Kondracke: Waterboarding "doesn't result in any lasting damage"
SUMMARY: In a Fox News "All-Star" panel discussion, Morton Kondracke said of the
interrogation technique known as waterboarding, "I'm sure it feels like torture,
you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture."
But a physician who heads a
program for torture survivors told a Senate
committee that techniques such as waterboarding "are intended to break the
prisoners down, to terrify them and cause harm to their psyche, and in so doing
result in lasting harmful health consequences."
He also said: "There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering
a heart attack or damage to the lungs."
During the "All-Star" panel segment of the October 29 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Roll Call executive editor Morton M. Kondracke, referring to the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, stated, "I'm sure it feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture." However, as Media Matters for America has noted, Dr. Allen S. Keller, M.D., director of the Bellevue Hospital Center/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, wrote in Senate testimony about the "long-term health consequences" of waterboarding. In written testimony dated September 25 to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on interrogation techniques, Keller stated, "To think that abusive methods, including the enhanced interrogation techniques [in which Keller included waterboarding], are harmless psychological ploys is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience. These methods are intended to break the prisoners down, to terrify them and cause harm to their psyche, and in so doing result in lasting harmful health consequences." He said of waterboarding specifically, "Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder]," and said it poses a "real risk of death."
Kondracke made this assertion during a discussion about attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey's refusal, at his October 18 Senate confirmation hearing, to say whether waterboarding amounted to torture. When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Mukasey, "So is waterboarding constitutional?" Mukasey responded, "I don't know what's involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional." Whitehouse pressed Mukasey, describing the technique as the "practice of putting someone in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting a cloth over their faces, and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning." Mukasey responded by again stating that "if it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional."
During the Special Report segment, Fox News Washington managing editor and panel moderator Brit Hume also described the technique: "You're on your back ... it's like you're on a seesaw ... You've got a wet cloth on your face, and you're tipped so that your feet are up and your head is down. And you've got a wet cloth on your head, and water is being poured on it. You're safe, you're not going to drown, but it feels for all the world like you are drowning, and it is apparently very, very frightening." Contrary to Hume's assertion that a person is "safe" and "not going to drown" during waterboarding, Keller has asserted that there are also immediate physical risks associated with waterboarding, including "actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs."
On the topic of waterboarding, Keller wrote:
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.
In his testimony, Keller stated that his "perspective ... is based on more than 15 years of experience as a doctor in evaluating and caring for victims of torture and mistreatment from around the world, and studying the health consequences of such trauma."
From the October 29 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:
HUME: Well, Mort, does this -- Mukasey said, look, he -- if it's torture he's against it, if it's unconstitutional he couldn't support it. But he didn't say whether he thought it was torture. And I suppose they want him to, and they want him to say he wouldn't countenance it as attorney general. What is likely to be the outcome here?
KONDRACKE: Well, the truth is that I don't know, because Mukasey is going to come up with his written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee as early as tomorrow, and we'll have some idea as to whether he's got a better explanation than the runaround that he gave the committee. I mean, he did evade the question, and they couldn't pin him down, and they said that they were dissatisfied with him. And this is all about waterboarding, of course. And it's --
HUME: Let's stop for a minute --
KONDRACKE: Yeah.
HUME: -- and describe waterboarding here --
KONDRACKE: Waterboarding --
HUME: You're on your back --
KONDRACKE: Right.
HUME: -- it's like you're on a seesaw --
KONDRACKE: Put a cloth on your head --
HUME: You've got a wet cloth on your face, and you're tipped so that your feet are up and your head is down. And you've got a wet cloth on your head, and water is being poured on it. You're safe, you're not going to drown, but it feels for all the world like you are drowning, and it is apparently very, very frightening.
KONDRACKE: Right. And apparently, everybody breaks. No one has -- no one on record has ever gone through this who didn't break as a result of it. And look, it -- it is -- I'm sure it feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture. The question -- it's never -- it's not illegal.
HUME: It is used, by the way, isn't it, by our -- on our own servicemen.
KONDRACKE: Yeah, pilots, pilots, Special Forces trainees, those people who might be captured are routinely trained under this with this technique.
HUME: So we do it to our own people.
KONDRACKE: Yeah, we do it to our own people.
Maybe Mort should get waterboarded and then report back on how that feels and if their are any psychological effects. He is a typical chicken republican that stands on the sidelines and makes the call.
Boo hoo. You probably think putting panties on their head is torture too.
Only if you continuosly pour water over the panties...several times a day for several weeks. Either that or if you had worn the panties all night at a Republican orgy and not washed them that might also constitute torture.
Panties on the head is something a repuglican would do, don't confuse torture with your form of pleasure.
Only if they are your panties.
Another rightwing blogger toughguy... Prob has a waterboard set up in his living room. Watches Hannity and Colmes between gasps for air.
Only if they are yours.
: )
"Maybe Mort should get waterboarded and then report back on how that feels and if their are any psychological effects"
There actually was a Fox News reporter who was waterboarded a few months back on Live T.V. He handled it pretty well. They showed the entire procedure on T.V. Either he was one tough guy who withstood this "brutal procedure" or waterboarding is simply a mild and successful form of coercive interrogation. My guess is the latter.
Yeah, in a controlled setting, with friendly people implementing the procedure, where he knew about how long it would last (Hint: he wasn't going to be there for hours, let alone days) and probably all sorts of safety precautions had been taken.
Oh, and he volunteered to do it.
I think anyone who thinks waterboarding ISN'T torture, should subject themselves to it for an INDEFINITE amount of time. We'll see how long until they utter the safe word if they don't know how long it's going to last. (Mizrahi! MIZRAHI!!)
"I think anyone who thinks waterboarding ISN'T torture, should subject themselves to it for an INDEFINITE amount of time"
I'll subject myself to it if it means that I'll prevent a terrorist attack in the U.S. and save thousands of lives.
You have no proof that this is the case. And it's not the case.
You are correct. There is no proof that waterboarding or any other form of torture works. All we have are vague dubious claims.
RH, are you saying you have some information? I may be tipping off the FBI. ;0)
Yes, I have info that the liberal poster Solon is plotting a terrorist attack here in the U.S. But we're best friends now and I don't want to give the info away and make him dislike me. So keep it a secret! J/K
You must have got that in the same place I learned that you molest small furry animals
No, all that fur is just gross. I prefer the animals without fur.
Thats what YOU say
Did you not realize that was a joke?
Did you think my response WASNT? Man it is just tedious explaining every little thing to you in detail. Do you really have to be treated like a mentally challenged six year old?
But you wouldn't subject yourself to it just to prove a point? Why not? If it's not torture...
It's not torture, but it still isn't pleasant. We shouldn't use the procedure unless we feel that we absolutely have to. It should only be used as a last resort.
If its not torture why did we call it a war crime in the Tokyo trials and sentence Japanese to prison for doing it?
