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Gitmo inmate: My treatment shames American flag [W:508,759]

Im surprised that as a Canadian, you think your opinion matters. :confused:

In the real world, what we generally do is work to improve the country, rather than throwing a hissy fit and stomping off.

I think the torture that the US did was awful, shameful and should never be repeated again. And making that clear is the first thing one needs to do - because I would hope this nation will never accept this type of behavior again.

You're funny - you bleat and moan about not treating other nations and nationals with respect and dignity and then you claim my opinion is of no value because I'm Canadian. Priceless.
 
You're funny - you bleat and moan about not treating other nations and nationals with respect and dignity and then you claim my opinion is of no value because I'm Canadian. Priceless.
Exactly. Much of their concerns has been over what other countries may think of them and yet, when foreigners offer their opinions, this is the response. It is funny!
 
Exactly. Much of their concerns has been over what other countries may think of them and yet, when foreigners offer their opinions, this is the response. It is funny!

I assume I'm supposed to hate America now and I'm perfectly within my rights to become a terrorist because nasty American Threegoofs insulted me and bruised my wittle feelings.
 
Prissy congresswomen who exploit this stuff and rail against the civility of this nation shame the flag.

Those who act against the foundations of the republic, reacting in fear and being incapable of recognizing the rights and liberties of others do the same.
 
You're funny - you bleat and moan about not treating other nations and nationals with respect and dignity and then you claim my opinion is of no value because I'm Canadian. Priceless.

Your opinion of me has little value and being Canadian is only a small part of that.
 
It's not just we, it's universal. The unacceptable becomes acceptable in direct proportion to the potential for defeat.

In that case, we have no excuse as we were not, are not and will not face defeat from these insects.
 
I doubt you know that any of those techniques was ever applied other than in the way approved. And even if one was, that is no more than to say individual persons took actions for which they could be punished--not that the United States made it policy.

The report is full of examples of techniques being used outside the bounds of what was approved. And when it was discovered that persons acted outside policy, nothing happened. That means the acts were approved policy in every way that actually matters.

I'm not part of your "we," and neither are many people I've discussed this with. Who has called what actions torture for a century? The enhanced interrogation techniques that were used had not even been proposed until about twelve years ago. And why would it matter what incorrect descriptions of an act someone made? Whether any action the U.S. authorized rose to the level of torture or not is a legal question, just as whether the act of killing a person is justifiable homicide or manslaughter or murder is a legal question. The fact you or anyone else assert that an act is "torture" does not make it that.

First of all, people have obviously different opinions on the purely legal question. One of the head OLC guys appointed by Bush resigned over that difference. So to hold the position, the person had to agree that what we did wasn't torture. So that those who did hold and keep the position drew the required legal boxes around their clients acts isn't surprising, and them saying what their client requires them to say doesn't make it so either.

Second, waterboarding has a history going back at least a century. Here's a link that documents a long history of how the U.S. treated waterboarding in that period - as torture. I could be wrong, but I reviewed the Bybee memo again and didn't see any of this history discussed, probably because it doesn't help the case.

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

I think your statements about this would be more convincing if you had at least read and understood the OLC memos analyzing the question whether any of the enhanced interrogation techniques was torture under U.S. law.

I've read them, or several of them. The memos conclude that torture is only severe pain etc. which the analysis indicates is roughly something that leaves a permanent mark, and so waterboarding and all the rest doesn't meet the threshold. For the mental pain, we have to INTEND to inflict mental problems and so if it happens, and we don't intend that results, all's good. And there was really no meaningful analysis of the effect of the program as a whole except mostly baseless or at best speculative conclusions.

And so, the treatments in part or as a program might/likely be 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' but definitely NOT "torture." QED.

Besides, the treaties don't apply and Congress can't tie the POTUS's hands, so the whole thing is moot if the POTUS says it's for "national security," so we're good because we have a couple of get out of jail free cards no matter what techniques we use.

Where the specific techniques are discussed, the memo that I saw took great pains to spell out the assumptions, and said when this long, long list of assumptions is met, which didn't happen in at least several cases if not most cases in actual practice, no problem (apparently per your analysis). For example, for the water bath, it was assumed temp can't be below 41 degrees but we immersed detainees in ice baths. If a detainee is kept naked the ambient temp was assumed to be no less than 68 degrees, but it was 50 degrees in one jail (the one where the person died of hypothermia).

Basically, the memos read like "A Guide in How to Achieve the Same Effect as "Torture" Within U.N./U.S. Statutory Guidelines."
 
It was torture according to the UN, to the people who were actually carrying it out, to any reasonable observer. Clinging to your technical judicial analysis is sweet, but not too relevant.

The US tortured. Theres a 4000 page report out there describing it. I know you like to pretend it isnt happening, but no one else wants to accept your delusions.

