That’s some tortured coding right there.
Oh, and on further review, the torture I described is called “strappado”, “reverse hanging” or “palestinian hanging”. And it’s been implicated in the death of Abu Gharib prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi.
Good to know the classics never go out of style.
It’s more than incometent; it’s criminally neglagent. The blog linked to in the OP makes an excellent point: these methods of “interrogation” were not developed to get actionable information—which is exactly what we need to combat terrorism—they were designed to get confessions, regardless of the truth behind them. By relying on these methods to get information, the Bush administration is neglecting its duty to protect Americans to the best of its ability.
Furthermore, most human rights organizations decry such prisoner treatment, and point not only to the complete immorality of it, but to the fact that knowledge of such treatment by the world’s “bastion of freedom” does two things: sets the bar for acdeptable treatment of prisoners around the world, and poisons any good feelings towards the US by the international community. Both of which, although extremely indirectly, aid and abed enimies of the US.
I still don’t get it. If you wrap a guy’s face in plastic warp, won’t he just start to suffocate, even without the water? I don’t see how any air at all is getting into the mouth; that’s how babies die in dry cleaning bags, not to mention auto-erotic mishaps.
I thought it was a towel, not a piece of plastic. Not that I’m a torture expert or anything…
Now that would work, if you kept the towel soaked. But several of the descriptions specifically say plastic wrap, which I don’t understand.
Whatever our dear leader wants it to mean.
Ludovic Loved George Bush.
Folks on the left must continue to hold onto the mantra that the practice does not yeild anything useful. Because if actionable intelligence is gleaned from waterboarding, that would force them to leave their ideological comfort zone and face the reality of hard choices where lives are at stake.
I have heard from ABC’s Brian Ross among others outside the government (because we all know they would lie about something like this, don’t we) that waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation methods have stopped attacks and saved lives.
But don’t let that bother you folks. Keep up the good work.
So let me get this straight…
You’re arguing that the toughest guys we’ve captured can last 2 1/2 minutes under this treatment, and… it doesn’t sound that bad?
Sounds bad enough to me. I doubt I could stomach seeing it done to anyone.
And from Evil One
I don’t care if it DOES get anything useful - I don’t want people tortured to protect me or my family. That’s not what I want our country to be about.
There was a time when I would have agreed with the idea of doing “what’s necessary”. That was when it was just an abstract idea. Now that I’m faced with the reality, I find I can’t abide the it. I’d rather be protected less if the “protection” involves obtaining information by waterboarding or similar means.
Call it torture. Call it “aggressive interrogation”. I don’t care - it’s not right. I don’t want it done to people by my country.
Cite, please?
Seconded. Evil One if you say that the utilization of torture is justified in defending America–well then there’s nothing left to defend. America isn’t just a place, or the people in it–it’s an ideal, and one, IMO that does not include torture as a reasonable course of action.
If we can agree that waterboarding has such psychological impact that those who experience it cannot, literally, rationalize the situation (i.e. “I am not drowning, my life is not in danger”), then I don’t see how we can permit it.
I’ve never seen evidence that America is in fact anything other than a state in North America, one which happens to be the most powerful state in the world.
I’ve long since left my comfort zone when it comes to torture. And so has the current US administration.
Out of curiousity Evil One, where would you draw the line? When is something not acceptable in the name of possibliy preventing a potential attacks? And are you willing to submit yourself to any form of interigation/torture that you are willing to approve for use on others?
Ross did a piece on 20/20 recently.
I’ve been thinking about this myself. If the average guy lasts 14 seconds under this treatment and the toughest guys last less than three minutes, and the technique leaves no marks, and there is little risk of injury or death, and it can be done with what amounts to stone age level technology…
why has anyone ever used anything else, in the history of mankind? Why all the bother with racks and ropes and chains and red-hot irons and spikes and stuff?
The comfort level of someone who is planning to execute an attack on innocent people means nothing to me. I would not care if they began cutting off fingers joint by joint if that’s what it took to find out the location of a dirty bomb before it went off in the middle of any city in America.
I understand the “we’re better than they are” argument". Our country is built on the rule of law and we have created a wonderful society. The problem is, there are people with no conscience that want to destroy it.
One one side you have real terrorists with real information who are ready to kill real people.
On the other, you have philosophy.
I am willing to have someone who intends to kill my family tortured to prevent that from happening. And if push came to shove, you folks who are wrapping yourselves in the cloak of philisophical indignation would make the same choice.
I would encourage anyone who disagrees with the above statement to simply state that you would rather die or sacrifice your children than have water poured into a committed killers mouth for two minutes.
A big difference between the waterbording and ‘dunking’ someone into water is the inverted position, which allows water to enter the nose and that causes a ‘drowning feeling’ more so then lack of O2 or buildup of CO2. Try it on yourself next time when you are in a pool.
I don’t buy it’s ineffective, I think there is value in saying that is is ineffective however. Torture is how we learn. We stick our hand in the fire, as it looks pretty, we quickly experence a initial pain, then when we withdraw our hand, we experence a reminder pain till it heals. We learn from that that fire may be pretty but not to touch. We are hard wired for the effectivness of torture.
Some time later, you may have sat on someone’s head, or they sat on yours, either way one would not let the other up till that person ate a bug or dirt or something, again another plus for torture working.
Now one may claim that someone under torture will do anything to stop the pain, which may be a valid argument if we are just torturing a single detaine in vaccum, but fortunatly we are not, we have many to torture, each with a piece of the puzzle. If done corretly the detainees will quickly realize that they must spill the proper beans to avoid pain, the correct beans is the beans that agree with the other detainees.
I’m… not even sure how to argue against that. It’s so unromantic.
Certainly, in the most clinical and detached way of looking at the situation, America is a governmental actor with a great deal of power, both economic and military. Finland is also a governmental actor, albeit one with less influence on the global stage perhaps. Maybe I should go there when I become displeased with the things the country I am living in does. And yet, I’m still somewhat attached to this state in North America, possibly for reasons that exceed it’s ability to project force.
I doubt you mean to argue that there’s nothing special about America beyond its global influence, so what are you trying to say with this remark?
Actually, there is no conflict between the two. The fact that something is illegal does not prevent it from being done by someone who considers it necessary.
Does it matter what they think, if they are willing to kill real people?
Well, what is so special about America, then?