Waterboarding? Torture?

KnightOfSappho · #1 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 10:00 PM

I have not heard of this practice until fairly recently. (A few months ago.)

Simulating the sensation of drowning will make people confess to things, certainly....

In the end, what is the real use of a confession driven by such means? People in pain will say whatever they think will stop the pain.

What's the point?

Why use a method that will gain what is, at best, inaccurate results?

Noblese_Oblige · #2 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 10:05 PM

Why use it?

for the sheer joy?

KnightOfSappho · #3 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 10:21 PM

Don't be silly. OBVIOUSLY the idea is to get answers from people.

The question is if the information obtained is worth anything.

Noblese_Oblige · #4 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightOfSappho

I have not heard of this practice until fairly recently. (A few months ago.)

That is because it is a talking point of the democrats right now.

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Simulating the sensation of drowning will make people confess to things, certainly....

Certainly.

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In the end, what is the real use of a confession driven by such means? People in pain will say whatever they think will stop the pain.

How do you know?

Have you been tortured? Is waterboarding even torture? Have you ever tortured anyone?

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What's the point?

Using the example of KSM...it is to get information. And it did. Good information.

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Why use a method that will gain what is, at best, inaccurate results?

If you have only recently even heard of this then how have you come to these determinations?

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Originally Posted by KnightOfSappho

Don't be silly.

I am not being silly. I would gladly torture some Muslims that were involved in killing our citizens and soldiers.

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The question is if the information obtained is worth anything.

In the case of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (KSM) it was.

Also, this so-called waterboarding "torture" is use to train special forces including the Seals and the Rangers.

KnightOfSappho · #5 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noblese_Oblige

That is because it is a talking point of the democrats right now.

Not exactly... It wasn't really discussed in the US media or in foreign media that I had read. I read papers around the world and I had not come across it intil a few months back when the US media made an issue.

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How do you know?

Human nature. People will lie their way out of much less critical situations. Think about it... Why does the 'do these jeans make me look fat' joke exist? It's because people want to aviod the pain that would come with the honest answer. Do you think it would change in a situation like this?

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Have you been tortured? Is waterboarding even torture? Have you ever tortured anyone?

Admittedly, torture is a subjective term. Each person has their own limit.

Some define torture as something that causes permanent physical damage. Some define it in a different manner. I don't really have a clean definition here.

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Using the example of KSM...it is to get information. And it did. Good information.

No offense, but I don't trust the media. How many cases of bad info came before the good one?

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If you have only recently even heard of this then how have you come to these determinations?

Because I am experienced in seeing how people react to fear. I have spent many hours in my job separating truth from frightened ramblings. I can't see how such coercive tactics will (usually) give useful information.

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I am not being silly. I would gladly torture some Muslims that were involved in killing our citizens and soldiers.

And the ones that are assumed and are not?

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In the case of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (KSM) it was.

I never said that it is NEVER useful. It's just unreliable.

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Also, this so-called waterboarding "torture" is use to train special forces including the Seals and the Rangers.

Defining torture can be difficult. Waterboarding is borderline for me, but I don't feel that any torture is useful in getting reliable information.

How do YOU define torture?

Noblese_Oblige · #6 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightOfSappho

Not exactly... It wasn't really discussed in the US media or in foreign media that I had read. I read papers around the world and I had not come across it intil a few months back when the US media made an issue.

right! The media is completely into supporting the democrats in my opinion.

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Human nature. People will lie their way out of much less critical situations. Think about it... Why does the 'do these jeans make me look fat' joke exist? It's because people want to aviod the pain that would come with the honest answer. Do you think it would change in a situation like this?

That doesn't really answer the question of how you know about torture. Admittedly you said that you didn't even know about it until a couple of months ago.

I don't understand the analogy you made.

I don't understand the question you asked there at the end.

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Admittedly, torture is a subjective term. Each person has their own limit.

I don't know whether or not it is subjective, but certainly the term should be defined to make this discussion understandable.

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No offense, but I don't trust the media. How many cases of bad info came before the good one?

Right. I don't trust the media either. How can we be sure that this isn't just another media controversy?

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Because I am experienced in seeing how people react to fear. I have spent many hours in my job separating truth from frightened ramblings. I can't see how such coercive tactics will (usually) give useful information.

How to explain KSM then?

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And the ones that are assumed and are not?

I don't think that waterboarding is being handed out like little bags of pretzels on Delta.

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I never said that it is NEVER useful. It's just unreliable.

but my question is how do you know? Also this is a contradiction.

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Defining torture can be difficult. Waterboarding is borderline for me, but I don't feel that any torture is useful in getting reliable information.

Assumes that waterboarding is torture. I don't think that it is.

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How do YOU define torture?

I don't.

KnightOfSappho · #7 (**permalink**) 11-03-2007, 11:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noblese_Oblige

right! The media is completely into supporting the democrats in my opinion.