At some point in mu travels I believe I read that we also executed quite a number of Japenese for waterboarding as well.
We have tried foreign military personel who have used waterboarding against Americans.
I wonder how you can argue that it is okay when we do it, but illegal when our enemies do it to us. That is called a blatant double-standard. It is very difficult to take an argument containing an obvious double-standard very seriously in a court of law - except maybe on planet wingnut.
Again the false dichotomy. Try to remember what it is like to be a decent human being who doesnt make appologies for torture. This whole we joined the evil doers club but we arent as bad as the other guys is a sick justification for indecency
Rino,
Normally, I don't like to resort to lowering my standards to the level of a pathetic little pissant like yourself.......
But if you really believe that waterboarding is somehow a method that would in any way save America from another terrorist attack.....
Then I have here before you the 'deed of ownership' to the planet Mars, signed by God himself.
I have no problem with you being on this site and I hope that MMFA allows you to stay for as long as you care, for all your useless words, your as tiring as Ann Coulter.....
But if are going to continuously present yourself as some kind of a he-man that thinks he can handle torture and then spew your irrelavant and ignorant remarks.......
I'm sick and tired of you self proclaimed tough guy (false)patriots and your delusions of grandure!
Ok.....deep breathe
The only terrorists in the US are republicans trying to scare the crap out of idiots like you who would be willing to be wiretapped cause you have nothing to hide. FOOL.
Too many in my family fought in war and died to protect our rights that you would give away willingly. The only ones who scare me is the dingbat in the oval office with his twitching finger on the button while he talks to God.
We faced down the Rusky's I think we can handle a stateless terrorist who has no military.
RINO,
That's not even CLOSE to the same thing.
If this Fox reporter was, without previous notice, abducted from his home, bound, deprived of his senses, flown to a secret prison in another country, not given any rights to know the charges against him, not given the right of habeas corpus, then waterboarded for days on end while being interrogated, then bound, deprived of his senses, and dumped back on the street somewhere in the U.S...and THEN was found by independent experts to have suffered no physical or psychological effects...
THEN you can deem him a "pretty tough guy" who "handled it pretty well".
Your reporter's little demonstration of his own free will in a controlled setting with access to medical personel was A FREAKIN' JOKE.
I keep reading we considered it torture when we convicted Japanese of doing it in the Tokyo trials
Interestingly, the United States has long since answered that question. Following the end of the Second World War we prosecuted a number of Japanese military and civilian officials for war crimes. including the torture of captured Allied personnel. At one of those trials, United States v. Sawada, here’s how Captain Chase Nielsen, a crew member in the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan, described his treatment, when he was captured, (and later tried for alleged war crimes by a Japanese military commission):
<!--mstheme--><!--mstheme--><!--mstheme-->Q: What other physical treatment was administered to you at that time?
A: Well, I was given what they call the water cure.
Q: Explain to the Commission what that was.
A: Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water was poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let me up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again.
Q: When you regained consciousness would they keep asking you questions?
A: Yes sir they did.
Q: How long did this treatment continue?
A: About twenty minutes.
Q: What was your sensation when they were pouring water on the towel, what did you physically feel?
A: Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death.
<!--mstheme-->The prosecutor in that case was vehement in arguing that the captured Doolittle fliers had been wrongfully convicted by the Japanese tribunal, in part because they were convicted based on evidence obtained through torture. "The untrustworthiness of any admissions or confessions made under torture," he said, "would clearly vitiate a conviction based thereon."
At the end of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of which the United States was a leading member (the Tribunal was established by Douglas MacArthur) convicted former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and numerous other generals and admirals of a panoply of war crimes. Among them was torture:
<!--mstheme--><!--mstheme--><!--mstheme--><!--mstheme-->The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops, both in the occupied territories and in Japan. The Japanese indulged in this practice during the entire period of the Pacific War. Methods of torture were employed in all areas so uniformly as to indicate policy both in training and execution. Among these tortures were the water treatment...
The so-called "water treatment" was commonly applied. The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the victim and successively repeat the process.
<!--mstheme--><!--mstheme-->For those who are interested in Sawada, the full transcripts and entire trial record may be found in the National Archives. The case is United States v Sawada et al, tried at Shanghai before a United States Military Commission (27 Feb-15 Apr., 1946). I have a copy of the entire trial record if anyone ever needs it.
A synopsis may be found in most decent law school law libraries in the Law Reports of Trials of Major War Criminals Vol 5 at p.1 There are, of course, lot of other references to water torture by the Japanese, not least in the Judgment of the IMT Far East.
Evan Wallach
Bravo, Solon!
Lawyer, eh?
Actually no, I am a conductor on the railroad. No real higher education.
RH,
1)How do we know that the treatment shown on TV is tha same used in secret interogations?
2) If you were convicted of 1st degree murder solely on the basis of testimony given by someone after weeks of waterboarding, would you not appeal the conviction? My point being, this the US goverment, equal protection for all, that's all, not just some people, all people. If an interogation technique would not be allowed to be used by a US police dept. then it should not be used in any way shape or form by any part of the US goverment.
This one is simple....if Mort admits its torture, he loses his job. Just like Mukassey, Mort has to toe that line.
Of course it makes him look silly in the meantime.
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't waterboard people if it wasn't torturous.
My favorite exchange:
HUME: It is used, by the way, isn't it, by our -- on our own servicemen.
KONDRACKE: Yeah, pilots, pilots, Special Forces trainees, those people who might be captured are routinely trained under this with this technique.
HUME: So we do it to our own people.
KONDRACKE: Yeah, we do it to our own people.
So, clearly, waterboarding is something that happens when you get captured by hostiles, and something you need to be trained to get through without coughing up info. But it's not torture. We mace our policemen so they don't just use it arbitrarily, so that must mean it doesn't really hurt. Riiight.
Also, speaking as one with a masters in neuroscience, the "we do it to our own people" argument is totally unfounded.
One of the most fundamental elements of pain is that it is SUBJECTIVE and CONTEXT-SPECIFIC. That is, depending on the circumstances of how you were hurt, you will respond to the same physical stimulus differently. If you trip and fall, it will definitely hurt, but even though you may hit the ground with the same amount of force as when you are thrown to the ground by a threatening person, you will experience more pain in the latter case.
Neurologically, registering the actual stimulus and your experience of pain are actually processed separately (in the somatosensory cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, respectively).
[link to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
[link to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
So, a soldier in training being waterboarded knows that they are being handled by people who are looking out for them, know it's just a training exercise, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they had "safe" signs. This is a totally different experience compared to being under the control of hostile people, not knowing how long the ordeal is going to last, and whether or not they are going to kill you or further injure you. Your brain actually responds in a radically different way to these two situations, so comparing them (especially in the context of their psychological damage potential) is utterly meaningless.
We can expect nothing less from Fixed Noise.
Instead of medical experts or former prisoners who were subjected to this treatment, they consult a media hack for perspective on a controversial interrogation technique.
