Torture in the US

[Pyraxis]

What happened to the right to the pursuit of happiness?

[Calandale]

But that's merely the pursuit.

We should be mandating it. 

[Alex179]

Give me a few days and I will get you to sign a confession that you killed Kennedy

lol only if I were old enough.   Haven't gotten a hold of time travel yet.

That is irrelevant you would still sign it

I doubt it, as I am not that trusting IRL.   I have serious trust issues with certain things, my signature is just one of them (you could ask the guy who sold me my car that).  That comes from things in my childhood though.  I freely divulge a good deal of personal information though.

Peter:   What I advocate is not reality, there is no perfection.   My ideals will not be met most likely.  I am sure Scotland Yard has never tortured someone, ok lol.   I would like it if police did not torture, but it is just a part of the reality of things.   The actual battlefield is a different matter entirely to me.

I do want the Running Man as that is a competition with the illusion of someone getting money at the end.   That also would not account for enough deaths.   I would like it if there was enough death that we would greatly overcome the birthrate, which would be much more than you could realistically televise.    Still, I think I would greatly enjoy watching a Gladitorial sport made for the new age.   That would not be my chosen method of mass death as it would take too much time and not be efficient.

[Calandale]

Days were the issue, not trust.
Indeed, signing something that
ridiculous would seem an easy
way to end the torture.

[Peter]

Peter:   What I advocate is not reality, there is no perfection.   My ideals will not be met most likely.  I am sure Scotland Yard has never tortured someone, ok lol.   I would like it if police did not torture, but it is just a part of the reality of things.   The actual battlefield is a different matter entirely to me.

Do you think that torture really helps in 'the battlefield'?  There's a film called 'El crimen de Cuenca', which depicts the real life story of a pair of men in Spain who were tortured into confessing to the murder of a man who had disappeared.  After spending 11 years in prison and narrowly escaping execution by slow strangulation with a garrotte, the man they supposedly murdered was found living in a nearby town.  If people can be tortured into confessing to a murder they didn't do, knowing that it would result in a long imprisonment or brutal execution, how reliable can the information it produces from terrorism suspects be?

On 21 August 1910, in the small town of Osa de la Vega, in the province of Cuenca, Jose Maria Grimaldos, known as «El Cepa», is seen for the last time on the road to the nearby village of Tresjuncos and then disappears.

His family fear foul play and report it to the Guardia Civil (police). In the subsequent judicial investigation the family and others express their suspicions that two men, Gregorio Valero and Leon Sanchez had killed him for his money. This first case is closed in September 1911 without any indictments.

In 1913 a new, young and overzealous, judge by the name of Isasa arrives. Influenced by the local boss and right-wing politician, judge Isasa decides to reopen the case. The two suspects are arrested by the Guardia Civil and, under torture, confess to having killed the man and destroyed the body. The fiscal (district attorney) asks for the death penalty for both accused men. The case takes its time in the court system and finally, on 25 may 1918 a popular jury declares the two men guilty of murder and they are both sentenced to 18 years in prison. They are both released on account of a general pardon on 20 February 1924 having served a total of eleven years each.

Two years later, in early 1926, it is discovered by chance that the reputed victim, Jose Maria Grimaldos, «El Cepa», was alive and had been living in a nearby town. At this moment the ugly truth is exposed and the innocence of the convicted men becomes evident.

With much legal difficulty, the case is reopened and, after much delay and going all the way to the Supreme Court, the convictions are overturned.

Franco’s fascist Spain, unconscionable torture, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer and the utter repulsiveness of their political hackwork.
Why is Senator
Schumer smiling?

During the “transition” from Generalissimo Franco’s fascist dictatorship to democracy after the dictator’s death, filmmakers in Spain still had to be careful what they did.

It was known that people had suffered brutal torture in Franco’s dungeons, and that in 1975, a young student who later was found to be innocent, had suffered the awful form of Franco’s capital punishment – death by slow strangulation using a garrote.

One still didn’t come straight out in Spain under the fascists and talk about such incidents – not even for a while after Franco was dead.

Speaking in code of torture

Instead, in 1975, director Pilar Miro directed a movie about another case of false accusation and torture that occurred in 1910. But this was a subterfuge. People in Spain understood what other event the film might parallel.

