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

In 1983, the Department of Justice affirmed that the use of water torture techniques was
indeed criminal conduct under U.S. law. Sheriff James Parker of San Jacinto County, Texas, 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 officers were charged with violations of the prisoners’ civil rights.

Count One of the Indictment asserted that the defendants conspired to:
...subject prisoners to a suffocating “water torture” ordeal in order to coerce
confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and
mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner
began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or
drowning.

The Sheriff and his deputies were all convicted by a jury under Count One, (as well as
under other counts alleging constitutional violations for the same conduct), resulting in at least
a four year sentence on that Count. The trial included testimony of another former deputy that
the Sheriff and the other Defendants “gave [a prisoner] the water treatment:”
A towel was draped over his head. He was pulled back in the chair and water was
poured over the towel.

"Ex-Deputy Tells Jury of Jail Water Torture, New York Times, 1 September, 1983".

The victims’ testimony was strikingly familiar to other instances of water torture at other
times and places :
Q: Were you frightened?
A: Yes.
Q: What were you afraid of?
A: Afraid of drowning; it was hard to breath.

Testimony of former inmate Kevin Coffman.

...My hands was handcuffed up under the table and water was poured into the face of the
towel until I started suffering a state of suffocation and I felt that my life was in danger.

Testimony of former inmate Craig Punch.

“I thought I was going to drown”
Testimony of former inmate James Hicks.

On an appeal by one of the deputies the Fifth Circuit described the trial below:

Lee was indicted along with two other deputies, Floyd Baker and James Glover,
and the County Sheriff, James Parker, based on a number of incidents in which
prisoners were subjected to a “water torture” in order to prompt confessions to
various crimes. On the morning trial was to begin, Floyd Baker's counsel
informed the court and his co-defendants that Baker intended to admit the
government's allegations were true but would argue that he did not have the “state
of mind” required for criminal liability. Lee, Glover and Parker each intended to
defend on the ground that they did not participate in any torture incidents and
were unaware that any such incidents were taking place. Counsel for the other
defendants immediately moved for severance. The district court deferred a ruling
on these motions pending some clarification of exactly what Baker's defense and
testimony would be.
At trial, Baker's defense as developed by his counsel and his testimony rested on
two points. The first was that he actively participated in only a single torture
episode, and then only because ordered to do so by his superiors-a “Nuremberg
defense.” The second was that while he believed the torture of prisoners immoral,
he did not at the time think it was illegal. In the course of Baker's testimony, he
identified Lee as a participant in the torture of several prisoners. Seven other
witnesses also connected Lee with various torture incidents. At the close of the
evidence, the district judge severed Baker, and put the case of the remaining
defendants to the jury. Lee was convicted on three counts.

Lee’s conviction was affirmed on appeal, and all the defendants received substantial
prison sentences. United States District Judge James DeAnda’s comments at sentencing were
telling. He told the former Sheriff that he had allowed law enforcement to “...fall into the hands
of a bunch of thugs....The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country.”

ExSheriff Given Ten Year Sentence, New York Times, 27 October, 1983 (emphasis added)

http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/wallach_drop_by_drop_draft_20061016.pdf

That article got the facts wrong. It wasn't San Jacinto County. It was Jacinto City in Harris County. I remember it well. I lived in Jacinto City at the time it happened. And the police chief there was Jamail, who was convicted and sent to prison for using water torture on prisoners in order to extract confessions from them.

EDIT: I wonder if these are actually 2 different cases of the same crime.
 
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Cutting heads off. Starvation. Cruel and unusual punishment. "Waterboarding."

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.
Paul Begala: Yes, National Review, We Did Execute Japanese for Waterboarding

I don't understand why people run from their histories. Are we Europeans now? We get to pretend that the past didn't happen? This simply did happen. Own it. I do...and shrug.

I didn't "run" from anything. I posted the actual info from the Tokyo trials, including the defendants hanged, and the charges convicted on, not some blog post from Paul Begala.
 
Yes you did, right here:

No, you THINK I did, because you do not understand how caselaw works. I used specific terms for specific reasons.


What part of "water torture" is not "torture", what part of "water torture" is not waterboarding?

:roll:

That's why you have to examine the facts, champ. I've only been trying to do this throughout this entire exchange, but no, you want slogans only.


What part of "water torture" is not a legal violation of ones civil rights?

I never claimed that waterboarding wasn't a violation of civil rights. Stay on topic. A violation of civil rights is not the same thing as "torture."



