"All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today….It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."
Who we are as a nation is defined by what we do. And what the Bush Administration has been doing in all of our names is against the law.
Last weekend, the WSJ had an entertainment piece on "24," regarding the necessity of revamping the show’s image in the wake of sagging ratings from a swift turn in public opinion. This, in particular, caught my eye:
"For five years, this was a wish fulfillment show," Mr. Gordon said. "At the beginning, when everybody’s fear was more acute, people’s tolerance for violence, their own rage, seemed to make Jack’s tactics more acceptable. But in the wake of our own abuses in prosecuting this so-called War on Terror, we feel Jack is getting a bum rap. So instead of selling out the entire show and its history and its legacy and apologizing for it and ultimately invalidating it, we decided to defend it."
It was as if they were defending the show itself from charges that it was reckless and partisan. Ms. Walden says she accepted it immediately, and other Fox executives followed suit.
"You can take the position that it is basically reflecting what’s going on in the Beltway right now," said Mr. Liguori. "I could look at it and say basically it’s the show that’s on trial."
On so many levels, this is appalling post-hoc rationalization crap. Or would be if the show hadn’t been used for PR agenda purposes by Bush Administration policy advisors to Antonin Scalia and beyond to sell the ticking time bomb torture scenario to a public scared shitless by terror warnings and scary pronouncements of impending mushroom clouds that weren’t.
The fiction of the show and WH policy foundations melded into a public sales job. Jane Mayer was absolutely right — the "whatever it takes" mentality was being sold to the masses.
But the costs for doing so are high – and they apply to us all:
Of course, the costs to the United States are much more than financial: more significant are the moral, legal, diplomatic and political consequences of holding hundreds of prisoners in arbitrary and indefinite detention. At the heart of American values is the principle of habeas corpus, which demands due process and fair trials before an independent judiciary. The United States’ system of detention and trial at Guantánamo has, for the past six years, betrayed that principle and undermined this country’s historical position as an international champion of human rights and civil liberties.
Attorney General Mukasey is scheduled to answer some questions today before the House Judiciary Committee beginning at 11 am ET. Emptywheel will be following the hearing live, while I keep an eye on the Senate floor for FISA machinations. Given the admissions in recent days to waterboarding, deliberate tape destruction, and more secret prisons, it should be an interesting dodge and phony show kinda day. The President does not get to make up the laws as he goes — and it is high time that Congress reminded him of that fact. In no uncertain terms.
Related posts:
- Tortured Logic: Judge Richard Leon Delivers Habeas Smackdown
- Tortured Logic: GOP Senators Concerned Prosecutor Will Make You Dead
- Dick Cheney: I’m Proud I Tortured to Protect Our Country But Not Our Allies
- Walid bin Attash to be Denied Day in Court Because al-Nashiri Was Tortured?
- Tortured Logic: Government’s Own Words Fail Our National Ideals





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Hey Christy!
I have only one question for candiate McCain: “If elected, will you prosecute your predecessor for his war crimes?”
Hi Christry. Bushco keeping you busy?
I have the House Judiciary listed for Mukasey at 10 AM what happened?
While I’ll be happy when we’ve seen that last of this lawless administration, I’m just dreading the time after that when we’re trying to pressure some other authoritarian government on torture, and they come back with the Bushies’ “we have determined that it is not illegal in our country, therefore it is not torture.”
Reading WSJ editorials would raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels. I swore off it several decades ago.
Morning all. The thought that “24″ was a “wish fulfillment show” says an awful lot about the bread and circuses level to which we have sunk the last few years, doesn’t it? Blergh…
There was a time change on the hearing — and it’s supposed to be HJC not SJC — my typo. Will fix that…
I keep wondering how many times that has already come up. I’m quite certain that Condi Rice has had some lovely rejoinders, aren’t you?
I wonder if it was on 9/11 that Jack Bauer replaced Jesus as Bush’s favorite political philosopher.
Good morning Christy! I think that the fact that the writers of 24 have to find a way to back away from torture because ratings are dropping is pathetic as well as a great example of blowback.
Also, sort of on-topic: Senator Feingold is strongly recommending that both Dems start talking specifics if they want to win over voters in Wisconsin, especially when it comes to trade policies and civil liberties issues. We may be friendly up here, but we’re not pushovers…
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/271406
Update:
Excellent post, Christy. Here is what the real experts/professionals think of waterboarding- this letter was sent to Leahy & Specter last Nov. during the Mukasey hearing:
Urgent: Letter from Intelligence, Military, Diplomatic, and Law Enforcement Professionals
A listing of those who drafted & sent this- Some very familiar names here:
(Official duties refer to former government work.)
