I think if there was even just one as opposed to 80% of 650 detainees, something has gone wrong. The US will need to decide if one (or whatever number) is acceptable. Obviously some people think the only acceptable level is zero, and maybe that is the current administration's view too.
10 'torture' techniques blessed by Bush
- Thread starter sammsky1
- Start date
tis what I find adorable about the right-wing stubborn attitude... like a pitbull teeth clenched to a squeaky-toy on the train tracks... no matter how close the train gets, they will not budge.
That would be true if there were universal agreement that all interrogation methods used by the US are tantamount to torture. The trouble is that you will find substantial disagreement on the what the definition of torture is - not withstanding the UN's ambiguous definition for which, technically, one could argue a prisoner is being tortured if a guard gives him a mean or intimidating look. The threshold of what constitutes "severe pain or suffering" vs significant discomfort is completely subjective.
A few more witty posts like this and I may actually consider changing my position.
That is true, although surely waterboarding falls under severe pain and suffering. It's hard to imagine that it doesn't, having swallowed sea water myself and been more than a little afraid I would drown.
err... that goes hand in glove does it not
I think you are onto something here Rob .... it would certainly explain a great deal. The emperor without any clothes and all that ...
after all. is is now nearly 8 years since the horror of 9/11 and the tragedies that have followed it. We have gone through a dramatic and traumatic political theory and many truly believed they were doing 'the right thing'.
Its not yet clear if people can liberate themselves from such deep entrenched ideology and I think we are seeing a glimpse of that from some in the thread.
Very interesting observation.
No it doesn't. These are domestic issues.err... that goes hand in glove does it not
The two of you should do lunch and exchange ideas.
You should take up chess Sammy.
The broader point being the subjective definition of torture...as previously discussed above.
I do play chess ... and can hold my own.
simple yes/no - thats all I wanted.
Case closed.
Trouble is you don't get to make the rules here. I answered it with the caveat it deserved.
Has Al Qeada?
so usa has the same moral ethics as al qeada ?
The USA must protect it citizens with the same vigour that Al Qaeda seeks to destroy them.so usa has the same moral ethics as al qeada ?
I think that's what some people fail to realize here unfortunately. We are fighting against an enemy that will happily die to advance it's agenda in an unconventional war. Traditional soft cell interogation will not be effective in most instances IMO.
so its right to swoop to the levels of the terrorists.
wasn't usa fighting to defeat the "evil" terrorists who torture innocent civilians.
or was that wmd's ?????
wasn't usa fighting to defeat the "evil" terrorists who torture innocent civilians.
or was that wmd's ?????
waterboarding was torture when we prosecuted other nations for doing it. no one argued otherwise until the bush administration sought retroactive cover for their torture program.
they were just following orders, yes?
ksm was waterboarded in 2003. the bradbury memo authorizing torture was written in 2005. the torture can hardly be described as taking place in the chaotic aftermath of 9/11 where threat of another attack was believed imminent. ksm was waterboarded to confirm the bush's administration mistaken belief that there was an operational link between al qaeda and iraq.
Who's swooping to the level of terrorists? I have yet to see a video of the CIA giving an anti Islamic diatribe before executing someone. So when we get to that level the comparison would be valid. And you're 100% correct we're fighting for to stop torture of innocents. KSM is about as far from innocent as you get, same for the other 2 that were water boarded.
jose padilla is an american citizen. and our government tortured him. it was three years before they even filed charges against him. think about that.
Reclaiming America’s Soul
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 23, 2009
“Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” So declared President Obama, after his commendable decision to release the legal memos that his predecessor used to justify torture. Some people in the political and media establishments have echoed his position. We need to look forward, not backward, they say. No prosecutions, please; no investigations; we’re just too busy.
And there are indeed immense challenges out there: an economic crisis, a health care crisis, an environmental crisis. Isn’t revisiting the abuses of the last eight years, no matter how bad they were, a luxury we can’t afford?
No, it isn’t, because America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, a nation of moral ideals. In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.
And the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true — even if truth and justice came at a high price — that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?
For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?
Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job — which he’s supposed to do in any case — and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.
I don’t know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.
Still, you might argue — and many do — that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.
But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama’s attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.
That said, there are a lot of people in Washington who weren’t allied with the torturers but would nonetheless rather not revisit what happened in the Bush years.