Entitled El Crimen de Cuenca, the film tells the story of two peasants who were accused of murder. There were no witnesses to the so-called murder and no physical evidence against the men at all. There wasn't even evidence that a murder had occurred. Consequently, a hard line prosecutor who derided his predecessor for being “a liberal” suggested to the police that they somehow or other get a confession out of the two men.

Torture so brutal it’s painful to watch

What followed – I saw the film this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art in New York – was difficult to watch. It involved not only brutal beatings, but also techniques – shall we call them “rough interrogation?” – such as hammering wedges of wood under fingernails, ripping off fingernails with a pair of pliers, “strangulation” of testicles, and “non physical rough treatment” such as denying water to the parched victims.

Not surprisingly, the two peasants eventually gave the police the confessions that the prosecutor wanted. However, the two confessions weren’t consistent with each other.

Moreover, a police theory about where the men had hidden the body, which the brutalized peasants parroted after sufficient torture in a police dungeon, yielded no body.

Finally, the police concocted a theory that the bones of the alleged murder victim had been burned, pulverized and scattered, accounting for the inability to find his remains. The peasants then were made to confess that this new theory was in fact what had happened. Eight years later, the murder “victim” showed up alive and well, and the two falsely accused peasants, who had been spared death at the garrote by a last minute plea deal, went free.

Like the Inquisition and Franco Spain
– except that it’s happening today

What’s remarkable about this film, now more than 21 years old, is how pertinent it is to the current debate over torture presided over or done at the behest of Americans in Iraq and elsewhere. The Cuenca case supports with an historical case study the claim that torture produces, at best, highly unreliable intelligence.

Torture someone enough, by any of a variety of methods, and your victim eventually will tell you what he thinks you want to hear. Anything to stop the pain. That is true of torture whether it happened in Spain before and during the Franco era, or in some secret CIA dungeon today.

Relying on the unreliable

Relying on completely unreliable torture techniques such as waterboarding for intelligence may help explain why after six years, the Bush administration has still failed to capture Osama Bin Laden. Or why, in the pursuit of terrorists in Iraq, we’ve managed many times to massacre innocent civilians instead while the intended target somehow "got away."

Just as bad – and perhaps more horrifying to us as Americans – is the sly acknowledgment that we torture people even as we deny it. (Officially we don’t torture people but we can’t or won’t confirm that we don’t waterboard them or that waterboarding is torture. Wink wink.)

Horrifying, brutal and coy

Judge Michael Mukasey, who now seems inevitable as the next U.S. Attorney General, took an even more outrageously coy stance in his U.S. Attorney General confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in effect saying that he couldn’t speak to torture by waterboarding because he doesn’t know what waterboarding is. If true, he may be the only person in the United States who hasn’t heard all about it.

It has come to the point where you simply don’t expect more from Bush administration nominees, not to mention the President himself. In the end, history will remember them primarily as a bunch of thugs and accomplices of grand larcenists who funneled money from the U.S. Treasury into the big business equivalent of racketeering scams. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to fear that they will find company on the other end of the political spectrum

Two nauseating senators
– sad to say, both Democrats

What I find nauseating is that the likes of Senators Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein, both Democrats, would in effect wink at some the worst human behavior mankind has committed short of mass extermination.

One day, some American kid in uniform will suffer similar torture. The justification the enemy uses will be that the Americans have been doing the same thing for years.

Schumer adds to the outrage by declaring, according to the New York Times, that he “had obtained Mr. Mukasey’s promise to enforce laws that banned any of the harsh interrogation methods known to have been used on Queda terrorists….”

That “promise” from a man who refuses to answer similarly under oath before a U.S. Senate committee isn’t worth the piece of paper it’s not written on. And the Schumer statement itself all but screeches with escape clause weasels.

I have made it a practice until now to avoid heaping negative criticism on Democrats on this blog. They suffer, frequently and unfairly at the hands of right wing bloggers, commentators and editorial writers.

But I find it unfathomable that Schumer and Feinstein have agreed to confirm Mukasey. Perhaps somebody offered them a bone – funds for their states that the Bush administration will decide not to block, for example. Or perhaps – since their reasons for confirmation are so incredible I am forced to imagine a reason – they made an agreement not to reveal some skeletons someone has found in their political closets.