Brent Cavan
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Ray Close
Directorate of Operations, CIA for 26 years—22 of them overseas; former Chief of Station, Saudi Arabia
Ed Costello
Counter-espionage, FBI
Michael Dennehy
Supervisory Special Agent for 32 years, FBI; U.S. Marine Corps for three years
Rosemary Dew
Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI
Philip Giraldi
Operations officer and counter-terrorist specialist, Directorate of Operations, CIA
Michael Grimaldi
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Federal law enforcement officer
Mel Goodman
Division Chief, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Professor, National Defense University; Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy
Larry Johnson
Intelligence analysis and operations officer, CIA; Deputy Director, Office of Counter Terrorism, Department of State
Richard Kovar
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, CIA: Editor, Studies In Intelligence
Charlotte Lang
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
W. Patrick Lang
U.S. Army Colonel, Special Forces, Vietnam; Professor, U.S. Military Academy, West Point; Defense Intelligence Officer for Middle East, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); founding director, Defense HUMINT Service
Lynne Larkin
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA; counterintelligence; coordination among intelligence and crime prevention agencies; CIA policy coordination staff ensuring adherence to law in operations
Steve Lee
Intelligence Analyst for terrorism, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Jon S. Lipsky
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
David MacMichael
Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA; History professor; Veteran, U.S. Marines (Korea)
Tom Maertens
Foreign Service Officer and Intelligence Analyst, Department of State; Deputy Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Department of State; National Security Council (NSC) Director for Non-Proliferation
James Marcinkowski
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA by way of U.S. Navy
Mary McCarthy
National Intelligence Officer for Warning; Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council
Ray McGovern
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; morning briefer, The President’s Daily Brief; chair of National Intelligence Estimates; Co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Sam Provance
U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst, Germany and Iraq (Abu Ghraib); Whistleblower
Coleen Rowley
Special Agent and attorney, FBI; Whistleblower on the negligence that facilitated the attacks of 9/11.
Joseph Wilson
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Ambassador and Director of Africa, National Security Council.
Valerie Plame Wilson
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations
Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions prohibits “cruel treatment and torture” of detainees, and the War Crimes Act of 1996 make violation of Common Article 3 a federal crime. So the administration’s attempts to play Humpty Dumpty games with the word “torture” simply won’t work:
Christy,
does it point to a hopeful moment that the tide has turned far enough that the rejection of this is reflecting back at the Beltway?
Yes, that argument will be made in the future by other rogue regimes practicing torture. That is why we must hold those who initiated and implemented these reprehensible crimes accountable. Then, we can say in answer to future rogue regimes, “Yes, tragically we went down that road, but upon learning of it we punished those responsible and took measures to prevent it from happening again.”
Good luck
I’ve got C-Span2 on at the moment. Chertoff just finished speaking about DHS priorities and some spokesperson is going on about budget priorities. Here’s a word for you: Katrina. Oh wait, that hasn’t been a priority today…go figure.
OT. Did we ever hear what the deal was with that national ID Chertoff announced? Did it just go away?
Like the FISA fight the admin position is untenable. The only issue is whether they get held accountable for criminal behavior. Torture is going to require blanket pardons, since both R and D president candidates will probably not impede real discovery.
Bushco have perfected the art of standing pat until outrage dissipates.
Whatever the crime is as long as they stymie and stonewall long enough they end up being able to admit doing what they had denied and denied.
Having a pack of gutless stooges as opposition helps alot too.
-G
Christy that was excellent!
We have now lived through almost 8 years of neocon Bushism that has changed America fundamentally, at it’s core. There is a whole generation of kids under 12 who have grown up immersed in this ugly, greedy culture that’s been cultivated by the Bushite mindset.
This horrific mindset has got to be changed.
We have got to bring these criminals to justice if for no other reason than to teach the children who have been molded under the Bush regime that this behavior will not be tolerated by moral society.
From the LATimes story that I link above:
Well, thanks, Tony. I’m sure that’s very helpful to Sens. Graham and McCain to know that the WH doesn’t give a rats ass about any promises they may have made to them. Can we expect any pushback on this? Hmmm? Oh, I thought not…
Heck, Mardi Gras is over so why bother about NOLA.
I went to the McCain rally on Sunday.
THAT was torture!
It isn’t just 24, the violence level is uniformly higher. Look at Criminal Minds. The violence is pornographic, with Silence of the Lamb type torture and killing. CSI Miami has a lot of the same elements, beautiful scenes of Miami in jewel-tones, and similar shots of killings and autopsies. It’s everywhere.
There’s been a big intergovernmental squabble on it, and it’s sort of disapparated until 2009. Or at least, I think it has…am still trying to track down actual details as opposed to the sketchy bits and pieces on how that got thrown out there without any funding, any authorization, or any regard for states rights considerations, among a number of other legal issues.
IMHO, congressmen become liable under the doctrine of “command responsibility” and international law if they do not now act to stop Bush from his announced intention to commit further war crimes (under certain cirsumstances). Per this morning’s LA Times:
Per the Wikipedia:
OT, but related. Words being tortured at the WaPo. I have bolded the ones that will be useful for our daily dealing with the Village # 17s.
Throw in the despicable cretins that populate the stab in the back meanie fests that are reality shows and you realize that America is pretty decadent shell of a republic.
-G
From the previous thread:
The reason DNI McConnell brought up the Al Qaeda thing along with waterboarding wasn’t to argue for the effectiveness or value of waterboarding as a
tortureinterrogation technique, it was all simply part of the regular spiel to push Congress to give telecoms immunity. In that context it is valuable because the Congress goes for it every single time.Thanks.
Christy,
I posted info about supporting free mammagrams this am chez attaturk I think, about 8:30 and sent it to the site @xmail.com address. I think the subject came up on one of your threads. yea I could look it up, but I am infringing on the no blog during work rule already.
Consider this exhibit A as to why I watch very little “entertainment” television these days. And why our house is covered in books.