What about those servicemen Kondracke's talking about? Are they spontaneously abducted, bound, blindfolded and flown to a secret prison as part of their training? Or are they being trained to endure this in a controlled environment where there are medical staff readily available? Are they free to choose other duties if they are unwilling to subject themselves to this kind of torture training?
"I'm sure it feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture."
How in the world can Mort Kondracke purport to dismiss with authority the idea that waterboarding does not result in any lasing damage? Does he have any studies to back that up? It's torture, damnit! Common sense would indicate that any life threatening event or trauma will leave emotional scars, to some degree or another, on any human being.
Just because our Special Forces may be introduced to the practice does not mean they are subjected to it to the same degree and extent of it that is practiced in actual interrogation. And while being introduced to it they know the parameters...they know they will not die.
"I'm sure it feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture."
They could be describing how they feel contorting themselves into pretzels defending the actions of this administration.
The next thing you know they'll be arguing waterboarding is actually good for you.
I get pretty sick of these geezers and their tough talk.The points have been made here already about the difference in voluntarily being subjected to something under controlled, safe conditions, and having the same treatment forced on a person.
It's the same as if these milquetoasts were sitting in their studio giggling at a violent assault because professional boxers volunteer for it all the time.
"I get pretty sick of these geezers and their tough talk"
It doesn't have anything to do with being tough. It's simply about defending this country from radical terrorists who are trying to kill us. These people deserve no sympathy. I don't know about you, but I would rather have a terrorist go through a little discomfort than have millions of dead Americans.
And then you could say that through all evidence, contrary to what you see on the TV show 24 and other places, torturing people doesn't get you actionable intelligence, and it is unlikely to provide information that is worth anything at all.
How do you propose terrorists are going to kill millions of Americans in one shot? They won't. They can't. They don't have, and will never have the means to do so. But keep on hiding under the bed.
Terrorists could get a hold of a nuclear weapon and detonate it in a U.S. city. It can happen. Your statement simply shows that you don't take the threat of terrorism seriously. And you don't have any evidence that shows that coercive interrogation doesn't work. There are reports that we uncovered terrorist plots when we waterboarded Keleik-Sheik-Muhammad.
It is highly unlikely that a terrorist organization could get a nuclear weapon. Highly unlikely. Do I take the threat of terrorism seriously? Yes, yes I do. Do you? I doubt it. To you apparently, everything is just like on TV, and torturing people brings about good information.
Where is the information you say that was taken from Kaleid whatever his name is?
I have read articles recently, and in the past, written by seasoned interrogators, that said torture does not work. It doesn't provide for, or get from a suspect, reliable information. Let me see if I can find them or you:
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/testimony-2004-06-23-Iacopino.html
http://www.familyrightsassociation.com/hotspots/archive/2007/center_for_victims_of_torture.htm
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/how-the-cia-bro.html
What good was KSM's confession of killing Daniel Pearl? Are you delusional enough to believe such an admittedly coerced confession could be taken seriously by any court of law? Is it even possible to try KSM after torturing him? KSM is most likely a brutal thug that may eventually be released because of the use of torture against him for no real gain at all.
Secondly, with regards to how 9/11 was planned, how do we know that other methods would not have worked just as well - if not better? It is pretty clear from the wealth of data that torture is unreliable and counter-productive in most instances (if not all) - not only for intelligence purposes, but for our image around the world as well.
Thirdly, the information received about 9/11 in the article is too vague to assess whether that information was really valuable or the anonymous officials are just supporting the dubious position of the CinC.
Fourthly, the Bush Administration used coerced information from a guy named Al-Libi to provide a basis for the War in Iraq. It turned out that Al-Libi made up the whole thing just to stop the torture. Imagine that.
BTW, you argue about a ticking timebomb scenario above, but provide a link where KSM confesses to things he had done in the past that had nothing to do with the issue of expediency. Daniel Pearl was already dead and 9/11 had already happened.
Rino, you are a good example of catastrophic thinking. Your thinking process goes directly to the worst possible situation, while ignoring the vast majority of cases.
The cure can be worse than the disease.
And more specifically you don't have to worry. When, and if, the extreme situation does come up, the relevant parties will not hesitate to break the law when common sense dictates it. But to make it actually legal is to institutionalize its' use.
"These people deserve no sympathy."
That may be true but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It's not about protecting terrorists...it's about protecting the Constitution and the principles on which the country was founded. It's about protecting our position of authority across the globe without having to resort to war. It's about protecting the high moral ground that America is expected to maintain. Objective interrogation experts seem to agree that torture does not produce reliable intelligence. How are we protecting the country against those who wish to harm us if the information we're getting out of torturing people is generally unreliable. It's okay to torture a thousand people who know nothing on the chance that we might get lucky with one? That's not American.
I agree with you 100%. I think, however, there is another point of view that many Americans either fail to realize, just didn't catch, or don't WANT to recognize: by being forced by this administration to change our ways, to instill fear within us so that this administration can take more power, to take away our constitutional rights - the terrorists actually win. If you accept that terrorists want to change our way of life, then they have. They have instilled fear in many Americans, so much so that these same Americans are willing to give up constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to be safe from these terrorists. Even though we all know that torture doesn't result in any meaningful information, even though we truly realize that the possibility of the detonation of a nuclear device within the U.S. is impossible, we still allow our emotions to control our thought patterns. Intellectually, we know that torture is wrong. Intellectually, we know that the terrorists will never prevail. Intellectually, we know that there is more to this nonsense than "some 'terrists' want to kill us and force us to change our lives."
Emotionally, we refuse to accept any of the logic and go with our most fearful emotional reactions, instead of using our brains and the intelligence God gave us to solve these issues.
It will take someone far more intelligent than W to figure out how to get us out of this mess.
"...I would rather have a terrorist go through a little discomfort than have millions of dead Americans."- RINO Hunter
I applaud you for taking a solid stand on such a difficult and reality-based dichotomy. You are a Great American.
"a little discomfort"
Abduction
Imobilization
Deprivation of all senses while being flown to another country
No writ of habeas corpus
No legal representation
Interrogation combined with waterboarding
Yep, sounds about the same as dawning a pair of underwear that's too small.
You are a sick human being without a shred of decency. EVERYONE deserves sympathy not because THEY are worthy of anything but because WE are. Because we are supposed to be decent human beings and sympathy is inate in US. You show yourself to be not only a heartless soulless creature but DUMB too. Can you show that torture will ONLY be used against those who are trying to kill us? Will a trail establish that or will SUSPECTS be tortured. You are sick you should move to Guatemala where that kind of fascist thinking fits right in you dont deserve to be part of a decent society because you arent a decent human being.
"You are a sick human being without a shred of decency. EVERYONE deserves sympathy not because THEY are worthy of anything but because WE are"
Except of course unborn babies who only deserve to be stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors. I want to protect the innocent and be hard on the guilty. You want it to be the other way around. That seems totally backwards to me.
