Obama: No charges for harsh CIA interrogation

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Obama: No charges for harsh CIA interrogation

By JENNIFER LOVEN and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers Jennifer Loven And Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.

Human rights groups and many Obama officials have condemned such methods as torture. Bush officials have vigorously disagreed.

In releasing the documents, the most comprehensive accounting yet of interrogation methods that were among the Bush administrations most closely guarded secrets, Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."

Past and present CIA officials had unsuccessfully pressed for more parts of the four legal memos to be kept secret, and some critics argued the release would make the United States less safe.

Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush, said CIA officers will now be more timid and allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence.

"If you want an intelligence service to work for you, they always work on the edge. That's just where they work," Hayden said. Now, he argued, foreign partners will be less likely to cooperate with the CIA because the release shows they "can't keep anything secret."

On the other side, human rights advocates argued that Obama should not have assured the CIA that officers who conducted interrogations would not be prosecuted if they used methods authorized by Bush lawyers in the memos.

Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

The Bush administration memos describe the tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects, the fullest and now complete government accounting of the techniques. They range from waterboarding — simulated drowning — to using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls.

Other methods were more psychological than violent. One technique approved but never used involved putting a detainee who had shown a fear of insects into a box filled with caterpillars.

The documents also offer justification for using the tough tactics.

A May 30, 2005, memo says that before the harsher methods were used on top al-Qaida detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the United States.

"Soon, you will know," he told them, according to the memo.

It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave" to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles.

Terror plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb" spreading nuclear radiation.

Even as they exposed new details of the interrogation program, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, offered the first definitive assurance that the CIA officials who were involved are in the clear, as long as their actions were in line with the legal advice at the time.

Holder went further, telling the CIA the government would provide free legal representation to its employees in any legal proceeding or congressional investigation related to the program and would repay any financial judgment.

"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said.

Obama said in his statement and a separate letter sent directly to CIA employees that the nation must protect their identity "as vigilantly as they protect our security."

Current CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a message to his employees: "CIA responded, as duty requires."

Some parts of the memos were blacked out, and Panetta had pushed for more redactions, according to a government official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to release the information.

The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding on three high-level terror detainees in 2002 and 2003, with the authorization of the White House and the Justice Department. Hayden said waterboarding has not been used since, but some human rights groups have urged Obama to hold CIA employees accountable for what they, and many Obama officials, say was torture.

The memos produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2002 and 2005 were released to meet a court-approved deadline in a lawsuit against the government in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It's impossible not to be shocked by the contents of these memos," said ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer. "The memos should never have been written, but we're pleased the new administration has made them public."

In addition to detailing individual techniques, one memo also specifically authorized a method for combining multiple methods, a practice human rights advocates argue crosses the line into torture even if any individual methods does not.

The methods authorized in the memos include keeping detainees naked, keeping them in painful standing positions and keeping their cells cold for long periods of time. Other techniques include depriving them of solid food and even beating and kicking them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family were also used.

Interrogators were told not to allow a prisoner's body temperature or food intake to fall below a certain level, because either could cause permanent damage, said senior administration officials.

The Obama administration last month released nine legal memos from the Bush administration. It probably will release more as the ACLU lawsuit proceeds, the officials said.

The lawsuit has sought to use the Freedom of Information Act to shed light on the treatment of prisoners — though the Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions put forth in the memos and the Obama administration has gone further to actively dismantle much of President Bush's anti-terror program.

Obama has ordered the CIA's secret overseas prisons known as "black sites" closed and has ended "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries if there is any reason to believe those countries would torture them. He has also restricted CIA questioning to methods and protocols approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.

Also on Thursday, Holder formally revoked every legal opinion or memo issued during Bush's presidency that justified interrogation programs.

The documents have been the subject of a long, fierce debate inside and outside government over how much should be revealed about the previous administration's approach.

In his statement, Obama said he was reassured about the potential national security implications by the fact that much of the information contained had already been widely publicized — including some of it by Bush himself — and by the fact that the program no longer exists as it did.

Withholding the memos, Obama argued, would only serve to deny facts already in the public domain.