*driveby* So basically, “24″ is defending the shock doctrine and bringing it to the masses. I suppose the show doesn’t have victims like Gail Kastner and even Jose Padilla.
That has always been my question. We are signatories to international conventions and treaties outlawing torture. Very specific government officials have been shown to have ordered or condoned using torture against prisoners, some of who’s detention itself may constitute an international crime. Will the International World Court at some point in the future hold these individuals responsible for their illegal actions and issue indictments. Will WE then be held responsible if these individuals are not apprehended and turned over to the World Court much like Serbia is under sanctions for not turning over the Officials and Military Officers responsible for the war crimes committed during that war? My fondest fantasy is for chimpy and Cheney and Rummy to be playing golf at some exclusive, rich people golf club outside the United States some day and guys in black pop up outta the bushes and “rendition” them and they appear before the World Court to answer for the minimum hundreds of thousands of deaths they are DIRECTLY responsible for. Call me a dreamer.
Yep, I had to have a mammogram yesterday — potential lump issue, likely nothing, will know in a coupla days. Think I reminded folks to get theirs regularly and folks were talking about free mammo possibilities. Thanks for posting the info.
This is why I order Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs.
Congress WILL respond, but in the incorrect and most damaging manner possible. They will respond by passing legislation specifically banning waterboarding, calling it torture. From that moment Bush and his minions of torturers are fully protected from prosecution. Why? Because, as they have done all along, they will “correctly” state that it couldn’t be illegal BEFORE Congress passes a law making it illegal (ex post facto). They will also be able to argue their nonsense about waterboarding being in a grey area, not really clear that it is torture, and since it took an act of Congress to clear up that grey area, we can’t be held responsible for doing what we did.
Congress is going to produce another bit of legislation that gives immunity and cover to Bush and his monsters. AGAIN!
Mr. ReddHedd and I were just saying the other day that we miss the snarky days of Buffy and the excellent scripting therein…
Thankyou. I will get a fresh cup of tea and be ready to yell.
and not only on fox – npr got into the act too, in april 2002… don’t have the link handy, but there was a horrible pro-torture oped piece.
Senate starting with morning business for 60 minutes to start — Reid talking about stimulus package and potentially finishing FISA today and/or tomorrow.
OT – in case there is an interest, and my comment yesterday morning was missed… the weekly congressional hearings list is back from vacation (of course, last minute changes are likely to be missed, but at least you will have direct links to the appropriate committee schedule webpage).
When the strike is settled (might be soon!), you can look forward to DollHouse, Joss Whedon & ME’s next tv project, set to star Eliza Dushku.
Going in to work now. Read you all later.
Oh see now you got me. Hope all is well on the health side.
No genre deals so well with identity issues, gender or otherwise, under cover than Sci-Fi/Fantasy IMHO.
I think there have always been fictional movies about cops, etc. who step beyond the law, or stretch it to the extreme, like Dirty Harry,etc. But, who could have imagined that we would ever have a president who would actually draw inspiration from them. I wish somebody had shown him 3 Stooges movies instead, so he would have learned to backhand Cheney and fork Rumsfeld in the eyes.
McConnell sez Iran is trying to produce “fissile material” wihtout noting that is perfectly legal under NPT (to which Iran, but not Israel nor Inida are signatories), and without noting that enrichment for fuel is much easier & lower level than enriching for bombs.
Oh why do we bother.
(((christy)))
Buffy’s “bad girl” rocks.
Okay, just made myself a nice pot of darjeeling, and settling in with a cuppa for a very stimulating Quorum Call on the Senate floor. Looks like it will be a slowish morning thus far…
That’s a tough one. Several countries, e.g., Germany, adhere to the doctrine of “universal jurisdiction” for crimes against humanity, so for instance if Rumsfeld sets foot in Germany, he might be arrested and tried.
Also, the (Republican sponsored) War Crimes Act of 1996, make most war crimes into federal crimes that can be prosecuted in federal courts. (The MCA attempted to gut the War Crimes Act, but so far as I know there’s question as to how well it succeeded.)
Finally, there’s the Jesse Helm’s American Service-members Protection Act of 2002. Per the Wikipedia:
McConnell sez Taliban attacks in Afghanistan increased in 07 because Nato was more vigorous in military actions.
He then tried to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.
These guys just can’t *get off* Iran.
McConnell sez Hamas “seized control” of Gaza last spring.
Now that the wingnut e-mails have subsided, support is pouring in to town hall in Brattleboro, Vermont for their proposal to issue arrest warrants for Pres. Bush and Vice Pres. Cheney
I have to say, the lovely classical music interludes on C-Span sound ever so nice on Mr. ReddHedd’s new Bose speaker system for the big screen tv. And then it gets interrupted by Sen. Corker. sigh…on the stimulus package
but the bottom line, and the real story which is hardly reported is the fact that the “whatever it takes” scenario is a lie
there is more, better, more actionable information when we don’t torture, it does not get us information we can use, and whatever it gets us is less then if we used the other method
NOW HERE IS THE BIG THING;
it creates more enemies, galvanized against us, in a vile hatred, wanting to attack us with more terrorism
THAT’S what these fools don’t want to mention
But the surge is supposedly “working”? The wingnuts make no sense: Nato action , bad. US action good? *shaking head*
*Waving*
Maybe if they could just “get off,” the U.S. might have a more sensible foreign policy.
