“You have the right to remain dead …”
Just as irrational as tearing someone limb from limb because they harmed my family. It is an emotional response with no rational thought behind it. It is fueled by rager and, while understandable as an emotional response, it is not justifiable as a measured reaction.
Again, would you feel comfortable with every soldier ever captured (from your side or theirs) being waterboarded? If not, why not?
I also find it telling that the post that I was originally responding to showed how you moved, seemingly unconsiously, from using this terrible power for the protection of innocents to torturing a guy to find out where a dead body is. If that doesn’t show why we should not torture people, I don’t know what does.
I am a moderate on waterboarding actually. I can see the arguments for and against it both have good points.
That’s like being a “moderate” on the issue of leprosy.
If it helps at all, i’ll answer it. Yes, it would be justified. My issues are largely with whether torture actually helps (and to what extent), to what degree it is efficient as an information-getting source, the degree to which torture would need to be protected against, and the larger effects even with success. Without those real-life factors, for me, it’s a simple lesser evil theoretical. I think I would argue that it would be a greater evil not to sacrifice of the tortured person and of myself than to risk that life.
Besides, the analogy suffers because it is rendering national policy as a personal issue. “If the United State’s mother and a puppy were hanging off a cliff, which one would the Uniteds States save?” kind of question. Interesting in a dorm room, perhaps, but not having any real application.
How I may or may not react in any given situation means nothing, the question we need to answer is how do we expect our country to behave?
So overnight, in your system of justice, no one would ever plead guilty again. No more plea bargins, no more getting convictions on more minor charges. Because if people are going to be open to being tortured, they will never ever plead guilty for anything, ever again.
Bush believes the version of waterboarding he authorized is legal. Or more specifically, it did not violate USC 2340. He’s not concerned whether it violated international law, apparently.
No one has been tried under 2340. Waterboarding, in any form, has never been found to violate 2340, the only thing that would really apply to what happened. Therefore, until it’s illegal, he did not break the law. We can only guess and say he did. So no, he’s not admitting to breaking a law, he’s not admitting to torturing anyone, he’s admitting to authorizing waterboarding on detainees. It’s very important to know he’s being very technical when he says he did not torture anyone, or that (his version) of waterboarding is not torture.
It’d be similar to a law stating driving “fast” is illegal. No one has ever been tried under the law, therefore no specific speed is illegal and no one legally knows what “fast” is. Most people just drive at 55mph, some a little slower, a couple faster. Bush authorized doing 80mph and admitted people did drive at 80mph. Until a Judge/Jury says 80mph is fast/illegal, then it’s just not illegal. That’s it. The fact that France regularly arrests people who drive 60mph has no effect on the United States. The fact that most people *think *anything over 60mph is “fast” doesn’t mean much until they are sitting in the jury box (and they won’t be anytime soon). All they can do is complain and say 60mph is “fast.” Bush is not concerned with that. However, the justification for doing it does not apply to 2340 (ie, it’s strict liability, it doesn’t matter if you’re rushing your dying mother to the hospital. Going “fast” is always illegal; 2340 is still violated whether it “saved lives” or not). No military necessity can be justified for torturing. But it’s just not torture, yet.
Further, and very importantly, the fact that not just the justice department, but the actual legal eagles who say what US law means said what he authorized is ok (ie, this does not violate 2340), means what Bush did is not illegal, no matter how immoral it actually is. This is why Bush can go on a book tour and say “hell yea” when asked if he’s ok with authorizing waterboarding.
I would change the law. It’s written in a way that allows this. (Since 2005, there is a different law, the DTA, that would cover what happened; it bans "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. " While also undefined, it is considered by almost everyone to not allow acts like anything close to waterboarding and is definitely a lower standard than inflicting “severe mental pain or suffering” which is required before 2340 is violated).
