later said that he would have said anything to have gotten his handlers to stop.

[...]

"It took more questioning, and some interrogators' sleight of hand, before the Yemeni gave up a wealth of information about al-Qaeda — including the identities of seven of the 9/11 bombers — but the cookies were the turning point," Ghosh writes.

"After that, he could no longer think of us as evil Americans," Soufan said. "Now he was thinking of us as human beings."

Soufan's comments come on the heels of statements by a former military interrogator who said that he believed that the Bush administration's torture policies actually cost "hundreds -- if not thousands" of American lives (http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/26/military-interrogator-torture-american-lives/).

“Torture does not save lives,” the interrogator, who spoke under a pseudonym, said. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

LINK (http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/cookies-al-qaeda/)

Mancow Denies His Waterboarding Was a Hoax

http://www.youtube.com/v/GwhJaS2_0f0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1