And Cheney and Bush probably dont feel free to travel, much like multiple other CIA agents that have been convicted in other nations already.

I'll leave it to others to decide which of us is pretending, or harbors delusions about this subject. I doubt very much that my sense you are eager to run down the United States while holding out the crying towel for the jihadists who chose to make war on it is any delusion--you've made it all too clear.
 
Those who act against the foundations of the republic, reacting in fear and being incapable of recognizing the rights and liberties of others do the same.
Can you enlarge on this idea?
 
I'll leave it to others to decide which of us is pretending, or harbors delusions about this subject. I doubt very much that my sense you are eager to run down the United States while holding out the crying towel for the jihadists who chose to make war on it is any delusion--you've made it all too clear.

I doubt if anyone is crying for the jihadists. It is our country we're worried about.

I'm not sure why it's impossible for right wingers to accept that there are people who fight and die for this country who disagree with you on torture, as well as many experts in interrogation who based on years of experience, thousands of hours interrogating terrorists, that brutal interrogation doesn't work and causes FAR more harm than the meager information gains it might produce. So embracing brutal interrogation doesn't make you a tough guy or a patriot, and opposing torture doesn't mean you hate America or support jihadists. It's an argument suited for a teenager.
 
So that those who did hold and keep the position drew the required legal boxes around their clients acts isn't surprising, and them saying what their client requires them to say doesn't make it so either.

I have read those memos, and as a lawyer who has written research papers like that, I understand the legal arguments very well. I think they are correct. Not only do I not believe any of the enhance interrogation techniques, including the waterboarding technique as detailed, violated any law against torture, I don't believe any of them even came very close to the line. I've heard John Yoo discuss this work, and one thing that made the analysis especially difficult was that because section 2340 was so recent, there had been no cases interpreting it to go by. They had to look to every other source they could find--history, custom, legislative intent, and so on--for guidance. That is a damn hard thing to do, and someone is guaranteed to second-guess your conclusions.

It is worth noting that U.S. negotiators did not agree to every term of the Convention Against Torture. The terms the Senate ratified and were then codified in section 2340 are not the entire CAT that some other nations may have signed on to, because the negotiators were instructed not to agree to restrictions it was felt might tie a President's hands too tightly in dealing with threats to national security.

The OLC is part of the Justice Dept., and its main "client" for this work was the Defense Dept. They asked about the interrogation techniques being proposed because they wanted to make sure they were legal before starting to use them. Neither they nor anyone else had any way to require the OLC researchers to say anything. At that time, Mr. Holder had not yet created the most politicized Justice Dept. in our history. If Mr. Yoo, Mr. Bybee, or others had concluded that one or more of the techniques was not legal, there was nothing to prevent them from stating that conclusion, and possibly recommending changes to bring it within the law.

The memos conclude that torture is only severe pain etc. which the analysis indicates is roughly something that leaves a permanent mark, and so waterboarding and all the rest doesn't meet the threshold. For the mental pain, we have to INTEND to inflict mental problems and so if it happens, and we don't intend that results, all's good.

That's a reasonably accurate description of the gist of the memos, although they are far more complex than that. What of it? That's pretty much my own reading of section 2340A.

And there was really no meaningful analysis of the effect of the program as a whole except mostly baseless or at best speculative conclusions.

Do you have any evidence that the lawyers involved were asked to make any such analysis? My understanding is that that was not within their brief.

And so, the treatments in part or as a program might/likely be 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' but definitely NOT "torture."

It's basic to criminal law that every element of a crime must be proven to establish guilt. There are very few crimes for which intent does not need to be proven, and torture is certainly not one of them.

Basically, the memos read like "A Guide in How to Achieve the Same Effect as "Torture" Within U.N./U.S. Statutory Guidelines."

That's exactly what I would expect. Obviously the interrogators wanted to use as much coercion as possible without violating any laws regarding torture. The whole purpose of the enhanced interrogation techniques was to get results from Al Qaeda and Taliban jihadists who knew the regular U.S. interrogation techniques and had been trained to resist them.

And now I'm waiting to hear why FDR broke the law by executing a U.S. citizen without a jury trial, by relocating people of Japanese descent away from the West Coast, by sending a ship carrying 100 tons of mustard gas to Italy, where it got blown up and killed our servicemen, and so on. Imagine the greatest American liberal ever being a war criminal!
 
Why has the US government been so gleefully pro-torture and anti-human? Riddle me that.

If only it were more so, but thankfully our Nobel Peace Prize-winning, rule-of-law president knows how to use a missile. The latest:

A senior al Qaeda commander and five other militants were killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, according to security officials. The strike comes a day after Pakistan said it had killed top al Qaeda commander Adnan el Shukrijumah, who was indicted in the U.S. over a foiled plot to bomb the New York subway.

