Conservative talk show host waterboarded

[DaveC426913]

There ought to be no doubt about the definition of torture beyond the connotations of specific words used below.

Awesome. Now we have something.

Incidentally, it also disqualifies the U.S. waterboarding its own troops from being labeled as torture, since the intent does not match any listed.

 

[Huckleberry]

It also inherently disqualifies legal criminal prosecution from being labeled as torture, since the only other option would be to have no ability to enforce the law.

 

[BobG]

The purpose of sending people to prison isn't to create anguish in the criminals. They also get a trial and aren't forced to testify against themselves.

Actually, in 1983, a sheriff and his deputies wound up serving 4 years for using waterboarding to coerce prisoners into confessions.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some convictions stemming from Guantanamo. The reason the Bush administration was so adamant about exempting CIA officers from prosecution was that there's a previous history of the US prosecuting its own troops for waterboarding.

US General Jacob Smith of the Spanish American War (Philippines ~1900) was court martialed for allowing his troops to engage in waterboarding. He wound up being given a slap on the wrist conviction for acting with excessive zeal, but Roosevelt disregarded the verdict and tossed him out of the Army anyway. Smith was just the highest ranking person court martialed. Other lower ranking military personnel were also convicted, with all receiving fairly minor punishments (one month suspension and $50 fine for Maj Edwin Glenn, for example).

At least one US soldier wound up being court martialed in the Viet Nam War when a picture of him and two other troops (one a South Vietnamese troop) waterboarding a prisoner wound up on the front page of the Washington Post.

With the punishments of Abu Graib guards as the precedence, I'd expect punishment for waterboarding to be more severe than just a $50 fine. Japanese troops that waterboarded American prisoners during World War II received punishments up to 15 years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834

 

[mheslep]

...

With the punishments of Abu Graib guards as the precedence, I'd expect punishment for waterboarding to be more severe than just a $50 fine. Japanese troops that waterboarded American prisoners during World War II received punishments up to 15 years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834

These stories are not clear on the exact match between the Japanese and the the sentences. (I read the WaPo stories). I've seen elsewhere that in these particular cases a) the imperial Japanese troops went far beyond water boarding as it has been described by the Red Cross for KSM, stuffing rags down the throat, etc, and b) the J. troops committed other abuses than water boarding, that c) the sentences were handed out collectively for a wide range of abuse, water boarding happened to be part of it. Therefore it is inaccurate, or at least incomplete, to say the troops 'received 15 years for water boarding'.

 

[seycyrus]

The definition given by the UN convention on torture (few posts up) seems to be a bit ambiguous in the word "severe". Is "severe" defined elsewhere in the convention?

I also note that "punishment" is indeed listed in the definition. Therefore it can be argued that the US(and every other govt.) does indeed routinely torture some of its criminals.

I also note that SERE training uses waterboarding to "intentionally" "intimidate" or "coerce" the military personnel in question. Those words seem to match up quite nicely with UN convention's definition.

I also note that at the very least, using the UN definition, you need someone acting in an "official capacity". A psycho parent burning his kid time and time isn't torturing him.

And finally in summary, I note that that definition isn't as useful as some had hoped.

 

[DaveC426913]

I also note that "punishment" is indeed listed in the definition. Therefore it can be argued that the US(and every other govt.) does indeed routinely torture some of its criminals.

No, you've got your subsets and supersets backwards. That it is punishment does not imply that it is torture, which is what your statement is suggesting.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

These stories are not clear on the exact match between the Japanese and the the sentences. (I read the WaPo stories). I've seen elsewhere that in these particular cases a) the imperial Japanese troops went far beyond water boarding as it has been described by the Red Cross for KSM, stuffing rags down the throat, etc, and b) the J. troops committed other abuses than water boarding, that c) the sentences were handed out collectively for a wide range of abuse, water boarding happened to be part of it. Therefore it is inaccurate, or at least incomplete, to say the troops 'received 15 years for water boarding'.