Again, that is one page from a multipage appeal, the original case was United States v. Parker et al, CR-H-83-66 (S.D. Tex., 1983), but so far I can only find the NYT articles about it, not the actual transcript.

If a jury is presented with a case where the civil rights of those detained were violated by the "water torture", it seems as though they recognized that water torture is torture and a violation of US law.

I said that. In one district in Texas. Not the entire 5th Circuit (they did not affirm on that issue, because they didn't even take it up), and certainly not in the US Supreme Court (which actually WOULD make it what you're claiming).

This is not the same as saying "waterboarding is torture under US caselaw." No. A particular act was considered torture by one district court. This does not affect anything other than that district, and it certainly doesn't affect all of "US Law."



I guess what you are grasping at is the specious argument that "waterboarding" is not specifically spelled out as a method of torture in US law (but then neither has putting bamboo shoot under finger nails, or the removal of finger nails), even tough many courts have found that it does meet the criteria.

Really.

Show me the "many" cases where "waterboarding" was found to meet the legal definition of "torture."
 
I didn't "run" from anything. I posted the actual info from the Tokyo trials, including the defendants hanged, and the charges convicted on, not some blog post from Paul Begala.

Seems to me that you are running.

How about somethiing from Evan Wallach..

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.

The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:



Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime

You may read the account at the site if you wish.
 
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No, you THINK I did, because you do not understand how caselaw works. I used specific terms for specific reasons.
Dude, you are not a lawyer, and all you are doing is semantic gymnastics. Torture is recognized as a violation of civil rights, that is how Lee et al were convicted.


That's why you have to examine the facts, champ. I've only been trying to do this throughout this entire exchange, but no, you want slogans only.
No, you are not even facing the facts in the case, you are denying that Lee et al were convicted of the torture they committed.




I never claimed that waterboarding wasn't a violation of civil rights. Stay on topic. A violation of civil rights is not the same thing as "torture."
Again, the semantic gymnastics, when they tortured they did in fact violate the civil rights of those detained. Torture is a violation of ones civil rights.





I said that.
You said what?
In one district in Texas.
One FEDERAL DISTRICT.
Not the entire 5th Circuit (they did not affirm on that issue, because they didn't even take it up), and certainly not in the US Supreme Court (which actually WOULD make it what you're claiming).
What is the subject of this sentence, the thing you are trying to negate is not stated.

This is not the same as saying "waterboarding is torture under US caselaw." No. A particular act was considered torture by one district court. This does not affect anything other than that district, and it certainly doesn't affect all of "US Law."
Again with the semantic gymnastics, this court found it as so, if you have other case law that contradicts the find of this court, by all mean present it. I don't understand how when I present a case where waterboarding is found to be torture, that torture is a violation of civil rights, you can then say it is not "US case law showing that waterboarding is torture". It was a federal case brought by the Reagan DOJ.





Really.

Show me the "many" cases where "waterboarding" was found to meet the legal definition of "torture."
I have already posted the links to the documentation of cases of waterboarding by US military courts in WWII, Vietnam and Criminal courts in the US.
 
That article got the facts wrong. It wasn't San Jacinto County. It was Jacinto City in Harris County. I remember it well. I lived in Jacinto City at the time it happened. And the police chief there was Jamail, who was convicted and sent to prison for using water torture on prisoners in order to extract confessions from them.

EDIT: I wonder if these are actually 2 different cases of the same crime.
Are you talking about this one?

Political resurrection/Jamail riding crest of civic comeback as Jacinto City mayor after tempestuous civil rights trial 08/02/1987 | Archives | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Not the same.
 
Dude, you are not a lawyer

Heh. I have documentation which says otherwise.

Do I spend any time advertising it? No. Because it's irrelevant. What's right is still right regardless of credentials.


and all you are doing is semantic gymnastics.

You think that because you're not grasping a word I'm saying. We've been over this.


Torture is recognized as a violation of civil rights, that is how Lee et al were convicted.

Um, you're confusing yourself. When I make any claim opposing this?

What I said was that something being a violation of civil rights doesn't make it torture.


No, you are not even facing the facts in the case, you are denying that Lee et al were convicted of the torture they committed.

I acknowledged this at least twice, probably more. Don't know why you're still confused.



Again, the semantic gymnastics, when they tortured they did in fact violate the civil rights of those detained. Torture is a violation of ones civil rights.

And again, I never said otherwise. See above.



You said what? One FEDERAL DISTRICT.What is the subject of this sentence, the thing you are trying to negate is not stated.

