On Waterboarding as Torture archived

Did any of us ever believe we'd live in a country where a method [used by the Spanish Inquisition](http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/torquemada/index.html) would be discussed by allegedly "serious" politicians and pundits for use by Americans.

I hate what these people have done to our country.

It speaks volumes about this administration and the level to which they have sunk this country that we even have to have a debate about torture.

Boogie...or that the military would use the same methods on Navy pilots.

Posted By: vandalayThe limited info also applies to those who oppose it. Can you name instances where waterboarding was even actually used.

Well, if that's the fallback argument, why would the Republican politicians be trying to argue that it's not torture?

In response to Vandalay's request above, this is the closest reference to use of waterboarding that I've been able to come up with. The very last paragraph is the most telling, and the obfuscations by the current administration are the most blatant. This dates from April, 2006, and the link is: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1026/dailyUpdate.html

In radio interview, Cheney calls use of tactic a 'no-brainer.'
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

In a radio interview Tuesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that US interrogators have used a controversial technique know as waterboarding to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects. McClatchy's Washington bureau reports that Mr. Cheney said the White House does not see the practice as torture, and allows the CIA to use it. Cheney said use of waterboarding was a "no-brainer for him."

In the interview on Tuesday, Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D., told Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives."

"Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?" Hennen said.

"I do agree," Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday. "And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation."

Cheney added that Mohammed had provided "enormously valuable information about how many (al-Qaeda members) there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth. We've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that."

"Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" asked Hennen.

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president 'for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that."

McClatchy also reports, however, that the US Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts, and many experts on the laws of war consider the technique to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by US law and by international treaties that prohibit torture." Some intelligence experts also say that it is an ineffective technique that often produces false information because people subjected to waterboarding will tell their interrogators anything to stop it.

Waterboarding involves holding "a person's head under water or pouring water on cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning until the subject agrees to talk or confess. ABCNews reported last year that it began as a practice in the 1500s during the Italian Inquisition. Soldiers who had used it during US conflicts in the 20th century have been court-martialed. It was declared illegal by US generals during the Vietnam War.

A spokeswoman for Cheney denied that he confirmed, or endorsed, the use of the tactic by US interrogators.

"What the vice president was referring to was an interrogation program without torture," she said. "The vice president never goes into what may or may not be techniques or methods of questioning."

The White House also posted the transcript of the interview on its website. The interview transcript, however, includes the section where the Vice President endorses the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique.

Last year, in an interview with the BBC, Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, said that in an internal Bush administration debate about the use of the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of detainees, Cheney led the argument to "do away with all restrictions."

In an opinion piece for Hearst newspapers last week, Helen Thomas wrote that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which sets up a system for trying detainees in military tribunals, also gives the President the right to decide what constitutes torture. White House spokesman Tony Snow later declined to say if waterboarding would be permissible under the new law. Three senior GOP senators who led the fight to enact the law believe that it does outlaw the technique, despite what the administration may feel.

In a piece for the Washington Post, Stephen Richard, director of the Washington office of the Open Society Institute, writes that both those in the administration who argue that the new Military Commissions law gives them "clear authorization" for "enhanced techniques" and those critics who say it "legalizes torture" are both wrong. Richard writes that if CIA interrogators, who stopped using waterboarding and other controversial techniques last year after Congress passed the McCain amendment banning cruel treatment, allow the administration to convince them the new law gives them "carte blanche" to use whatever technique they want, "they will be at greater risk than they were last fall." He points out that in the past, the US has prosecuted every one of these techniques as a war crime.

ABCNews reported last year that CIA agents who subjected themselves to waterboarding lasted an average of 14 seconds before they "give in." Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of 9/11, is rumored to have won the "admiration" of his interrogators when he lasted almost two-and-a-half minutes before "begging to confess."

Posted By: vandalayBoogie...or that the military would use the same methods on Navy pilots.

yes. to help them try to survive if captured by terrorists or totalitarians.

So Boogie, you can waterboard an American to prepare him if captured, but you can't waterboard a terrorist to save American lives?

I have changed my position on waterboarding and also agree that it is torture. However, I haven't moved from the position that extreme methods and possibly even torture may be required in extreme circumstances.