Evidence?

 

[seycyrus]

No, you've got your subsets and supersets backwards. That it is punishment does not imply that it is torture, which is what your statement is suggesting.

I disagree about my possible confusion,

****
..., is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed...
****

It looks to me that they are including punishment one example of a possible case of torture. Certainly, they are not excluding it. EDIT: unless you are referring to the lawful sanctions part at the end.

I still maintain that this working definition is not very helpful.

 

[seycyrus]

Evidence?

http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf

U.S. Military Commission, Yokohama, May 1-28, 1947
United States of America v. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata,
and Takeo Kita
(The following charges are from the criminal indictment against Yukio Asano for
waterboarding.)

“Charge: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, , at Fukoka Prisoner of War
Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asana, then a civilian
serving as an interpreter with the Armed Forces of Japan, a nation then at war with the
United States of America and its Allies, did violate the Laws and Customs of War.

Specification 1: That in or about July or August, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did
willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and tortureMorris O. Killough, an American
Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring
water up his nostrils.

Specification 2: That on or about 15May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch
Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully,
brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O. Cash, and Munroe Dave
Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them, by forcingwater into
their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.

Specification 5: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 December, 1943, the accused Yukio
Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture JohnHenry Burton, an
American Prisoner of War, by beating him; and by fastening him head downward on a
stretcher and forcingwater into his nose.”

Source:
Wallach, Evan. “Drop By Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture In U.S.
Courts,” The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 2007.

****

Ehh, don't ask me what happened to specs 3 and 4.

 

[DaveC426913]

I disagree about my possible confusion...

Quite possible I'm wrong. I think the sides of this have gotten knotted.

So, what I'll do is ask for clarification. Can you elaborate on this:

it can be argued that the US(and every other govt.) does indeed routinely torture some of its criminals.

Just restate it, filling in the bits and qualifiers that came from other posts, etc.

 

[Huckleberry]

EDIT: unless you are referring to the lawful sanctions part at the end.

I still maintain that this working definition is not very helpful.

That part at the end is important. Hopefully you see the need for the existence of legal sanctions. The definition provided is better than saying that any sanction is torture. That is just sedition and isn't very helpful to society at all. Those who are not responsible enough to live peacefully among society must be separated from it for the benefit of society. It doesn't mean that society should punish them for the sake of punishment. That is counterproductive to rehabilitation, and detrimental to the needs of society. It's just spiteful.

Any argument for waterboarding must show that the procedure yields truthful information where more compassionate procedures will not. If the information can't be used in a criminal trial then how can we apply the principle of justice to it? If forced confessions are legally acceptable then we have lost any semblance of justice and the law serves itself, not society. That is tyranny, not justice. It's not beneficial to a society that wishes to live peacefully, though perhaps it would be just for a cruel society to live in tyranny.

If the definition provided isn't helpful then perhaps you should help yourself and suggest how it could be improved to be more objective. Not that I think it matters, because I maintain that waterboarding is unnecessary and cruel regardless of the definition of torture.

edit- the more I look at this I see that people who are indifferent to cruelty are soft on torture and people who value compassion oppose it. This is an ethical problem full of circular logic. The real question is what kind of society do you want to live in?

 

[seycyrus]

Quite possible I'm wrong. I think the sides of this have gotten knotted.

So, what I'll do is ask for clarification. Can you elaborate on this:
Just restate it, filling in the bits and qualifiers that came from other posts, etc.

My argument on this point is that the UN definition is ambiguous enough to be misapplied as needed. And is thereofore does not "wrap up the argument" (or whatever phrase was used).

I am not arguing that the US tortures their criminals. rather, I am stating that others might make such a claim.

Certainly the prison system uses punishment as a means to coerce and/or intimidate prisoners. The "Lawful Sanctions" part is obviously an attempt to remove this ambiguity in the case of convicted criminals, but what happens in the case of someone who claims the lawful sanctions were misapplied? We could have prisoners accusing the govt. of torture.