This paragraph makes no sense. But, taking a stab, if you're trying to claim again that I said they weren't convicted for what they did, or that the lower court used the word "torture" to describe it, you're still wrong.

Again with the semantic gymnastics, this court found it as so, if you have other case law that contradicts the find of this court, by all mean present it. I don't understand how when I present a case where waterboarding is found to be torture, that torture is a violation of civil rights, you can then say it is not "US case law showing that waterboarding is torture". It was a federal case brought by the Reagan DOJ.

OK, first of all, they called what was done in the case to be "torture." They didn't call it "waterboarding." It was a specific set of acts, and if it's going to be applicable to any other case, the acts must be found to be substantially the same as what these defendants did. Thus, you must examine facts. I tire of repeating this over and over.

Second, they did not convict anyone of "torture," so they did not apply the legal definition of "torture" or put the facts of the case up against it. Thus, while they used the term generically, they didn't find anything having to do with "torture" as defined under US law. The charges were violating and conspiring to violate the civil rights of prisoners in their custody.

Third, I have never once denied that the defendants violated the prisoner's civil rights.


I have already posted the links to the documentation of cases of waterboarding by US military courts in WWII, Vietnam and Criminal courts in the US.

The military courts in WWII have no application to US criminal or civil law. And you provided one case -- the one we're talking about -- in one district court. This is not "many."

Let's see if I can find another way to explain this.

A federal district court in SoCal found that denying same-sex marriage was a violation of the Constitution. Did that settle the matter for all of US law? No, it did not, obviously. Why? For the same reasons I've been trying to get across to you here -- it's just one district court. It has no effect outside that district. It doesn't affect the whole circuit, and it absolutely does not affect the whole of US law.
 
What I said was that something being a violation of civil rights doesn't make it torture.
Who cares what semantic gymnastics you are making, that was never the issue....ever. Discrimination is a violation of civil rights, but no one is suggesting that discrimination is torture. What is the case though is that torture is a violation of ones civil rights.






This paragraph makes no sense.
It wasn't a paragraph, you combined three separate sentences into a "paragraph"...whata crock.
or that the lower court used the word "torture" to describe it, you're still wrong.
Again, it was posted multiple times that the court DID describe it as "water torture", why you cannot accept that is the problem.



OK, first of all, they called what was done in the case to be "torture." They didn't call it "waterboarding."
There you go again with your semantic gymnastics, it was called "water torture" and that is recognized by various courts as waterboading.
It was a specific set of acts, and if it's going to be applicable to any other case, the acts must be found to be substantially the same as what these defendants did. Thus, you must examine facts. I tire of repeating this over and over.
The description of the act was described in detail in a previous post, the technique has minor variations, but they have no substantial differences. Again, this is just more dancing and gymnastics.

Second, they did not convict anyone of "torture," so they did not apply the legal definition of "torture" or put the facts of the case up against it. Thus, while they used the term generically, they didn't find anything having to do with "torture" as defined under US law. The charges were violating and conspiring to violate the civil rights of prisoners in their custody.
Again, this is the same argument from before. And again, the use of water torture as described in the court documents was a violation of the detainees civil rights.

Third, I have never once denied that the defendants violated the prisoner's civil rights.
Non sequitur.




The military courts in WWII have no application to US criminal or civil law. And you provided one case -- the one we're talking about -- in one district court. This is not "many."
Non sequitur, you asked "Show me the "many" cases where "waterboarding" was found to meet the legal definition of "torture." and I did. If you don't care to read the links, it is not my problem.

It has no effect outside that district. It doesn't affect the whole circuit, and it absolutely does not affect the whole of US law.
That wasn't the argument, the argument was whether "waterboarding is torture under US case law". It is. And your only defense is to deny that water torture and waterboading are one in the same. That would be arguing that pulling a nail from a finger is different from pulling a finger from a nail. It makes no difference to the individual, the results are the same.
 
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Who cares what semantic gymnastics you are making, that was never the issue....ever. Discrimination is a violation of civil rights, but no one is suggesting that discrimination is torture. What is the case though is that torture is a violation of ones civil rights.

Derp.

You have thoroughly and completely confused yourself. You don't even know what you're arguing for or against.



It wasn't a paragraph, you combined three separate sentences into a "paragraph"...whata crock.

Looking at your original post, yes, you're right; you didn't make it a paragraph. However, neither did I; it's how it came up using the Reply With Quote function.


Again, it was posted multiple times that the court DID describe it as "water torture", why you cannot accept that is the problem.