No you dont. You are lying. You didnt say only those CONVICTED should be tortured. Abortion is YOUR obsession not mine. I wont follow you into that change of subject. You have no decency. You want to be HARD on those who scare you. If they are brown enough and some OTHER then you approve of them being tortured. Its sick and not worthy of any nation that even PRETENDS to be a good nation.
Abortion is absolutely relevant to this subject. They are both human rights issues. You want to protect terrorists who kill innocent women and children while at the same time you want it to remain legal to murder the unborn. It's an inconsistency and worth pointing out. It isn't off topic.
You are a liar. I am not following you in your attempted subject change and you havent said ONLY convicted terorrists should be tortured. There is no possible way you can say those are the only ones who WILL be tortured. You sick attempt at an appology for torture by demonizing those being tortured wont wash. SUSPECTS are the people who will be tortured. People do NOT become guilty by fiat of a president or a Colonel. YOU want to destroy this countries values because you are a coward who is so terrified of what MIGHT happen that you will eschew all standards of decency in order to FEEL safe. You cannot show they will MAKE you safe only FEEL safe. It is a dispicable postion without any CLAIM of decency and only someone without a SHRED of decency can become an appolgist for torture like you have become.
"You want to protect terrorists who kill innocent women and children"--rinohunter
No. You and I are welcome to our opinion of guilt or innocence, but an official determination of that fact is made by a court or tribunal.
Allowing any coerced testimony into that system in any way is necessarily an effort to undermine the integrity of the system altogether.
It is indeed likely that efforts to torture/coerce these suspects may eventually ironically lead to their ultimate release.
Oscar Wilde used to write (I'm paraphrasing here) that there are two tragedies in life: not getting what you want and getting it. We are only trying to save you from your own devices, because it has become abundantly clear that you guys aren't seeing the big picture very clearly anymore.
Your abortion claim is absurd.
There is a huge difference between subjecting a conscious, sentient being (who has a sense of self, desire, and fear, not to mention friends and family members) to lengthy ordeals of pain and killing them, and destroying a being that has not fuly developed into a human, has no consciousness or ability to feel pain.
88.2% of abortions in the US take place in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and 10.4% between 12 and 20 weeks. Research from the American Medical Association indicates that pain cannot be felt until the 29th week of gestation because the neuroanatomy has not developed yet.
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
Furthermore, there are MUCH worse things that can happen to a fetus than never developing to the point where it can feel pain or be aware of its existence. It can be born into a life of abuse (once it's born it most definitely can feel pain), hunger, poverty, neglect, and psychological trauma. All of these are much worse than a void.
Waterboarding... It's the new Pilates...! ;>)
I hear torture is good for weight loss.
I Can't Believe It's Not Toture
Great! I can spread is on my Torture Pockets!
If you KNOW you're just being waterboarded by your friends to know what it's like, it's still a very unpleasant experience (The choke/gag reflex is a powerful thing.) But if you're in the hands of your enemy whom you have NO assurance won't kill you, and you really don't know whether they're waterboarding you or actually drowning you, the experience is a different one ENTIRELY.
The fear for your life is real. When you just do the demo version it isn't.
I remember seeing somewhere recently a FoxNews report of one of their reporters who let himself get waterboarded to show the viewing public how it WASN'T torture. They laid him down on the plank, didn't place a cloth over his head, and then doused him with a bucket of water, at which time he screamed for them to let him up. He lasted about 3 seconds, literally. I'm sure the video is out there on Youtube or something like that, and I'd look for it, but I can't get there from my 'puter at work.
Anyway, it was a funny thing, and again, this guy KNEW he wasn't in any danger and had a medic standing by, and he wasn't bound down to the board either, he was just laying on it.
Not torture? Ask McCain about it. That's one thing I can get behind him on, mostly because he has endured it himself.
Maggie, picture being waterboarded every day, sevral times a day for several weeks...and for longer than three seconds per session. While the natural inclination may be to try to force the truth out of someone my understanding is that the experts on the subject of "aggressive" interrogation techniques say the information derived from torture is unreliable at best. I have no symapthy for terrorists but America should maintain the high moral ground and not give in to the urge to resort to torture.
I can't picture having that done to me. It would probably drive me crazy.
I think what a lot of right wingers who say, "Yeah, it's OK that we do this stuff" should remember a couple of things.
One: If we do it, that more or less gives the thumbs up for our enemies to do it as well. And I'm not just talking about terrorists. Let's say we do get into a little tussle with Iran, and we send troops into that country, and some get captured, and are then tortured/waterboarded. I'm sure you'd hear the howls from the right wing about how Iran shouldn't do that to our soldiers (and they'd be right), but we have no moral ground to stand on, because we have done it, are doing it, and have probably done worse all in the name of "security" and the so called war on terrorism.
Two: We, meaning the US of A, are supposed to be the good guys. Right? How can we maintain, once again, that moral ground if we're seen as a torturing kidnapping nation who grabs someone off of a European street, and then make them disappear for awhile, or possibly forever, and torture them for unreliable information at best. And once again, if we do it, it opens up our soldiers and possibly intelligence people for the same treatment.
Those are the points right-wingers and troture apologists and defenders either always forget or never understand.
"it doesn't result in any lasting damage"
Interesting. I'm not sure, but I would bet that shoving sharpened bamboo shoots up under someone's fingernails doesn't result in any "lasting damage" either...it would probably heal in a couple of weeks. Does that mean it isn't torture?
Right, Nerzog. I'll bet if I locked you in a garage with Morty's bony old ass for an hour, you could think of something that wouldn't cause any visible lasting damage, but you could probably make it seem like a long hour. ;0)
locked in a garage with Morty's bony old ass for an hour
THAT IS TORTURE!
Come to think of it, I can attach electrodes to certain parts of his body, and hook the other end to a twelve volt battery....and never leave a mark. Would he consider that torture?
Nerz, I understand Mark Foley has actually tried that on himself and said it was quite cool. ;>)
Actually, I heard it was Larry Craig who applied the "treatment."
Would saying it was in a Minneapolis men's room take this thread a bit too far?
Nerz, Mort calls that 'fore-play'
"...but it feels like torture."
Just like Fox News
Yeah, whatever you say, Mort. Nice job at continuing the 'dumbing down' of the country.
These sheltered 'know-it-all' media hacks are exactly just that. None of them are qualified to talk about things such as this... especially since they haven't experienced them. This is at about the same level as getting the 'scoop' on global warming from that so-called 'expert' scientist Rush Limbaugh and his sidekick Snerdley. Of course, the uneducated and lazy wingnut masses who buy into their trash are just as much to blame simply because they are the enablers.