"This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States," the president said.

Those assurances are not likely to inoculate Obama against criticism from conservatives. Last month, former Vice President **** Cheney said that Obama's decisions to revoke Bush-era terrorist detainee policies will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack."

Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess contributed to this report.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/torture_memos;_ylt=AlQXE7Fo.aI0zqLraebHygfBF4l4;_ylu=X3oDMTJnb2hqMmJqBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNDE2L3RvcnR1cmVfbWVtb3MEY3BvcwMzBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDb2JhbWFub2NoYXJn)

[budgie]

Obama is being a wimp on the issue. He knows full well those who voted for him would like to see some accountability but he also knows that going after the Bush Administration's rights violators would bring a right-wing media s#!tstorm down on him. For shame...

[SBL]

Obama is being a wimp on the issue. He knows full well those who voted for him would like to see some accountability but he also knows that going after the Bush Administration's rights violators would bring a right-wing media s#!tstorm down on him. For shame...
Or maybe he's being pragmatic and understands the value of such techniques.

[Sufficient]

Or maybe he's being pragmatic and understands the value of such techniques.

Then why this...


Obama has ordered the CIA's secret overseas prisons known as "black sites" closed and has ended "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries if there is any reason to believe those countries would torture them. He has also restricted CIA questioning to methods and protocols approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.

[SBL]

Then why this...
Lip service.

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

It looks like someone in a higher office sees the foolhardiness of make scape goats out of intelligence officials.


A May 30, 2005, memo says that before the harsher methods were used on top al-Qaida detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the United States.

"Soon, you will know," he told them, according to the memo.

It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave" to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles.

Terror plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb" spreading nuclear radiation.

[I can't think of a name]

Obama is being a wimp on the issue. He knows full well those who voted for him would like to see some accountability but he also knows that going after the Bush Administration's rights violators would bring a right-wing media s#!tstorm down on him. For shame...

No, maybe the fact does not meet up with much of the left rhetoric about it being civil rights violations.

Truth is that only 3 people got water boarded. Bush was not having people tortured left and right like many want you to believe.

[budgie]

Yes, it's possible that proper investigations have shown violations weren't as widespread as we thought. But if there were waterboardings or any other kind of torture the perpetrators need to be charged. If they're not charged that's probably because Obama's too scared to take on the conservatives, not because he understands the "value" of such techniques.

I find it ahrd to believe he's a faithful neocon all of a sudden. If so, it should make a lot of people here happy...

[G-AWZT]

Or maybe he's being pragmatic and understands the value of such techniques.




Bingo.
Being Pres. makes him privy to all sorts of classified info he didn't have when he was a mere senator.

[RxOnco]

I didn't know you could be prosecuted for "harsh" interrogation.

[Dragonscript]

Then why this...

Obama has ordered the CIA's secret overseas prisons known as "black sites" closed and has ended "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries if there is any reason to believe those countries would torture them. He has also restricted CIA questioning to methods and protocols approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,7548176,full.story

According to this story Renditions are still going on.

[socom6]

Obama is being a wimp on the issue. He knows full well those who voted for him would like to see some accountability but he also knows that going after the Bush Administration's rights violators would bring a right-wing media s#!tstorm down on him. For shame...

LOL Budgie bird your naivety is quite stunning.:roll:

[Martial]

I find it ahrd to believe he's a faithful neocon all of a sudden. If so, it should make a lot of people here happy...

Dude, Obama is just an empty suit. He's a fickle mush-head that's going to do whatever he's told. The ridiculous rhetoric he driveled during his campaign never made any sense and now he's realizing it.

[Hollis]

Yes, it's possible that proper investigations have shown violations weren't as widespread as we thought. But if there were waterboardings or any other kind of torture the perpetrators need to be charged. If they're not charged that's probably because Obama's too scared to take on the conservatives, not because he understands the "value" of such techniques.

I find it ahrd to believe he's a faithful neocon all of a sudden. If so, it should make a lot of people here happy...


Did you read the article? The word "torture" was not used. Yet you are using it.


Maybe you should question your sources of information.

I doubt you where at GITMO.