Yes, that is correct. When we fail to rig an election to our satisfaction the other side has technically “seized control”
forgot to sum up but here it is
when we claim we are torturing people to protect us against an attack, what we have really done is insure there are more people that will plan an attack
I would not want to hear Cornyn on a big speakers either.
That should have come with a spew warning. *g*
Hopefully the Ds will “seize control” of the U.S. prez in November.
mmm, hmmm *waving back*
I do wish they would tell us what the darn music is.
This tone-of-voice thing on blogs is soooo difficult.
Oh why do I always miss the innuendo. Okay.
How about Holy Mr. Non superdelegate Joe on big speakers?
fyi – as some of you who followed emptywheel’s live blogging of the senate FISA debate earlier this week know, i’m having great fun with my new c-span cable tv feed and take requests for quick youtube clips when i am recording (as i am for the senate today).
I want to add something more;
when we torture a person, we not only galvanize that person against us, there are more
exponentially more
every friend, every relative, and all the friedns of friends and friends of relatives
they all become our enemies, willing to do whatever it takes to exact a price for torturing their son, daughter, father, husband, friend
Sorry about the blockquote. Link to story here.
Note to self: u know link, not blockquotes.
Isn’t that part of the program? If U.S. didn’t have plenty of enemies, Rs couldn’t scare us to death & thus get elected.
Sooner would be better.
Me, too — I keep hoping they’ll put together some sort of nice caption for whatever piece they are playing including the particulars on the recording, solo artist, etc., because occasionally I’ve really liked one and would have liked to know.
Thanks. Do you have the link to send congrats email?
yep.
once again – both stupid and immoral.
No machtergreifungs please, not even from a democrat.
Bread — laced with arsenic
and Circuses — of evil clowns right out of a Stephen King novel. This is what passes for infotainment television these days. Tho’ I’m still waiting for Running Man….
If this era were a novel, nobody’d buy it, but the sheeple have been buyin’ it for seven long years…. And Rupert-style media have done a horror show on values for our children, as noted above.
Christy, thanks for this post. 24 has been a showcase of the cynical corruption of this country’s values and integrity in the name of politicizing fear by BushCo. Violence porn, indeed.
Prairie Weather: Snow Job
The Chuck Norris of the McCain campaign.
Spook-guys say they’re focusing on “language capabilities” and diversity. Paying bonuses. Without mentioning that they fire anyone competent like Sibel Edmonds.
And, after the worried about a deficit only now stylings of Sen. Corker, we’re back to a scintillating Quorum Call…
Mueller smirks that business outbids FBI for recruits with language skills. Wonder why he thinks that’s amusing.
Oh, it’s Sen. Mikulski. More stimulus package, the economy, and her frustration with the US Senate…and parliamentary procedure whinging. Someone shoot me.
*waving* That worked in my 56 but HERE it is.
Maybe he’s a smirking Friedmanite?
Ha. The D circular firing squad!
OK how about just impeachment.
Jeeze Mikulski is still alive.
CHS. I am surround sound.Quorum calls are my favourite time.
and that’s what the democrats have to do, attack the republicans for creating enemies against us
if I’m running, I’m saying;
‘the republicans have bread enemies against us and they use those enemies as a tool to get re elected
they think Americans are idiots who won’t hold them accountable for recruiting people to attack us”
or something like that
the real point is the republicans think “immoral is ok if it saves american lives”
but in fact immoral spends american lives, it does not save anything or anyone
Here’s the link on the Brattleboro site for comments:
http://brattleboro.govoffice.c…..&SEC={7405581E-E349-44F3-881A-DA1B030DDD1F}
we as a nation stand guilty of torture because we as a nation elected the people who sanctioned and encouraged torture. the congressional leaders of our nation have refused to hold fuckwad and his minions accountable. we elected those people not once but twice. this country has not stood up to the evil in our midst. some of our citizens have enthusiastically endorsed torture. they have been cheerleaders for torture. they see nothing wrong with it. congress is unwilling to confront this issue in a timely manner. that means it will almost assuredly be conveniently forgotten. since we aren’t willing to deal with it now, the momentum to deal with it will be lost. the cancer within the body politic can then only spread. our shame cannot be erased. nancy and harry stand at the front of a long line.
Have you ever tried to convince an opponent that’s so? In my experience, they’re all happy that Rs treat U.S. enemies as badly as possible & think the Ds are wimps for suggesting that’s a bad idea. I agree with you, but think it’s not a winning tactic with Rs.
Loved those “tortured” words. Might I add another?
Spinheads: All those Sunday talk show guests.
The R’s have really torqued me off with their obstructionist way.
Payback is comin’.
my sentiments exactly
*smooches*
Ah, gee. Even if someone in Congress reminded him of that, I’m sure that Nancy “No Impeachment, No Justice” Pelosi would remind us that such things are “off the table”.
Impeachment Now!
Have you listened to the Rs in the Senate? Did a little of that yesterday. Think it might have been Sessions. He argued that the bad guys are so much badder than we are that everything we do is OK, and anyone who disagrees is a “blame America firster.” First round effects (R approach) sell much more easily with voters than second roung effects (d approach).
Also from the LATimes piece linked above:
Yes, that’s correct. Teaching elite American forces how to withstand torture is…wait for it…a justification for torturing others. Jeebus, words elude me.
