This Week At War: Does Torture Work?
By Nicole Belle Saturday Nov 10, 2007 8:02pmOf course, any sentient human being that isn't a blind apologist for this administration (or so afraid of the big scary Muslim that he hides from his own shadow) knows the answer to that.
And then there is David Rivkin...
Download | play 
Download | play (h/t Heather)
When oh when will we be spared these chickenhawk little scaredy-cats in serious discussions? Actually, if it wasn't for these Bush apologists who have neither military experience nor intelligence (in every sense of the word) opining on military intelligence, there would be NO discussion on the legality or morality of "enhanced interrogation techniques" as they like to call it (or torture, for those of us in the reality-based community).
Listen to Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift (who, I might add, has both experience in the military and gathering intelligence, and who effectively lost his career in shaming the Bush Administration with the Hamdan case) make the point that besides being immoral, torture simply does not work:
...To me, it's unfathomable that we are up against the line. You know, again, looking back at WWII, what history's taught us, what we found is the reliable means of getting intelligence, at least in the context of a war, are using those things that build rapport with the person. That they find out you're not the ogre they've been told, they begin to question the people who are leading them. And eventually, that leads to actionable intelligence and it's reliable. See, that's the real problem with anything that's coercive. When you force somebody to talk, you cannot count on what they tell you. And in that case, I think it really is an unreliable form of interrogation and again, it's why we don't use it in court, is because it's not reliable data.
And Rivkin's response? The big scary "bad guys" are out to get us! You can't be nice to them! How can anyone take a grown man seriously who uses such cartoonish and vague scare tactics?
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So Rivkin would not consider these techniques torture if used on him? Let's ask him to have them used on him. Call his bluff.
The Bushies' ultimate shame: Making torture into a musical: ‘RENDITION’ — FROM ‘TERRORIST HANGING FROM THE ROOF’
I could barely understand what that guy was saying. You could see the hot head start boiling, and he was so pumped up on his own reactions he couldn't even wait to pronounce words right, or he's just had a speech impediment his entire life. I don't know, but these sally men need grow up and learn to use objectivity and skepticism before forming a shut-door logic in there heads that they use to shut out any differing view point. How come when Osama is on video he seems 10 times more clear in his thinking then these hot head neo needle dicks they get as "experts" on the cable news networks.
of course torture works! look at america squealing like a stuck pig as booschainey twists the knife.
David Rivkin has a foreign accent at first I thought it was French-Canadian) if he's an American citizen then how is it he sounds like he's both from TelAviv and Brooklyn, NY? Or is that anti-semitic to ask?
We established the legal precedents that determined that waterboard is torture by the convictions and sentences we handed down at war crimes tribunals for the Japanese after World War II. Their were specific convictions based upon waterboarding, because it fit into the international law and treaty definitions of torture. We were the first to convict for waterboarding, handing out stiff, long sentences at hard labor for the crime. Everybody involved, from Bush/cheney down to the thugs that inflict the torture, are war criminals who should be convicted and given sentences similar to what we issued the Japanese.
I can remember a time when I was proud to be an American.
ironic that Swift says:
"That they find out you’re not the ogre they’ve been told, they begin to question the people who are leading them."
and that Rivkin responds by... telling us the enemy are big scary ogres.
What a demagogue like Rivkin is basically doing is to try to appeal to one's emotions in order to justify the use of torture. The terrorists are coming! therefore the rules of the Geneva Conventions must be set aside so that these fearsome terrorists do not swim onto the shores of New York and San Francisco. This strategy is similar to the one employed by conservatives and libertarians regarding universal health care, i.e. Socialized Medicine! Socialized Medicine! Run for the hills!- the idea being to somehow conflate socialized medicine with a socialistic form of government. Never mind that neither argument becomes at all persuasive in trying to justify against torture and the idea of universal health care as being allegedly run by socialists trying to topple the United States government.
Torture works and everybody knows it. If my nuts were clamped between a pair of pliers I would tell everything I know; including everything I didn't know I know.
The only thing ever gained from torture is sadistic pleasure.
still waiting for Rivkin to be waterboarded. He crapped his pants when the CSPAN called challenged him.
sulphurdunn @ 10:
Exactly!
American hegemony is on the immediate wane from grace as is the "virtues" that America once claimed to have over those nations on the "periphery" whom no longer look at the USA as a "great nation."
With the falling U.S. dollar, military overstretch, and the cultural dead-end as far as the creative arts and music is concerned, America's best days are behind it. There will be a new world-system, but the "universal values" of America will be absent in the new system. America will have to eventually learn how to be part of the international system without trying to run every aspect of it.