 

[seycyrus]

That part at the end is important. Hopefully you see the need for the existence of legal sanctions. The definition provided is better than saying that any sanction is torture. ...

Certainly you can see that the inclusion of the word "legal" might be very problematic. A govt. could simply redefine what is a legal sanction as needed. (Is this not what people are claiming the Bush admin did, btw?)

I think a definition of torture should avoid such problematic inclusions.

Any argument for waterboarding must show that the procedure yields truthful information where more compassionate procedures will not.

This is quite obviously a condition that could not be rigorously fulfilled in each case, and is therefore (just as obviously) simply, a tactical tool in your argument. Please make a comprehensive list of ALL compassionate procedure that we need to verify against ...

If the information can't be used in a criminal trial then how can we apply the principle of justice to it?

We are not talking about applying enhanced interrogation techniques to obtain confessions. Rather we are talking about using it to save lives.

KSM and the other two guys were already CONVICTED terrorists. Their conviction did not stem from confessions obtained from WBing.

If the definition provided isn't helpful then perhaps you should help yourself and suggest how it could be improved to be more objective.

I believe I have been trying to do just that. Certainly by whittling down what is NOT a necessary criteria for torture, we can arrive at what might be a useful definition.

Not that I think it matters, because I maintain that waterboarding is unnecessary and cruel regardless of the definition of torture.

And that is an entirely different argument.

edit- the more I look at this I see that people who are indifferent to cruelty are soft on torture and people who value compassion oppose it. This is an ethical problem full of circular logic. The real question is what kind of society do you want to live in?

I only had to look at that statement *once* to note its egotistical and selfserving nature.

The question I posed to myself was whether I should conjure up a similar ridiculous claim that would encompass your stated viewpoints, or whether I should just ignore it.

I chose something in the middle.

 

[mheslep]

http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf

U.S. Military Commission, Yokohama, May 1-28, 1947
United States of America v. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata,
and Takeo Kita
(The following charges are from the criminal indictment against Yukio Asano for
waterboarding.)

“Charge: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, , at Fukoka Prisoner of War
Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asana, then a civilian
serving as an interpreter with the Armed Forces of Japan, a nation then at war with the
United States of America and its Allies, did violate the Laws and Customs of War.

Specification 1: That in or about July or August, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did
willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and tortureMorris O. Killough, an American
Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring
water up his nostrils.

Specification 2: That on or about 15May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch
Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully,
brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O. Cash, and Munroe Dave
Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them, by forcingwater into
their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.

Specification 5: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 December, 1943, the accused Yukio
Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture JohnHenry Burton, an
American Prisoner of War, by beating him; and by fastening him head downward on a
stretcher and forcingwater into his nose.”

Source:
Wallach, Evan. “Drop By Drop: Forgetting The History of Water Torture In U.S.
Courts,” The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 2007.

****

Ehh, don't ask me what happened to specs 3 and 4.

Thanks seycyrus. Asano also:

2. Did unlawfully take and convert to his own use Red Cross packages and supplies intended for PWs

.
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Asano.htm

Note Asano was the name of the Japanese soldier mentioned by Kennedy in the WaPo article referenced above, as in

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.

 

[Huckleberry]

I only had to look at that statement *once* to note its egotistical and selfserving nature.

The question I posed to myself was whether I should conjure up a similar ridiculous claim that would encompass your stated viewpoints, or whether I should just ignore it.

I chose something in the middle.

Legalizing torture is egotistical and self-serving, and ineffective. I suppose telling others that being needlessly cruel is wrong is also egotistical and self-serving, and apparently, just as ineffective.

Without some evidence of its effectiveness then there is no reason to implement the practice of waterboarding besides a disregard for cruelty. It's absurd to say that waterboarding is valid because there are too many other ways to list to get information that aren't needlessly cruel. It's absurd to say waterboarding is valid because the definition isn't satisfactory, and you don't understand the relevence of law.

