Re: Director Brennan: CIA Won't Waterboard Again — Even if Ordered by Future Presiden
...The vast majority of opinion in the legal world and in the military world is that waterboarding is torture and is illegal under U.S. and international laws...
The Geneva Convention and U.S. Law clearly make waterboarding illegal under U.S. Law. What makes it unconstitutional. I am sure you are familiar with Article VI of the Constitution. This makes the Constitution, all laws passed in pursuance of the Constitution and ALL TREATIES made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States shall be the SUPREME LAW OF LAND...
On a different note to suggest that waterboarding is akin to the roller coaster ride shows an amazing level of ignorance...
First. Our Constitution doesn't forbid infliction of pain to force compliance with certain courses of action. The Bill of Rights specifically state no person "shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself", bans cruel and unusual punishments in these cases
making it unconstitutional to use coercion to force somebody to confess to a crime, or
as a punishment. Absolutely nothing about obtaining information from terrorists seeking to harm Americans.
It's normally a serious felony to intentionally kill another. Yet both law/common sense say the law's hypothetical "reasonable person" can do exactly that to protect himself or others from an imminent threat of death or serious physical harm.
Stands to reason that if one can legally kill to stop a violent felony, one can legally torture [ lesser violation ] to accomplish the same. Ipso facto.
Secondly,
Geneva Conventions don't recognize lawful status for combatants in conflicts not involving two or more nations. States in such a conflict are legally bound
only to observe Article 3, Geneva Conventions AND may ignore all other Articles.
So CONVENTION IV Art. 31. No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against
protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties
is not applicable unless we specifically want it to be.
HATE TO BREAK IT TO YA BROTHER, but these treaties do not make it UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
As the Geneva Conventions
apply ONLY in wars between two or more sovereign states, Article 5 of 3rd Geneva Convention states the
status of non protected detainees may be determined by a "competent tribunal". After a "competent tribunal" determines the individual is an unlawful combatant, those detaining him
may choose to accord him the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the 3rd Geneva Convention, but
by no means is required to do so.
So we, the US, are in conflict with al Qaeda, to which those treaties don't apply. Al Qaeda doesn't belong to any Party to the Geneva Conventions and is not itself capable of being party to a conflict to which those Conventions apply. Members of AQ are not entitled to be combatants under international law .
The United States has ratified the four Conventions of 1949, hasn't ratified the additional Protocols of 1977.
The
Military Commissions Act of 2006 codified the legal definition of unlawful combatant and invested the President w/broad discretion to determine whether a person may be designated an unlawful enemy combatant under US law. The assumption that
such a category as unlawful combatant exists goes uncontradicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Celebici Judgment.
So Terrorists have absolutely no rights that ANY nation is obliged to recognize under the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Uniformed combatants conducting themselves in accordance w/laws of war have rights of surrender, to be treated as prisoners of war.. "Unlawful combatants" on the other hand, used to be stood up against the nearest wall and shot. That as recently as the Second World War. Water-boarding, you would have to agree, is far more humanitarian and preferable to a firing squad.
Real world torture? Subjects come out physically harmed; burns, abrasions, cuts, smashed/missing parts, black-and-blue marks. Involves physical beatings, truncheons, heat or open flame, electrical shock, acid, poison, drugs, tools like pliers, hammers, surgical instruments, drills and pulley systems, occasional beheading/shootings of compatriots for persuasive value. Waterboarding? Subjects come out wet, heart racing. Almost any interrogation, even voluntary job interviews, can leave one with invisible psychological scars for life.
Raises anxiety/heart rate, like a terrifying roller coaster. Nothing much else if conducted properly. Hell, folks volunteer to be water-boarded. Hannity, Chris Hitchens, others... came out not enjoying it, but nobody showed them harmed for life. No one in their right mind volunteers for torture, but several, verifiable, have volunteered for water-boarding.
wink wink nudge nudge.