Osama Bin Laden Raid Wasn't Based On CIA Torture Interrogations, Senators Say

Harshaw said:

:roll:

IF you had any authority to demand anything from me . . .

And IF I were to "get back to the topic" as you define it . . .

It would not be "proof" of anything, one way or the other, so this is full of fail.

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And which "error" was that?

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Gimmesometruth said:

He wasn't "teaching" anything, it was a documentation of the methods of corrupt rule. It was a satire; "the general theme of accepting the aims of princes; such as glory, and indeed survival, can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends."

Any regime can become corrupt enough to use such means, but the whole point is that the US is not existentially threatened to the point where we have to resort to such ideologies. This is not "24", we did not have to lower ourselves to the level of tyrants.

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Harshaw said:

Um, a "compelling state interest" is pretty much an end justifying a means. And that's just one manifestation.

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Gimmesometruth said:

Authority? LOL....it was a request, a challenge...and yes, it would prove to me that you can stay on topic.

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Really....you don't remember your comments on Japanese war crime punishments?

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Page 3, post 23, corrected in post 26.

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Six defendants were sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace (Class A, Class B and Class C):

General Kenji Doihara, Chief of the intelligence service in Manchukuo, later Air Force commander
Baron Kōki Hirota, prime minister (later foreign minister)
General Seishirō Itagaki, war minister
General Heitarō Kimura, commander, Burma Expeditionary Force
General Akira Mutō, commander, Philippines Expeditionary Force
General Hideki Tōjō, commander, Kwantung Army (later prime minister)

One defendant was sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity (Class B and Class C):

General Iwane Matsui, commander, Shanghai Expeditionary Force and Central China Area Army

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Gimmesometruth said:

BS. Compelling state interest is deontology, the ends justifying the means is consequentialism.

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Um, a "compelling state interest" is pretty much an end justifying a means. And that's just one manifestation.

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When did I say anything about "originalism"? There's also textual literalness to consider, as well as judicial conservatism. Besides, I believe I was referring to leftism.

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Where did I say anything which disagreed with this?

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iliveonramen said:

It's also used a lot in National Security matters. Compelling state interest is not a blase pass to do whatever you want.

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It's the standard which has to be used to limit protected rights under the consitution....like the 2nd amendment not allowing you to buy C4 explosives or losing your right to free speech when you yell fire in a movie theatre. Do you agree with both those applications of compelling state interests or do you think we need to pass an amendment to abridge your basic rights in those situations?

How about the guy that leaked the Diplomatic cables? Does he enjoy freedom of the press privaliges or does "compelling state interest" mean that his right of speech is limited.

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Leftism is ambigious. I need to know what defination you're working from....for me it could mean civil rights and equality for you it could mean gulags. Just saying...you never know how people interpretate definitions on this website.

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It may not of been your intention...but your post turning things towards an attack on the left seems like a diversion from the topic of the use of tortue by the Bush administration.

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Harshaw said:

Not ONE was hanged solely for "waterboarding," which is what I said IN that post #23.

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Harshaw said:

Doesn't change the fact that much of leftism is premised on the end justifying the means, particularly when it comes to Constitutional justification.

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I really don't know what you think you're arguing against here.

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Really? "Leftism" is that ambiguous? I don't really think it is.

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Gimmesometruth said:

That was never the claim, no one said that.

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Among the charges that those war criminals were charged with was waterboarding. Beyond that, there have been convictions in military courts and US courts for the use of waterboarding. It is still an illegal act in US law. That is the point, and your continued attempts to distract from that fact are meaningless.

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iliveonramen said:

I guess I misintepreted what you were saying. It seemed as if you were attacking the idea of compelling state interests.


Well the left is a spectrum...so what exactly are some specifics on the left. Better yet what's something that is from the left that you object to that has been in front of the supreme court and passed based using the mentality "the ends justifies the means".

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danarhea said:

I agree with that, and let me add that Neoconservatism is in itself a leftist concept. One of the two pillars of Neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, was a card carrying member of the Communist Party. The other pillar of Neoconservatism, Leo Strauss, was the mouthpiece for a philosophy called "Noble Lies". This concept, which began with Plato, and supported by Machiavelli, Karl Marx, and even Adolf Hitler, stated that, in order to control a populace on certain issues, you must lie to them, since the issues in question are "noble". This concept was used extensively by the Neocons in the runup to the Iraq war.

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Harshaw said:

Check the post I was responding to; yes he did.

Check your own post quoting McCain -- yes he did, and yes you did.

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Oh, NOW who's trying to "distract" and change the subject?

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What I said was historically accurate, and I showed it. You lose. QED.

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As for an example, the great expanse of governmental power under the Commerce Clause.

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Gimmesometruth said:

No one, including MSgt, McCain or myself said "solely", only you did.