If so, they have made a deal with the devil, and the fruit their deal will bear will be brutal torture in some Franco-like CIA or CIA proxy dungeon.

Odious political hacks

You can compromise over matters like taxes, water rights or criminal penalties. But there is a certain moral place where decent people ought to draw a line and say, "I will not agree to let this to happen." If there ever was a matter that shouted against compromising, it's the matter of torture.

Sad to say, Senators Schumer and Feinstein have revealed their true nature and the truth about them is both surprising and unpleasant.

They are both odious little political hacks.

[driftingblizzard]

I find it disturbing how many Americans on forums are actually in favour of torture.

Have you ever been held under water?   My uncle (family bully) was quite fond of doing that to us kids in the family pool.   I am for everything torture related as far as combatants go.   If you pick up a gun with the intention to fight on the battlefield, your nervous system is fair game.   You just volunteered for me to bash your toes with a hammer and stick hot pins in your face to get any strategy I want from you on the battlefield.

War is not a sport and it is not a game.   Stop being naive and trying to apply rules that shouldn't be there in the first place.   The Geneva convention is bullshit.  Although I am admittedly in favour of outright butchery instead of traditional warfare (gentlemen's code of stupidity).

QFT!

Do you think terrorists have a code of conduct?  Hell no.  They wouldn't even view what we do to get information as "torture", can you see them ever posting a video of a captive being dunked in water as having any inpact?  No.  They slice peoples heads off with a usually sharp but sometimes dull knife.  The reason this war has taken so long and cost so many lives is the rules were are shackeled with. 

[Peter]

I find it disturbing how many Americans on forums are actually in favour of torture.

Have you ever been held under water?   My uncle (family bully) was quite fond of doing that to us kids in the family pool.   I am for everything torture related as far as combatants go.   If you pick up a gun with the intention to fight on the battlefield, your nervous system is fair game.   You just volunteered for me to bash your toes with a hammer and stick hot pins in your face to get any strategy I want from you on the battlefield.

War is not a sport and it is not a game.   Stop being naive and trying to apply rules that shouldn't be there in the first place.   The Geneva convention is bullshit.  Although I am admittedly in favour of outright butchery instead of traditional warfare (gentlemen's code of stupidity).

QFT!

Do you think terrorists have a code of conduct?  Hell no.  They wouldn't even view what we do to get information as "torture", can you see them ever posting a video of a captive being dunked in water as having any inpact?  No.  They slice peoples heads off with a usually sharp but sometimes dull knife.  The reason this war has taken so long and cost so many lives is the rules were are shackeled with. 

Do you think torture is an effective tactic in the advancement of US goals?  Or do you just like the idea of making terrorists suffer?

Now to the issue: There is a consituency of frustrated Americans, in and out of government, who want to believe that waterboarding or the like works. They want to get even with the enemy; to avenge the losses of 9-11; and obtain information to prevent a repeat. Or they want to eliminate the "terrorists" in Iraq who beheaded our citizens and who use indiscriminant, "cowardly" tactics to kill our troops and Iraqi civilians, and they think that this is one way to accomplish this goal. To such folks, "taking off the gloves" has an emotional appeal to it. The foe are animals; they don't deserve to be treated with respect they don't give to our guys. To such armchair warfighters, things like waterboarding pose tempting shortcuts to get the information we need to save American lives. In addition, the person who might bite on such an approach is able to turn to many authority figures and role models who will reassure him that this is the way to go, whereas those experienced intelligence professionals who can give many reasons to counter the appeal of these techniques tend not to hold the spotlight.

. . . Now stir in a heavy dose of persuasive drama in shows like "24," which show the American hero brutalizing prisoners and invariably getting the hot intelligence he needs to save a city in a matter of moments (not counting the break for a commercial). How persuasive is that to many viewers? I can tell you that it was certainly persuasive to some young Army interrogators I taught last year at Ft. Sam Houston. . . .

Almost no one who has interrogated people would deny that there could be this or that specific case wherein some kind of torture or coercive tactic might cause a prisoner with a low threshhold of pain, or who has faltering loyalty to his cause, to cough up valid information. That is always possible. Anyone can conjure up a construct that would show a harsh tactic as effective in a specific case.

