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UN Officials Demand Prosecutions for US Torture

I was specifically talking about an innocent man killed in custody at Bagram, not Abu Graib.
As you saw that was also covered.


And again, it's not my opinion that the CIA led US military personnel in interrogation techniques, that is pretty much accepted as fact by nearly everybody.
And again irrelevant to what is being discussed. Individual bad actors, or the Government acting.
It was individual bad actors as has been repeatedly shown.

All you provided was unsupportable allegations to suggest it was the Government acting.


The Bush Admin muddled the debate on what qualified as torture.
That is your opinion. While you have many Citizens on your side who believe that, there are just as many that don't.


There was no denial about the techniques I listed previously in the thread, and that those techniques came from the top of government.
The techniques are only in question in your thoughts. Because as already shown, those methods were already investigated by the Justice department and no charges followed.
That has been established, period. There is no getting beyond that. That is the end of that specific argument. Everything else about that is just opinion.


The argument is over whether those individual actors were acting on their own or at the Government's behest.

:laughat:
In fact, Megan Kelly recently criticized the CIA torture report as distasteful to release to the public because it "saved American lives." She didn't deny government involvement...
And? Do you actually care what an opinionated reporter says?
And just how do you think she is relevant at all? :doh
Let me clue you in to something you obviously do not know. Her opinion matters not, just as Rush Limbaugh or Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's opinions matters not.
What matters here is our Justice Department. Nothing else.


Those techniques, in the case of Bagram, killed an innocent man.
:naughty
No. Individual actors taking the technique too far did. Do you really not understand the difference?


If you're fine with an innocent man being held indefinitely and killed in US custody, and don't consider the techniques torture, then that's nothing more than you ignorant opinion.
Your opinion is the ignorant one. Especially not realizing that it was an individual actor taking the technique too far and instead trying to absurdly suggest that indicated Government involvement. D'oh! :doh

Secondly, do not assume anything about my position unless I already stated it.
I am not okay with indefinite confinement. But this discussion isn't about that. So stop assuming.


Do you know how wiki citations work....

I linked the source per the wiki article. Wiki articles are like term papers, and I wrote many term papers in college.
Holy ****! :rolls eyes like thirty thousand times:

No you didn't link the source because it did not address all that you provided from wiki. Had you bothered to check, you would have realized that. :doh
What you did was make a lazy attempt, and even tried to make it look as though you assembled the words when they actually came from wiki.
Not checking was lazy, trying to make it appear as if you wrote it, dishonesty.
 
Nobody, other than you, denies the CIA designed the techniques. You're arguments are beginning to make no sense, and it doesn't even look like you're attempting to address my actual posts. Have fun rambling on and on, because I am done conversing with you. :2wave:


As you saw that was also covered.


And again irrelevant to what is being discussed. Individual bad actors, or the Government acting.
It was individual bad actors as has been repeatedly shown.

All you provided was unsupportable allegations to suggest it was the Government acting.


That is your opinion. While you have many Citizens on your side who believe that, there are just as many that don't.


The techniques are only in question in your thoughts. Because as already shown, those methods were already investigated by the Justice department and no charges followed.
That has been established, period. There is no getting beyond that. That is the end of that specific argument. Everything else about that is just opinion.


The argument is over whether those individual actors were acting on their own or at the Government's behest.

:laughat:And? Do you actually care what an opinionated reporter says?
And just how do you think she is relevant at all?
Let me clue you in to something you obviously do not know. Her opinion matters not, just as Rush Limbaugh or Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's opinions matters not.
What matters here is our Justice Department. Nothing else.


:naughty
No. Individual actors taking the technique too far did. Do you really not understand the difference?


Your opinion is the ignorant one. Especially not realizing that it was an individual actor taking the technique too far and instead trying to absurdly suggest that indicated Government involvement. D'oh! :doh

Secondly, do not assume anything about my position unless I already stated it.
I am not okay with indefinite confinement. But this discussion isn't about that. So stop assuming.


Holy ****! :rolls eyes like thirty thousand times:

No you didn't link the source because it did not address all that you provided from wiki. Had you bothered to check, you would have realized that. :doh
What you did was make a lazy attempt, and even tried to make it look as though you assembled the words when they actually came from wiki.
Not checking was lazy, trying to make it appear as if you wrote it, dishonesty.
 