BTW do you know what SERE is? Tactics use in GITMO is also used in SERE.................

[Rudolph]

^
What Hollis says is quite correct. Techniques which aren't considered torture, were carried out, and no one will be blamed for using them. Yet, the methods are being scrapped as they do appear not to sit well with many.

The worst thing possible for Obama would've been to come in and clean the house. He has now caught the intelligence services off-guard. Well done.

[seraosha]

Honestly, President Obama's utter lack of comprehension regarding the secret operations being done, and the reasons for their secrecy is appalling. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress conditions have been determined to not be torture.

The fact that his administration isn't going to try and prosecute is admission enough that while distasteful, the methods our intelligence officers used were sanctioned.

But to spill our secrets on the front pages in some kind of misguided display?
Inexcusable.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Honestly, President Obama's utter lack of comprehension regarding the secret operations being done, and the reasons for their secrecy is appalling. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress conditions have been determined to not be torture.Since when was waterboarding deemed not be a form of torture? It's has been deemed torture in post WW2 war crimes trials held by the US against the Japanese and in 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker got 10 years in the can for using it on prisoners.

[tennesseedave]

The only questionable technique I see is waterboarding. And if that is what it took to prevent:


Terror plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb" spreading nuclear radiation.


The rest of the techniques mentioned are not torture. Sleep deprivation, stress positions, bugs, give me a break. Most people that have served in the military have experienced those conditions.

I think Pres. Obama realizes that there are no basis for charges here. These memos show that the Bush administration was not conducting torture camps at Gitmo or anywhere else.

[California Joe]

Obama is being a wimp on the issue. He knows full well those who voted for him would like to see some accountability but he also knows that going after the Bush Administration's rights violators would bring a right-wing media s#!tstorm down on him. For shame...

I voted for him and I'm not some homo that thinks you can throw flowers at people and think they're going to tell you terrorism targets. Maybe the delusional retards that voted for him believing he wasn't just a politician like all the rest of them should make some herbal tea, put on a bootleg Dead tape and cry themselves to sleep.


Yes, it's possible that proper investigations have shown violations weren't as widespread as we thought. But if there were waterboardings or any other kind of torture the perpetrators need to be charged. If they're not charged that's probably because Obama's too scared to take on the conservatives, not because he understands the "value" of such techniques.

I find it ahrd to believe he's a faithful neocon all of a sudden. If so, it should make a lot of people here happy...

He's not a neocon, he's just not willing to set a precedent that weakens this country in the long run. He's definitely a pragmatist.



Dude, Obama is just an empty suit. He's a fickle mush-head that's going to do whatever he's told. The ridiculous rhetoric he driveled during his campaign never made any sense and now he's realizing it.

You're a retard. He's doing the right thing here. If he had decided to prosecute people you'd be screaming about that instead. You know f*ckall about politics apparently, and less about how the government actually functions.


^
What Hollis says is quite correct. Techniques which aren't considered torture, were carried out, and no one will be blamed for using them. Yet, the methods are being scrapped as they do appear not to sit well with many.

The worst thing possible for Obama would've been to come in and clean the house. He has now caught the intelligence services off-guard. Well done.

Exactly, as Hollis said we're talking about SERE techniques here for chrissakes. Send some of those pricks up here, black fly season is just about to start...

[gaijinsamurai]

x2. CJ Not much I can add that you, Hollis, and Rudolf haven't already said.

[JKD]

We've gotten loads of good intelligence from people in the past using non-torturous means. From Nazis in WWII to the people who led us to Zarqawi in Iraq.

It used to be my (perhaps incorrect)understanding that SERE was used to train US military personnel about the harsh treatment they could expect at the hands of the bad guys not as a measure of what the bad guys can expect at the hands of the US military.

[SBL]

x2. CJ Not much I can add that you, Hollis, and Rudolf haven't already said.
x3 .

[sinophile]

The ACLU has published the DOJ 4/16/09 released memos approving the "torture" of AQ terrorists. Link (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html)

Presumably some of these techniques should have efficacy even though they've been published, and in any case the O administration has declared US personnel won't use them. Its nevertheless worth noting that this release will allow future non-military combatants to harden themselves against these known techniques. If the USGOV needed to know something in a hurry, it just became harder to do so.