Pakistan Officials: Key Al Qaeda Commander Killed in Drone Strike - NBC News

It would have been fitting had the attack occurred on September 11th, but I'll settle for December 7th.
 
Yes, the simplest example stumps you.

And I'm not aware that there is video of the treatment of the detainees in those black sites. Over 100 of them. Please point me to those videos so I can verify that the conditions for them were similar to what JoG faced here in America on some U.S. facility, with his friends or colleagues conducting the procedure.

Here's how the CIA described the waterboarding of one detainee: Abu Zubaydah was described as "hysterical" and "distressed to the level that he was unable to effectively communicate."-^ Waterboarding sessions "resulted in immediate fluid intake and involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms" and "hysterical pleas . In at least one waterboarding session, Abu Zubaydah became completely unresponsive,with bubbles rising through his open,full mouth." Accordingto CIA records, Abu Zubaydah remained unresponsive until medical intervention, when he regained
consciousness and expelled "copious amounts of liquid."


And according to the records, this is the overall environment in which the waterboarding happened: "The use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques-
including "walling, attention grasps, slapping, facial hold, stress positions, cramped confinement, white noise and sleep deprivation"—continued in "varying combinations, 24 hours a day" for 17 straight days, through August 20, 2002}^^ When Abu Zubaydah was left alone during this period, he was placed in a stress position, left on the waterboard with a cloth over his face, or locked in one of two confinement boxes. According to the cables,Abu Zubaydah was also subjected to the waterboard "2-4 times a day...with multiple iterations of the watering cycle during each application."'^^

You're telling me anyone who did this voluntarily as a learning exercise faced anything like similar conditions? Give me a break - you don't even believe it.

BTW, I also doubt if JoG got to experience this: "On November ,2002,a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility." Or being kept awake for 180 hours, or sleeping in a small box, or on good days a coffin, always in solitary confinement. Etc.

Great care was taken to ensure that that the detainees' health and well being were not permanently impaired. They were nonetheless unlawful enemy combatants with no right to Geneva Conventions protections. In that context, everything done to them that fell short of summary execution was an act of charity.
 
Great care was taken to ensure that that the detainees' health and well being were not permanently impaired. They were nonetheless unlawful enemy combatants with no right to Geneva Conventions protections. In that context, everything done to them that fell short of summary execution was an act of charity.

This is incorrect.
 
I have read those memos, and as a lawyer who has written research papers like that, I understand the legal arguments very well. I think they are correct. Not only do I not believe any of the enhance interrogation techniques, including the waterboarding technique as detailed, violated any law against torture, I don't believe any of them even came very close to the line. I've heard John Yoo discuss this work, and one thing that made the analysis especially difficult was that because section 2340 was so recent, there had been no cases interpreting it to go by. They had to look to every other source they could find--history, custom, legislative intent, and so on--for guidance. That is a damn hard thing to do, and someone is guaranteed to second-guess your conclusions.

Right, because they adopted a standard that would sign off on anything that didn't leave a permanent mark. Once you do that the only way to fall into the 'torture' box is if the effect of the program as a whole produced significant psychological harm (and we know it did that), which they didn't really even try to analyze. The analyses just glossed over an entire element of 'torture.'

And you're saying the process is difficult, and that's obviously true, then condemning anyone who comes to a different conclusion. And it wasn't and is still not a slam dunk determination.

The OLC is part of the Justice Dept., and its main "client" for this work was the Defense Dept. They asked about the interrogation techniques being proposed because they wanted to make sure they were legal before starting to use them. Neither they nor anyone else had any way to require the OLC researchers to say anything. At that time, Mr. Holder had not yet created the most politicized Justice Dept. in our history. If Mr. Yoo, Mr. Bybee, or others had concluded that one or more of the techniques was not legal, there was nothing to prevent them from stating that conclusion, and possibly recommending changes to bring it within the law.

I won't bother addressing that - you're just showing your partisan colors there because the Bush DOJ was plenty partisan, recall the USA firings... - except to note that the one OLC honcho who didn't sign onto the Yoo viewpoint had to resign as he couldn't serve in that position and NOT agree.

That's a reasonably accurate description of the gist of the memos, although they are far more complex than that. What of it? That's pretty much my own reading of section 2340A.

Of course, they were 60 pages or so. The point is the only way to fall into the "torture" box unless you cut someone or broke something was mental, which they more or less ignored.

Do you have any evidence that the lawyers involved were asked to make any such analysis? My understanding is that that was not within their brief.

Maybe not, but if the analysis didn't take the program as a whole, it wasn't much use in determining whether the program as a whole was "torture." You can't assume 1 application of the water board in isolation, because the program was done as a package and the effects will be as a package and we did dozens of applications of the water board, along with weeks of solitary, sleeping in a coffin, cold, etc.