Uh, no, that wasn't "posted multiple times," and I also acknowledged it I don't even know how many times now.


There you go again with your semantic gymnastics, it was called "water torture" and that is recognized by various courts as waterboading.

Again, you've confused yourself, and you don't know what you're arguing anymore.

Find me any court which determined "water torture" is "waterboarding."


The description of the act was described in detail in a previous post, the technique has minor variations, but they have no substantial differences.

Well, look at that -- you're actually acknowledging that you have to examine facts. Progress!



Again, this is the same argument from before. And again, the use of water torture as described in the court documents was a violation of the detainees civil rights.

And "again," I never said they didn't. Christ on a stick, what's the matter with you?


Non sequitur.

Good grief. It's one of things you keep saying I won't admit. Do you even know what "non sequitur" means?


Non sequitur, you asked "Show me the "many" cases where "waterboarding" was found to meet the legal definition of "torture." and I did. If you don't care to read the links, it is not my problem.

What "links," and if you're talking about "US law," then yeah, the cases need to be applicable to it.


That wasn't the argument, the argument was whether "waterboarding is torture under US case law".

See? This is what I'm telling you. I'm discussing what YOU say is the argument, only you don't know enough about US law and how caselaw works to even recognize it.


You have not shown this. You don't know how to.

And your only defense is to deny that water torture and waterboading are one in the same.
Uh, no, that's not my defense at all, let alone my only defense. I'm trying to tell you how to take a case and apply it to US law in general, but you're not interested. You don't know what you don't know.


That would be arguing that pulling a nail from a finger is different from pulling a finger from a nail. It makes no difference to the individual, the results are the same.

No, really, that's not a similar argument in any respect.
 
I seriously doubt that.

Then getting your ass kicked by someone you don't believe has the credentials must really sting. We've been over this before.
 
I heard the President himself lead the attack.

Didn't he? Wasn't that President Bush riding his steed in front of the formations to Baghdad? Didn't Roosevelt wheel his way across Europe? Commander-in-Chiefs are hardly the same thing anymore. But we do like to pretend they are the George Washingtons don't we? Forget the Quarterback on the field. Real credit, love and affection should go to the manager in the box who hired him.
 
Didn't he? Wasn't that President Bush riding his steed in front of the formations to Baghdad? Didn't Roosevelt wheel his way across Europe? Commander-in-Chiefs are hardly the same thing anymore. But we do like to pretend they are the George Washingtons don't we? Forget the Quarterback on the field. Real credit, love and affection should go to the manager in the box who hired him.

Yes, indeedy! It was GWShiiteForBrains hisself who led the invasion of a country that was no threat to the USA with an organized platform of lies. misrepresentation, profiteering, collusion, Korporate connivance and absolute support of Republicans. Glad you noticed.
 
Yes, indeedy! It was GWShiiteForBrains hisself who led the invasion of a country that was no threat to the USA with an organized platform of lies. misrepresentation, profiteering, collusion, Korporate connivance and absolute support of Republicans. Glad you noticed.

Don't use me to strengthen your whinining about an event that occurred almost ten years ago. You know the diference between a Republican and a Democrat? The spelling and what they choose to lie about. You being a "Conservative" is as silly as others being a "Liberal."

And don't be so naive as to suggest that we ever go to war because somebody is a "threat" to our soil. Aside from the Japanese and a terrorist organization that was being harbored by a foreign government, when have we ever been threatened? What explains the many other times we have gone to war? We have always killed for your "Wal-Mart" shelf and your "gasoline" so grow up.
 
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Don't use me to strengthen your whinining about an event that occurred almost ten years ago. You know the diference between a Republican and a Democrat? The spelling and what they choose to lie about. You being a "Conservative" is as silly as others being a "Liberal."

And don't be so naive as to suggest that we ever go to war because somebody is a "threat" to our soil. Aside from the Japanese and a terrorist organization that was being harbored by a foreign government, when have we ever been threatened? What explains the many other times we have gone to war? We have always killed for your "Wal-Mart" shelf and your "gasoline" so grow up.

I agree. We have a $700 billion military offense budget to gin up and execute wars. Very profitable, but don't tell Joe the plumber because he thinks (media manipulation) that we are the good guys fighting terrorism instead of ginning it up to make profit. It do be the nature and execution of convolution. Then there is all that "oil" and that is all coincidence, no doubt. Ah well, profit, like gold, is where you find it. I've explained this to my children and they think it is reprehensible. What do kids know?
 