The irony might be that future terrorists are sent for much harsher interrogation elsewhere, the net affect being worse treatment for the accused.

[Atlantic Friend]

Waterboarding not a torture ? Hey, the good ol' "supplice de la baignoire" is A-OK then ! I guess the "biting drawer" can't be too far behind.

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Bush-era interrogation may have worked, Obama official says

WASHINGTON (CNN)

The Bush-era interrogation techniques that many view as torture may have yielded important information about terrorists, President Obama's national intelligence director said in an internal memo.

A memo attributed to Intelligence Director Dennis Blair addresses Bush-era interrogation techniques.

"High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said in a memo to personnel.

The memo, obtained by CNN late Tuesday, was sent around the time the administration released several memos from the previous administration detailing the use of terror interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

Obama left open the possibility of criminal prosecution Tuesday for former Bush administration officials who drew up the legal basis for aggressive interrogation techniques many view as torture.

Obama said it will be up to Attorney General Eric Holder to decide whether or not to prosecute the former officials.

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White House.

"There's a host of very complicated issues involved there. As a general deal, I think we should be looking forward and not backward.

"I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations."

The president added that any congressional "accounting of what took place" should be done "in a bipartisan fashion outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down ... entirely along party lines."

It is important, he said, for the "American people to feel as if this is not being dealt with to provide one side or another political advantage."

Polls conducted shortly after Obama's inauguration seem to reflect a split among Americans on the issue.

A Gallup poll in early February showed that 38 percent of respondents favored a Justice Department criminal investigation of torture claims, 24 percent favored a noncriminal investigation by an independent panel, and 34 percent opposed either. A Washington Post poll about a week earlier showed a narrow percentage of Americans in favor of investigations.

Obama's remarks on Tuesday came five days after the administration released four Bush-era memos detailing the use of terror interrogations such as waterboarding, a technique used to simulate drowning.

One memo showed that CIA interrogators used waterboarding -- which Obama has called torture -- at least 266 times on two top al Qaeda suspects.

The author of one of the memos that authorized those techniques, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, is now a federal appeals court judge in California.

U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, has called for Bybee's impeachment, while Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, called for his resignation.

"If the White House and Mr. Bybee told the truth at the time of his nomination, he never would have been confirmed," Leahy said. "So actually, the honorable and decent thing for him to do now would be to resign. If he's an honorable and decent man, he will."

For now, Bybee's fate remains unclear.

Obama reiterated his belief that he did not think it is appropriate to prosecute those CIA officials and others who carried out the interrogations in question.

"This has been a difficult chapter in our history and one of [my] tougher decisions," he added. The techniques listed in memos "reflected ... us losing our moral bearings."

The president's apparent willingness to leave the door open to a prosecution of Bush officials seemed to contradict White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who indicated Sunday that the administration was opposed to such an action.

Obama believes "that's not the place that we [should] go," Emanuel said on ABC's "This Week."

"It's not a time to use our energy ... looking back [with] any sense of anger and retribution."

On Monday, Obama asserted during a visit to CIA headquarters that he had released the documents primarily because of the "exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was [already] public. ... The covert nature of the information had been compromised."

Link (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/21/obama.memos/index.html?iref=topnews)

[Sanat-e-naft]

I will be interested to see what the Spanish Courts do, there is a lot of talk about indicting John Yoo and Gonzalez. Looks like they are going to indict since the prosecutors said they have ample evidence against them.

(Also, re-defining what constituted torture does not make it legal, so that should be considered as well. The UN Convention against torture defines it as " any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession." Now ask if we violated our treaty obligations by what we did...) I say hold the lawyers, the ones who know the laws and acted in violation of them, accountable, put Gonzalez and Yoo on the hot seat, leave the interrogators alone...

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Let the Spanish courts indict anyone they want.

I very seriously doubt any US President will surrender any US officials or former officials to a foreign government to stand trial.

Especially when the activities in question may have yielded important information about terrorists.