But this does not make the tactic right, legal, morally correct, wise for our country's policy, effective, or defensible, and such a hypothetical does not begin to compensate for the damage done to our country and its stance as a "shining city on a hill" when our people stoop to the kinds of conduct that we have condemned over history when practiced by the Gestapo, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Islamists, or whomever.

[driftingblizzard]

I find it disturbing how many Americans on forums are actually in favour of torture.

Have you ever been held under water?   My uncle (family bully) was quite fond of doing that to us kids in the family pool.   I am for everything torture related as far as combatants go.   If you pick up a gun with the intention to fight on the battlefield, your nervous system is fair game.   You just volunteered for me to bash your toes with a hammer and stick hot pins in your face to get any strategy I want from you on the battlefield.

War is not a sport and it is not a game.   Stop being naive and trying to apply rules that shouldn't be there in the first place.   The Geneva convention is bullshit.  Although I am admittedly in favour of outright butchery instead of traditional warfare (gentlemen's code of stupidity).

QFT!

Do you think terrorists have a code of conduct?  Hell no.  They wouldn't even view what we do to get information as "torture", can you see them ever posting a video of a captive being dunked in water as having any inpact?  No.  They slice peoples heads off with a usually sharp but sometimes dull knife.  The reason this war has taken so long and cost so many lives is the rules were are shackeled with. 

Do you think torture is an effective tactic in the advancement of US goals?  Or do you just like the idea of making terrorists suffer?

Now to the issue: There is a consituency of frustrated Americans, in and out of government, who want to believe that waterboarding or the like works. They want to get even with the enemy; to avenge the losses of 9-11; and obtain information to prevent a repeat. Or they want to eliminate the "terrorists" in Iraq who beheaded our citizens and who use indiscriminant, "cowardly" tactics to kill our troops and Iraqi civilians, and they think that this is one way to accomplish this goal. To such folks, "taking off the gloves" has an emotional appeal to it. The foe are animals; they don't deserve to be treated with respect they don't give to our guys. To such armchair warfighters, things like waterboarding pose tempting shortcuts to get the information we need to save American lives. In addition, the person who might bite on such an approach is able to turn to many authority figures and role models who will reassure him that this is the way to go, whereas those experienced intelligence professionals who can give many reasons to counter the appeal of these techniques tend not to hold the spotlight.

. . . Now stir in a heavy dose of persuasive drama in shows like "24," which show the American hero brutalizing prisoners and invariably getting the hot intelligence he needs to save a city in a matter of moments (not counting the break for a commercial). How persuasive is that to many viewers? I can tell you that it was certainly persuasive to some young Army interrogators I taught last year at Ft. Sam Houston. . . .

Almost no one who has interrogated people would deny that there could be this or that specific case wherein some kind of torture or coercive tactic might cause a prisoner with a low threshhold of pain, or who has faltering loyalty to his cause, to cough up valid information. That is always possible. Anyone can conjure up a construct that would show a harsh tactic as effective in a specific case.

But this does not make the tactic right, legal, morally correct, wise for our country's policy, effective, or defensible, and such a hypothetical does not begin to compensate for the damage done to our country and its stance as a "shining city on a hill" when our people stoop to the kinds of conduct that we have condemned over history when practiced by the Gestapo, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Islamists, or whomever.

That's where you have so missunderstood this topic.  The US does NOT torture captives.   You don't understand the definition of torture.  I wouldn't be in favor of branding terrorists with hot irons, just to make them suffer.  Only a saddist would want that.  But waterboarding is not torture.  So what are you really asking? 
BTW, I think shooting someone with a high powered rifle is worse to do to someone (more painfull, leaves a person crippled or dead) than waterboarding, but no one on the planet has ever complained that using a gun in battle is so horribly wrong...  So it stands to reason, that if using a gun on a person is worse than waterboarding, and no one complains about using a gun in battle, then they must therefore be infavor of anything less violent than shooting someone.

[Peter]

I find it disturbing how many Americans on forums are actually in favour of torture.

Have you ever been held under water?   My uncle (family bully) was quite fond of doing that to us kids in the family pool.   I am for everything torture related as far as combatants go.   If you pick up a gun with the intention to fight on the battlefield, your nervous system is fair game.   You just volunteered for me to bash your toes with a hammer and stick hot pins in your face to get any strategy I want from you on the battlefield.