I know that some people see AQ as a bunch of criminals who should just be caught and arrested. However if you disagree with that assessment and see this battle as an existential one (as I do), cherished rules may need to be reconsidered and exceptions may need to be made.

So basically, lewisinsov, you're saying America has no moral superiority to Al Qaida or other outfits that condone torture. That's not the America I knew up until Bush took over.

Posted By: vandalaySo Boogie, you can waterboard an American to prepare him if captured, but you can't waterboard a terrorist to save American lives?

Now we're going in circles. The assumption that it works is specious.

Vandalay: It may be more effective/efficient to simply drop a few nukes on areas of Iraq controlled by those who are fighting against us. It may kill innocent people, but it will neutralize the bad guys and save a lot of American lives. While we are at it, we can also fry the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan to take out the Islamists hiding and training there--also saves American lives, gets rid of

Of course you do not advocate this, but to have an argument on whether torture is effective or not is a similar ridiculous assertion. Torture is wrong, period, point blank, no equivocation. It is un-American. It goes against everything that this country was founded on and is based upon. This is a moral issue, not a means-ends issue.

Posted By: vandalaySo Boogie, you can waterboard an American to prepare him if captured, but you can't waterboard a terrorist to save American lives?

apparently. I don't know if torturing our soldiers actually helps them, and I'm not sure it hasn't been done to them to help the military develop their own means of torture. I think the use of torture on our own military personnel also should be investigated and evaluated. I'd also want to know if service personnel are aware they'll be tortured as part of their training before they volunteer. It's also different if someone is consenting to be tortured, and if they believe it will help them to survive future capture.

Posted By: lewisinsovI have changed my position on waterboarding and also agree that it is torture.

that's more honesty than anyone in our government is willing to venture.

Cheney said we use waterboarding. Then he said we don't torture. Wateboarding is torture. A blatant lie. This must be the new world order - white is black, torture is not torture.

Would he feel this way if the Islamics use waterboarding on our captured troops?

Considering that he blatantly lies, why should I believe him when he states that waterboarding has provided valuable information?


"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." - George W. Bush, June 18, 2002
"War is Peace" - Big Brother 1984, George Orwell

RL - If AQ wins, it won't be the same America you grew up with either.

lewis: I'm not worried that Al Qaida is going to take over America. I understand that's what the president WANTS me to be afraid of, and its quite effective for most weak-minded people. But I grew up during the Cold War, and the USSR had 30,000 warheads aimed directly at me.

Frankly, I'm more concerned that Bush is going to do something stupid.

It's not about who is right or wrong. It's about what is right or wrong. Torture is wrong.

Is it a no-brainer when given the choice between dunking a terrorist and risking American lives? Yes, the no-brainer leads us to see that we should not torture, for the reasons cited above. I'll repeat them anyway.

1. It doesn't work. In other words, once we dunk the terrorist, we don't get the information we need, so whatever risk was there will still be there, so we accomplish nothing.

2. It is against the law that we agreed to.

3. It undermines the stuff we claim to stand for.

Given this combination of reasons that are all simultaneously true, there is no defense of torture. Well, if there is, I haven't seen it yet.

Whoever disagrees with the above is wrong, whatever party. Whoever agrees is right, whatever party. The partisan sniping is irrelevant.

As long as the moral police is on patrol , how about this one again. In a war, it is acceptable to bomb a building where a high valued target is located even if it means that innocent people will be killed.

The position here is that in a war , waterboarding a terrorist to protect our country is not acceptable.

In both instances moral compromises are made to protect this country. In the latter innocents are not killed.

Lewisinov: If this is indeed an existential battle (between what, good and evil? Islamic fascists and the rest of the world?), then we have to make an existential choice. We have to choose to live as authentically in tune with our national values as possible. To choose to become what we are fighting against is to become what we are fighting against. If we act like the barbarians, we are no different from the barbarians.

I happen to believe that we can successfully fight against Al Quaeda and the rest of the medievel fellow travelers while still retaining our cherished values that make us their target in the first place.