[Sanat-e-naft]

Yea, its not about turning them over, it is about them going overseas on vacation or to give a speech (although I am not sure what kind of moron wants to hear these two clowns talk -- no offense to UC students) and them being held and turned over to Spain by any EU country or country with extradition in place w/ Spain. Think of what happened to Pinochet.

[JKD]

Waterboarding is Torture… Period

Posted by Malcolm Nance on October 31, 2007 2:30 PM


I’d like to digress from my usual analysis of insurgent strategy and tactics to speak out on an issue of grave importance to Small Wars Journal readers. We, as a nation, are having a crisis of honor.

Last week the Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey refused to define waterboarding terror suspects as torture. On the same day MSNBC television pundit and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough quickly spoke out in its favor. On his morning television broadcast, he asserted, without any basis in fact, that the efficacy of the waterboard a viable tool to be used on Al Qaeda suspects.

Scarborough said, "For those who don't know, waterboarding is what we did to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is the Al Qaeda number two guy that planned 9/11. And he talked …" He then speculated that “If you ask Americans whether they think it's okay for us to waterboard in a controlled environment … 90% of Americans will say 'yes.'” Sensing that what he was saying sounded extreme, he then claimed he did not support torture but that waterboarding was debatable as a technique: "You know, that's the debate. Is waterboarding torture? … I don't want the United States to engage in the type of torture that [Senator] John McCain had to endure."

In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.

We live at a time where Americans, completely uninformed by an incurious media and enthralled by vengeance-based fantasy television shows like “24”, are actually cheering and encouraging such torture as justifiable revenge for the September 11 attacks. Having been a rescuer in one of those incidents and personally affected by both attacks, I am bewildered at how casually we have thrown off the mantle of world-leader in justice and honor. Who we have become? Because at this juncture, after Abu Ghraieb and other undignified exposed incidents of murder and torture, we appear to have become no better than our opponents.

With regards to the waterboard, I want to set the record straight so the apologists can finally embrace the fact that they condone and encourage torture.

History’s Lessons Ignored

Before arriving for my assignment at SERE, I traveled to Cambodia to visit the torture camps of the Khmer Rouge. The country had just opened for tourism and the effect of the genocide was still heavy in the air. I wanted to know how real torturers and terror camp guards would behave and learn how to resist them from survivors of such horrors. I had previously visited the Nazi death camps Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. I had met and interviewed survivors of Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Magdeburg when I visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. However, it was in the S-21 death camp known as Tuol Sleng, in downtown Phnom Penh, where I found a perfectly intact inclined waterboard. Next to it was the painting on how it was used. It was cruder than ours mainly because they used metal shackles to strap the victim down, and a tin flower pot sprinkler to regulate the water flow rate, but it was the same device I would be subjected to a few weeks later.

On a Mekong River trip, I met a 60-year-old man, happy to be alive and a cheerful travel companion, who survived the genocide and torture … he spoke openly about it and gave me a valuable lesson: “If you want to survive, you must learn that ‘walking through a low door means you have to be able to bow.’” He told his interrogators everything they wanted to know including the truth. They rarely stopped. In torture, he confessed to being a hermaphrodite, a CIA spy, a Buddhist Monk, a Catholic Bishop and the son of the king of Cambodia. He was actually just a school teacher whose crime was that he once spoke French. He remembered “the Barrel” version of waterboarding quite well. Head first until the water filled the lungs, then you talk.

Once at SERE and tasked to rewrite the Navy SERE program for the first time since the Vietnam War, we incorporated interrogation and torture techniques from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia into the curriculum. In the process, I studied hundreds of classified written reports, dozens of personal memoirs of American captives from the French-Indian Wars and the American Revolution to the Argentinean ‘Dirty War’ and Bosnia. There were endless hours of videotaped debriefings from World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War POWs and interrogators. I devoured the hundreds of pages of debriefs and video reports including those of then Commander John McCain, Colonel Nick Rowe, Lt. Dieter Dengler and Admiral James Stockdale, the former Senior Ranking Officer of the Hanoi Hilton. All of them had been tortured by the Vietnamese, Pathet Lao or Cambodians. The minutiae of North Vietnamese torture techniques was discussed with our staff advisor and former Hanoi Hilton POW Doug Hegdahl as well as discussions with Admiral Stockdale himself. The waterboard was clearly one of the tools dictators and totalitarian regimes preferred.