And whom do you think should stand charges for this? Does it stop at the actual people in the room at the time, or those up the chain?

I don't like to say this, because I truly dislike GW Bush, but he is the
first domino in the torture chain. It was no secret that Gonzales and Yo
were pushed to write legislation that made the torture "Legal." I'd buy a
ticket to see Dick Cheney swing, but the blame is on the "decider," the
infamous dim son.
 
But the key is just how much of the "other things" are torture?... I mean, I've seen some people describe yelling at someone as such...It is getting ridiculous.

Such is not the case here. Waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation are all torture and not equal to just yelling at someone.
 
Such is not the case here. Waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation are all torture and not equal to just yelling at someone.

Please show us your evidence that any of those things constitutes torture under any U.S. law. The Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department did an extremely thorough study of just that question, and their conclusion did not agree with yours. I've studied their memos on the issue, and everything about them is just the kind of first-rate legal analysis I'd expect form the OLC, which employs the creme de la creme of federal lawyers to give opinions on the most difficult issues. The main authors were Jay Bybee, who last I heard was a California appeals court judge, and John Yoo, who is a professor of constitutional law (a real one, not a Barack-Obama-type guest lecturer) at UC Berkeley. I'll leave it anyone here to decide whose opinion to lend more weight to--theirs, or yours.
 
Please show us your evidence that any of those things constitutes torture under any U.S. law. The Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department did an extremely thorough study of just that question, and their conclusion did not agree with yours. I've studied their memos on the issue, and everything about them is just the kind of first-rate legal analysis I'd expect form the OLC, which employs the creme de la creme of federal lawyers to give opinions on the most difficult issues. The main authors were Jay Bybee, who last I heard was a California appeals court judge, and John Yoo, who is a professor of constitutional law (a real one, not a Barack-Obama-type guest lecturer) at UC Berkeley. I'll leave it anyone here to decide whose opinion to lend more weight to--theirs, or yours.

It's been done many times before. We have prosecuted not only the Japanese for waterbording, but our own soldiers in VN. Of course, if you knew anything about this you would know that. These techniques also come from a CIA handbook on torture used by our enemies. They noted the negative effects last longer and are more devastating than physical abuse. Again, none of this is a secret. Books have been written on this by the dozens. I suggest visiting a library for more indepth reading on the subject.
 
It's been done many times before. We have prosecuted not only the Japanese for waterbording, but our own soldiers in VN. Of course, if you knew anything about this you would know that. These techniques also come from a CIA handbook on torture used by our enemies. They noted the negative effects last longer and are more devastating than physical abuse. Again, none of this is a secret. Books have been written on this by the dozens. I suggest visiting a library for more indepth reading on the subject.

I don't go to libraries--all that reading makes my head hurt. I only like books if they have big pictures in them. And I would never claim to have your knowledge of this, or anything else.

The same waterboarding technique the Justice Dept. approved as legal has been used on thousands of U.S. servicemen as part of their survival training. This must make at least a half-dozen times here that I've seen someone falsely compare it with the excruciatingly painful and often fatal water tortures--often done just for sadistic sport--for which some Japanese were convicted in the Far East Tribunals after WWII and hanged as war criminals. This sleight-of-hand relies on a rhetorical trick that is so old Aristotle described it. It uses the fact two vastly different things can be described by the same word to suggest--falsely--that they are alike. It's like saying that a hangnail is just like decapitation because they both are "injuries."

I don't care how long the negative effects of what U.S. interrogators did lasted, nor do I care about the tender psyches of jihadists who think it's fun to murder Americans. The lousy rats deserved a lot worse. When they had no more information to provide, they should have been tried for war crimes in a military tribunal. And when they'd been convicted, they should have been marched onto a gallows and had their greasy necks stretched, with the proceedings televised live all over the world. To hell with the enemies of this country, and to hell with anyone who sides with them against us.
 
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I don't go to libraries--all that reading makes my head hurt. I only like books if they have big pictures in them. And I would never claim to have your knowledge of this, or anything else.