What would be great for someone like Mort and his ilk, is for someone to actually kidnap them, and then strap them to the old waterboard to extract information. I'm pretty sure any one of them, like Mort, would most likely pee their pants, and cry like he was a baby again if that were done to them. It's sort of like when the shootings happened last year at VT, and all the right wing talk show hosts were talking about how kids in America have been "wussified" because they didn't fight back when someone was shooting at them.
And I wonder how many of those hosts have ever been shot at?
"What would be great for someone like Mort and his ilk, is for someone to actually kidnap them, and then strap them to the old waterboard to extract information"
So now you're comparing a non-liberal talk show host to terrorists who kill innocent women and children. Nice. And the scary thing is that there's millions of people who think just like you and say "Those terrorists really aren't all that bad. The conservatives and especially George W. Bush are a lot worse."
Rush Limbaugh and his pinheaded acolytes compare Democrats to terrorists all the time. I don't recall any Democrats blowing people up lately.
The difference is that he's usually joking. The left wing is usually serious about that stuff and also very angry.
"Usually joking". Thanks for confirming that sometimes he means it. So what's the difference again?
Sure that is the difference to a member of the Limborg hivemind. When our side does it then its a joke when your side does it then its just terrible. How DARE anyone treat the right the way they treat us
Let me clarify my statement.
What I was talking about was a hypothetical situation where someone (not a terrorist) would "kidnap" someone like Mort, and submit him to waterboarding, detention, and maybe bouts of severe hot, and severe cold in his cell, and not let him communicate with anyone on the outside world for say, just a week. I'm not saying a terrorist should do this, and I'm not saying terrorists are OK. If you think I am saying this, you're a nitwit. The situation I'm talking about is a hypothetical, call it a test situation if you will. If Mort, and his ilk, you included I guess, were to go through this test for 7 days, you'd not make it out the same as you were before you went into it.
If Mort and others like him think that this is a piece of cake, and no big deal, maybe they should submit themselves to this sort of test. Give the OK to let someone do it to them in the name of journalism. Except they wouldn't know when it was coming. One day they'd be walking down a street somewhere, someone in a van pulls up, throws a shroud over their head, quick cuffs them with zip ties, and throws them into the back of the van, and then they drive around for hours on end, which makes the detainee not know where he is, or where they went, or for how long they've been driving.
From there, they remove Mort from the van, throw him into a cell with no furniture, no toilet except for a bucket, no clothes except his undernear, no blankets, and crumbs of food and water. After one day in there with blazing lights on, and alternating extreme hot, and extreme cold, his interrogators arrive. Throw a hood over his head again, and take him into another room where he's tied head down on a slanted board.
Hood is removed, and they dump a 5 gallon bucket of water onto his face. Gagging and sputtering the whole time, and yes feeling like he's drowning. Then they start asking questions. He doesn't give the answers they like, repeat the water dousing. Repeat this for hours on end, for 7 days. Then throw the hood back on, toss him back into the van, and dump him back on the street where they grabbed him the first time.
Now does that sound like torture? I wonder what his take on things would be then. I'm not saying terrorists are OK people, and I'm not defending what they do, not at all. I'm saying the USA are supposed to be the good guys. We are not supposed to do things like I wrote about. We are supposed to be about freedom and liberty, and rights, and we should act that way. But kidnapping people on the streets in other countries, and making them disappear, and then torturing them makes US AS A COUNTRY look bad. And again, there is no proof anywhere in scientific literature, or other places where this has been studied that shows torture provides good intelligence. It just doesn't work.
Magnolialover, don't even bother to try and explain yourself. RINO Hunter already knows what he thinks you said, so explanations on your part are just a waste of breath.
I'm thinking more and more that RINO Hunter is some antisocial 17-year old who learned his 'debating' skills by watching Crossfire and H&C. He, like too many people these days, thinks that being certain is more important than being right.
Of course Rhino knows what he thinks. As soon as the Oxymoron TELLS him what he thinks.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Kudos, Mag, for an excellent post.
The real scare is there are actual Americans who think like YOU. Who would trash all the values I associate with this country, being a GOOD country, because you are a coward who hides under the bed and things whatever scary thing you think MIGHT happen justifies you tossing decency and international law right out the window.
You know, missing legs, feet, hands and arms, blindness, deafness, disfigurement, missing lungs, brain damage... that's part of war. But this "scaring prisoners" business - well, we have GOT to draw the line somewhere.
Has humanity finally gone too far?
Well then, if after we torture them why not just kill them? We don't because we don't know if it worked..at which point, torture is just torture.
If I remember, whenever an American is capurted and blindfolded, America yells torture..Can't have it both ways.
Prince, you've touched on the heart of the matter...if, as the experts say, information derived as a result of torture is usually unreliable then what does torture accomplish except to punish and exact retribution from a bad person. What is missing is the Constitutional concept that we don't punish people without due process. Some may feel we are perfectly within our rights to punish the amorphous "enemy" off the battlefield, but that not only goes against internationally accepted standards but it makes us look like hypocritical savages to the rest of the world. I have no love for terrorists but we have to maintain the high moral ground if we expect to lead the world.
And I guess if your wife or son or daughter or other family member were being held with swords at their throats, being threatened with decapitation you would still take the high road, uhh. If someone in custody had information that could immediately diffuse the situation and save your family’s life you wouldn’t resort to waterboarding to get the info would you? Even if that were the only chance of saving them I know you wouldn’t compromise your principles, right? Hey, if you think that this is just a wild hypothetical…think again…incidents like this have happened during THIS war against THIS enemy.
I don’t like rough interrogation any better than anyone else but it’s silly to take effective and sometimes necessary options off the table during war with savages in the name of political correctness. How ‘bout this… “Waterboarding…available but rare”. Reminds me of another liberal cause with the main difference being waterboarding usually doesn’t kill anybody.
Neither does abortion, but that's beside the point. Actually, let's look at that shall we? If you abort a fetus in the first trimester, could you remove said fetus from a woman and it would survive? No, you couldn't, but again, topic derailment.
In your post, you cite that if someone had a sword at their throat, and then you said that intelligence had been gathered that showed us where the terrorists where, and the hostage with said sword at said throat was whisked away. When did this happen in your fantasy land? It hasn't happened. Show me a story, any link at all, where this happened.
As a hypothetical, if a loved one of mine was being held hostage, and had a sword at their throat, and we had someone in custody that maybe had information about said loved one, and that this would make the difference between life or death, I wouldn't want them tortured. Why? Because we're supposed to be BETTER THAN THE BAD GUYS. Remember? Your hypothetical has never existed though, so it doesn't matter.
Waterboarding doesn't usually kill anyone. Nor does ripping out fingernails or giving electric shocks to genitals.
This used to be an honorable country. We have more than 200 years of history where we were proud to hold the moral high ground. Our military believed that we were better than our enemies and abhorred anything even close to torture.
Every veteran in my family passed on American values to their children. We were taught, by American warriors, that torture was never an option for an American.
They were proud of their beliefs and I've always been proud of them.