So USC 2340 says:
“As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
© the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality”
If, according to Bush, USC 2340 is the only law he could be prosecuted under, then you can already lock him up. Waterboarding fits several articles of that law, and that regardless of diverging opinions on waterboarding (i.e. if it is torture, or if it is necessary and such). I dont see the room for spin here (and actually other methods , different from waterboarding, and used during the War On Terror would fit the bill too). Seems Bush’s legal team was as good as any other specialist team working for him, that is, clueless.
(bolded some of your post)
If you could prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bush (whomever) knew the techniques would cause suffering, they knew the techniques violated the Convention Against Torture, knew that some people would think the techniques violated the law, then you’d be bound to find them not guilty because you could not convict under 2340 with that.
The spin is written into the law. That’s why I would change it.
This is not to say you couldn’t find them guilty, you could. But it would be very difficult to get actual proof of some of these elements (much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt). Ie, they specifically intended to violate 2340. You could infer it, but they were very careful to state they did not specifically intend to violate 2340 and in great detail explained why they believed they were not. That’s hard to overcome with no other proof to the contrary.
So, this waterboarding stuff works really, really great. Then why does it have to be repeated. There are reports that KSM was waterboarded 189 times. Why would such a thing be necessary? Did he hold out valiantly for 188 times, but only on number 189 did he come unglued and spill the beans? Pretty tough guy.
Alternate explanations: we did it just for the hell of it, got all the information first time out, the rest of them were just for shits and giggles. Don’t want to believe that, gonna try not to.
OR, he was such a gold mine of information, that he had secret information, really secret information, totally secret information, and goddam motherfucking top top secret information, and each successive application peeled away another layer, until they got to 189, and then they had everything.
OR…or…KSM didn’t know shit. Maybe he never knew shit, or AlQ changed everything once they knew we had him. Anyway, he didn’t give up anything of value the first few times. Or he gave up what he thought was valuable, but by the time anybody could check it out, it wasn’t.
But maybe he never knew shit. And that’s why the repeated performances were deemed necessary. His tormentors were convinced that the knew the real stuff, and were determined to get it from him. On his part, he kept making up stuff to get them to stop, and when they checked it out, it was bullshit. So, back to the waterboard to get that really, really important info that they just knew he had!
But he didn’t.
I’m thinking that’s it. I’m thinking they convinced themselves that KSM was a gold mine of intel, and refused to believe anything else, even when his “intel” just resulted in wild goose chases. Every time, they figured “Aha! He is holding out on his, bring him in again!” And finally, after 189 returns, they figured it out. Embarrassing.
So they made up a bunch of shit about how the interrogation revealed all kinds of important information that led to the thwarting of any number of really, really serious plots but we can’t prove that because of national security reasons. Trust us, when have we lied to you?
Oh, and while we’re about it, KSM was the mastermind of 9/11? Then we should have snuck him back to AlQ, because 9/11 was the goddamn dumbest plot that ever worked, we were attacked by the Keystone Terrorist. Shit, if the goddam cockpit doors were locked…just locked!… the plan falls apart. If anyone had checked out that FBI agents report of some guys taking training in flying, but not landing or taking off, the plot falls apart.
If Tom Clancy had gotten really drunk one night, and sketched out the 9/11 plot on some notes for maybe a book, when he sobered up he would have thrown it away. Too implausible, nobody will ever buy that one!
So…this is what we threw away our humanity and national honor for? A retarded *kabuki *dance of pain and torment, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Looks that way from here.
The part of the law which I copied (thx to your link) defines torture. I’m starting to wonder what you mean. I have assumed the 2340 I pasted defined what is torture (and obviously anything that is being characterized as torture is illegal). Are you telling me 2340 defines torture and then says it’s acceptable? I dont even see how that could fly through the SC. Tell me if I got it wrong.
In the meantime , Ill do a point by point check with my hypothesis (which is if you fall under the torture characterization, you’re liable to be prosecuted):
- matches waterboarding completely. It was under the “color” of law, does inflict sever pain, and on a person under custody.