Even having to listen to such a torture debate is illustrative of America's moral decay into the abyss. Then again, the United States has tortured prisoners for decades plus now, except, now its institutionalizing and "moralizing" such an obvious crime and moral sin against natural law and God's law. This discussion (torture debate) is also a very good indicator of why other nation's peoples look down on America and Americans, (yes, Americans for allowing such evil actions to even occur), as well as the decline of American hegemony in the present world system.
che g @ 5:
I think the accent is thick AIPAC!
We, as a nation can never again complain when our troops are tortured. We will have no moral standing to do so.
sulphurdunn @ 10:
Yes the nutty guy made this point for you. He said the islamic extremist are so committed to their ideology (unlike the Germans, for whom fascism was just a passing fancy) they will lie either way. So, he wants to torture to inflict pain, not to gain actionable intelligence.
Rivkin sounds like he is making up his answers off the top of his head. I think he is because he can't possibly know how anyone has responded to any kind of treatment unlees he has seen it first hand.
He flat out lies when he says "History has proven tourtur works..." (Paraphrasing here.)
It doesn't.
I was water boarded once at the city swimming pool. I was about 12 and the guys doing it to me were a couple of grades higher. They held me under water and I panicked. The trained life guard told them it was ok because it wasn't torture.
People like Rivkin think torture works because they worry about what they would say under torture. No, not state secrets or troop placements, but things like how many times a day they masturbate, and what "dirty" thoughts they have. These people are SICK.
CoIntelPro @ 14:
Some people grow up in ethnic enclaves in this country. For instance, although born and raised in the US Liberace did not learn English until he was an adult.
sulphurdunn @ 10:
which pretty much describes the current junta in DC.
Torture works. I know nothing about mathematics but if an electric cattle prod was shoved up my ass; I would miraculously recite the algorithms than form the foundational basis for quantum mechanics.
mrogi @ 21:
I am afraid the only thing you know abiut torture is how to apply it to logic.
Rivkin is a fool,, I have no idea why CNN chose to title him as a "Military Law Expert", anyone notice how on quick on the draw the video feeds person was with Rivkins talking points? He changes subject mid stream, and hits on "Hell Week" for US recruits,, and all of a sudden, wham!! hey look at the,, pictures of US solders training.. Amazing..
What are the names of the PR firms that program and promote these guys,, they should all go to jail..
If I wanted to be a smart-ass I'd say how could you take anyone that looked like that seriously regardless of the subject but I'll be nice for now.
These people a long with every Republican is supposed to be the tough guys, the if you don't elect us and take us seriously you'll be sorry guys. The why is it that they're so damned scared of everyone and everything? I'm retired military, a Democrat, and a liberal and let me say yes, there are a lot of people that are dangerous. They have the means and inclination to do damage but they don't have the wherewithall to be the all mighty boogeyman. The attack on 9/11 was terrible but do our leaders ever think that we've lost more lives in Iraq and Afghanistan in retribution than we did on that fateful day? How many lives how been damaged beyond repair in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as these soldiers families? How many more will have to die to get back at Al Queda for 9/11 before our leaders finally listen to the citizens and say enough is enough?
By acting as the Republicans and neocon operative are, by installing fear of everyone and everybody in to the American people the "terrorists" don't have to do another thing and they've won. One act on our soil and these people have made our leaders state to Americans that they must be afraid 24/7, that to be safe we must give up the freedoms that supposedly the terrorists hate us for, and shred the document that has been the basis of this country for over 200 years.
Then again the Republicans and neocons used this one event to further their agenda and fear of the boogeyman is their tool to remain in power and grab even more. Fearmongering has been their sole weapon for the last 4 years and it's time that the American people stop being so damn afraid. Yes we should be gather intelligence to protect ourselves but stop spouting off that there is a terrorist behind every tree and under your bed. Take back your lives America and start acting like intelligent adults for once.
That's all I have to say for now. We're coming up on our 5th Veteran's Day in Iraq and once again Bush and Cheney will stand in front of our troops and spout lies. It literally makes me sick to see Bush and his sycophants act like they actually care about our soldiers because it's been proven over and over that they don't. Commander in Chief or War Criminal? I think we all know the answer to that question now don't we?
The question: Does torture work? is misleading. It implies that the desired result of torture is to extract information, it isn't. The object is to humiliate and terrify and send a message to communities that are targeted by this tactic. It says to your opposition that you are capable of the unimaginable so they'd better submit. That's the reason it has long been a tool in the arsenal of US foreign policy from Iraq to Vietnam, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras, El Salvador and who knows where else? The claim that the US does not torture is dangerous and misleading. We have, we do and will continue. Anybody ever hear of the School of the Americas now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas
Training Manuals
See also: U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals
On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon released seven training manuals prepared by the U.S. military and used between 1987 and 1991 in Latin America and at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). These particular manuals are similar to lesson plans used by the school as far back as 1982 [9] and similar to those of Project X and KUBARK. According to Lisa Haugaard of School of the Americas Watch, these manuals taught repressive techniques and promoted the violation of human rights throughout Latin America and around the globe.[8] The manuals contain instructions in motivation by fear, bounties for enemy dead, false imprisonment, torture, execution, and kidnapping a target's family members. Joseph Kennedy said "These manuals taught tactics that come right out of a Soviet gulag and have no place in civilized society." The Pentagon admitted that these manuals were a "mistake"[9]
rend @ 23:
CNN could shorten Rivkin's screen title to just one word, TOOL.