If the evidence is semantic then it's just a way for a person to interpret the text in a manner that suits them. People who favor cruelty are cruel. People who favor compassion are compassionate. Show me some evidence of its usefullness and perhaps I can see the logic in its validation. Trying to make logic out of semantics is just a ruse. That's why I made the egotistical observation I did.

Show me what makes waterboarding necessary or accept that I think you are cruel for advocating its use needlessly. I oppose waterboarding because it is cruel and, as far as I can tell, ineffective. It's not a different argument. It is central to this one.

 

[seycyrus]

I oppose waterboarding because it is cruel and, as far as I can tell, ineffective. It's not a different argument. It is central to this one.

It is a different argument. Whether something or not is "cruel" is certainly not sufficient to define it as torture.

KSM gave info under WBing. Info that he did not give when asked nicely.

I claim that you are out of touch with reality and show a complete and utter lack of compassion for the untold number of people who have been aided by information obtained from WBing.

I am far more compassionate than you!

(I just put up my "rubber" shield, and declared you "glue" btw.)

 

[WheelsRCool]

Legalizing torture is egotistical and self-serving, and ineffective. I suppose telling others that being needlessly cruel is wrong is also egotistical and self-serving, and apparently, just as ineffective.

Not ineffective at all. We know waterboarding works, otherwise "the most transparent administration in history" would reveal the full records. But they won't.

Without some evidence of its effectiveness then there is no reason to implement the practice of waterboarding besides a disregard for cruelty. It's absurd to say that waterboarding is valid because there are too many other ways to list to get information that aren't needlessly cruel. It's absurd to say waterboarding is valid because the definition isn't satisfactory, and you don't understand the relevence of law.

Sure, if you have plenty of time to waste, not when you need information immediately.

 

[DaveC426913]

Not ineffective at all. We know waterboarding works, otherwise "the most transparent administration in history" would reveal the full records. But they won't.

This is your logic?

This same logic is what keeps Area 51ers and Moon-hoaxers going too.
"The fact that they won't make the records public is proof that they've got something to hide."

 

[WheelsRCool]

This is your logic?

This same logic is what keeps Area 51ers and Moon-hoaxers going too.
"The fact that they won't make the records public is proof that they've got something to hide."

No it isn't. They released records that really should have been kept secret, they told the enemy exactly how we interrogate. Why not release the full records? If there's nothing to hide, than no need not to. It is very simple. You have Dick Cheney come out and say that the methods did work, and actually put the Obama administration on the defensive. They had a ripe opportunity to:

1) Make a fool out of Dick Cheney
2) Take away credibility from the Bush Administration
3) Add credibility to the Obama Administration and the Democratic party as a whole by proving they and he (President Obama) are right, waterboarding doesn't work.

Only they are wrong and they know it.

 

[BobG]

No it isn't. They released records that really should have been kept secret, they told the enemy exactly how we interrogate. Why not release the full records? If there's nothing to hide, than no need not to. It is very simple. You have Dick Cheney come out and say that the methods did work, and actually put the Obama administration on the defensive. They had a ripe opportunity to:

1) Make a fool out of Dick Cheney
2) Take away credibility from the Bush Administration
3) Add credibility to the Obama Administration and the Democratic party as a whole by proving they and he (President Obama) are right, waterboarding doesn't work.

Only they are wrong and they know it.

I don't think they need to resort to classified info to refute his claims.

The military created a SERE program hoping to prevent the same problems they had with US POWs held by Koreans and Chinese.

Many POWs confessed to participating in US military germ warfare activites against the Koreans. The fact that the confessions were for a single type of transgression and consistent with each other lent support to the idea that the US was using biological weapons (even today, there are those that say those were valid confessions v. false confessions). The fact that the confessions came from a cross section of military personnel that normally wouldn't be expected to interact with each other decreased the credibility of the confessions.