Spinheads, great.
-G
So next meetup I must hug you as well as perris. *g*
We have an admission of a few high profile incidents of waterboarding. Is anyone saying that those were the ONLY incidents?
One has to read carefully with these criminals.
I think that’s what Hayden said.
Right before he tried to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.
yes ecahn, I have
it’s pretty simple and I ahve not failed;
“let me ask you something john;
suppose saddam managed to over throw our government and your son was jailed because they thought he was a member of the people that didn’t want saddam here
suppose they torutred your son to get information and your son, under pain of death did in fact give them information they needed
what would you do about that?”
the answer is ALWAYS;
“go after them with every shred of my being”
or something like that…but yes, it’s easy to show someone torture creates more enemies
it’s a sinch
Yeah- incredible ain’t it. And of course those GIs were waterboarded for a few seconds and they knew it would be over quickly.
sorry to OT but i feel this is important…wanna know why your perscriptions cost so much…this guy over 1,350,000.00 dollars to pitch this drug
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCa…..038;page=2
At least we don’t sodomize people! That is one heckuva high road their. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. Talk about ‘defining deviancy downward’.
I can’t believe America has gotten so blatantly rotten to the core.
We have become som degenerate that the US has to trump up Al Qaeda training teen agers videos in order to make them look bad compared to our behavior.
-G
McConnell sez primary support for Hamas attacks in Israel is Iran, even though Hamas is Sunni & Iran is Shiite. (Give him a gold star for knowing there are those two sects of Islam.)
Pushing each other over the edge of the slippery slope to justify torture.
i guess my mom was right, there are people who would jump off a bridge if their friends did it first.
COMPLETELY different,no?
yes, and it’s never made an impact over the short term (and certainly not during the “conversation”), but i have seen it get a few people thinking… and at least two people eventually changed their views.
i don’t think deeply held world views change quickly – it’s not just an issue of taking in new data and changing their mind. i think it requires a big, and sometimes psychologically traumatic, paradigm shift. and that takes time.
There.
I bet they are streaming it off of one of satellite music channels.
Good on you.
The ones I know are not convinced. Maybe it’s a gender thing, i.e. men can make the case better than women.
it was sessions. caught that bit in a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Yg_0z5a50
“Primary support is Iran”
What the fuck does that even MEAN? What kinda support we talkin bout here- sending motivational letters? Sending 25 bucks to the families of bombers? What the fuck is he saying?
hint ,hint…would not ONE ,say ANYTHING ,when being tortured…to make it stop?
Eschoo asks who else besides AQ are a direct threat to U.S., and McConnell sez Hizballah. Eschoo sez hmmm. Good on her.
Supplying rockets.
Nope. I’d say anything BEFORE they started torturing me. Path of least resistence, to prevent it from starting rather than trying to get it to stop. I can imagine, for example, asking, “What would you like me to confess to?”
When will someone have the nuts to say to McConnell:
I don’t give a shit about Hamas attacks in Israel.
have you read hersh on gitmo? and what, according to a pentagon report, was done with a light stick?
don’t count on there being any limits to what we have done.
ecahn, it’s all in the way the subject is approached
you put any person in the scenario I told you, they will tell you the torturers created more enemies then they will ever be able to count
Hamas attacks are good for Israel. They don’t kill or maim anyone but provide an excuse for Israeli extrajudicial assassinations.
I recall right after 9/11 the Bush Administration put out a general curtain call for any and all Hollywood screenwriters to help the intelligence agencies think more creatively. At the time those agencies were being blamed for Bush’s big blunder–not paying attention to the intelligence agencies.
I am aware of all of that, it is that the US has been reduced to dishonestly arguing that “at least we don’t sodomize POW’s”.
It is a sign of an institutional rot so profound that I don’t think we are going to be able to recover.
-G
Good recall. I’d completely forgotten about that.
Judd Gregg now up on the Senate floor, butchering Shakespeare to whing on about the Senate and the stimulus package. Theme for today: whining at each other. Oh…joy. I’m going to need more tea…
yes. but i have to believe (even if only on faith) that repudiation and reconciliation is possible.
Actually it was more than a few seconds, but we did know it would be over and there was not much chance of a “rerun”.
SERE training ought to be required for congresscritters because you know, it’s always possible they’ll get captured by Terrarists™ on a junket and be tortured to reveal their voting records or something.
my c-span2 cable tv feed must be on delay – mikulski is just finishing up now.
ironic wording…i would continuosley BABEL in tongues
Back in the Air Force, I was a combatant flier: B-52s. I went through survival training and combat survival training. Part of combat survival training involved a capture-interrogation-prison camp scenario spanning a few days. The focus of our training was NOT on torture and resisting torture. In fact, it was (properly and accurately) expressed to us that there is no way to train someone to withstand torture. Can’t be done. They said that if torture is used, you WILL break. EVERYONE breaks. Thus, while there was no way to teach us how to withstand torture (can’t be done) they COULD teach us to deal with the psychological torture and stress of capture-interrogation-and prison, thus that is what the focus was on. There was physical abuse, but it was tightly controlled and done in a way that protected you from real harm. There was no bruising, no bleeding, nothing like that. It was mainly offered up in a manner suited for dealing with the psychology of the situation.