The same waterboarding technique the Justice Dept. approved as legal has been used on thousands of U.S. servicemen as part of their survival training. This must be about a dozen times here that I've seen this same ruse of comparing it with the nauseatingly sadistic and often fatal water tortures for which some Japanese prison guards were convicted in the Far East Tribunals and executed as war criminals. This sleight-of-hand relies on a rhetorical trick that is so old Aristotle described it. It uses the fact two vastly different things can be described by the same word to suggest--falsely--that they are alike. It's like saying that a hangnail is just like decapitation because they both are "injuries."

I don't care how long the negative effects last, nor do I care about the tender psyches of jihadist bastards who think it's fun to murder Americans. I would have done a lot worse than that to the lousy rats, and when they had no more information to provide, tried them for war crimes in a military tribunal. And when they'd been convicted, I would have marched them onto a gallows and stretched their greasy necks, with the proceedings televised live all over the world. To hell with the enemies of this country, and to hell with their aiders and abetters, wherever they may live.

That explains a lot. Books are where the real information is.

And no, it is not what we do to our own soldiers. Those who run that program testified before congress and made clear it was not the same. So, you're factually wrong about what we do to our own.

And no, the list of the crimes for the Japanese included waterboarding. It was listed and prosecuted.

As was the prosecution of US soldiers in VN.

And as we did this to innocent people, 26 listed in the report, and as well killed one of them in a stress position, an innocent person, your ranting about jihadists is merely a diversion from the point. Torture is illegal. And on orders, we tortured.
 
The Neocons are going to hate this thread.

Neocon logic...'everything we do is right because everything we do is for America - even when it does not in any remote way seem good for America. So, we can torture anyone for any reason and it is ALWAYS right and should never be questioned or openly discussed. And anyone who disagrees is un-American (even if they are American)...and should be tortured'.
 
I don't go to libraries--all that reading makes my head hurt. I only like books if they have big pictures in them. And I would never claim to have your knowledge of this, or anything else.

The same waterboarding technique the Justice Dept. approved as legal has been used on thousands of U.S. servicemen as part of their survival training. This must make at least a half-dozen times here that I've seen someone falsely compare it with the excruciatingly painful and often fatal water tortures--often done just for sadistic sport--for which some Japanese were convicted in the Far East Tribunals after WWII and hanged as war criminals. This sleight-of-hand relies on a rhetorical trick that is so old Aristotle described it. It uses the fact two vastly different things can be described by the same word to suggest--falsely--that they are alike. It's like saying that a hangnail is just like decapitation because they both are "injuries."

I don't care how long the negative effects of what U.S. interrogators did lasted, nor do I care about the tender psyches of jihadists who think it's fun to murder Americans. The lousy rats deserved a lot worse. When they had no more information to provide, they should have been tried for war crimes in a military tribunal. And when they'd been convicted, they should have been marched onto a gallows and had their greasy necks stretched, with the proceedings televised live all over the world. To hell with the enemies of this country, and to hell with anyone who sides with them against us.

If the DOJ declared rape to be perfectly legal as long as it was done for specific reasons, would you agree?
 
It is laughable that the same people who pretend to be champions of individual freedom also turn right around and say "well THOSE people don't have rights, they're bad people!"

And they have absolute trust that the United States government is using this power responsibly. The government they claim can't do anything right can just arbitrarily decide someone doesn't have rights, and they're totally ok with this.

The same government they claim is creeping towards tyranny every day, they're ok with this.

Literally none of their rhetoric is genuine.
 
I wonder what actions you would authorize if it was one of your loved ones who could lose their life at the hands of a terrorist? Are you that cold hearted and liberal that the human life of your loved one isn't worth the effort to get the information to save them? I would do whatever it takes to save one of my family members including waterboarding which hurt no one.

Although much can be said about this I will be brief. First of all you say you would do anything to save one of your family members. Would you kill one of my children to save one of your family members, even if I had done nothing to you? I know you are taking about terrorists, but my point is this, I hope there is a limit that you place on what you are willing to do to save a family member, because if there is not, then you have the mind of a terrorist.