"...war with savages..."
Do you mean war "against savages" who cut off a head, or "with savages" who drop 500 lb bombs from planes and blow several heads off all at once?
Frankly, I don't care much for your characterization of our pilots as savages.
Regardless, dead is dead. Torture is the gift that keeps on giving. True, it usually gives bad information, and the threat of it gives your enemy a boost in their determination to avoid capture. But BOY what a great feeling of revenge afterwards, eh?
And I guess if your wife or son or daughter or other family member were being held with swords at their throats, being threatened with decapitation you would still take the high road, uhh. If someone in custody had information that could immediately diffuse the situation and save your family’s life you wouldn’t resort to waterboarding to get the info would you? Even if that were the only chance of saving them I know you wouldn’t compromise your principles, right? Hey, if you think that this is just a wild hypothetical…think again…incidents like this have happened during THIS war against THIS enemy. -CB
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Well, I guess you'd be at a philosophical crossroads, eh? Though I cannot say what my decision would be, were I in such a situation, I know I would debate it: Is it better to lose a loved one and know that you've done the right thing for your nation and the world; or - torture, torture and torture more, to (more than likely) get unreliable information that will (in all likelihood) result in the deaths of your family members? It seems to me that if such a thing were to happen (God forbid), you're f&*%ed either way. Stick with the high road and grieve for your loss - and allow your country and the world to grieve with you. That's my opinion - but only MY OPINION.
Another rightwinger arguing that we have joined the evil doers club but we arent quite as bad as the other guys. If we have to BECOME evil to fight evil what is the difference? Becoming evil to fight evil is a Zero sum game. Unless we draw bright lines as to why we ARENT LIKE THEM, then we lose the battle to SHOW we arent like them and in fact we become LIKE THEM. You rightfully say they are barbaric in the same breath you say WE should be barbaric. Then you will say we should still be TREATED as though we are a good people and no one should ever say we ARENT good people after eschewing all the reasons we WERE a good people.
I don’t like rough interrogation any better than anyone else but it’s silly to take effective and sometimes necessary options off the table during war with savages in the name of political correctness. How ‘bout this… “Waterboarding…available but rare”. Reminds me of another liberal cause with the main difference being waterboarding usually doesn’t kill anybody.
The point is it’s NOT effective. We have been told by this administration that the ‘water-boarding’ of Kalek-Sheik Muhammad stopped ‘several’ terrorist plots. If you think this administration had creditability then I guess you believe them and are willing to accept ’water-boarding’ however I don’t. I don’t believe nor trust a single thing they say. Using the 'asinine logic' of 'they may have information' why don't we start torturing people who the police arrest. Hey why bother to have any 'laws' or 'standards' 'they may have information' or 'they may have done something' or 'they may know something'.
John Adams argued that humane treatment of prisoners and deep concern for civilian populations not only reflected the American Revolution's highest ideals, they were a moral and strategic requirement. His thoughts on the subject, expressed in a 1777 letter to his wife, He wrote: "I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed."
"Using the 'asinine logic' of 'they may have information' why don't we start torturing people who the police arrest"
Obviously terrorism shouldn't be treated like an ordinary crime, even though that is the view that many on the left have.
It also shouldnt be something that we are willing to toss out all standards of decency to fight against. We neednt become monsters in order to Fight monsters
Yes it should.
Try this analogy on for size: Osama Bin Laden = Charles Manson.
Wanton psycho-murderers. That is all these guys are.
Lol. Nice tough talk. You guys don't even call terrorists "criminals". You guys view this as a war. This has been the administration's argument all along. I don't see how you could miss it.
I am sorry, but you guys have elevated these disgusting criminals to the undeserved more honorable title of "warriors". When will you guys learn?
Read it and weep, Rino:
[link to www.nytimes.com]
"How ‘bout this… “Waterboarding…available but rare”. Reminds me of another liberal cause with the main difference being waterboarding usually doesn’t kill anybody"
That's a great point. That's basically my position on waterboarding. I don't think that it should be used regularly. It should simply be left on the table in the most extreme circumstances. In essence, it should be legal but rare. It's funny how the liberals take that view when it comes to innocent unborn babies but not murderous terrorists.
Your abortion red herring isnt getting any traction you wont be changing the subject today. NO. Torture should be off the table. Why not electric shocks to needles shoved under fingernails, legal but rare, electric shocks to the genitals legal but rare. NO. Its WRONG. You have no decency. Either it is a human rights violation or it isnt. Since WE imprisoned Japanese for waterboarding it would be the hiegth of hypocrisy to say now that is ok for us.
"Torture should be off the table"
So in other words we shouldn't have the tools necessary to defend our country from terrorist attacks even in a ticking time bomb situation. Thanks for your theoretical liberal argument which simply shows that a liberal can never be elected President.
The ridiculous premise of this belies your claim to be a Christian. "Whatsoever you do to the least of these, my brethren, you do it unto me."
What individuals should do is completely different from the policies the government should have. The Bible makes that clear. The Bible actually says in the Old Testament that adulterers should be stoned. That's a little worse than water boarding. The Bible justifies killing but not murder. You can't murder an innocent human being out of anger, but the state can put someone to death or punish someone for something they did.
That is so convoluted. Killing and murder are one and the same. "The Bible sez" has been used so atrociously to justify whatever one wants to believe. Well I don't believe that the Creator of the Universe told someone to write down that they should stone someone else to death. Got that?
What you do to the least of these...no way of getting around that one.
"Well I don't believe that the Creator of the Universe told someone to write down that they should stone someone else to death. Got that."
Then you don't believe in the Bible.
You don't have to believe everything in the Bible in order to accept its wisdom. You have demonstrated on here many times that you disregard parts of the Bible whether you will ever admit to it or not.
It is a natural consequence of reading an interpreted document that each person will come away with a different understanding of it. That may require for some to disregard parts of the document in favor of other parts that ring more true. It certainly doesn't mean anyone's interpretation is invalid as you suggest. After all, you are only espousing your own possibly flawed interpretation.
What individuals should do is completely different from the policies the government should have.
Guess that government of the people, by the people, and for the people has perished from the earth. Damn. I kinda liked it.
Oh please, the Bible was written by fallible human beings... the same type of human beings who use weak arguments to justify their inconsistencies. Just like YOU.
The Bible actually says in the Old Testament that adulterers should be stoned.
I thought Jesus came to bring the New Testament to replace the Old Testament. You Xtian nutcases are all alike. You ignore the words of Jesus whenever his Old Man has said something previously that you agree with more.
You don't call yourself a "Godian," you call yourself a "Christian."
Why do you always ignore the words of Christ himself when others say the things you agree with when Christ's words make you uncomfortable?
As punishment for a crime AFTER a trial. You arent saying only those who have been convicted should be tortured. Ya got nothin. You NEVER do.
Necessary? Necessary?!Necessary?!?Necessary?!?!