War is not a sport and it is not a game.   Stop being naive and trying to apply rules that shouldn't be there in the first place.   The Geneva convention is bullshit.  Although I am admittedly in favour of outright butchery instead of traditional warfare (gentlemen's code of stupidity).

QFT!

Do you think terrorists have a code of conduct?  Hell no.  They wouldn't even view what we do to get information as "torture", can you see them ever posting a video of a captive being dunked in water as having any inpact?  No.  They slice peoples heads off with a usually sharp but sometimes dull knife.  The reason this war has taken so long and cost so many lives is the rules were are shackeled with. 

Do you think torture is an effective tactic in the advancement of US goals?  Or do you just like the idea of making terrorists suffer?

Now to the issue: There is a consituency of frustrated Americans, in and out of government, who want to believe that waterboarding or the like works. They want to get even with the enemy; to avenge the losses of 9-11; and obtain information to prevent a repeat. Or they want to eliminate the "terrorists" in Iraq who beheaded our citizens and who use indiscriminant, "cowardly" tactics to kill our troops and Iraqi civilians, and they think that this is one way to accomplish this goal. To such folks, "taking off the gloves" has an emotional appeal to it. The foe are animals; they don't deserve to be treated with respect they don't give to our guys. To such armchair warfighters, things like waterboarding pose tempting shortcuts to get the information we need to save American lives. In addition, the person who might bite on such an approach is able to turn to many authority figures and role models who will reassure him that this is the way to go, whereas those experienced intelligence professionals who can give many reasons to counter the appeal of these techniques tend not to hold the spotlight.

. . . Now stir in a heavy dose of persuasive drama in shows like "24," which show the American hero brutalizing prisoners and invariably getting the hot intelligence he needs to save a city in a matter of moments (not counting the break for a commercial). How persuasive is that to many viewers? I can tell you that it was certainly persuasive to some young Army interrogators I taught last year at Ft. Sam Houston. . . .

Almost no one who has interrogated people would deny that there could be this or that specific case wherein some kind of torture or coercive tactic might cause a prisoner with a low threshhold of pain, or who has faltering loyalty to his cause, to cough up valid information. That is always possible. Anyone can conjure up a construct that would show a harsh tactic as effective in a specific case.

But this does not make the tactic right, legal, morally correct, wise for our country's policy, effective, or defensible, and such a hypothetical does not begin to compensate for the damage done to our country and its stance as a "shining city on a hill" when our people stoop to the kinds of conduct that we have condemned over history when practiced by the Gestapo, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Islamists, or whomever.

That's where you have so missunderstood this topic.  The US does NOT torture captives.   You don't understand the definition of torture.  I wouldn't be in favor of branding terrorists with hot irons, just to make them suffer.  Only a saddist would want that.  But waterboarding is not torture.  So what are you really asking? 
BTW, I think shooting someone with a high powered rifle is worse to do to someone (more painfull, leaves a person crippled or dead) than waterboarding, but no one on the planet has ever complained that using a gun in battle is so horribly wrong...  So it stands to reason, that if using a gun on a person is worse than waterboarding, and no one complains about using a gun in battle, then they must therefore be infavor of anything less violent than shooting someone.

What's your definition of torture?  The rest of the world agrees that waterboarding is torture, pure and simple.  What's required for you to accept something as torture?  Hot irons and thumb screws?  You could claim that nothing the US does counts as torture, but you'd be full of shit.  As for shooting people, your argument would only be valid if waterboarding was a battlefield technique used to subdue the enemy.  Once the enemy is captured and in your custody, shooting them is just as illegal as drowning them, whether or not it results in death.  You can twist legal definitions all you want, until nobody is a prisoner of war and nothing is torture, but the rest of the world won't be fooled and they'll condemn you for it.

Last week, attorney general nominee Judge Michael Mukasey dodged the question of whether waterboarding terror suspects is necessarily torture. Americans can disagree as to whether or not this should disqualify him for the top job in the Justice Department. But they should be under no illusions about what waterboarding is.

As a former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, I know the waterboard personally and intimately. Our staff was required to undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception.

I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school's interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques employed by the Army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What is less frequently reported is that our training was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim.

Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

How much of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

The lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again. Call it "Chinese water torture," "the barrel," or "the waterfall." It is all the same.