By the way, you can break treatment of US POWs in the Korean War into distinct phases. During the initial phase, North Korea had no organization or plans for dealing with POWs. This was when the worst physical abuse occurred - during forced marches to the North with the ill and injured either expiring due to illness/malnutrition/infection or being executed along the marches because they couldn't keep up. During the later phase, the Chinese ran organized prison camps where more professional interrogation procedures and "brainwashing" occurred without the use of your traditional physical torture (no beatings, no bamboo under the fingernails, etc).

Guantanamo interrogation methods were "learned" from SERE. China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo.

Albert Biderman's paper provided a chart used virtually verbatim by Guantanamo, via SERE. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1806204&blobtype=pdf.

The above paper is a short summary. He actually did a lot of work, not only on interrogation methods of POWs, but on the effects of interrogation methods in general. His paper, THE MANIPULATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR, is a little long, but reading at least Chapters 1 and 4 are worthwhile.

Obtaining information is only half the battle. Determining whether the information is reliable is just as important. Having the detainee corroborate information you already know is true from another source doesn't provide validation unless you also try to get the detainee to validate information that you know is false. Either way, that's a poor method of validating information. You need a failsafe method to tell the difference between truth and fiction. I imagine technology for lie detectors is more sophisticated than it was in the late 50's, but the chapter on "Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information" still provides an accurate picture of the challenges in designing an effective lie detector (which still aren't considered reliable enough to be admissable in court - the machine may be "reliable", but human physiological reactions aren't).

As an aside, the program was initially intended so that military personnel could resist enemy interrogation methods. It didn't enable POWs to resist treatment encountered in Viet Nam POW camps. Nowadays, emphasis is more towards the idea that any info a soldier or airman might have of value won't be valuable for long, so resisting for even a short time is success. Beyond that, try to resist enough so that your conscience won't haunt you, but recognize the fact that you will break. Some things are unacceptable when it comes to what a POW might do to his fellow prisoners, but the main emphasis is surviving with the soldier's psyche intact in spite of what he might do in response to interrogation.

 

[Huckleberry]

It is a different argument. Whether something or not is "cruel" is certainly not sufficient to define it as torture.

KSM gave info under WBing. Info that he did not give when asked nicely.

Whether waterboarding is defined as torture or not doesn't make it any less cruel and unnecessary than it is. It was torture before we started using it and now that we are using it we choose not to define it as torture. That is a matter of convenience if ever I saw one. The US has legalized a form of torture regardless of how the US defines it now. Tell me, is the argument here whether waterboarding is torture, or whether waterboarding is necessary? What is the point in trying to deny it by arguing over definitions? That's rubbish.

What info did KSM give? How can we know that it is valid? At the end of this line of logic is the necessity for a court of law, a jury of peers and a speedy trial, none of which were given to KSM. As a result we have propaganda and no facts that we are privy to (that I'm aware of). Without a proper trial we just have to take the government's word that they are telling the truth. That's hard enough for a lot of US citizens to do right now, nevermind the rest of the world. Where is the proof? Where is the justice? Until I see that I can only assume that people are pitting their beliefs against one another. Without the intervention of reason that course is bound to end in violent conflict. I'm sure there are many facts pertaining to this argument that I'm not aware of. If you know some of them then please enlighten me.

I claim that you are out of touch with reality and show a complete and utter lack of compassion for the untold number of people who have been aided by information obtained from WBing.

I don't want anyone to be hurt. Just because I expect justice and compassion for the very real individuals accused doesn't mean that I don't have compassion for untold people, untold being the key word there. That's rubbish too.

And btw, I'm not very compassionate. My temper is too short for most situations that would call for that response. I wish that weren't so. It's easy to have compassion for people that think and act and believe similarly. It's much more difficult to really be compassionate, and it's a quality that I highly admire in others. And if you think I don't want terrorists caught and prosecuted then you are seriously mistaken. I just believe that it has to be done with justice or it's all for nothing. What I see feels more like a reaction to prejudice and a craving for vengeance. Show me something real.