Second, and lastly for the save of brevity, do you realize that information that is obtained using torture has a tendency to be unreliable because a person will say anything they think that will relieve them of the pain that is being inflicted upon them by a torturer.
 
Although much can be said about this I will be brief. First of all you say you would do anything to save one of your family members. Would you kill one of my children to save one of your family members, even if I had done nothing to you? I know you are taking about terrorists, but my point is this, I hope there is a limit that you place on what you are willing to do to save a family member, because if there is not, then you have the mind of a terrorist.

Second, and lastly for the save of brevity, do you realize that information that is obtained using torture has a tendency to be unreliable because a person will say anything they think that will relieve them of the pain that is being inflicted upon them by a torturer.

If your loved one was one of the animals that had information on a threat to my family, I would do anything to remove that threat and prevent it from happening. If one of your loved ones knew of a plan to kill thousands of Americans I would do anything to get the information to prevent that. Now tell me what you would do to prevent the murder of one of your loved ones?

How do you know the information obtained from the so called torture which is inflicted on our own troops for survival training didn't provide evidence of value? You believe in guilty until proven innocent? Not one person in authority was interviewed for the report which is like the prosecutor having the entire stage and the defense not allowed to present their case. Sounds a lot like some communist ideology to me.
 
It's been done many times before. We have prosecuted not only the Japanese for waterbording, but our own soldiers in VN. Of course, if you knew anything about this you would know that. These techniques also come from a CIA handbook on torture used by our enemies. They noted the negative effects last longer and are more devastating than physical abuse. Again, none of this is a secret. Books have been written on this by the dozens. I suggest visiting a library for more indepth reading on the subject.

Boo, I agree with you, I wouldn't do a damn thing to get information out of a terrorists who had information about a plan to harm your family. Do you realize how stupid that is? It is very easy for people like you who have never had a family member threatened or probably never served to have the opinions you do but you are far from an expert and far from anyone with credibility when it comes to getting information from animals who aren't part of the Geneva Convention or any other civilized leadership position.
 
If your loved one was one of the animals that had information on a threat to my family, I would do anything to remove that threat and prevent it from happening. If one of your loved ones knew of a plan to kill thousands of Americans I would do anything to get the information to prevent that.

My loved ones are none of that, so my question to you is, since you would do anything to save your loved ones, would you kill one of mine, who has done nothing to you, to save one of yours. If the answer is yes, then you have the mind of a terrorist.

Now tell me what you would do to prevent the murder of one of your loved ones?

What I would not do to save a loved one is kill another innocent person, unless there was a much larger issue involved.

How do you know the information obtained from the so called torture which is inflicted on our own troops for survival training didn't provide evidence of value?

What I know, and it is an established fact, is that information obtained under torture has a tendency to be unreliable because of the reason that I mentioned. It is not necessarily unreliable, but it has a tendency to be unreliable.

You believe in guilty until proven innocent?

I believe that you are guilty if in truth, you did it, and you are innocent if you did not, in truth do it.
 
MildSteel;1064132298]My loved ones are none of that, so my question to you is, since you would do anything to save your loved ones, would you kill one of mine, who has done nothing to you, to save one of yours. If the answer is yes, then you have the mind of a terrorist.

That is absolutely a stupid question, these people were picked up on the battle field after killing or trying to kill Americans. You really need to do better research. Those people did harm to your fellow Americans and if your kids were in that group, you bet I would do anything I could to prevent them from killing or harming more. None of the techniques used by our military did any permanent harm as these people are still alive. Other American families aren't so lucky due to the actions of individuals these people knew. Stop reading the headlines and find out who got enhanced interrogation


What I would not do to save a loved one is kill another innocent person, unless there was a much larger issue involved.

So you claim these people were innocent? You have no idea who received enhanced interrogation or apparently no idea what is going on in the world today

What I know, and it is an established fact, is that information obtained under torture has a tendency to be unreliable because of the reason that I mentioned. It is not necessarily unreliable, but it has a tendency to be unreliable.

That is your opinion, you have no idea what information was obtained because the report was partial and didn't tell the whole story. A tendency to be unreliable? Find out who received enhanced interrogation because it appears that you believe innocent people were interrogated


I believe that you are guilty if in truth, you did it, and you are innocent if you did not, in truth do it.