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Um, you are, you are avoiding the main point by creating straw nitpick points, it is your MO throughout this thread.

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Yes, you answered your own question while avoiding the point. Well done.

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Harshaw said:

When you say someone was "hanged for waterboarding," you absolutely imply it was the waterboarding which brought about the sentence.

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I "avoided" nothing. It's you who lost on the point and are now scrambling to find some other avenue of attack.

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Harshaw said:

I see nothing to disagree with here.

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Gimmesometruth said:

I'll write this slowly.....no one said it was "solely", that is still what you claimed.

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You made an assumption

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and you are still avoiding the main point, waterboarding under US law is illegal.

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The whole point of bringing up Japanese waterboarding by McCain was to show this

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MSgt brought it up.

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It is an illegal act.

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Like I said, you need these distractions to derail.

You keep saying this; it continues not to be true.

The topic is not whether waterboarding is a capital offense, the topic is whether an illegal technique was successful in finding UBL.

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Funny; just above you said the "main point" was that's it's illegal, and nothing about OBL.

Is it surprising that you can't follow my points if you can't even keep track of your own?

It wasn't, and your attempts to avoid the main point is just a waste of time.

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You keep disagreeing with yourself about what the "main point" is.

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Fiddytree said:

I do, because it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of neoconservatism, no matter how many times I have tried to tell Dan correctly over the years.

1) Neoconservatism is partly a left-wing concept, and partly a liberal one, and recently a conservative one. Not exclusively leftist.
2) Irving Kristol was a member of neoconservatism, but not necessarily a pillar of how to understand it. The most famous neoconservative, to be sure, but using him as the neoconservative to be looked at is idiotic at best. Not only is it difficult to figure out where he stood on the recent Iraq War, but you are carrying his intellectual and professional experiences to that of a diverse group of people. A pillar would be what form of neoconservatism it was: domestic, foreign policy from the 1960s-1980s, or foreign policy from the 1990s-2000s.
3) Irving Kristol was not a "card-carrying member of the Communist Party." Had Dan ever read or watched interviews with many of that young group of New York Intellectuals he would have quickly realized it was the Trostkyists who continuously were ignored by the Communist party, because the young men of the party were forbidden to talk to anyone who was not a Stalinist. They were the enemies of the Communist Party, not friends, let alone the same.
4) Leo Strauss' students and informal followers represents one wing out of many of the neoconservative persuasion.
5) Why did you pick Irving Kristol and Leo Struass? Why not Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz? Why not Irving Kristol and Robert Kagan? Leo Strauss is to neoconservatism as Sidney Hook, Lionel Trilling, and Henry Scoop Jackson are to Neoconservatism.
6) That is a highly debatable position of Leo Strauss's work that he promoted the "noble lie," especially in the manner you perceive. Further, I find it odd you are wrapping Hitler with a guy that left Germany because he was Jewish during Hitler's reign and wrote at length about the Nazi menace.
7) You falsely connect Leo Strauss to the neoconservative impulse for the war in Iraq. Not only does it presume that they purposely lied, rather than cherry picked information to suit their preconceived notions for Saddam's guilt, you also presume Leo Strauss had a hold on the neoconservative movement as a whole, and further, that his ideas were actually used to conduct the war. You ignore the work of Fukuyama who suggested that if anything, neoconservatives had not listened to Strauss, who was arguably highly skeptical of such enterprises to begin with.

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It is an illegal act.

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Harshaw said:

Is it? Define "waterboarding" exactly, and cite the elements of the US code under which it falls, and then apply the specific facts of what actually happened and show this.

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The United States has enacted statutes prohibiting torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. It is these statutes which make waterboarding illegal.[22] The four principal statutes which Congress has adopted to implement the provisions of the foregoing treaties are the Torture Act,[23] the War Crimes Act,[24],and the laws entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government”[25] and “Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”[26] The first two statutes are criminal laws while the latter two statutes extend civil rights to any person in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world.

The Torture Act makes it a felony for any person, acting under color of law, to commit an act of torture upon any person within the defendant’s custody or control outside the United States.[27] Torture is defined as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” upon a person within the defendant’s custody or control.[28] To be “severe,” any mental pain or suffering resulting from torture must be “prolonged.”[29] Under this law, torture is punishable by up to twenty years imprisonment unless the victim dies as a result of the torture, in which case the penalty is death or life in prison.[30]