- some of these guys have been waterboarded more than a hundred times (at least, the Bush Administration recognized it). Definitely fits “prolonged mental harm” in the a) and c) points (“the threat of imminent death” is the definition of waterboarding. Even if you were callous enough to say waterboarding doesnt make you suffer, all waterboarded people -even people having experienced it as part of anti torture training- say it is really like drowning).
Sounds like a clear case to me.
2340 is the controlling definition of torture. My point was that if the interrogator, or Bush/lawyers (conspirators) did not (specifically) intend to inflict the requisite level of suffering, then they did not commit a crime.
It doesn’t matter if you or I think it’s severe suffering, it only matters if they thought it was. They went to great lengths to state why they did not before they waterboarded. Thus, the only recourse is to infer, that waterboarding someone in and of itself, obviously, inflicts severe suffering. That is possible. But, SERE’s training involves waterboarding Americans. It’s not torture. So it is possible to waterboard and not violate 2340. If they (Bush and Co) truly believed they were waterboarding in that same way that did not violate 2340, then they are not guilty…then they did not “torture” anyone. Show me proof (beyond a reasonable doubt, no less) that they did. You can’t. It’s this technical bs reason why I believe they did not violate 2340.
So again…The law allows Bush to inflict suffering on detainees. That’s legal. Bush can’t be charged with a crime (by the AG) under the Convention Against Torture. So that doesn’t apply. It doesn’t matter if you think waterboarding inflicts severe suffering, only whether Bush thinks it does. He doesn’t.
(He can’t cut someone’s fingers off and just say “I didn’t intend to inflict severe suffering” and get away with it. You can still infer he did intend by that action. But, if after learning that the Justice Dep’t advised Bush that there was a way to waterboard and not inflict severe suffering, and he authorized* that* way, and you still believed Bush then intended to inflict that level of suffering, you could convict. I just think that’s tricky. Very tricky. You’d really need some proof that the lawyers were forced/ordered to find waterboarding was legal. But that silver bullet just isn’t there right now. And Bush probably honestly believed his lawyers and honestly believed this did not violate 2340. So he did not intend to inflict that level of suffering even if you think it actually did).
That’s ridiculous. WE called it torture when the Japanese did it to our soldiers. It was used in SERE specifically because it is a torture technique. And since when is not realizing you are breaking the law a defense against it? Especially when you are clearly engaging in willful ignorance?
And how can inflicting suffering on someone until they break be defined as anything other than torture? If you believe it works, then you believe it is torture even if you refuse to use the word.
Sorry but your argument doesnt stand one second, first that would mean that executive power determines how it can be checked by judicial power. Doesnt exist in the American system, so scratch that. Moreover, if we go to the flesh of the argument, and it is so specious I didnt even notice you were underlining it, was that as long as you dont specifically inflict pain it’s not torture. This is one of the most absurd argument I’ve ever seen, I dont mean on a moral level, I mean on a purely legal one. If you dont specifically inflict pain, what is the goal of waterboarding?
Either you characterize waterboarding as totally harmless, not even felt by the waterboarded, and then why the hell would you need to use it then? If you dont inflict something that is more hardship than common interrogation, you wouldnt even have to mention the “multiple strategic uses” of waterboarding to defend it. You would have already tossed it away as utterly pointless.
Or you characterize it as it is, that is pain inflicted, and it is legally impossible to justify that.
Bush asking a selected posse of hack lawyers to write him a legal excuse for torturing doesnt make it law, nor does it even make it an illegal law. It’s just an operating manual for bullshitting judges, and judges can do with it what they do with toilet paper every morning.
Bush will not be prosecuted, not because he found a legal loophole, but just because his successor doesnt want to appear as a vengeful spoilsport and crucify him. Moreover, Obama has embraced certain aspects of the Bush “Codex” that are as blatantly illegal as waterboarding.
I just hope happens to Bush what happened to Pinochet, and that several years from now, some anonymous schmuck from a foreign land sues him directly, and finds a judge with balls to match.