I agree. We have a $700 billion military offense budget to gin up and execute wars. Very profitable, but don't tell Joe the plumber because he thinks (media manipulation) that we are the good guys fighting terrorism instead of ginning it up to make profit. It do be the nature and execution of convolution. Then there is all that "oil" and that is all coincidence, no doubt. Ah well, profit, like gold, is where you find it. I've explained this to my children and they think it is reprehensible. What do kids know?

What do adults know? Making a profit is very callous. We don't need to make a profit. We are the most powerful nation in recorded history. Everything is weighed against the dollar. Englsh is the international language of business. The whole world wants their "Coca~Cola and MTV." What we need is to keep the lifestyle moving. Which means the international water ways need to be free of pirates (Barbary Pirate, Asian Pirates of the 70s, and today's Somalia), trading partners need to be secure from belligerents (civil wars, disease, genocides, ethnic cleansings), and resources (oil, coal, water) need to continue to flow. Right now, the biggest threat to all of this a single region full of oppression, a lack of base education, high unemployment, and brutality. Religious terror organizations and their product are symptoms.

And $700 billion dollars mostly goes to toys that the military never even sees.

The idea that we have to be "attacked" to whup somebody's ass defies the history of every great nation. Nation's are built on the import and export trade. Often, this means going to war to protect that. In today's world, we have the luxury of being able to attach "democracy" to it. This is not the first time we have attached a code of morality to our actions. We fought a war in Korea for over a year beyond a mutual agreement to cease combat because we struggled with the notion of repatriation. Instead of sending Korean prisoners back to a Chinese government against their will, we attached a code of morality to the event. We did this, because our status and power allowed us to do it. No time in history has this ever occurred because nobody else could have gotten away with it. How many more Americans dies during that extra year of combat to live up to that code? Today, we continue the luxury of morality in the Post Cold War world. We couldn't get away with that good old Cold War prescription and simply drop in another dictator in Afghanistan or Iraq. What angers me was how "they" did it and how impotent "they" were last year when Arabs everywhere were defying their dictators and demanding democracy....not caliphate. This is the direction we need to support because anything else provides the environment for the Al-Quedas and the 9/11s.
 
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What do adults know? Making a profit is very callous. We don't need to make a profit. We are the most powerful nation in recorded history. Everything is weighed against the dollar. Englsh is the international language of business. The whole world wants their "Coca~Cola and MTV." What we need is to keep the lifestyle moving. Which means the international water ways need to be free of pirates (Barbary Pirate, Asian Pirates of the 70s, and today's Somalia), trading partners need to be secure from belligerents (civil wars, disease, genocides, ethnic cleansings), and resources (oil, coal, water) need to continue to flow. Right now, the biggest threat to all of this a single region full of oppression, a lack of base education, high unemployment, and brutality. Religious terror organizations and their product are symptoms.

And $700 billion dollars mostly goes to toys that the military never even sees.

The idea that we have to be "attacked" to whup somebody's ass defies the history of every great nation. Nation's are built on the import and export trade. Often, this means going to war to protect that. In today's world, we have the luxury of being able to attach "democracy" to it. This is not the first time we have attached a code of morality to our actions. We fought a war in Korea for over a year beyond a mutual agreement to cease combat because we struggled with the notion of repatriation. Instead of sending Korean prisoners back to a Chinese government against their will, we attached a code of morality to the event. We did this, because our status and power allowed us to do it. No time in history has this ever occurred because nobody else could have gotten away with it. How many more Americans dies during that extra year of combat to live up to that code? Today, we continue the luxury of morality in the Post Cold War world. We couldn't get away with that good old Cold War prescription and simply drop in another dictator in Afghanistan or Iraq. What angers me was how "they" did it and how impotent "they" were last year when Arabs everywhere were defying their dictators and demanding democracy....not caliphate. This is the direction we need to support because anything else provides the environment for the Al-Quedas and the 9/11s.


Hopefully you'll get smarter as youget older. I thought like you when I was in the Military. After I got out, I started thinking for myself. and doing my own homework and information gathering. I'll remind you that the USA is the Nation that organized and funded Osama Bin Ladin. We just organized the sacking of Libya for our Big OIL corporations and their distribution network. Now you won't have to worry about Qaddaffi spending that OIL money helping Africans. No indeedy. Now it can help the NATO countries. There's something wrong with this picture. Reminder: Religions have caused more wars than anything in history. Are you gonna "get some" or think twice about it?
 
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