US: We DID Torture
Having listened for what seems like years to right wingers arguing that there is no proof whatsoever that the US has engaged in torture, a definitive answer is finally delivered with Michael Hayden coming clean and stating that the US have engaged in it's use:
The director of the CIA said Tuesday the agency used waterboarding to interrogate three high level al-Qaeda detainees, including the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.We know, of course, that on two of these occasions the torturing of these men was taped and that the tapes have been subsequently erased. The reason given:
Michael Hayden told the Senate intelligence panel that waterboarding was used to glean information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a 'critical time' because of worries more attacks were planned against the United States.
'We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time,' Hayden said. 'Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent."
Hayden's comments marked the first time a US official has identified detainees who were subjected to the technique that simulates drowning. He said the three men were the only ones who were waterboarded, and that the CIA has not used the practice in five years.
'Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the programme, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers,' Hayden said in a memo to employees.Of course, they were not destroyed because the officers involved might be open to prosecution, and in any case, most Republicans are terribly confused over whether or not drowning someone even constitutes torture. Unless it's done to them, of course, at which point they instantly recognise that they are being tortured.
No doubt we'll start to hear the tired argument that this torture is not systemic, which ignores the fact that torture is a bit like pregnancy: you can't be a little bit pregnant, just as you either use torture or you don't.
Under George Bush, the US became a country that did engage in torture. That's a shameful admission from a nation that, until his election, led the world in the fight for human rights.
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8 comments:
Those three poor horribly mistreated terrorists. My heart bleeds for them.
If waterboarding by the CIA was not illegal under US law at the time it took place, then as far as we're concerned it wasn't torture. Whether or not Western Europe thinks it's torture is of little concern, given that you people think that the slightest discomfort is torture.
According to the weak-kneed Europeans, how we routinely treat our own military personnel in training is torture, and probably you think how we treat our general prison population is torture. You all really have no credibility with many of us.
As of now, our laws are ambiguous on the practice. If that changes at some point, so be it. The point is, all your crying about those three poor mistreated terrorists being "tortured" means nothing to us if our laws don't define it as such. There's plenty of real torture going on in the world to whine about if it is really something that you feel strongly about, and not just trying to look for any tenuous thread you can to bash the all-powerful Bush and the evil US.
Something else to keep in mind... While an informal survey, I've spoken face-to-face with many Americans about their feelings on this subject, including many liberals. I have yet to speak with someone who is concerned that we roughed up some terrorists. Of course, where I live 9/11 wasn't something that just happened on TV in some far off place, so maybe that has something to do with it. It's called "perspective".
While an informal survey, I've spoken face-to-face with many Americans about their feelings on this subject, including many liberals. I have yet to speak with someone who is concerned that we roughed up some terrorists.
You must be speaking to a very limited number of Americans. Recent polls show that, by a factor of two to one, most Americans oppose the torturing of terrorist suspects but believe that their country is doing it anyway.
This means that they are (a) brighter than you are; because they suspected the very thing that you have always denied there was any proof of, and (b) that they are much more humane than you are because they recognise torture as something that is implicitly wrong.
So, you see Jason, it is not just "weak-kneed Europeans" who oppose torture, it is most people who have any sense of right and wrong. That you, once again, seek to defend the use of torture or play down it's significance is really no surprise. Your immorality appears to be your most defining characteristic.
Do you bother to read your own links? Nowhere does that article even refer to waterboarding. However, it does say:
Majorities identify three specific coercive practices as acceptable: sleep deprivation (66 percent call it acceptable), hooding (57 percent) and "noise bombing" (54 percent), in which a suspect is subjected to loud noises for long periods.
And speaking of not being that brite, what you can't seem to wrap your head around is that Americans and Europeans have different ideas regarding what constitutes torture. Each of those practices that Americans find acceptable, Europeans believe is torture.
So yeah, most Americans find torture, as we define it, unacceptable. As this article demonstrates though, we define it differently than you.
And given your history, I'll put my morality against yours any day of the week.
So yeah, most Americans find torture, as we define it, unacceptable. As this article demonstrates though, we define it differently than you.
And given your history, I'll put my morality against yours any day of the week.
Okay, show me your morality. Define torture. Lets not discuss what is legal under US law, tell me what you - Jason - would consider acceptable. Is waterboarding, for example, acceptable to you?
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/06/waterboard.poll/index.html
Try explainging this poll then Jason
Excellent anonymous! Thanks for posting that.
Define torture. Lets not discuss what is legal under US law, tell me what you - Jason - would consider acceptable.
We've already had this discussion and I've been quite clear that the US should not engage in any practices which are considered torture under US law.
I most certainly do not define sleep deprivation, hooding, stress positions and "noise bombing" as "torture" and have little problem using those practices under controlled circumstances in certain situations for interrogation (what are being referred to as "enhanced" interrogation tactics). Do you?
Do you draw any distinction between sleep deprivation and hooking up batter cables to someone's testicles? How about between putting a hood on someone and driving pieces of wood under their fingernails? Is there any difference in your world between bombarding someone with rock music and performing a simulated execution? Any difference between putting someone in a stress position and breaking their fingers?
Here's a good one: do you see any difference between dripping a few drops of water down a person's breathing passage to make them think that they are drowning (while knowing full well that they aren't) and repeatedly beating them with a metal pipe until they're unconscious?
Is waterboarding, for example, acceptable to you?