For special mission crews (those who crewed spy planes of various sorts or special operations aircraft) there was an additional stint of training which may well have included waterboarding or the like. Doesn’t make sense, of course, because YOU CANNOT TRAIN SOMEONE TO WITHSTAND DROWNING or any other form of torture. The FACT is what the FACT is: resistance to torture cannot cannot cannot be trained. Thus, doing it serves NO useful training purpose. Perhaps a brief exposure to waterboarding serves the required purpose in this circumstance: to weed out those who a priori cannot hack the job. No, they cannot “hack” being tortured – if used they would break like anyone and everyone else. No, the “hack” means desiring to serve on the aircraft or on missions that had a higher-than-average chance of them actually facing such treatment.
If someone “broke” during combat survival training, they were out…at least out of their combat specialty. I suppose, if someone “breaks” when subjected to VERY brief and controlled waterboarding then they are not suitable for special ops missions.
We had safe words and were watched closely during the training. If one couldn’t handle it anymore and wanted to end it, they could speak the safe word and POOF! You were out. Otherwise, if you failed to speak the word for some reason and clearly started breaking otherwise, then you were out.
The prisoners we have tortured (waterboarded) did not have a safe word. They did not go into it KNOWING that it was just a tightly controlled training exercise that was very brief. That is MUCH worse than what we did to willing and informed and protected trainees. It is torture and it is illegal, unethical, and immoral. Period.
oh no!
if you ahve given up coffee it might put the java concerns out of bussiness!
Heather Wilson lobbed softballs.
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) sez spook agencies are for sh*t.Gosh, reps are so much better than senators.
i saw chumpies,smirking emisary questioned by Bernie Sanders,almost threw shoe through the teebee…guy was saying HOW VERY,philanthropic the teh rich were…bletch
Mukasey currently in front of HJC pushing retroactive immunity.
Hayden has a facial tick. Wonder if he does always or only when he’s lying.
This is to allow careful censorship.
the money makes them so proudly loyal…wretch
My goodness, you wouldn’t impugne wingnut Brian Lamb, would you?
Linky?
ohhhhhhhhhh a thing of BEAUTY
go get em Bernie
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/…..?id=291989
well, i guess that means if any of my clips aren’t exactly what you saw – then we’ll know why. *g*
We’re great fans of NetFlix (sorry for the ad). We watch all the back issues of “The wire”, “Dr Who”, “MI-5″, etc… On our own schedule – without commercials. Network TV is the pits these days, not that it has ever been that great. Lots of cooking shows.
Thanks
That’s specific.
FWIW, it’s live where I am. No idea why yours would be delayed, selise. Weird.
Conyers wants the torture OLC legal opinion.
Mukasey: Nope; it’s classified.
Conyers: we’re all cleared for top secret info.
Mukasey babbling about current and former program. Just admitted that waterboarding was included in old program.
Ok, I’m back, having just gone and published this.
arearen’t.jeeze, you’d think i’d learn. preview is my friend.
http://judiciary.house.gov/
Here you go
LS – They just recessed for votes.
i thought mine was live too… but obviously not.
How would we know? Has anyone ever seen him when he wasn’t lying?
I think a significant part of ‘tortune training’ is training the torturers, and the enablers to withstand the rigors of conscience such an exercise would entail.
I recall reading recently how much of military training is focussed on breaking down inductees innate resistance to committing acts of violence
without being constrained by conscience.
Training the victim, as you pointed out is an exercise in futility.
FYI, emptywheel is liveblogging the HJC hearings this morning. We divvied up the Congress watch this morning.
And Senate is extending morning business until 12:30 and then will be in recess after that until 1:30 pm ET.
You guys are teh bomb, you know that. right?
whoops double post…must have auto-submitted somehow, apologies
Good point.
amen. what great team work.
…
p.s. i just checked with this page:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/…..038;hors=s
and my c-span feed is 16 minutes delayed.
We try. We couldn’t figure out any other way to keep a full eye on who was doing what to whom without dividing it up today. And, as if that weren’t enough, CPAC is going on today as well (although not being broadcast at the moment that I know of…). It’s gonna be a full day of wankery, I’m afraid.
Military “training,” as near as I can tell, is all about breaking down the individual and establishing a robot in his place. Only way you can get someone to abandon his conscience.
CHS-
Tea was great suggestion. Just made me a cuppa.
Oooohhhh. CPAC. Can’t wait for the replay. Soo much fun. But not so much since Coulter wasn’t invited.
McCain was booed there last night.
The beauty is, the growing force of the blogosphere, more and more voices out there [do stop by sangemon, everyone!] to shed more and more sunshine on the vile, lying framing that has too long gone unchallenged.
The beauty is, there is a Christy, and an emptywheel, and a….
Like the greater and greater legions turning out for Democratic primaries and caucuses, the progressive blogosphere is the front page of history unvarnished by coverups and lies…and we’re growing.
While I realize that your fantasy about putting Bushco on trial before the World Court is the responsible course, I have certain despicable revanchist urges to hand them over to the Iraqi widows. At least it would be over quickly. Of course, this would not and should not happen, and no one in his right mind would seriously advocate this, but it is a measure of my anger and frustration that it should even occur to me.
How do you know? Was it broadcast?
You guys have got to watch/read/listen to Zelikow being interviewed on Democracy Now this morning…lots of info!