Some of them probably just don’t want an ugly scene; my guess is that the president, who clearly prefers visions of uplift to confrontation, is in that group. But the ugliness is already there, and pretending it isn’t won’t make it go away.
Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.
For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract “confessions” that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.
It’s hard, then, not to be cynical when some of the people who should have spoken out against what was happening, but didn’t, now declare that we should forget the whole era — for the sake of the country, of course.
Sorry, but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war. These investigations should, where appropriate, be followed by prosecutions — not out of vindictiveness, but because this is a nation of laws.
We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward — because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 23, 2009
“Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” So declared President Obama, after his commendable decision to release the legal memos that his predecessor used to justify torture. Some people in the political and media establishments have echoed his position. We need to look forward, not backward, they say. No prosecutions, please; no investigations; we’re just too busy.
And there are indeed immense challenges out there: an economic crisis, a health care crisis, an environmental crisis. Isn’t revisiting the abuses of the last eight years, no matter how bad they were, a luxury we can’t afford?
No, it isn’t, because America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, a nation of moral ideals. In the past, our government has sometimes done an imperfect job of upholding those ideals. But never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.
And the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration’s abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true — even if truth and justice came at a high price — that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren’t supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?
For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let’s be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?
Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn’t be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn’t, and indeed shouldn’t, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job — which he’s supposed to do in any case — and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.
I don’t know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.
Still, you might argue — and many do — that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.
But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama’s attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.
That said, there are a lot of people in Washington who weren’t allied with the torturers but would nonetheless rather not revisit what happened in the Bush years.
Some of them probably just don’t want an ugly scene; my guess is that the president, who clearly prefers visions of uplift to confrontation, is in that group. But the ugliness is already there, and pretending it isn’t won’t make it go away.
Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.
For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract “confessions” that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.
It’s hard, then, not to be cynical when some of the people who should have spoken out against what was happening, but didn’t, now declare that we should forget the whole era — for the sake of the country, of course.
Sorry, but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war. These investigations should, where appropriate, be followed by prosecutions — not out of vindictiveness, but because this is a nation of laws.
We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward — because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.
from the senate armed services committee inquiry into the treatment of detainees:
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."
later in the same report:
"The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody."
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf
Jose Padilla is the best you can come up with? To this point allegations of sleep adjustment, solitary confinement and stress positions for someone found guilty (in a US court no less, not military) of conspiracy with Al-Qaeda. Please try again.it doesn't bother you that an american citizen was tortured by our government to the extent where his face twitches uncontrollably, and was held for three and a half years without charges being filed? you are fine with the government suspending habeas corpus, the rule of law, and the constitution at their discretion because padilla told a guy on the phone that he was ready to join international jihad?
wow.
and no connection with al qaeda was proven. the government only alleged he once visited a jihad training camp in afghanistan. so basically he thought about committing terrorism. he was never convicted or prosecuted for actually committing terrorism. for this the constitution is used as toilet paper. these are your heroes.
As before, during, and after the Bush White House, they were doing their jobs.
Kevin, you seem quite passionate about this issue. Why not wait until the rest of the information is released before passing judgement on this.
There's nothing wrong with any of that. What's your point ?
The thing is... you are not a war crimes judge or lawyer. For that matter none of us are... when it makes it to a court, we will find out if those and other techniques used were legal.
And likewise you're not an interrogator or intelligence gatherer which makes you distinctly unqualified to assess the value of such methods.
Yet, there are institutions that have a responsibility to assess said and untold methods. The day when these methods are more closely examined is nearing, I feel.
You are correct.
Meaningless.
much of what he and Raoul says is meaningless.
There is a lot wrong with all of that. Stress positions are illegal.
Hi. Ireland v UK (1973) at the European Commission of Human Rights.
Stress positions are illegal.
They have been already.
Selmouni v France (2000) means that stress positions are thought of as torture, not Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (CIDT). Not that it matters much, as torture and CIDT are both as prohibited as each other.
And European legal precedent is not going to change what is inherently a domestic American issue. Its just not going to happen. Secondly, there appears to be significant ambiguity about whether the practices meet the threshold of the blanket concept of torture since only a small fraction of information has been selectively released by the Obama administration.
A poignant thought given your inability to deliver your own half thought out argument.
Frosty man, you rock.