Ray

Very interesting.

Cheney seems to have forgotten history.

If it were not OK previously for either US military personnel or Japanese military personnel, then one wonders how come it is OK now?

However, maybe it does reveal good information, who knows?

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Anon

Yeah, cause im sure they'll treat our guys all warm and fuzzy like.
Dumbassed "Human rights Watch" idiots...

Low-tech

cant stoop to thier level tho.

hearts and minds......if we are no better than the thugs......how we gonna win the support of the folks in the middle in places like iraq and afganistan.

i understand we gotta treat these guy different from our own citizens......but there are better ways to go about it than shoving some guys head in the deep sink.

Anon

By being worse than the thugs.

Something tells me that if there are other ways, you're not the guy who has those answers(or me either).

Low-tech

you just put people in the situation to say ANYTHING to make it stop, agree to anything, just talk a bunch of BS and make it seem meaningful.

sleep dep, pitting suspect vs supect, 12-14 hour interrogation sessions, good cop,bad cop, fabricating bogus evidence, charges, accusations as means to an end on an amission of guilt, ratting out the bigger bad guy, snitching about locations, activities, events, plans,etc.

all this stuff is standard practice in the states. we dont go much beyond it. we already have alot of vietnam vets who went thru alot worse than abu garib, those tactics they used didnt really produce much for them.

i think we dont need it.

i guess waterboarding wouldnt be stooping to the level of the insurgents, they do far worse. but you do have to note all the surrenders that occured in the gulf war 1. its better being in an american jail than an iraqi-saddam-era one.

i believe they surrendered because

1>hopeless odds, the obvious

2>they'd be treated better than how thier leader would treat them.

Anon

You tell me whatever i want to hear, and i say i dont believe you, and act as if im about to cap you....odds are you'd tell me the truth to save yourself.

Torture does work.

Of course i dont exactly trust our govt to be the ones executing it either.

They're too incompetent, and not just a little untrustworthy either....

Low-tech

id tell you anything, yeah a bit a truth for alot of BS thats passed off as truth, id tell you i shot Ronny Raygun, JFK and 2pac to get you to stop.


i heard and read some about some nam vets who went thru similiar stuff, the interrogater wants stuff you dont know, that which you do know doesnt cut it. yeah, alot of vets talked............and most told the truth then added more<BS> and more and more to please them and to stop them from the beatings,starvation,being tied up in extremely painful positions, the gun to thier heads.

sappersgt

Do you mean like a hose, a funnel and a couple of cans of Coca-Cola introduced into the nasal cavity? The modern equivalent of the rubber hose beating. No bruises, no marks.

PubFather

Torture isnt something that we want to think about. It's not something that we should advocate in public. It happens. We know it happens. It helps sometimes. The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, after all.

I do think we need to be realistic about torture - and make sure it stays secret and exceptional, only to be used when all other methods have been exhausted.

Nasty, but occaisonally necessary. ("Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values. " wtte Golda Meir (From Munich))

__________________
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit - Scottish Motto

"They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion” Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

Swift Sword

There is an exhibit on "water boarding" at the Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia which is now a museum.

Question: if American soldiers are dying for Liberty and Freedom as the Bush Administration claims, then why are they dying in support of practices of the Khemer Rouge?

Answer: their deaths are in vain. Let us pave over the Arlington National Cemetary and throw up a Walmart store. Whatever Honor was thought to have rested there has been squandered.

What was good for the Khemer Rouge, what was good for the NKVD, what was good for the Gestapo and what was good for Saddam Hussein IS NOT GOOD for this Republic.

**** the torturers.

Hunt them and hound them and hound them and hunt them until the end of their days.

There is nothing wrong with a twisted, sadistic, raping, torturing piece of **** that two rounds of buckshot will not fix and if they strut around with a Medal of Honor about their filthy necks, strangle them to death with it until they are dead for it is they who seek to seduce this Republic from under your feet.

Till under the ground they walked upon.

Burn the chairs upon which they sat.

Raze their homes, salt their fields, defile their graves and strike them from the rolls of those known as Humans.

Curse the murdering, torturing filth in the city.

Curse the murdering, torturing filth in their fields.

Curse the basket and kneading trough of the murdering, torturing filth.

Cursed be the fruit of the murdering, torturing filth, the increase of their cattle and the young of their flocks.

Curse the murdering, torturing filth when they come in and curse the murdering torturing filth when they go out.

May the Lord send upon the murdering, raping, sodomizing and torturing filth curses, confusion and frustration in all that they undertake until they are destroyed, or, hopefully, perish quickly on account of the evil of their doings for they have forsaken the blood, sweat, toil and tears of those who hath delivered us our fine Republic.

By the Spirit of those who sacraficed themselves so this Great Nation and fine Republic might be Free, may the filthy torturers have pestilence cleave unto them until they are smitten with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and firey heat, and with drought, and with blasting, and with mildew, and suffer the pursuit of true Patriots until the abominations unto Liberty perish.

May all that is Free and Holy cause the murdering and torturing filth to be defeated and driven Seven ways to the ends of the Earth.

Being smitten with boils, ulcers, scurvy and itches which cannot be healed may those who seek to bring down this Republic and seduce our Union unto the principles of the Evil Ones be smitten with blindness and confusion of their filthy, murdering and torturing minds.

May the murdering, torturing filth who seek to bring our Republic to its kness not prosper, be continually robbed and oppressed with no one to help them.

The choices put before by those who seek to rule are stark: "whom do ye serve?"

