Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
do you think its possible they got any names and locations and plots that have been kept, you know, secret? because if after 5 years all they got are a handful of lies, I'm sort of confused why they would fight to keep the right to do it. even if your argument is they're sadists, bush/cheney aren't actually in the rooms, are they?

You keep talking as if W/Cheney are rational actors and competent. They have proven they are not. I think they like torture because it makes them feel like badasses, like they're "getting tough" with terrorists. I think their motivation has little to do with results.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
do you think its possible they got any names and locations and plots that have been kept, you know, secret? because if after 5 years all they got are a handful of lies, I'm sort of confused why they would fight to keep the right to do it. even if your argument is they're sadists, bush/cheney aren't actually in the rooms, are they?

I think that if any of these things were to happen to one of our soldiers, we would consider it torture: [list=1][*] The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.[*] Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.[*] 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.[*] Long Time 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. (this was a favortire of the Soviets. All one has to do is give in, and the pain stops. After about 48 hours crippling injuries occur. Somewhere in the 72-98 hour range the subject dies.) [*] 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.[*] Water Boarding: 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.[/list=1]

There's an interesting discussion over at Making Light. Terry Karney in the comments is the army interrogator guy I know.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
The President wants to permit the CIA to torture people, but he doesn't have the moral courage to say so, so he pretends it has something to do with certainty.

Hamdan said Geneva applies. The President wants clarity to comply with the judiciary.

However, if the President didn't seek to comply with Hamdan, all of you would be in a uproar about how the Executive is ignoring an express direction from the judiciary.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. You guys sound utterly ridiculous.

[SlaveNoMore]

Replaced_Texan
I think that if any of these things were to happen to one of our soldiers, we would consider it torture: [list=1][*] The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.[*] Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.[*] 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.[*] Long Time 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. (this was a favortire of the Soviets. All one has to do is give in, and the pain stops. After about 48 hours crippling injuries occur. Somewhere in the 72-98 hour range the subject dies.) [*] 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.[*] Water Boarding: 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.[/list=1]

There's an interesting discussion over at Making Light. Terry Karney in the comments is the army interrogator guy I know.

Oh no!!!! Not the "belly slap"??? Perhaps they'll next try "the Comfy Chair"!!!!

His list also left out the part about forcing them to "listen to the Red Hot Chile Peppers" at a really high volume, or to be interrogated by - gasp - women!!!!

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Oh no!!!! Not the "belly slap"??? Perhaps they'll next try "the Comfy Chair"!!!!

His list also left out the part about forcing them to "listen to the Red Hot Chile Peppers" at a really high volume, or to be interrogated by - gasp - women!!!!

What about the dead Iraqi whose legs were "pulpified" from beatings? I don't think that was from the belly slap. Harmless fraternity prank, maybe?

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
What about the dead Iraqi whose legs were "pulpified" from beatings? I don't think that was from the belly slap. Harmless fraternity prank, maybe?

Cite please.

As for the reciprocity or "protect our own troops" argument:

Exactly what protections are our troops being provided by the Geneva Convention? No enemy we've ever fought or are fighting has abided by it. So, in real world terms, the Geneva Convention provides no protection for our troops whatsoever. If we completely withdrew from the Geneva Convention tomorrow, it would have no impact at all on how our troops are treated.

Granted, the Geneva Convention could be of use in the unlikely event that we were to get into a war with Belgium, Italy, Spain or some other Western European nation. However, isn't the argument we're hearing from Europeans and American liberals that we should treat the terrorists we've captured by the rules of the Geneva Convention (as a matter of fact, better than the rules require) despite the fact that they haven't signed onto the treaty? Since that's the case, why wouldn't the same rules apply to any signatories of the treaty that we fought with? Even if, theoretically, we were doing something as evil as kicking their captured soldiers into industrial paper shredders for fun, shouldn't they give our soldiers every benefit the Geneva Convention requires?

What's that, you say? If we don't do it for their soldiers, why should we expect them to treat our troops with respect? Great! Now why doesn't that apply to our troops and Al-Qaeda? If Al-Qaeda is torturing and murdering our troops, why should we treat their captured prisoners as well as, say, American soldiers that are thrown into the brig? Why should we treat some terrorist from Saudi Arabia who wants to kill American citizens like he's a uniformed soldier who follows the rules of war or worse yet, like he has the same constitutional rights as an American citizen?

www.instapundit.com

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
do you think its possible they got any names and locations and plots that have been kept, you know, secret? because if after 5 years all they got are a handful of lies, I'm sort of confused why they would fight to keep the right to do it. even if your argument is they're sadists, bush/cheney aren't actually in the rooms, are they?

In the comments in the Making Light post I gave above, Terry Karney says that not a single one of the US soliders that were tortured by the Vietnamese gave up information, and it wasn't because they didn't have valuable information. I do not think it wasn't because the Vietnamese were too soft on them.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore


As for the reciprocity or "protect our own troops" argument:



www.instapundit.com

"It's not about them. It's about us."

-- Sen. John McCain

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Cite please.

Oops. It was an Afghan.

• Practices undercut nation's principles
  
  By Trish O'Kane
  
  07/03/05 "Montgomery Advertiser" - - This July Fourth, the hood seems a more fitting patriotic symbol than the flag. For we the people, as a nation, have donned one so we do not have to face ourselves or the family members of people like Dilawar.
  
  It was the eve of a Muslim holiday that December. A shy, thin, unschooled 22-year-old, Dilawar was an aspiring taxi driver in the village of Yakubi.
  
  Dilawar's mother wanted the entire family together for the holiday and asked him to pick up three sisters from neighboring villages. Dilawar needed gas money, so he went to work in a nearby city.
  