We torture. That is it. Whatever moral high ground we try to claim, it's all out. I have mentioned this on another forum regarding the same topic. I don't understand the argument that because we are dealing with a different kind of enemy we must play dirty. The basis for this fight is that we are more civilized and so we must defend our civility and freedom. What makes us civil is our respect for the rule of law. This is a view that is largely uncontested in the west. And yet we have completely disregarded Internationl Laws, which by the way have supremacy over national and domestic laws. If we torture, whatever moral high ground we claim can no longer be claimed. Torturing makes us just like our enemy, who we say is beneath us. Plus, even if we assume that it is OK to play dirty and torture, we're not torturing Zaraqwi or any of those fucks who kill and maim innocents, we're going after innocent people, ones against whom we cannot find any charges, ones who are truly innocent -people caught up in the conflict because they were there in the wrong time or the wrong place. We seem unable to charge anyone in Guantanamo with anything substantial. We knew for years now that something like 60% of those detained in Abu Ghraib were civilians. So, not only are we letting go of our morals and values by torturing, we're torturing the wrong people, innocent civilians. Also, we know that people will say whatever you want them to say under torture, to lift the pain. People who have undergone torture will tell you this. It is not an effective way to get information. So even if we OK it morally, it's not the effective way to get information. Even if waterbording does not leave physical marks. Sleep deprivation does not leave physical marks either, but you deprive someone from sleep and they develop psychosis. Many people who have been tortured struggle with torture for the rest of their lives. Many commit suicide.
Every right wing asshole gets a woody when anything related to Jack Bauer is mentioned!
Bunch of fucking masochists!
See, THAT'S the problem, Rivkin would say: The damn activist courts keep thinking our unreliable data is unreliable. We need to get some right-thinkin' judges in there who don't care where data comes from!
That Rivkin 1/2 witt looks like a sweaty Nazi out of an Indiana Jones movie. I can't believe they can't find a more American looking guy to sell their torture for them.
Rivkin is afraid of suppositories, because he keeps for getting they are not
foil wrapped candies left in the fridge.
CoIntelPro @ 20:
and exactly what pat robertson uses on those who do not agree with his delusions.
Here's a related comment I made on another site a couple of days ago...
If he is not a governmental employee, as was the case with Levin, perhaps there are some members who were formerly with the military who might volunteer to waterboard this disgusting piece of living excrement.
I have a co-worker who was in the military for eighteen years, and he indicated that part of his training was to be waterboarded. He stated that it is so unpleasant that a person would eventually say anything to get it to stop.
In fact, I think it would be great to have this guy on national television being waterboarded until he admitted to raping infants, and once he does, then haul him off to jail.
Rivkin would need to either stand by his torture-induced confession and spend the next few years in prison, and, as a child rapist, his time there would not be pleasant OR he would need to assume the stance (a wide one, to be sure), that he said what he did only to terminate the feeling of being drowned.
Should he choose the latter option, then he could be asked to explain why we should trust confessions obtained from suspected “terrists” by implementing such procedures.
This could be an extremely popular and lucrative pay-per-view event — the MSM is passing up a potential cash cow by not following up on my suggestion.
Lt. Cmdr. Swift is quite correct as history shows.
I have been in the military at the front (and even way behind *enemy lines*) and worked in the *Intelligence* community.
This ridiculous charade of a so-called debate has never had, and never will have, anything whatsoever to do with gathering intelligence or validating intelligence. These people only love torture because it's what they fantasize about. They either see it as a just punishment for those they hate (whoever that may be and is usually anyone who doesn't agree with them) or because it's a sexual fantasy for them.
Anyone who believes it is about morals, ethics or even right and wrong is a fool. People like Rivkin believe in none of those things.
I tried to stomach this bullshit interview for about 2 minutes but gave up after the little whine having something to do with "we've been waterboarding our own people for years to train them and that was ok so this must be ok, because if this is a crime, then that was a crime"....of course the other idiot didn't even respond to that pathetic BS and the moderator didn't follow up.
Something about CONSENTING to simulated torture techniques to train someone to resist is not the same as torture....and this guy is an "EXPERT"?!?!?! I am so sick of these douches!