Terrorists are much more than criminals, they are animals. Check out the beheaded Americans and Burned/tortured Americans on the web
 
And no, it is not what we do to our own soldiers. Those who run that program testified before congress and made clear it was not the same. So, you're factually wrong about what we do to our own.

Where is your evidence for that? I don't believe anyone offered credible testimony to anyone in Congress that the water technique approved for use by U.S. interrogators differed significantly from the technique used on U.S. servicemen in SERE training. The technique approved for interrogators was described in detail in government documents, and I have read them. It strictly limited how long a single administration could last--about 15-20 seconds--how many there could be in any one session, how many sessions there could be in any one day, etc. The subject's feet had to be kept higher than his head to make drowning impossible, and a doctor had to be in the room throughout the procedure.

And no, the list of the crimes for the Japanese included waterboarding. It was listed and prosecuted.

What of it? Where is your evidence that "waterboarding" as done by Japanese war criminals was anything like the technique approved for use by U.S. interrogators? Next you'll be trying to tell us the bird bath in someone's garden is just like Lake Michigan, because they are both "bodies of water."

And as we did this to innocent people, 26 listed in the report, and as well killed one of them in a stress position, an innocent person, your ranting about jihadists is merely a diversion from the point.

The report you love so well is a collection of lies designed to slander this country.

Torture is illegal.

That is exactly why all of the enhanced interrogation techniques approved for use by U.S. interrogators were designed not to violate either section 2340 of the U.S. Code or any other applicable U.S. laws against torture. And after painstaking, detailed legal analysis, the Justice Dept.'s Office of Legal Counsel determined that they did not violate any of those laws.[/QUOTE]

And on orders, we tortured.

You can prattle that slander against the United States until you are blue in the face, and it will not make it one bit less false.
 
If the DOJ declared rape to be perfectly legal as long as it was done for specific reasons, would you agree?

Nonsense on stilts. Like other crimes, rape is mostly the subject of state law, not federal. In any case, it should be obvious that the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of the Executive Branch, would have no authority to amend or repeal any law enacted by Congress--including any law against rape.

Because torture is a crime under section 2340 of the U.S. Code and other federal law, it could never be "legal," regardless of the reasons for engaging in it.
 
That is absolutely a stupid question, these people were picked up on the battle field after killing or trying to kill Americans. You really need to do better research.

............

So you claim these people were innocent?

................

You have totally missed the point. I have said nothing about the innocence or guilt of persons who were tortured for the sake of getting information on terrorism. What I asked you was a hypothetical question meant to illustrate that there should be a limit on what you are willing to do to save a loved one, rather than being willing to do anything to save a loved one. Again, would you kill one of my loved ones, to save one of yours, even though mine have done nothing to you?



That is your opinion

No it is more than my opinion. It is also the opinion of psychologists who have studied the matter and concluded that information obtained by torture has the tendency to be unreliable.


Terrorists are much more than criminals, they are animals. Check out the beheaded Americans and Burned/tortured Americans on the web

Yep and they, like everyone else, will have a tendency to say anything, even if it's not true, to make someone stop torturing them.
 
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MildSteel;1064132445]You have totally missed the point. I have said nothing about the innocent or guilt of persons who were tortured for the sake of getting information on terrorism. What I asked you was a hypothetical question meant to illustrate that there should be a limit on what you are willing to do to save a loved one, rather than being willing to do anything to save a loved one. Again, would you kill one of my loved ones, to save one of yours, even though mine have done nothing to you?

You do what all liberals do to divert from the fact that these weren't innocents but most high level leadership captured on the battlefield. This is a war and in war you do whatever is necessary to save American lives. I am not a terrorists, I am not at war with you or your kids therefore I would do no harm to them. If one of your kids kidnapped one of mine, threatened to kill them, and you knew where they were, you bet I would authorize whatever techniques available to find them and prosecute you


No it is more than my opinion. It is also the opinion of psychologists who have studied the matter and concluded that information obtained by torture has the tendency to be unreliable.

You call what happened torture, I don't agree and since no high level leadership was interrogated your psychologists opinions are simply their own


Yep and they, like everyone else, will have a tendency to say anything, even if it's not true, to make someone stop torturing them.