No distractions, vandalay. Torture is wrong. If a cop stops you for tailgating and you say he should let you off because you just ran a red light, you still deserve the ticket for tailgating.

Posted By: lewisinsovRL - If AQ wins, it won't be the same America you grew up with either.

Posted By: rob_livingstonlewis: I'm not worried that Al Qaida is going to take over America. I understand that's what the president WANTS me to be afraid of, and its quite effective for most weak-minded people. But I grew up during the Cold War, and the USSR had 30,000 warheads aimed directly at me.

Frankly, I'm more concerned that Bush is going to do something stupid.

RL - Good answer. More like that, try to avoid sinking to the level of people who only have insults as arguments.

[quote]I have changed my position on waterboarding and also agree that it is torture. However, I haven't moved from the position that extreme methods and possibly even torture may be required in extreme circumstances.
[/quote]

[joking]Stay here for a little while longer and we might change your mind about even those 'extreme' circumstances. [/joking]

[quote]I know that some people see AQ as a bunch of criminals who should just be caught and arrested. However if you disagree with that assessment and see this battle as an existential one (as I do), cherished rules may need to be reconsidered and exceptions may need to be made. [/quote]

I think that there is agreement that there is a juxtaposition of philosophies at work in the world that have gotten us to the point where you see this issue in existential terms, however I dont see that changing our policies to become more treacherous and murderous and violent and ugly can be a winning strategy.

Posted By: mfpark
I happen to believe that we can successfully fight against Al Quaeda and the rest of the medievel fellow travelers while still retaining our cherished values that make us their target in the first place.

Actually, that's what Muhammad said to his warriors. He told them to fight with rules stricter than the enemy was using. They said, "but we can't win then." He asserted that they could still win. Examples: if your enemy drops his sword, pick it up and hand it to him. If he falls down, lift him up. Only then can you resume fighting.

It's opinions like lewisinsov's that embolden groups like Al Qaida, when he says things like "if Al Qaida wins." It elevates them to a place where they are not, that is, to a position where they can actually "win" (and by "win," I assume you mean that they would destroy our country as we know it, although Bush is doing a heck of a job at that himself). How is this threat any more of a threat than Nazi Germany or Communist Russia?

TR

"It doesn't work" - The information may be less reliable (and shouldn't be able to be presented in court), but if it also produces positive leads that stop terrorist attacks, it works.

"Against the law" - No. It is only against the law to the extent that the Geneva Convention applies to the people being tortured. The Geneva Convention does not apply universally.

"Undermines ..." - Agreed, which is why it should only be used in extreme and limited circumstances when there is no better alternative.

As for our "moral authority" being tainted, you only have to look at what civilized nations have done in other existential wars. If you think that the moral superiority of the West can withstand blitz-bombing Dresden or nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki but not torturing a dangerous terrorist to prevent a major attack then it is your moral compass that is severely out of kilter.

TR - Ever read about what Mohammed did to the Kureish? Do you think that his violation of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was fair play?

RL - "How is this threat any more of a threat than Nazi Germany or Communist Russia?"

Answer: bigger global network, harder to identify and with no mutually assured destruction.

Mind you, some pretty bad things were done by the US in the fights against the Nazis and the Soviets.

Well, lewis, the Bushies have really got to you if you think Al Qaida is more of a threat than Communist Russia was. I can't imagine living with that fear. This is not to imply AQ isn't a serious threat that should be addressed. I wish Bush addressed it more seriously than he did, instead of refocusing our resources and invading a country that posed absolutely no immanent danger (and that they have a hard-on to do AGAIN with Iran).

"Mind you, some pretty bad things were done by the US in the fights against the Nazis and the Soviets."

It was war. Of course there are going to be atrocities, some beyond the scope of comprehension. But never in American history has there been a time where a sitting president and his minions have so openly advocated the use of torture on prisoners of war. It's a bad place to be.

>Sorry guys, from the limited amount of info that is available, waterboarding has been an effective tool.

So would the iron maiden, or pulling out fingernails with pliers, or cutting off fingers one-by-one with a cigar cutter, or killing a detainee's children in front of him, or breaking him on the wheel.

Yep, they'd all be effective. Then your point is?