The War Crimes Act differs from the Torture Act in several respects. It applies to acts committed inside or outside the United States, not simply to acts committed outside the United States.[31] Second, it prohibits actions by any American citizen or any member of the armed forces of the United States, not simply to persons acting under color of law.[32] Third, violations of the War Crimes Act that do not result in death of the victim are punishable by life in prison, not simply for a term of twenty years.[33] Finally, when it was enacted in 1996, the War Crimes Act did not mention torture or any other specific conduct like the Torture Act does, but rather contained a very broad definition of the offense. The original statute provided that “war crimes” included any “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions.[34] In 2006, in the Military Commissions Act, Congress defined the term “grave breach” of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to include “torture” as well as “cruel or inhuman treatment” of prisoners.[35] As in the Torture Act, the War Crimes Act (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006) defines “torture” as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”[36] Cruel or inhuman treatment is defined as “serious physical or mental pain or suffering,” and also includes “serious physical abuse.”[37] The law defines “serious physical pain or suffering” as including “extreme physical pain.”[38] All of these clarifications of the term “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 were made retroactive to 1997.[39] The 2006 Act replaced the requirement that mental harm be “prolonged” with a more broad definition that mental harm be merely “serious and non-transitory.”[40]

The third federal statute that prohibits waterboarding is entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons under Custody or Control of the United States Government.”[41] This law was enacted in 2005 as part of the Detainee Treatment Act,[42] and in 2006 it was supplemented in the Military Commissions Act by a statutory provision entitled “Additional Prohibition on Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”[43] These civil rights laws very simply state that no person under the physical control of the United States anywhere in the world may be subjected to any “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,”[44] and they each define “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” to be any treatment or punishment which would violate the Fifth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.[45] These civil rights laws award the same rights to all prisoners who are in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world as citizens of the United States are entitled to under the Constitution. This means that if it is unconstitutional to subject prisoners in the United States to waterboarding, then it is illegal to commit this act against prisoners in the War on Terror, wherever they are being detained.

There is no doubt that waterboarding is illegal under the plain language of each of these four statutes. When it is practiced in other countries, the State Department characterizes waterboarding as “torture.”[46] Waterboarding inflicts “severe pain and suffering” on its victims, both physically and mentally, and therefore it is torture within the meaning of the Torture Act and the War Crimes Act.[47] It inflicts “serious pain and suffering” upon its victims, and it qualifies as “serious physical abuse,” therefore it is “cruel or inhuman treatment” within the meaning of the War Crimes Act.[48] Finally, American courts have ruled that when prisoners in the United States are subjected to waterboarding, it is a violation of the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and therefore it would be a violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000dd and 2000dd-0 prohibiting cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.[49]

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The charge and specifications against Hata were: Charge: That the following member of the Imperial Japanese Army with his then known title: Seitaro Hata, Surgeon First Lieutenant,, at the times and places set forth in the specifications hereto attached, and during a time of war between the United States of America and its Allies and Dependencies, and Japan, did violate the Laws and Customs of War. Specification 3. That in or about July or August, 1943, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number Three, Fukuoka ken, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Seitaro Hata, did willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Morris O. Killough, an American Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils. Specification 5. That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number Three, Fukuoka ken, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Seitaro Hata, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them; by forcing water into their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.
^ The charge and specifications against Asano were: Charge: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asana, then a civilian serving as an interpreter with the Armed Forces of Japan, a nation then at war with the United States of America and its Allies, did violate the Laws and Customs of War. Specification 1: That in or about July or August, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Morris O. Killough, an American Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils. Specification 2: That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them, by forcing water into their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies. Specification 5. That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 December, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture John Henry Burton, an American Prisoner of War, by beating him; and by fastening him head downward on a stretcher and forcing water into his nose.
^ The charge and specifications against Kita were: Charge: That the following member of the Imperial Japanese Army with his the known title: Takeo Kita, Sergeant Major, at the times and places set forth in the specifications hereto attached, and during a time of war between the United States.... and Japan, did violate the Laws and Customs of War. Specification 2: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Takeo Kita, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture John Henry Burton, an American Prisoner of War, by beating him and by forcing water into his nose. Specification 4: That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Takeo Kita, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating them, forcing water into their mouths and noses, and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.
^ The charge and specifications against Nakamura were less specifically related to water torture per se, but still dealt with forced dunking: Charge: That the following member of the Imperial Japanese Army, with his then known title, Hideji Nakamura, at the times and places set forth in the specifications hereto attached, and during a time of war between the United States of America, its Allies and Dependencies, and Japan, did violate the Laws and Customs of War. None of the specifications were on water torture per se, but specifications 2 and 9 refer to forcing prisoners into a tank of water, 2 is 5 unknown pows, 9 is throwing American POW James E Martin into a tank of water. The testimony discussed infra ties those specifications into water torture.

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Gimmesometruth said:

Waterboarding is Illegal - Washington University Law Review

It was also found to be a violation of Civil Rights in United States v. Lee, 744 F.2d 1124 (5th Cir. 1984).

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Gimmesometruth said:

A little more on the Japanese convictions...

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Harshaw said:

That's a darn sight better argument than using a statement from McCain as evidence.

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