There is No Debate Except for Torture Apologists

1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.

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

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.

Call it “Chinese Water Torture,” “the Barrel,” or “the Waterfall,” it is all the same. Whether the victim is allowed to comply or not is usually left up to the interrogator. Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought. These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraieb, Baghram and Guantanamo. No doubt, to avoid human factors like fear and guilt someone has created a one-button version that probably looks like an MRI machine with high intensity waterjets.

3. If you support the use of waterboarding on enemy captives, you support the use of that torture on any future American captives. The Small Wars Council had a spirited discussion about this earlier in the year, especially when former Marine Generals Krulak and Hoar rejected all arguments for torture.

Evan Wallach wrote a brilliant history of the use of waterboarding as a war crime and the open acceptance of it by the administration in an article for Columbia Journal for Transnational Law. In it he describes how the ideological Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo validated the current dilemma we find ourselves in by asserting that the President had powers above and beyond the Constitution and the Congress:

“Congress doesn’t have the power to tie the President’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique....It’s the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture.”

That is an astounding assertion. It reflects a basic disregard for the law of the United States, the Constitution and basic moral decency.

Another MSNBC commentator defended the administration and stated that waterboarding is "not a new phenomenon" and that it had "been pinned on President Bush … but this has been part of interrogation for years and years and years." He is correct, but only partially. The Washington Post reported in 2006 that it was mainly America’s enemies that used it as a principal interrogation method. After World War 2, Japanese waterboard team members were tried for war crimes. In Vietnam, service members were placed under investigation when a photo of a field-expedient waterboarding became publicly known.

Torture in captivity simulation training reveals there are ways an enemy can inflict punishment which will render the subject wholly helpless and which will generally overcome his willpower. The torturer will trigger within the subject a survival instinct, in this case the ability to breathe, which makes the victim instantly pliable and ready to comply. It is purely and simply a tool by which to deprive a human being of his ability to resist through physical humiliation. The very concept of an American Torturer is an anathema to our values.

I concur strongly with the opinions of professional interrogators like Colonel Stewart Herrington, and victims of torture like Senator John McCain. If you want consistent, accurate and reliable intelligence, be inquisitive, analytical, patient but most of all professional, amiable and compassionate.

Who will complain about the new world-wide embrace of torture? America has justified it legally at the highest levels of government. Even worse, the administration has selectively leaked supposed successes of the water board such as the alleged Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessions. However, in the same breath the CIA sources for the Washington Post noted that in Mohammed’s case they got information but "not all of it reliable." Of course, when you waterboard you get all the magic answers you want -because remember, the subject will talk. They all talk! Anyone strapped down will say anything, absolutely anything to get the torture to stop. Torture. Does. Not. Work.

According to the President, this is not a torture, so future torturers in other countries now have an American legal basis to perform the acts. Every hostile intelligence agency and terrorist in the world will consider it a viable tool, which can be used with impunity. It has been turned into perfectly acceptable behavior for information finding.

A torture victim can be made to say anything by an evil nation that does not abide by humanity, morality, treaties or rule of law. Today we are on the verge of becoming that nation. Is it possible that September 11 hurt us so much that we have decided to gladly adopt the tools of KGB, the Khmer Rouge, the Nazi Gestapo, the North Vietnamese, the North Koreans and the Burmese Junta?

What next if the waterboarding on a critical the captive doesn’t work and you have a timetable to stop the “ticking bomb” scenario? Electric shock to the genitals? Taking a pregnant woman and electrocuting the fetus inside her? Executing a captive’s children in front of him? Dropping live people from an airplane over the ocean? It has all been done by governments seeking information. All claimed the same need to stop the ticking bomb. It is not a far leap from torture to murder, especially if the subject is defiant. Are we willing to trade our nation’s soul for tactical intelligence?

Is There a Place for the Waterboard?