Really, the biggest problem with the Democrats is that they backdown to people who believe this kind of stuff, like that torture is okay. Democrats need to lead the country to stay true to the Constitution and to our cultural mores. If the majority of American voters are so ignorant and vicious that they can't realize it's possible to respect the Constitution and not be "weak on terror," then we should get that out in the open and start framing a strategy to separate ourselves, literally, from such people who are no longer adhering to democracy.
mrogi @ 21:
some how i get the feeling youd love to have all thoes things done to you! you havent mentioned thumb screws , bambo shoots driven under your fingernails or being spread eagled naked on a red ant hill yet!
Using right wing logic, here...
Rivkin's views seem to be contrary to true American values. Therefore he is anti-American.
Let's waterboard Rivkin until he admits he's a traitor. One year down the road when he's finally had enough and admits it, then I guess we'll know waterboarding works.
Interesting side note: On 60 Minutes tonight, there was a piece about Saddam telling all to an FBI interrogator after he was captured. How did the FBI get the truth out of the man Pres. Bush claimed was such a threat to America? Surely we waterboarded Saddam like there was no tomorrow! We had to get the truth out of him!!! We had to find those hidden WMD!!!!!!! WATERBOARD! WATERBOARD!
Well, not exactly. The FBI agent just talked with him. Without any torture at all, just by talking over a period of time, he got Saddam to revealed all. Gee, is it that simple???
Torture works. If I was forced to listen to a boxed set CD collection of Yoko Ono albums, I would reveal the whole truth about everything from the Kennedy assassination to the sexual preference of Condoleeza Rice.
If Rivkin had any concept of what recruits go through in boot camp he would not equate that training to torture. Boot camp training is designed to place physical and mental stress on recruits and to teach fundamentals that they will use after boot camp. Boot camp is all about training, not torture as Rivkin suggests. It is incredibly offensive to hear these people who have no personal knowledge of the military make these comments. Watching a video doesn't provide any insight whatsoever.
The belief in the military that used to be was that we would not torture simply because it shows weakness. Weakness made obvious is the most damaging thing that you can do in any conflict whether it is between nations or individuals. Supporting torture in the manner that Rivkin does is no different than those weak hangers-on to the playground bully. Too afraid to stand up for himself.
Snowball (#25) Is absolutely right. The purpose of torture is not to gain information. Torture is part of a campaign to terrorize, degrade, humiliate, and finally break those that the President has decided are his enemies. And by extension, torture damps down any opposition. That is, it helps to frighten patriotic Americans into silence. If it can be done to Mr. Padilla, it can be done to any American citizen. The first stage of torture by the "Holy Inquisition" was simply showing the instruments of torture to the victim. Many of the accused confessed and recanted, even if they were not guilty at all. All of us have now been shown the instruments of torture.
For further reading:
Shock DoctrineKlein
Discipline and PunishFoucoult
Terrorists are bad guys but so were the Nazis and we didn't torture them.
burnt @ 7:
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed.
mrogi @ 9:
Exactly! Also include things you don't know but will say to get the torture to stop.
I would not demean myself by engaging in these techniques. But then again, I am convinced that I am better than any of these thugs. In their cases - 'demeaning' is meaningless.
It strikes me that a simple way to delineate the torture from the non-torture is the issue of consent. It amazes me that these winger hacks liken non-consensual-have-no-idea-if-you're-going-to-kill-me waterboarding to consensual military training. It is absolutely astounding.
The "two sides to everything" fallacy that CNN tries to present drives the entire debate. Reasonable people know that waterboarding is torture. It's only partisan hacks who say..."it depends...." This isn't about 2 equal sides. It's about an overwhelming majority of people who know waterboarding is torture and it's about a few partisan hacks who are trying to save the asses of themselves and their cronies.
This entire debate makes me so sick I want to open up Blitzer's head and puke inside of his neck.
mrogi @ 21:
And what would you say if you did not know "the algorithms than (sic) form the foundational basis for quantum mechanics?"
xoites defends Constitution @ 19:
And don't forget Lawrence Welk, from the upper midwest. Now, there was an accent!
Retired Navy @ 41:
Right. Not to mention that military training is *consensual.* The people undergoing stress in boot camp or other kinds of training can LEAVE ANYTIME THEY LIKE. To wit, they have consented to their training and they are NOT undergoing the terror of being in enemy hands, not knowing whether they will be killed or not.
How base, disingenuous, despicable, dishonest and disgusting that this partisan hack would equate consensual military training with torture. I kick dirt upon his feet. I spit on his shoes and I fart in his general direction...
Regarding Rivkin: How does one become a "Military Law Expert" without ever having served in the military?? I really do believe these Bush regime apologists make up titles for themselves (and naturally, CNN and FOX will obediently these fascist bullshit artists off as "experts")
That should read "obediently pass these fascist bullshit artists off as experts" Tucking fypos!
all these cons think Jack Bauer is real so it "must work!"
peoples Front of Judea @ 48:
You'll think of something. You see, your interrogators don't know the algorithms either, that's why they're trying to torture them out of you. So make up some cool sounding bullshit. And that, boys and girls, is why torture doesn't work.