The world media supports a particular American party?

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I don't understand the question you asked there at the end

It wasn't a question as much as a statement. PEOPLE DO THINGS TO AVOID PAIN.

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I don't know whether or not it is subjective, but certainly the term should be defined to make this discussion understandable.

Then define it in your terms. It will help put us on the same page.

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Right. I don't trust the media either. How can we be sure that this isn't just another media controversy?

It may well be, but without other facts we must discuss what we know.

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How to explain KSM then?

A rarety. Most coresive testimony does not yield useful results.

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I don't think that waterboarding is being handed out like little bags of pretzels on Delta.

No idea.

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but my question is how do you know? Also this is a contradiction.

I don't. That is why I search for the truth.

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Assumes that waterboarding is torture. I don't think that it is.

Again, I have to ask you what your definition of torture entails?

[/QUOTE]

Noblese_Oblige · #8 (**permalink**) 11-04-2007, 12:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightOfSappho

The world media supports a particular American party?

Of course. Especially if many of the members of that party are of the same global political ideology that says socialized medicine is good, the UN is effective, etc.

.

You keep making claims but don't expain on what basis you are making those claims.

KnightOfSappho · #9 (**permalink**) 11-04-2007, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noblese_Oblige

Of course. Especially if many of the members of that party are of the same global political ideology that says socialized medicine is good, the UN is effective, etc.

This is the importance of reading newspapers from around the world. Not everyone agrees with the US.

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You keep making claims but don't expain on what basis you are making those claims.

I'm not sure what you mean. What claims am I making?

cnredd · #10 (**permalink**) 11-04-2007, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightOfSappho

I have not heard of this practice until fairly recently. (A few months ago.)

Simulating the sensation of drowning will make people confess to things, certainly....

In the end, what is the real use of a confession driven by such means? People in pain will say whatever they think will stop the pain.

What's the point?

Why use a method that will gain what is, at best, inaccurate results?

This mountain of a molehill has gone on far too long...

Waterboarding has been use on THREE people...And it hasn't been done in over FOUR years...

From ABC yesterday...

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For all the debate over waterboarding, it has been used on only three al Qaeda figures, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.

As ABC News first reported in September, waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and has been specifically prohibited since Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director.

Officials told ABC News on Sept. 14 that the controversial interrogation technique, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex as shown in the above demonstration, had been banned by the CIA director at the recommendation of his deputy, Steve Kappes.

Hayden sought and received approval from the White House to remove waterboarding from the list of approved interrogation techniques first authorized by a presidential finding in 2002.

The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed by the CIA.

One U.S. intelligence official said, "It would be wrong to assume that the program of the past moved into the future unchanged."

A CIA spokesman said, as a matter of policy, he would decline to comment on interrogation techniques, "which have been and continue to be lawful," he said.

The practice of waterboarding has been branded as "torture" by human rights groups and a number of leading U.S. officials, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., because it amounted to a "mock execution."

It has been at the center of the debate that threatens to derail the confirmation of President George Bush's attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey.

As a result of Hayden's decision, officials say, the most extreme technique left available to CIA interrogators would be what is termed "longtime standing," which includes exhaustion and sleep deprivation with prisoners forced to stand handcuffed, with their feet shackled to the floor.

The most effective use of waterboarding, according to current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States.

A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the waterboarding that he talked.

Ultimately, KSM took responsibility for the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

"KSM lasted the longest under waterboarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again," said a former CIA official familiar with KSM's case.

ABC News first reported on waterboarding in November 2005 as part of a George Polk Award-winning series of reports on the agency and its practices. In that report, CIA sources outlined for ABC News a list of harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration in a "Presidential Finding," which authorized the use of the techniques on a narrow range of "high-value" targets.

The CIA sources described the list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Longtime Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Waterboarding : The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the waterboarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.

The second point...which has to be the ultimate in stupidity...is that certain people criticizing the AG nominee for not coming out and saying "Waterboarding is torture" already tried to do that IN THE SENATE ITSELF AND FAILED...

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In September 2006, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., authored the amendment to the military tribunals bill that would have effectively defined waterboarding as torture and made it subject to Common Article 3 under the Geneva Conventions.

The amendment itself focused on conduct of other countries, but said: "should any United States person to whom the Geneva Conventions apply be subjected to any of the following acts, the United States would consider such act to constitute a punishable offense under common Article 3 ... ."

The amendment listed "forcing the person to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; applying beatings, electric shocks, burns, or other forms of physical pain to the person; waterboarding the person; using dogs on the person; inducing hypothermia or heat injury in the person; conducting a mock execution of the person; and depriving the person of necessary food, water, or medical care."

The amendment failed to gain the needed 50 votes, failing 46-53. Specter and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island were the only Republicans to vote in favor. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., was the lone Democrat to oppose the measure.

So there are people criticizing Michael Mukasey because his answers were in agreement with the majority of people in the Senate!!!...

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