It's basic to criminal law that every element of a crime must be proven to establish guilt. There are very few crimes for which intent does not need to be proven, and torture is certainly not one of them.

I get that, but "I didn't mean to" also isn't an excuse.

That's exactly what I would expect. Obviously the interrogators wanted to use as much coercion as possible without violating any laws regarding torture. The whole purpose of the enhanced interrogation techniques was to get results from Al Qaeda and Taliban jihadists who knew the regular U.S. interrogation techniques and had been trained to resist them.

Like I said, that's IMO a minor issue - whether we could do them and not have Bush on down prosecuted for a crime. The real question is whether a cruel, degrading and inhuman (if not torture) program is good for America, taken as a whole, reflects our values, keeps us safer, etc.

And now I'm waiting to hear why FDR broke the law by executing a U.S. citizen without a jury trial, by relocating people of Japanese descent away from the West Coast, by sending a ship carrying 100 tons of mustard gas to Italy, where it got blown up and killed our servicemen, and so on. Imagine the greatest American liberal ever being a war criminal!

Whether it broke the law isn't the point - slavery was legal, and morally repugnant, same with Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, etc.
 
Great care was taken to ensure that that the detainees' health and well being were not permanently impaired. They were nonetheless unlawful enemy combatants with no right to Geneva Conventions protections. In that context, everything done to them that fell short of summary execution was an act of charity.

LOL - act of charity. Even those who committed no crimes I suppose and were detained and EIT'd.
 
All were unlawful combatants with no claim on anything except death.

All were? Then why did we release some and pay them money for their troubles?

It's curious the new right wing position is to embrace any atrocity, and a total disregard for human rights or due process. If we arrested them, they must be guilty...

It is similar to what the Obama admin claims with the drone strikes - if we killed them, they are by definition apparently enemy combatants.
 
All were? Then why did we release some and pay them money for their troubles?

It's curious the new right wing position is to embrace any atrocity, and a total disregard for human rights.

Since I'm not right wing your generalization fails. There were some mistakes, as always happens in war. Those do not invalidate the general proposition. The language of human rights has become has become nothing more than a political tool in our hypocritical age.
 
Please explain how in the world whether something is torture or not depends on the "purpose." All that means is, with your definition, if we do it, it's not torture because we have a just "purpose." It's not supported by anything - no law or theory could possibly hinge the decision on something as subjective as its "purpose."

Besides, what's a valid purpose that would excuse any technique - ripping out fingernails, electric shocks to the genitals, breaking bones one at a time, waterboarding - as not-torture? Who makes that determination - the person getting tortured/not-tortured or the government doing the torture/not-torture. You're surely not suggesting the government doing it gets to decide are you, although that's what's happening in the case of the U.S.?

I begin to tire of this. I am not going to convince you nor any other anti-American leftist. I think I will move on to something else more useful.
 
First of all, without the acts, there would be nothing to reveal. And anyone who thought we could have an extensive rendition and brutal interrogation program going on for years without it being disclosed is criminally stupid.

Second, I guess your definition of 'traitor' is someone who doesn't blindly accepts what his government does, and criticizes it when it does wrong. Of course, what it really means is someone who disagrees with far right wingers on what is a wrongdoing by government.

We shall see. In my opinion the damage is enormous, lasting and deadly. It remains to be seen if it is fatal.
 
Read the report - I don't have to know exactly what JoG went through to be 100% positive his experience was NOTHING like that of the detainees, with regard to waterboarding and all that went with it. At the very least, KSM had 15 sessions, of more than 10 "applications" per session. In some cases 4 'sessions' per day. Towards the end, they used their hands to keep an inch of water suspended above his mouth so it was impossible to breath anything but water. He was ingesting enough water the medical personnel worried about water poisoning and advised that they use saline. One detainee at least went completely unresponsive - passed out from lack of oxygen, aka was drowned and brought back to life.

The brutal interrogation went on for months, in several cases weeks nearly 24/7, and when they weren't being waterboarded, shackled with their hands over their head in a standing position, or stuffed into a small box, or doused with water in a cold room, etc. Months or years entirely in solitary confinement, completely dark, etc. Some officers witnessing the techniques or doing it were brought to tears, because they weren't sociopaths, and they recognize this wasn't just an interrogation, but treating a human being like a rabid dog.



Ok, I guess if a person dying is 'no big deal' that says a lot. But if you read the report, you'll note that people in charge who had NO idea what the hell they were doing was more the norm than the exception.

It is no big deal.
 
Im surprised that as a Canadian, you think your opinion matters. :confused:

In the real world, what we generally do is work to improve the country, rather than throwing a hissy fit and stomping off.

I think the torture that the US did was awful, shameful and should never be repeated again. And making that clear is the first thing one needs to do - because I would hope this nation will never accept this type of behavior again.

Interrogation is not torture.
 
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