Hype-Jersey @ 50:
I was onboard with you, Hype-Jersey, up until you mentioned the farting. That's too much like torture! Remind me not to piss you off...
jr @ 53:
That's something I've found rather interesting. Remember how the wingnuts, when they're not out advocating the torture of innocent people, are always on a crusade against Hollywood because "the kids imitate the violence and sex they see on tv and in the movies"? So here we have so called adults calling for the torture of innocents because THEY SEE A CHARACTER ON TV DO IT. Rather curious, no?
Rivkin is just another israel 1st-hawk(schumer,feinstein,leiberman,rupert murdoch,mort zuckerman,bill kristol,c.kraphammer,wolfowitz,pearl,libby,etc..) who loves to see american dollars and blood being spent to kill israel's (the only nuclear power in the middle east) neighbors..they torture so america can torture..wake up everyone we are in the united states of israel.
rnsone @ 57:
oh but i do give kudos and props for Russ Feingold who does put America 1st!!
THERE!! ARE!! FOUR!! LIGHTS!!
Torture doesn't work? Because it doesn't produce meaningful, trustworthy intelligence? I really think you are missing the point here. Chimpy and darth KNOW there is no terrorism war. They KNOW nobody is invading the US nor can they. They don't give a shit. What they need are confessions, any confession will do, even one from a tortured detainee (not a prisoner of the US). That way they can thwart the non existent plots that were confessed to. Then they can terrorize you with the idea that you are now safer from a non existent threat.
Torture does work, you're just expecting a different product from the process. Torture has kept chimpy and darth in office and has drastically prolonged a horribly failed presidency. Torture has terrified enough of the country to justify two never ending wars against "bad guys" costing over a trillion dollars. Torture works great, as long as those pesky international courts don't get their paws on you when you're terms are up.
In the perfect world waterboarding should be abolished and punishable.
In the real world, if my family were at stake, and I knew, or even suspected that the perp had the critical information to save my family, I'd use any methods available to find out that information. That he might give false information is just the chance that I'd have to take...and I'd accept the consequences of my actions if it was against the law.
scruzman @ 61:
You are scum then, the lowest form of life and what the laws were written to protect us from.
Torture is an INTERNATIONAL crime.
There is NO justification for it's use, EVER.
What is wrong with you people!
scruzman @ 61:
BTW dirt bag, that "gotta have it now or the end of the world" scenario is BS.
This country tortures as a matter of course.
You have been watching way too much bad TV.
the presumption of guilt is also being used to justify torture. any excuse is pretty 'tortured' to me. but of course if the subject is a perp and not a human being, it must be alright, expecially with a powerful hypothetical thrown in. that's like the cherry on a justification sundae. I feel all jack bauer about it now!
Whenever I think about Rivkin, I think about this screen grab I got of him back in July.
Enjoy:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/861547006_f6bd38cd9c_o.jpg
By the way, there is an excellent article refuting the whole "ticking time-bomb" justification for torture, and it is available for free from the journal. The article is "Torture, Terrorism and the State: a Refutation of the Ticking-Bomb Argument," by
VITTORIO BUFACCHI AND JEAN MARIA ARRIGO, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 23 Issue 3 (August 2006), pp. 355–373 (with many excellent sources in the bibliography as well). You can find a link to a free download of the article here:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/japp/23/3
rend @ 23:
If msnbc can label barbie kerik a '9/11 hero' cnn can label rivdik a MLE'. BTW, where DID rivkin serve his military justice career?
Shorter Rivkin: Bwaaaaaakbukbukbukbukbukbuk.
"Hey David!"
"Yes?"
"Muslims!!!"
trickletrickletrickletrickletrickletrickle
mrogi @ 9:
well, there are known knowns, unknown knowns and known unknowns. It's the unknown unknowns I'm worried about.
scruzman @ 61:
Realistically, when do you think you will ever be in that position??? We should be expected to give away our civil liberties because of some sick hero fantasy in the minds of people like yourself? Here's a tip: Stop watching "24"
All involved in these atrocities and crimes against humanity must be tried before an international tribunal. America will never regain any claim to honor or morality if that doesn't happen.
To embrace torture is to let go of the final moral safegaurd that keeps a nation from falling into the abyss of barbarity. There are certain things that civilization cannot abide if civilization is to survive. Torture is one of them. The people who are doing this are not protecting the nation, they are destroying it. There is a reason that well-adjusted people find natural revulsion of animal acts of cruelty. When we descend into and revere cruelty, we do not sink to the level of animals, we sink to a level that is lower than the animal. Not even animals inflict gratuitous cruelty.