To an extent that is true. They try to break down the individual and re-build as part of a team. That’s why you often hear the terms “teamwork and espirit d’ corps” used together.
Especially with the Army and Marines, it is to build folks into a team of individuals who do not work individually but will do together things for their common good.
It’s what leads to acts like falling on a grenade to save the others, charging a machine gun nest, or standing on a burning tank and firing a machine gun for an hour or more to protect others (Audie Murphy).
She wasn’t “officially” invited. Still waiting to see what in the hell that means…
[run on sentence alert]
so, am I not a progressive if I believe that people that advocate for particular punishment should be subjected to that punsishment themselves if they commit the crimes they claim justify what they advocate?
http://www.democracynow.org
Agree. Was a good interview.
Well, that’s the official excuse, anyhow.
Zelikow is doing damage control, probably not too happy about it either.
It seems that the new official meme is that waterboarding is not torture because we do it to our own troops in training.
Well, being military with other military members in my family (older sister, my father) I certainly understand the need to break down aspects of recruits to rebuild them into effective military members. You CANNOT fight combat, CANNOT do what militaries are required to do (hopefully in justified and justifiable circumstances) with regular people without certain readjustments. What works for living all happy and quiet in peaceful society is NOT going to work in a war zone. So, I don’t dribble tears over “I recall reading recently how much of military training is focussed on breaking down inductees innate resistance to committing acts of violence
without being constrained by conscience.”
First of all, I did not lose my conscience. It remains but I am also fully capable of unleashing my dogs of war when appropriate and against appropriate targets. That is necessary, no matter how ugly one thinks it is. Otherwise, militaries would be peopled entirely by sociopaths and psychopaths. The military needs normal people capable of doing, when necessary, NON-normal things and at a moments notice. Consider too long in the wrong circumstance and you (and your buddies) are dead. Thus, the absolute requirement for partial breakdown and rebuild of recruits.
That said, as I wrote about my survival training in the Air Force I came to see a marginally valid reason for exposing a recruit in a special mission aircraft to waterboarding. A BRIEF and tightly controlled exposure can be a solid wakeup call for the member: are you really suited for this type of military mission? This brief exposure is but a taste of what you would likely REALLY face if captured while carrying out a special mission.
You need people with a certain psychological makeup and strength for special missions (and often certain physical makeup and strength too). You can’t just pick random joes and assume that they are capable of dealing with the physical and mental stress of a mission. Thus, there IS utility in it but my larger point was that what is done to recruits is a FAR cry from what was done to actual prisoners. Nothing extremely brief about it. No safe words. No escape. No knowledge at the back of their mind that they are being closely watched over for their protection. THAT is the issue and that is why it is specious for GOPers (who to a man have NEVER experienced the torture they ejaculate over) to use the fact that recruits in certain circumstances are exposed to waterboarding as some sort of defense for using REAL waterboarding against prisoners.
Shorter Zelikow: I am not a crook.
No come now. I am hardly a roboton. I have never ever lost my conscience. I don’t think I can point out anyone I’ve ever known in the military who was a mindless, conscienceless roboton.
I was/am Air Force. My sister was Air Force. My father was Marine. Each of us has a quite intact conscience and each is quite NOT the roboton.
I gotta agree with dakine. If you think a trained army is savage, observe the untrained armed mob.
So where is all this really heading?
Seems to me “they” are meticulously designing a big yellow “get out of jail free” card again, not to offer immunity to our agents who did the waterboarding, but to protect the neocons who “were only giving orders.”.
Cheney and his Bushpals could care less about our agents,(they proved it with the Plame betrayal) they aren’t the least bit interested in protecting the real “field agents”; they are just protecting their own asses from future retribution by the world court and our own laws.
Like they tried with the media immunity laws, they are just looking for a big historic loophole to step through, that magic Bush-era “get out of jail free” card. They are just trying to figure out how to frame the wording a bit more deceptively.
For me, the question boils down to why the Bush administration thought they could get away with torture. And the only answser I can come up with is that they (Rove) realized that, because of our ever more violent popular culture, many Americans have been rendered conscience-less. Fear and demonization also work to make people ignore their moral compass — thus 9/11 really worked for them. It’s eerily reminiscent of what the Nazis did, ie. it was OK to beat people to death as long as they were Jews — in fact, it was patriotic. What these waterboarding advocates are really saying is that it’s patriotic to torture Muslims. If you’d like a real shock, ask some immigrant haters if it would be OK to torture illegals who know the locations of safe houses. I’d bet big bucks they’d say yes.
I know soldiers and they have not been water boarded, I also know people who have and it is torture.
their official meme is a lie…but I know you knew that
this is their method;
“if we do it, that makes it legal, therefore, since we waterboard, it can’t be torture since torture is illegal”
this is the nixon defense and nothing more
I know the cia claims most people are able to put up with water boarding for seconds…and they are giving them training on how to withstand torture
You have to ignore me. I am irrationally opposed to military types & cops & go out of my way to make their lives difficult.
The answer to that is, we also gas our troops (to a known extent), and we know that is against the Geneva conventions.
See my 186.
Thank you so much for adding your voice to this conversation. We all of us are enhanced by life experience in different ways and bring stories to tell to the lake. The greater community, the common good, benefit from our diversity and our unique perspectives.