Good night, good luck, check six, keep powder dry and may our fair Republic not perish as we live, breath and walk this Earth.

Best regards,

William

__________________
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?

mcdelroy

What happens Swiftsword if we say that some group has kidnapped your significant other, mother, father, or whoever means more then anything to you. They intend to kill your significant other unless the US changes their international policies. However, as you know, the US government does not negotiate with terrorists because that would only encourage further terrorism.

Now lets say that US special forces have secretly captured a confirmed member of the group who holds your significant other. We can either let them have their 20 prayer periods each afternoon and three squares a day hoping they tell us where your loved one is before its too late, or we can encourage the captive to give us information to save your significant other by treating the captive harshly. What would you say we should do? Chances are if you say no to the harsh treatment you either haven't imagined this scenario vividly enough, don't truly have a significant other who really means much to you, don't have a truly significant other at all, or are a saint. I doubt any of us here are saints.

A previous poster mentioned that the needs of the many out way the needs of the few regarding harsh treatment of prisoners. I'd correct that by saying the rights of the few not needs are out weighed. In reality, the above scenario applies. However, on a grander scale encompassing the safety of thousands of US citizens. It is ironic that our safety to sit here and preach about limiting the abilities of the protectors of our freedom is afforded us by the efforts of those same protectors who's abilities we talk of curtailing.

Now admittedly the US cannot publicly endorse inhumane treatment of prisoners. However, unfortunately we need intelligence. Oh. and generally captors take pains to verify the information they are given. After all, the captives will still be there after the information they have release has been tested. So the ramifications of lieing are likely communicated during the interrogation process.

Marc

mcdelroy

From your past prose it appears you are American. However, I marvel at your rage. Keep in mind that depending upon the current US policy, your talks of cursing torturers translates to curses of the very military men who are protecting your right to curse them. I would hope your disagreement with US policies, likely centered around a detest for conservatives, hasn't been allowed to degenerate into a hate for the very country affording you the freedoms you enjoy just because you question the government's policies.

Marc

Low-tech

your kinda generalizing.

we're talking about waterboarding specifically. you know, like in the movie "the last dragon" when shonuff was doing a similiar number on bruce leeroy, asking him "who's da mastah!!! LEEROY!!!"

1>it would make more sense to allow interrogators to drown the suspect, thereby, letting them know, there are consequences to withholding information. why dont we do any of this?, simulated or real? it all compromises our credability with the people we are trying to help. this whole "simulated" thing is kinda out of the bag anyway.

"take that, mr terrorist!!.....im gonna pretend-drown you, how does it feel to simulate the effects of almost drowning!!!"

2>not everyone apprehended is a terrorist, not every terrorist is privy to the info you want. how do you determine if the guy doesnt know squat?.....after the fact you simulated the drowning of him?. sometimes you have the wrong guy in the wrong place, mistaken identity, and now these people are subject to this bizarre form of avante-garde torture and the option now is: fess up some stuff you dont know or simulate drowning. see below

3>confessions under these circumstances are not reliable anyway, even if the suspect actually was convinced he was gonna drown. its not sanctioned as valid within our own system of law. we already have effective interrogation tactics without the mock runs on simulated drownings. these types of tactics and others like it creates alot of bogus information. when its taken seriously, people will tell you they killed jesus. if they know its simulated.....its starts sounding real stupid to do anyway.

4>encourages the upward mobility of people who specialize in being good at nearly drowning people. which.....really sounds dumb.

5>far as i knew, sleep depervation,eating cheese samiches and repeat verbatim interrogation sessions worked fine.


Cheney denies saying anything about waterboarding anyway which, you know, may be true....or not, whatever. the point is, is he's not sticking his neck out over this. and i dont think think its worth defending and taking heat for if i were in his shoes.

mcdelroy

I'm generalizing, however, so are most people calling for the curtailing of interrogation options. They were calling for a closure of our prison in Cuba and halt to all interrogation long before water boarding specifically arose in the debate.

I would not expect the US government to ever publicly admit to harsh treatment of detainees. However, none of us here are officials so we can speak frankly...and frankly we need intelligence. The military commission law is an attempt to set official limits to the mean with which the US gathers intellegence through interrogation. However, the reality is that business is not pretty. It doesn't make it right or humane, but not everyone is cut out for that line of work. Which is why we should let the patriots in the military and CIA secretly take care of business. Officially they will follow the military commission laws.

Having said that, I'd add that the fact that the US media continually brings this issue up calls their aggressiveness regarding reporting only the negative in connection with the war on terror into question. Regarding the quality of intelligence I'd say that neither of us is likely an expert, however, from what I gather, there are whole military training regimens centered around interrogation. They likely have psychologically proven methods for ensuring valid intelligence. It seems elementary to inform the captive that consequences exist for faulty information. Bottom line. Don't be a terrorist or don't get captured or you asked for it.

Marc

Ray

I am interested in knowing if these chaps who have their heads underwater till the choke say whatever the interrogators want to hear just to avoid another dunking!

Therefore, are they stating facts thereafter or are they stating things that the interrogators want to hear?

Because, if they say things that the interrogators want to hear, just to avoid another head under water situation, then the purpose is defeated.

Anyone who has undertaken such a feat, either as a 'dunker' or experienced being 'dunked', care to comment?

I believe the Chinese water drip torture is even worse, where ice water drip at regular intervals on the middle of your forehead while you are strapped to a cold stainless steel mortuary bed in a dark and dank room and all alone!

A dark room with total silence and the drip of water sounds a boom!