Torturers:
Do not torture or commit other atrocities in my name or allegedly on my behalf, because I will consider you to be immeasurably more vile than the supposed enemy you claim, in your excuse making, to be protecting me from. I will not consider you to be my countryman, but rather the arch-criminals of all mankind, who are accursed of God and estranged from all that is human and all that is worthy. Because I am a
citizensubject in this dictatorship we used to call America, you dishonor me with your simultaneous crimes against humanity, principle and goodness. You will not be forgiven for that. Until you have acknowledged your crimes and spent a lifetime atoning for them, may you never know another moment's peace.Torture works. John McCain is living proof
gene214 @ 54:
gene214 @ 54:
my x-wife is pretty good at torture. I still get ‘twitchy’ on occasion, especially whenever I hear her voice.
[corrected]
Of course torture works. The question no one seems to be asking is "works for what?" If we're talking about getting to the truth and some actual usable, tangible, correct intelligence then of course it does NOT work. But if your goal is to get someone to corroborate your story or give you ammunition to continue building an empire and march towards unjust military conflicts -- then IT WORKS...duh?
They are still using fear. To paraphrase the right wing blogs I have read, they believe unless we torture, tap phones and do whatever is necessary it does not matter if it is legal or illegal because Muslims are going to blow up our shopping malls. They want congress to pass a bill stating waterboarding is torture. America has signed several treaties and recently created an anti-torture legislation. Either they are afraid or they are using fear. Either way, I still believe they just don't like anyone who is non-white and non-Christian.
mrogi @ 40:
Does Bush have a higher IQ than you do?
It's absurd that the same people, you know, the right wing nutjobs, who call Middle Easterners "Barbaric Cave Dwellers, stuck in the 16th century", support the use of torture techniques that were used and perfected in the 15th century during the Spanish Inquisition, sanctioned by non other than the Pope himself. I find that ironic and absurd at the same time.
Torture gets you the answers you want to hear. Not the truth.
I'm willing to suggest this administration has authorized anything that won't leave a scar or other trace of harm done (so they can't be caught for war crimes.) Waterboarding is only one method. If no mark is left-- torture away; "have fun"; be creative.
mrogi @ 9:
NUT???/...I could of sworn you were a woman...........go figure.
Rivkin: Another Israeli mole.
Edwin @ 79:
That sounds about right.
Tazers to the testicles, waterboarding, psychological destruction all a-ok for these criminals.
No physical evidence, no crime.
I can only hope the Hague brings them up on charges and prosecutes in absentia.
curmudgeon @ 33:
I'd pay to see that!
Why are so few people saying the obvious?: the torture apologists are, for the most part, not really interested in gathering intelligence, useful or otherwise; they just want to hurt people and "national security" gives them the pretext. You can almost see them getting aroused when they talk about it on TV.
This goes back forever. For every Inquisitor who honestly believed he was saving a heretic's soul by torturing a confession out of him, there were probably a hundred--or more--who just got off on the torture.
I'm not naive enough to think that no US soldiers have ever abused enemy prisoners, or that police always play nice, but I never, ever thought we'd have supposedly reputable, serious people justifying these actions in public forums, or that torture would become, essentially, official government policy. It really makes me despair.
To get the general public to accept torture, you must first dehumanize the enemy. The terrorists are not human, with human hopes and fears, they are alien monsters that don't think or experience emotions like us. Would anyone hesitate to rip the tentacles off of an alien monster to prevent the invasion of Earth?
Stick a cattle-prod up Bush's ass, and he'll 'confess' that he never spoke with 'god', that 'god' is just a figment, that he's much too dumb, too incompetent, too amoral to be president, that the republican party is corrupt, that they manipulated the elections of '00 and '04, that he doesn't know what the hell he's doing when it comes to education or economics, that Cheney, together with AIPAC, is the real 'power that be' in the US.
OMG! I just proved that torture works!
Sorry, future victims.
Look, everybody with a functioning brain knows that: a) waterboarding is torture; b) torture doesn't work (except to elicit lies and kill detainees); and most importantly, c) the only reason this administration has sanctioned torture is to get their jollies. They seem to get thier sexual gratification in weird ways, and S&M (a.k.a. torture) is right at the top of their list. I think they're even planning a special screening room in the GWB Presidential Library so he and Fredo can watch the tapes in retirement.
IMPEACH the freaks, now.
In the real world, if my family were at stake, and I knew, or even suspected that the perp had the critical information to save my family, I’d use any methods available to find out that information.
How about there are ten 'perps', 9 of which aren't perps at all. When you were finished, you would what...apologize to those 9? Slap them on the back and say 'no hard feelings'? Go to church, confess your sins and beg for absolution?