You keep buying the liberal spin, I don't. Obama's head of the CIA disagreed with the report and since no high level management was interviewed I don't put much faith in your opinion or others.
 
You do what all liberals do to divert from the fact that these weren't innocents but most high level leadership captured on the battlefield. This is a war and in war you do whatever is necessary to save American lives. I am not a terrorists, I am not at war with you or your kids therefore I would do no harm to them.

Since you have said you would do anything to save your loved one, let me ask it like this, let's suppose a terrorist wanted one of my children killed and kidnapped one of your children and threatened to kill your child if you didn't kill one of mine. Would you kill my child to save your child?

For me the answer is no, I would not kill one of your children to save one of my own in those circumstances because there are limits on what I am willing to do to save a loved one. I would not do anything to save them.

You call what happened torture, I don't agree and since no high level leadership was interrogated your psychologists opinions are simply their own

It was torture IF we define torture as the act of inflicting physical or psychological harm on a person under one's control. Now you may not agree with that definition and I am not going to split hairs over it. What I am saying is that under that definition of torture, people were indeed tortured. It doesn't matter who was asked, it matters what happened.

You keep buying the liberal spin, I don't.

That is not liberal spin, that is not only the opinion of people who have observed the matter, it is also common sense. Again, that is not to say that information obtained from such methods is always unreliable, it is to say that it has a tendency to be unreliable.
 
=MildSteel;1064132480]Since you have said you would do anything to save your loved one, let me ask it like this, let's suppose a terrorist wanted one of my children killed and kidnapped one of your children and threatened to kill your child if you didn't kill one of mine. Would you kill my child to save your child?

Not playing your silly supposed game as this has nothing to do with the thread topic

For me the answer is no, I would not kill one of your children to save one of my own in those circumstances because there are limits on what I am willing to do to save a loved one. I would not do anything to save them.

Show me where our military violated any laws in their enhanced interrogation techniques? You listen to far too many leftwing sources so rather than do that think for a change


It was torture IF we define torture as the act of inflicting physical or psychological harm on a person under one's control. Now you may not agree with that definition and I am not going to split hairs over it. What I am saying is that under that definition of torture, people were indeed tortured. It doesn't matter who was asked, it matters what happened.

What physical or psychological harm was done to those who had our enhanced interrogation? I a sick of this topic. serve in the military and find out just how great our people are compared to the rest of the world. I have no sympathy for any terrorist and they deserve much worse than they got.
That is not liberal spin, that is not only the opinion of people who have observed the matter, it is also common sense. Again, that is not to say that information obtained from such methods is always unreliable, it is to say that it has a tendency to be unreliable.[/QUOTE]
 
Not playing your silly supposed game as this has nothing to do with the thread topic

I'm not playing a silly game. I asked you a serious question.

Show me where our military violated any laws in their enhanced interrogation techniques?

Show me how the so called "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not inflict psychological or physical harm on the subjects.

What physical or psychological harm was done to those who had our enhanced interrogation?

Do you seriously want to put forward the notion that you can put a person in an enclosed box just big enough for them to fit in for days, in which they have to urine and pass stool on themselves and have little or no sensory input, and not inflict psychological harm on the subject? Please.
 
Documented cases of rape occurred at Abu Ghraib as well as pouring acid on prisoners and dragging them across the floor by ropes tied to their genitals. Dick Cheney argued that none of that was torture when he was in office. The recent CIA report concluded that at least one person died in custody at Gitmo and large tubes were routinely rammed up the rectums of prisoners so liquified food could be pumped into their body. They also concluded that innocent people and even US citizens, were detained and tortured, and denied legal council and trial for years.

Some of these things I would have to consider the source, such as the claim that US citizens were not only detained but tortured in the manner you speak of. As to the Abu Ghraib episodes, people were prosecuted for these acts as far as I know. So, lumping them together as some sort of sanctioned treatment is rather dishonest if you ask me. I think that some reporting these supposed acts do so for the shocking nature of them, and speak of possible isolated incidents by bad actors as if they are/were daily occurrences. All this supposed documentation of the nature that you outline depends largely on the source of the allegation.
 
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