  He collected three passengers. On the way home, he passed Camp Salerno, a U.S. base that had been attacked that morning. Afghan militiamen stopped the taxi and turned Dilawar and passengers over to U.S. soldiers as suspects.
  
  The three passengers ended up in Guantanamo, where they spent over a year before they were sent home without charge.
  
  Dilawar was sent to Camp Bagram, another U.S.-Afghan base. He arrived Dec. 5. It was a U.S. camp where torture was routine, according to a nearly 2,000 page confidential Army investigation file given to the New York Times by a military official. Dilawar's story and others were published in the New York Times on May 20. Twenty-four hours before Dilawar arrived, another prisoner named Habibullah died after four days of being beaten and kicked. Soldiers told investigators they beat him while he was chained to the ceiling. The autopsy reported bruises on Habibullah's chest, arms and head, and deep contusions on calves, knees and thighs.
  
  In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers described a female interrogator at Bagram stepping on a prisoner's neck and kicking another in the genitals. One Bagram interrogator was nicknamed "the monster," and a group of Bagram soldiers were called "the Testosterone Gang."
  
  Dilawar lasted five days. Interrogators later told Army investigators they believed he was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the base. He was tortured by Americans his own age who said it was "funny" to hear him cry "Allah" when they hit him. One soldier estimated they hit Dilawar in the legs over 100 times in 24 hours. Dilawar died when his heart failed due to "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities."
  
  Military coroners declared both deaths "homicides." One coroner described Dilawar's legs as "pulpified."

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle9375.htm

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Gattigap
"It's not about them. It's about us."

-- Sen. John McCain

Why didn't we get him instead of that jackass we have?

Oh.

Right.

Rove.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
What about the dead Iraqi whose legs were "pulpified" from beatings? I don't think that was from the belly slap. Harmless fraternity prank, maybe?

that's not on RT's list.

I think you have to get at least to #4 before people might even start to think it's torture, rather than wartime investigation technique.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
that's not on RT's list.

I think you have to get at least to #4 before people might even start to think it's torture, rather than wartime investigation technique.

2 (meaning I agree), depending on how hard a "slap" is.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
In the comments in the Making Light post I gave above, Terry Karney says that not a single one of the US soliders that were tortured by the Vietnamese gave up information, and it wasn't because they didn't have valuable information. I do not think it wasn't because the Vietnamese were too soft on them.

According to every account I have read, including "A Nightengales Song" and John McCain's autobiography, most of them gave up information.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
2 (meaning I agree), depending on how hard a "slap" is.

How hard can a slap be? Take a pro football lineman. Let him slap away. There's a player getting that every sunday, 60+ times.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Here's more of what the President wants the CIA to be able to do:

• Robert Conquest's classic work on Stalin, "The Great Terror" . . .: "When there was time, the basic [Soviet Secret police] method for obtaining confessions and breaking the accused man was the 'conveyor' -- continual interrogation by relays of police for hours and days on end. As with many phenomena of the Stalin period, it has the advantage that it could not easily be condemned by any simple principle. Clearly, it amounted to unfair pressure after a certain time and to actual physical torture later still, but when? . . . At any rate, after even twelve hours, it is extremely uncomfortable. After a day, it becomes very hard. And after two or three days, the victim is actually physically poisoned by fatigue. It was as painful as any torture."
  
  Conquest stated: "Interrogation usually took place at night and with the accused just roused -- often only fifteen minutes after going to sleep. The glaring lights at the interrogation had a disorientating effect." He quoted a Czech prisoner, Evzen Loebl, who described "having to be on his feet eighteen hours a day, sixteen of which were devoted to interrogation. During the six-hour sleep period, the warder pounded on the door every ten minutes. . . . If the banging did not wake him, a kick from the warder would. After two or three weeks, his feet were swollen and every inch of his body ached at the slightest touch; even washing became a torture."
  
  Conquest quoted a Polish prisoner, Z. Stypulkowski, from 1945: "Cold, hunger, the bright light and especially sleeplessness. The cold is not terrific. But when the victim is weakened by hunger and sleeplessness, then the six or seven degrees above the freezing point make him tremble all the time. . . . After fifty or sixty interrogations with cold and hunger and almost no sleep, a man becomes like an automaton -- his eyes are bright, his legs swollen, his hands trembling. In this state, he is often convinced he is guilty."
  
  . . . Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" . . . describes the experience of prisoner Anna Skripnikova in 1952: "Sivakov, Chief of the Investigative Department of the Ordzhonikidze State Security Administration, said to her: 'The prison doctor reports you have a blood pressure of 240/120. That's too low, you bitch! We're going to drive it up to 340 so you'll kick the bucket, you viper, and with no black and blue marks; no beatings; no broken bones. We'll just not let you sleep.' And if, back in her cell, after a night spent in interrogation, she closed her eyes during the day, the jailer broke in and shouted: 'Open your eyes or I'll haul you off that cot by the legs and tie you to the wall standing up."
  
  Elsewhere, Solzhenitsyn writes: "Sleeplessness . . . befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to be his own 'I.' "
  
  . . . [T]he memoirs of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin . . . describe[] experiencing sleep deprivation in a Soviet prison in the 1940s: "In the head of the interrogated prisoner a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep, to sleep just a little, not to get up, to lie, to rest, to forget. . . . Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger or thirst are comparable with it. . . . I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them. He did not promise them their liberty. He promised them -- if they signed -- uninterrupted sleep!"

link

When it was the Soviets doing this stuff, we could all agree it was wrong. Some conservatives seem to have forgotten what they once stood for.

But at the time weren't our agents torturing and killing soviet agents?