Well he can't say it's torture, or his little Wingnut Welfare cheques get cut-off. Besides, I think they(right-wing chicken hawks) have a mental block for anything psychological. Just look at how they are constant Stockholm Syndrome deniers. So why would they ever believe what an experienced WWII interrogator had to say...Although all of those Hannity's would lick their boots until they said something that didn't jive with their fake jingoistic fake patriotic rhetoric
If there was justice in this world these people would be kidnapped in the middle of the night and waterboarded until they admit on camera that they are pant wetting blubbering idiots.
NickR @ 88:
Tough luck. War is hell. Don't start wars.
Of course torture works, but does it guarantee victory? Absolutely not. The French conducted widespread torture in Algeria and while they achieved tactical successes based on actionable intelligence they lost the war and their humanity. Tough to be from the land of liberte and egalite when you are beating information out of prisoners. The curious thing about all the prisoners they tortured, they put to death. It was their way of closing the loop and keeping it secret. Of course it was a retired French officer who told all in his book "Battle of the Casbah."
If you look at war as a temporary state of affairs, it makes sense not to torture as eventually enemies become friends. Look at Germany, Japan, the former USSR, and even the PRC. We've even became friends of sorts with the North Vietnamese.
With radical Islamists who don't represent a nation state we have to ask ourselves if torture and killing will win or be counterproductive (can't kill enough fast enough)? Given the results of the last six years, the answer is pretty obvious.
How can you take anyone who takes David Rivkin seriously, seriously? Seriously.
I'm sure one could state that torture "works". It just depends on what your objectives are.
scruzman@91
"Tough luck. War is hell. Don’t start wars."
So, we agree that starting wars is a terrible idea?
Only between consenting adults.
NickR @ 95:
starting wars is terrible. finishing last in a war is worse.
Rivkin is a "military law expert" the same way Frederick Kagan (the AEI's "architect" of the "surge") is a military tactics expert. They both slept at a Holiday Inn last night!
Amazingly enough, Kagan claims to be a "military historian," yet he's the poster child for the phrase "those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." Vietnam, Algeria and a whole host of other wars that resulted in insurgencies apparently eluded Mr. Kagan in his study of military history.
Rivkin is a right-wing lawyer in the finest tradition of John Yoo, David Addington and, yes, Alberto Gonzales. Lawyers like these make me embarrassed to admit I'm a lawyer. Any one of the lawyers who demonstrated against Musharraf's tyranny in Pakistan last week has more integrity and moral fiber in his/her little finger than Rivkin/Yoo/Addington will ever have in their entire lives.
LET THE WAR CRIMES TRIALS BEGIN!
scruzman @ 91:
<blockquoteTough luck. War is hell. Don't start wars.
You really are a douchebag, you know that?
scruzman @ 97:
Ahh, the "winner" mind set.
Winning at all costs, am I right?
Well tough guy, the cost this time is that the US has become less relevant than it has been since before WWII. Our allies view us as a market, not a partner and no one actually trusts us anymore.
Good job tough guy. You torturing of logic not withstanding, torture harms us as a nation far more than it hurts the poor victim of it's brutality.
It's too bad you are not intelligent enough to understand such basic facts.
All these torture apologists believe in it because if tried on them they know it would work. They'd confess to anything and everything if just shown a moist cheese board. So, if it would work on them in a 'stant, imagine how those limpy Qaeda guys will react.
Symes @ 100:
I'm sure your family would appreciate you sacrificing them for a world "market". You know in your heart if it came down to your family, you'd use waterboarding, or any other means necessary to get the information to save them.
So if it defends my 'family' then it is fine.
So what the Vietnamese did to American troops was fine because they were defending their family?
frank @ 103:
I didn 't say it was "fine". I said that it is human nature to protect your family. It is also human nature to protect your country, as, ultimately, the country protects your family.
The US followed the Geneva Conventions in combat since WWII; US soldiers were tortured anyway: for examples, google George Day or Eddie Alverez or John McCain and torture. History shows that it does not follow that other nations will respect the Geneva convention if we do.
There are many other interrogation methods used to obtain less critical information. Waterboarding and other henious techniques are reserved for those who are suspected, or known to have, critical, essential elements of information. They work, that's why they are used.
If it defends my family, it is not "fine", it is just effective for the purpose of defending my family, or country.
scruzman@97
Regrettably the US is finishing last in this war, for a variety of reasons, but mostly attributable to poor leadership.
There is only 3 motives for torturing people.
1) Terrorism: Terrorizing the opponent to try to convince them to stop fighting.
It never worked so far particularly if one does not not know the opponents and when a mostly people that have nothing to do with nothing get caught.
2) Propaganda: Make people that have not done anything to us confess to create the illusion of success or simply to create fictitious enemy that does not even exist.
3) Sadism.