Why is something necessary if it DOESN'T FUC%!NG WORK?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Thank YOU for showing that FASCISTS like you should never be let anywhere NEAR the levers of power. First if you have to torture someone to save me, let me die, for what good is it to save my life at the cost of my soul? And THAT is what we are talking about AMERICA'S SOUL, are we the kind of people who TORTURE people? Apparantly YOU would like to be but I dont want America to be seen that way and I dont want America to BE that way. Doing the right thing isnt always easy, it NEVER comes without cost COWARDS dont want to pay the cost of doing what is right. I do. Honor, Integrity these are gifts that people and countries give themselves and they are expensive, if they were easy they would be easy and no great satisfaction or nobility would be associated with them. YOU would deprive our great country of those gifts because you are a coward. Second. You cannot show your false dichotomy is real. You cannot show that we cannot protect ourselves without torture. In your cowardly fear you dont really care because you only want to FEEL safe whether its true or not doesnt really mean anything to you. Only that you FEEL safe. Two more points. The one being tortured isnt the only victim here. The one DOING the torturing may do so because he has bought into the justification or because he defers to his superior but he might be, unlike say YOU, someone with a real soul and the trauma he suffers throughout his life because of the loss of humanity of BEING a torturer might just destroy him emotionally and spiritually. Lastly if WE torture people the next time we are in real war with a civilized country which could always happen we cannot possibly complain when THEY torture OUR people. Something else you dont care about as long as YOU can feel safe. Go hide under your bed and let those of us with a sense of decency talk about policy.
"incidents like this have happened during THIS war against THIS enemy."--cb
I suppose something like this may happen over an infinite time period - like a killer asteroid. Anyway, please provide some wonderful detailed actual (real) examples to backup your claim here. It ought to make for some interesting reading.
I am not a real fan of this making policy for some extreme hypothetical instance that most likely hasn't and/or won't ever happen. If it is really that big of an issue, then make waterboarding illegal unless specifically authorized by the President and put under Congressional and Judicial oversight.
"If I remember, whenever an American is capurted and blindfolded, America yells torture..Can't have it both ways"
If an American is captured by a terrorist he is usually be-headed. Waterboarding would seem like amusement compared with the things that the terrorists do to captured soldiers.
Actually, I can only think of one, maybe two times that has happened. Other Americans, most of the time, that have been captured, have been released.
Don't try to mess with Rino's fear. He's skeered of them awful turrists. He needs Bush to make him feel safe. Maybe by allowing another 9/11 or by invading Iran. Both would make us much safer.
By that logic why do we prosecute murderers that arent as bad as Jeffery Daumer of John Wayne Gacy? Pointing to something that is worse it NOT a justification for doing something bad and only someone who has no sense of decency would say it is.
Rino my Momma had a saying "You lay down with the dogs, you'll wake up with fleas". You become no better than your enemy with you do the same things they do. We are America and we are better!
That's a nice theoretical argument, but it does nothing to keep us safe from terrorism.
But torture does?
Here comes Abu Graihb, all over again.
I think if your view wasn't so myopic, you could see it is very appropriate.
Who am I to argue with someone who apparently believes an idea can be defeated militarily. You have lost before you even started with that approach.
Neither will your idiotic ideas on difiling our constitution. The big difference is, your ideas (and those of your leaders) makes the situation WORSE:
~Makes people angry at us and therefore makes it easier for terrorists to recruit new members.
~Makes terrorists more enthusiastic about carrying out attacks (Remember, these are people who want to be martyrs! Deterrence doesn't exist with this mindset.)
~Makes it more likely that our troops will be tortured or killed if captured.
~Makes other nations less likely to extradite terrorism suspects to us, so we can't get information from them (even legally!).
~Makes other nations less likely to ally with us in future military action.
That's one hell of a lot of cost for NO BENEFIT!
~"Makes it more likely that our troops will be tortured or killed if captured"
If our troops our captured by terrorists they will get tortured and killed no matter how nice we are to the terrorists when we are holding them. They aren't simply going to say, "Maybe we should be nice to these American soldiers since they're so nice to us." It doesn't work that way.
Excuse me, but your myopia is showing again. Do you think this is the last war we will ever fight? Do you think the ramifications of such actions are only confined to the current war? What gives you that idea?
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Rhino is right.
What about all those witches that admitted to being witches only after they were tortured and threatened with death. Do you think they would have confessed their evil ways otherwise? Pfffttt.
Terrorists are like witches, once you identify them, you have to torture them so they admit being terrorists and confess their evil plots. Like with the witches in Salem, the only way to protect the world from evil is with torture.
Wait, what say you? Torture itself is evil? The Salem witch trials were a disgraceful episode in American history?
Ok, never mind then.
That's a nice theoretical argument, but it does nothing to keep us safe from terrorism.
Neither does any scenario you have posited.
You know, I'll give O'Rielly a single gram of credit for actually taking a taser before doing a story on people (police?) using them. So when he said that kid at the John Kerry event was faking and/or over-reacting, at least he had a shred of first hand experience. (Plus the idea of O'Rielly being tased is mildy amusing.)
Now I'd LOVE to see any of these guys volueer to be waterboarded, for even 1 minute, on camera and then we can gauge their reactions afterwards to see what they really think. THAT would be a great newscast.
What self-righteous, hypocritical cowards! Water-boarding, Abu-Girabe, Guantanomo Bay, Wiretapping, Torture... These are EMBARRASSMENTS for this country!!! These are DISGRACES!!! All Al-Queada can do is destroy buildings, this administrations is destroying this country's VALUES.
Yes, admittedly Al-Queada can also take lives, but this administration has caused the deaths of more americans (and more than 30 times as many non-Americans) as Al-Queada ever did. And while ALL loss of life (civilian, military, american and foriegn) is tragic, you can't escape the fact that all people die.
BUT - The values of this coutry and it's system of governence and it's way of life are all bigger than that. They are meant to live on, having outlived they're creators by hundereds of years. They are meant to be immortal, safeguarding life, and liberty, and all that we hold dear for every generation to come. But this administration doesn't want to preserve that. They want to save us, at the expense of what makes us (as a country) worth saving.
Excellent point. We're supposed to be the "good guys", but it's hard to hold on to the moral high ground if we don't at least try to live up to that high standard that we have set for ourselves. The fact that we (supposedly) don't torture or imprison people without trial is part of what has made us the greatest country in the world.
Unfortunately, black and white thinkers (i.e. Bush's base) cannot grasp such nebulous concepts. They will tell us that our cruelty can be excused by the greater cruelty of our enemies. They will tell us that we are fighting to preserve freedom, yet gladly surrender those freedoms to be "safe".
They just don't get it.
Bravo Eddie good post
Yes indeed. Hurray!!
How does he know that nobody (on record) broke under this type of torture? There's a record somewhere?
Actually, he said everybody breaks. So of, course, it can't be torture. Good point about there being records. Is the Army sharing inside info with Faux News?