It is not acceptable to me for this to be a routine practice, nor would it be acceptable for the military to use this practice. Since only the CIA had been authorized to use the practice and since it had only been done on three occasions, it is neither routine nor is it done by the military.
If it is against US criminal law, then I have an issue with it and the practice should no longer be even considered for use. There's the rub, it is not clearly against US criminal law. The law needs to be clarified one way or another, and it is not right that CIA operatives should be operating under legal ambiguity as far as this goes.
Regarding the three specific individuals who were waterboarded, I could quite honestly care less. They are not human, and if they hadn't been of such intelligence value, had they been killed (legally of course) prior to being placed in US custody that would have been fine with me. I do not care for an instant what discomforts those creatures may have endured. I am concerned though that those US persons who handled and interrogated them did so in full accordance with US law. If they did not, that needs to be dealt with.
On the face of things though, you sound like someone who's never had to make a hard life-or-death choice. To you and those like you, everything is theory.
There was a US army colonel I remember reading about in the news who put his sidearm to the head of an Iraqi prisoner and threatened to kill him if he didn't talk. The Iraqi was apparently in possession of immediate actionable intelligence whose disclosure was necessary in order to save lives of people under the colonel's command. Apparently the Iraq talked and lives were saved. This act was most definitely against the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions. The colonel was sent home and charged.
The man had a hard choice to make and knowing the consequences did what he felt he had to in order to save lives. I suspect one such as yourself would state that they could never do what the colonel did, but that's the difference between having to make real life-and-death choices and living in some idealistic fantasy world where we can pretend that there aren't really bad people out there actively trying to kill us.
By the way, since when does someone's morality depend on what their interpretation of what constitutes torture? I've always been taught that morality is something lived and demonstrated by actions. I know my conscious is clear, with what actions have you demonstrated this great morality of yours?
We've already had this discussion and I've been quite clear that the US should not engage in any practices which are considered torture under US law.
I most certainly do not define sleep deprivation, hooding, stress positions and "noise bombing" as "torture" and have little problem using those practices under controlled circumstances in certain situations for interrogation (what are being referred to as "enhanced" interrogation tactics). Do you?
Yes, we have had this discussion before and, like before, you are allowing yourself the out of "under US law" which I specifically excluded in my question.
As to whether I consider the things you named torture, I certainly would consider sleep deprivation a form of torture, as I would stress positions. Hooding is questionable and I don't know enough about "noise bombing" is to make any rationale judgement.
You then give a long list of false choices...
Is there any difference in your world between bombarding someone with rock music and performing a simulated execution?
...apparently unaware that waterboarding is a mock execution. The question isn't whether or not certain forms of torture are worse than others, it is whether or not civilised states should indulge in such practices.
Here's a good one: do you see any difference between dripping a few drops of water down a person's breathing passage to make them think that they are drowning (while knowing full well that they aren't)
One would have to be willfully ignorant to describe waterboarding as "dripping a few drops of water down a person's breathing passage" and the notion that the person being waterboarded is fully aware that they are not drowning is undermined by the success rate of those subjected to it.
However, when you engage in language like this, you are going well beyond your claim only to be concerned with whether or not this practice is legal and entering an area where you are actively defending the practice itself by falsely portraying it as much less painful and terrifying than it actually is.
The reason the CIA use waterboarding is because it works. And very, very quickly by all accounts. It would not be as effective as the CIA states if it were anywhere near as benign as you portray it.
If it is against US criminal law, then I have an issue with it and the practice should no longer be even considered for use.
But the argument Mukasey puts forward for it's supposed legality undermines everything you claim about waterboarding.
They argue that for something to be torture, it is not enough that it is intended to inflict severe physical or mental suffering, as the torture statute provides; they say it must also inflict prolonged physical suffering. The fact that no-one is able to withstand waterboarding for any length of time is actually the reason they are saying it is legal.
They really are turning all logic on it's head to make this argument and they are certainly going against the principles at the heart of any anti-torture legislation. They are saying that the less able you are to endure something - for any reason including pain and fear of death - the less likely that technique is to be considered torture. That is the logic you are clinging to when you defend this "if it's legal under US law". Do you agree with Mukasey's logic?
On the face of things though, you sound like someone who's never had to make a hard life-or-death choice. To you and those like you, everything is theory.
Here we go... The John Wayne stance that says Liberals are too soft to engage in torture (or "hard life-or-death choices" as you put it).
So, you have now gone from defending torture "if it's legal under US law" to making a willingness to do so a positive attribute that I should somehow feel myself lacking.
In one post that's quite a journey.
I suspect one such as yourself would state that they could never do what the colonel did, but that's the difference between having to make real life-and-death choices and living in some idealistic fantasy world where we can pretend that there aren't really bad people out there actively trying to kill us.
Again, you are offering false choices; implying, because I regard torture as repugnant, that I somehow live "in a fantasy world where there aren't bad people trying to kill us". There are bad people and they do want to kill us. The question is whether or not we should torture them.
By the way, since when does someone's morality depend on what their interpretation of what constitutes torture?
Your morality is, of course, evident in what you would permit be done to another human being; although I note that you gave yourself that splendid right wing escape route, "They are not human".
It is inarguable that they are human and, by denying another persons humanity, you really are allowing anything to be done to them.
That you think such a stance says nothing about your morality is simply breathtaking.
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