For example CIA sources indicate that more than 90% of the people locked in Guantanamo have nothing to do with El kada or even the Taliban. Most of them were innocents by stander just like us that just want to leave their lives peacefully. Now what do you think will happen when these guys get released? What do you think is happening with their families? The are becoming our worst enemies and I am sad to say that we deserve it.
As a US citizen I want to apologize to all these innocents people and let them know that as their human brother and even though I am not a Muslim, I fell their pains and I will do everything I can on my side to stop the criminals in our current governement.
We have to get ride of our extremists on all sides; the Ben-Laden/Taliban the Bushy/Neocon alike Zionists, Islamists, evangelists and so on.
The true muslims, the true jews and the true christians does not kill others nor do they advocate the killing and torturing of others because in these 3 religions these are mortal sins.
scruzman @ 102:
International LAW tough guy.
That "ticking time bomb" canard is so full of crap, we all know it and yet here you are spouting it like it's gold.
What a moron.
Go back to hiding under your bed tough guy, you're obviously too scared to live in the real world with the rest of us.
scruzman @ 104:
No, it DOESN'T work. That is the point pinhead.
Your "examples" get more and more absurd as you pile them on throughout the posts. Are you for real, or are you joking?
Not the only thing, but probably a big "fringe benefit" to the sort of people who endorse torture.
Now we're getting to the real point of torture. This is why we're hearing about hundreds of people being rounded up, pretty much at random, being tortured, and later released. What more effective way to advertise the ruthlessness of a regime? Everybody the victims know, and everybody who knows anybody they know will get the word: "Keep a low profile, or it could happen to you!"
Exactly. The Bush administration isn't stupid, as we first thought; they're cruelly, calculatingly, evil. Ham-handed and clumsy, sure. They wouldn't know subtlety if they tripped over it, but they ARE brutally effective.
You can see it in Nancy Pelosi's eyes when she appears on television: she's scared of something, and it isn't Middle-Easterners. Whether it's only the threat of being exposed in some wrongdoing, that she's afraid of, or something more sinister, I suppose time will tell eventually. But in the meantime, she's backed 'way off her initial boast that 'There's A New Sheriff In Town.' No one has mounted an effective challenge to this bunch of blatant criminals now in power, and that's very telling.
There is only ONE purpose for torture.
To provide exquisitely painful torment for those guilty of the most heinous crimes against humanity.
I propose the UN pass a resolution restricting torture to top government officials in the US.
Asking, "Does Torture Work?" is like asking, "Does it work to kill people to . . .", come on! The premise of the argument ignores whether or not torture is or is not illegal; something that is illegal cannot "work" or service a "useful" or "lawful" objective. When injustice is done, there is no justice. When abuse is done, there is abuse: It's illegal.
Torture is an illegal punishment -- imposition of prisoner abuse -- without trial or judicial oversight.
Recklss America @ 111:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834
"In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison."
"When I was not able to endure his punishment which I received, I told a lie to Yuki ... . I could not really show anything to Yuki, because I was really lying just to stop the torture."
-Ramon Navarro
"On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier."
And now this is OK for Americans to do? How did we get here and where are we going?
scruzman @ 104:
Since you admit that you would break the law and the rules of humane treatment by waterboarding someone. Would you stop there? If it was "taking too long" would you then move on to bamboo under the fingernails, electrocution or beatings? Or would you stick with the torture that doesn't leave any physical markings to show what you have done?
scruzman @ 102:
How many times does this have to be said? Torture does not produce reliable information. That makes it gratuitous violence--like we need more of THAT in war... Even the desperate grasping at straws argument of the so called ticking time bomb is bogus, and the fact that the apologists are clinging so tenaciously to it is telling. But here's what: That scenario assumes that you found the person with the right information in the first place, and that s/he isn't just making $#!+ up to waste time until the bomb goes off. And given the mismanagement of this war, getting the first part right is a long shot at best. Combine that with folks who have been promised their virgins in paradise for dying, and the odds plummet even further that you'll get anything useful. So it becomes just another exercise in human degradation when there's not exactly a shortage of that in the world, either.
Ya gotta love how the torture apologists can talk so tough when this goes on thousands of miles away from home--where revenge bombings/shootings for such high-handed methods won't affect them. Let's turn the argument on its head: If you, tough guy, had to live where you wife and kids could be buying groceries in the market one minute and shredded by a suicide-bomber the next, would you be cheerleading the criminal arrogance and stupidity that allows someone with a uniform to drag a man off the streets and torture him? I'm thinking not, somehow. Not when you and yours have to play car-bomb roulette like all the brown-skinned nobodies you're happy to consider terrorists out of hand.
The real ticking bomb we have to worry about is Iraq, period. And it's because of crap like this. Never, EVER leave someone with nothing to lose--they become the most dangerous person alive at that point.
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