If someone "breaks" they're presumably willing to do anything to make the torture (or "unpleasant treatment") stop, no? Like, say, lie? Or say whatever we tell them to say?
And this helps us how?
WATERBOARDING the NEW AGENT ORANGE...don't worry, it is SAFE.
I once asked a Colonel that if Agent Orange was safe, would he mind putting his family in a tent and spraying them. His answer....KP for a month. Nice.
KP for a month? Tough. Also, if I remember correctly after 4 decades, absolutely forbidden by the UCMJ.
History is suppose to teach us. We are suppose to learn from past mistakes in order to make better choices in the future. We are the greatest nation but according to Junior&Co. we should be afraid. We have the best technology, the best weapons to fight against people using weapons 20 years old, but we should be afraid. We should so afraid that we are willing to comprise the very principals which have made us a great nation.
On Oct. 6th, the Washington Post carried a story about World War II veterans who spoke for the first time about their jobs interrogating German prisoners of war. They NEVER resorted to using torture or other coercive measure to extract information In the words of interrogator George Frenkel, 87, "We extracted information in a battle of wits. I'm proud to say I never comprised my humanity." "We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
In reading their stories, I feel pride. These men under extreme circumstances managed to win without resorting to torture. They could feel superior because they did not resort to using the sames tactics their enemies used. Sadly we cannot say the same. We are no better that the people we a fighting when we stoop to their level.
It's a great story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492_pf.html
Excellent post, Pearlene...
You're right, Pearlene. That's the America I love and take pride in. To those who would say that our enemy is too barbaric to be treated with humanity, or that we don't understand the threat, I would point to the origins of this nation-state. The events referenced below took place when their was a real existential threat to our survival, with the Armies of the most powerful empire on earth marching throughout the land.
...leaders in both the Continental Congress and the Continental Army resolved that the War of Independence would be conducted with a respect for human rights. This was all the more extraordinary because these courtesies were not reciprocated by King George's armies. Indeed, the British conducted a deliberate campaign of atrocities against American soldiers and civilians. While Americans extended quarter to combatants as a matter of right and treated their prisoners with humanity, British regulars and German mercenaries were threatened by their own officers with severe punishment if they showed mercy to a surrendering American soldier. Captured Americans were tortured, starved and cruelly maltreated aboard prison ships. Washington decided to behave differently. After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, he ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same rights for which our young nation was fighting. In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road."
That is by Robert Kenneddy Jr., in Common Dreams. I'm away from home and this computer won't let me go back and get the link, so I'll follow up with it.
Here it is:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm
Conchobhar, Excellent Article!
I wonder if the reason Junior & Co. has such a cavalier attitude regarding torture is because neither he nor Darth Vader have any military experience.
I think that using Kondrakes logic that a 10 year old Iraqi boy who has just watched his family get blown away by 2000 bombs will not have any emotional scars because HE didn't get hurt. According to the Kon Man, he will grow up to hate metal.
Aren't there truth serum drugs? Do they work? Are they not allowed?
Maybe we should use all the truth serum drugs in our water supply. Then we can all talk. The late Senator of the South Side(PGH), Leo McCauley used to say, it is Halloween so everyone take your masks OFF for one day.
Great question, AA...
Here is a November, 2006 article from The Washington Post directly addressing your question:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/content/article/2006/11/19/truth.html
You know, I've wondered that myself, whether sodium pentathol is against the rules. I'm not sure if there are any medical side effects. I have heard that it is not so effective because you have to ask leading questions in order to get any good answers, so you have to know a good deal about something already in order to get any info. It works so well in the spy novels, though. I personally like David Morrell.
Barney wrote: "Aren't there truth serum drugs? Do they work? Are they not allowed?"
Yes. There is Rum. It works. But it is not allowed due to it's long-term effects. Possible lasting conditions such as marriage have resulted in it being classified as "Too dangerous to be considered humane".
Mr. Kondracke, allow me to demonstrate that getting kicked very hard in the balls and having your fingernails pulled out with pliers aren't torture because they don't "result in lasting harmful health consequences."
You just pick the time and place.
If waterboarding is not torture then why do police officers not use it during investigations eg - Lay down on the board Rush and we will see if you were indeed using drugs illegally. If he hasn't I am sure the truth will come out and no harm done.
"I'm sure it feels like torture..."
That's why we always have one observer assigned to the interrogation team specifically to tell the detainee, "Oh shut up, you little baby, we're not torturing you.", when the suspect screams too loudly. That makes it legal... ;>)
KONDRACKE: "Yeah, pilots, pilots, Special Forces trainees, those people who might be captured are routinely trained under this with this technique."
Uh, Mort you don't know what you are talking about. How do they get away with making this stuff up like this on a national news program? I'm a US Army SERE-C graduate (Ft. Bragg, NC) and can tell you from first hand experience they do not waterboard service members - routinely or otherwise.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1599861,00.html
http://civilliberty.about.com/b/a/257618.htm
There is a scene in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four where the torturer, identified as O'Brien, has rigged up would-be revolutionary Winston to a machine that creates unimaginable torment. "How many fingers am I holding up?" O'Brien asks him as he holds up one hand with four fingers extended. "Four," Winston replies. "And if the party says that it is not four but five, how many?" O'Brien asks. "Four," Winston responds again. O'Brien cranks up the machine and interrogates Winston over and over until he does, in fact, see five fingers.And that's how torture generates confessions.Last week, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed allegedly confessed to orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, coordinating planned attacks on 16 other countries, and personally killing Daniel Pearl. But he seems to have no real idea how the 9/11 hijackers were recruited, it is unlikely that al-Qaeda would have had one person orchestrate attacks in 17 countries from a single location, and there is videotaped evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did not, in fact, kill Daniel Pearl. So what are we to make of this? Reuters quotes the experts:
If Kondracke is so sure water-boarding does no lasting harm does that mean he is going to volunteer to demonstrate that "fact" by undergoing the procedure? Anyone who is not willing to state publicly that water-boarding is illegal torture should be water-boarded. If they still think it is OK than I will accept his opinion.
I have a Tracheostomy Tube. I often get water down my airway when I take a shower. It is not fun. Water-boarding is much worse. The person is tied down and cannot step out of the water like I can.
It is apparent that Kondrake and all others who would accept waterboarding are not Christians, faithful Jewish followers or people of faith in any way. This is a moral and ethical issue. For those good rtwing Christians, what do you think Jesus would say if he were standing there watching? Be honest.
Ok, how about Mort and his pals volunteer to be waterboarded? After they have had the experience I would give a lot more weight to his opinion on the subject.
I like how Mort so nonchalantly mentions at the very end that we do it to our own people. Also, I think it is worth mentioning that when someone is getting their fingers broken or shocked with electrical currents...that probably "feels" like torture as well. I imagine the whole point of torture is how you can make the torturee feel.