One has to overcome basic human decency to endure causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you questioning the meaning of what it is to be an American.

Is there a place for the waterboard? Yes. It must go back to the realm of training our operatives, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines - to prepare for its uncontrolled use by our future enemies. Brutal interrogation, flash murder and extreme humiliation of Americans may now be guaranteed because we have mindlessly, but happily, broken the seal on the Pandora's box of indignity, cruelty and hatred in the name ofprotecting America.

Torture advocates hide behind the argument that an open discussion about specific American interrogation techniques will aid the enemy. Yet convicted Al Qaeda members and innocent captives who were released to their host nations have already debriefed the world through hundreds of interviews, movies and documentaries on exactly what methods they were subjected to and how they endured.

Our own missteps have already created a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda's own virtual school for terrorists.

I agree with Sen. John McCain. Waterboarding should never be used as an interrogation tool. It is beneath our values.

[Peter]

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information,[6] coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[4][7] politicians, war veterans,[8][9] intelligence officials,[10] military judges,[11] and human rights organizations.[12][13] Despite its long use as a technique, the first use of the actual term "waterboarding" occurred in the May 13, 2004, New York Times. In 2007 waterboarding led to a political scandal in the United States when the press reported that the CIA had waterboarded extrajudicial prisoners and that the Justice Department had authorized this procedure.[14][15] The CIA has admitted waterboarding Al-Qaida suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.[16]

Mental and physical effects

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."[5] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "Water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse."[22]

In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch claimed that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.[4]

If that doesn't count as torture, what the hell does?

[thepeaguy]

Owning me on ZDaemon. :p

[Alex179]

I would count it as torture actually.   If our military questions its effectiveness and says it is "beneath our values", then why do they continue to use it?  It has been used for centuries, with a different name.   I am not in favor of taking prisoners in war btw.   I would shoot anyone who surrendered lol.   Probably would ask them what town they were from beforehand, then go and kill their entire family too.   No surviving ancestors to take revenge or fight back in the name of said person.    Basically take no prisoners and kill every human in sight is my recipe for war or butchery (whatever you want to call it).

[driftingblizzard]

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information,[6] coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[4][7] politicians, war veterans,[8][9] intelligence officials,[10] military judges,[11] and human rights organizations.[12][13] Despite its long use as a technique, the first use of the actual term "waterboarding" occurred in the May 13, 2004, New York Times. In 2007 waterboarding led to a political scandal in the United States when the press reported that the CIA had waterboarded extrajudicial prisoners and that the Justice Department had authorized this procedure.[14][15] The CIA has admitted waterboarding Al-Qaida suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.[16]

Mental and physical effects

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."[5] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "Water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse."[22]

In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch claimed that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.[4]

If that doesn't count as torture, what the hell does?

If you reeeaaallllllyyy want to know, I think putting someone in a jail cell, no matter how comfortable, is torture.  There, you got it out of me you bastard!  Don't be so cruel next time. 




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[Peter]

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information,[6] coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[4][7] politicians, war veterans,[8][9] intelligence officials,[10] military judges,[11] and human rights organizations.[12][13] Despite its long use as a technique, the first use of the actual term "waterboarding" occurred in the May 13, 2004, New York Times. In 2007 waterboarding led to a political scandal in the United States when the press reported that the CIA had waterboarded extrajudicial prisoners and that the Justice Department had authorized this procedure.[14][15] The CIA has admitted waterboarding Al-Qaida suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.[16]

Mental and physical effects

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."[5] Keller also stated in his testimony before the Senate that "Water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse."[22]

In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch claimed that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.[4]

If that doesn't count as torture, what the hell does?

If you reeeaaallllllyyy want to know, I think putting someone in a jail cell, no matter how comfortable, is torture.  There, you got it out of me you bastard!  Don't be so cruel next time. 

If you or your family members were being tortured, I doubt you'd make light of it the way you're doing now.

[driftingblizzard]

Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'  quoted from ABC news.

"The CIA has confirmed Zubaydah was one of three al Qaeda suspects subjected to waterboarding.

After he was waterboarded, officials say Zubaydah gave up valuable information that led to the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and fellow 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft."

 This is good enough for me...  Its Enhanced Interrogation of high value subjects, approved by America's top leadership, (of only 3 subjects) producing dramatic results.