Military waterboarding exposure is restricted to a very small subset of military members (special ops). MOST military members are not special ops. Hence…it is NOT a day at the park exercise that all military members experience as a cute ”hazing ritual”.
I am one who believes that each member of Congress should be required to undergo the military training version of waterboarding. Being mentally, morally, and physically weak (every single last one of them) they would not last through just the restraining process, let alone actual application of water. After they experience the cute military ”hazing ritual”, THEN they get to vote on whether or not it was torture, particularly considering the fact that the actual victims of waterboarding OUT of training experienced the real deal for a long time.
I’m from a military family as well, and I don’t dispute your
presentation of the training methods, my point was that the
training is directed at the torturers.
I am from a military family also, but that doesn’t have any
bearing on my comment.
I know of that one. At least in the Air Force it is normal practice to expose everyone to tear gas during training. Something I never experienced. Perhaps it is because I am an officer and it is relegated to enlisted members and special job officers or…I don’t know. It is part of gas mask training. You sit in an enclosed room/tent. You are wearing a gas mask. At the end, you are to remove your gas mask and experience the joy.
It is part of training you to trust your equipment. You MUST trust your equipment or you may panic (deadly) or screw up some other way. Things like that have to be second nature and literally thoughtless. You need to worry about OTHER things, etc.
Closest I came to such exposure was in college a long time ago when some asshole in a cafeteria fired off a shot of pepper spray and then skulking out.
In any case, I didn’t need exposure to actual gas to trust my mask. I have no choice but to trust my mask and chem suit.
Saw it on my TeeVee
I know. I was an Air Force officer from 1965 to 1969. I just thought it was the obvious answer for the claim that we expose our troops to a degree of waterboarding. We have them pull off oxygen masks in the altitude chamber and all sorts of training to expose them and allow recognition. It’s not at all the same as having the enemy do it.
Did you get to suck the tear gas?
As I said, I didn’t (but I did do the altitude chamber game a number of times). Now I’m curious about whos and whys of exposure to gas – and why I didn’t (not that I want to…).
I did. For a time I was in Tactical Air Command, which had a thing called Ground Combat School. We got an introduction to some infantry techniques, like patrolling, site defense, escape and evasion. We did get a whiff of tear gas.
“military types & cops” …you frame both as sort of “one thing.”
As an old hippy with decades of inherent “profilabilityness” under my belt, I can relate to your paranoia, but Ilament the union of what should be very different “security” images.
There’s supposed to be a world of culture between those two “groups” you mention, like so many others, we seem to hold them in the same “uniform” opinion. And as the contemporary images of Iraq and Afghanistan become our new visage of what “war” looks like, there is a growing blend of what xhould be very separate and unrelated services.
And what is the bastard child of this match-up??
The Doberman pups from “Animal Farm” have matured…
Blackwater Zietgiest?
…cosmic, the way names and labels converge into meaningful icons…
So, who WAS President in 1984, when the first seeds of this dark image were growing in North Carolina and Texas??
Orwell was a prophet.
So that’s where all those brainless-looking Gen-Nexters on the subway were going this morning. I felt like I was in a zombie movie but somebody forgot to tell me . . . .
Thank you, Praedor. I am running way behind here, trying to do a little real work, but your post gave me some relief from the rage I am feeling about the blatant defense of war crimes. This is why we need war crimes prosecutions, soon. Real judges in real courts would not even allow testimony in support of those kinds of specious “defenses.” It is no defense, and therefore irrelevant, that certain things are done in training. Those arguments would just be excluded. And the defense that “Office of Legal Counsel said I could” would eventually be rejected because the torturers were heavily indoctrinated in the Geneva Conventions and knew what they were doing was a war crime.
War stories on FDL, I love it!
Two points
* It doesn’t have to be “torture” to be a war crime. Common Article 3 prohibits “cruel treatment” of detainees. (And violations of Common Article 3 are war crimes and federal crimes under the War Crimes Act of 1996.)
* The definition of “torture” under the (Senate-ratified) U.N. Convention Against Torture has a “purpose” clause:
So, the same act can be torture when done for such purposes and not torture when done for purposes of training.
Excellent post. Original sources. Refutes all this crap we are watching.
Glad you like it. Is that the first you’ve heard? If it’s snark, I’ll be glad to leave any time several ask/suggest.
I’m a former Marine, 1987-2000. When I went through Parris Island in ‘87, the gas chamber was a standard part of the training evolution. I think it still is (if not, it should be). The gas used was CS, a standard riot control agent. The purpose was to prove that the gas mask really works…it sucked for those who had a faulty mask.
Quick rundown of the process:
-Enter the chamber, already full of gas
-Run around in place for a couple minutes, to make sure nobody is holding their breath
-Remove the mask
-Go through the process to don (put on) and clear (get the bad air out without inhaling it)
-Remove the mask and run around some more to make sure we got a good lungful of the stuff
-Exit in an orderly fashion, which was arguably the hardest part of the process
Some of the acts that would be considered torture are part of the training in SERE school (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape). This is standard training for SpecOps and aircrews. The instructors work hard to make the training as realistic as possible, but there are still limits to how far you can suspend disbelief.
The question I’d like to ask the deniers is this.
If it’s not torture, why do you bother doing it? Enforced hygiene?