Yes. The waterboard must go back to the realm of SERE training our operators, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. We must now double our efforts to prepare for its inevitable and uncontrolled use of by our future enemies.

Until recently, only a few countries considered it effective. Now American use of the waterboard as an interrogation tool has assuredly guaranteed that our service members and agents who are captured or detained by future enemies will be subject to it as part of the most routine interrogations. Forget threats, poor food, the occasional face slap and ****** assaults. This was not a dignified ‘taking off the gloves’; this was descending to the level of our opposition in an equally brutish and ugly way. Waterboarding will be one our future enemy’s go-to techniques because we took the gloves off to brutal interrogation. Now our enemies will take the gloves off and thank us for it.

There may never again be a chance that Americans will benefit from the shield of outrage and public opinion when our future enemy uses of torture. Brutal interrogation, flash murder and extreme humiliation of American citizens, agents and members of the armed forces may now be guaranteed because we have mindlessly, but happily, broken the seal on the Pandora’s box of indignity, cruelty and hatred in the name of protecting America. To defeat Bin Laden many in this administration have openly embraced the methods of by Hitler, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Galtieri and Saddam Hussein.

Not A Fair Trade for America’s Honor

I have stated publicly and repeatedly that I would personally cut Bin Laden’s heart out with a plastic MRE spoon if we per chance meet on the battlefield. Yet, once captive I believe that the better angels of our nature and our nation’s core values would eventually convince any terrorist that they indeed have erred in their murderous ways. Once convicted in a fair, public tribunal, they would have the rest of their lives, however short the law makes it, to come to terms with their God and their acts.

This is not enough for our President. He apparently secretly ordered the core American values of fairness and justice to be thrown away in the name of security from terrorists. He somehow determined that the honor the military, the CIA and the nation itself was an acceptable trade for the superficial knowledge of the machinations of approximately 2,000 terrorists, most of whom are being decimated in Iraq or martyring themselves in Afghanistan. It is a short sighted and politically motivated trade that is simply disgraceful. There is no honor here.

It is outrageous that American officials, including the Attorney General and a legion of minions of lower rank have not only embraced this torture but have actually justified it, redefined it to a misdemeanor, brought it down to the level of a college prank and then bragged about it. The echo chamber that is the American media now views torture as a heroic and macho.

Torture advocates hide behind the argument that an open discussion about specific American interrogation techniques will aid the enemy. Yet, convicted Al Qaeda members and innocent captives who were released to their host nations have already debriefed the world through hundreds of interviews, movies and documentaries on exactly what methods they were subjected to and how they endured. In essence, our own missteps have created a cadre of highly experienced lecturers for Al Qaeda’s own virtual SERE school for terrorists.

Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle need to stand up for American values and clearly specify that coercive interrogation using the waterboard is torture and, except for limited examples of training our service members and intelligence officers, it should be stopped completely and finally –oh, and this time without a Presidential signing statement reinterpreting the law.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

A May 30, 2005, memo says that before the harsher methods were used on top al-Qaida detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the United States.

"Soon, you will know," he told them, according to the memo.

It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave" to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles.

Terror plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb" spreading nuclear radiation.
From: Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090416/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/torture_memos)




"High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said in a memo to personnel.
From: Link (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/21/obama.memos/index.html?iref=topnews)

[Sanat-e-naft]

IMHO functionality should not = legality?

[JKD]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30335592/

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,” Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

IMHO functionality should not = legality?

IMHO disrupting terror plots > approval

[Bia]

Or maybe he's being pragmatic and understands the value of such techniques.Agreed... well said.

[RxOnco]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30335592/

“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

Had some not been hell bent on drumming up dirt on the Bush administration, these techniques would have remained on a need-to-know basis. In turn, it would not have been able to be used to "hurt our image" round the world. Frankly, I could give a rat's a$$ what the rest of the world thinks as long as what they're doing is keeping us safe.

[Bia]

Let the Spanish courts indict anyone they want.

I very seriously doubt any US President will surrender any US officials or former officials to a foreign government to stand trial.But isnt that main point symbolic more than a plan?

The fact I, an average citizen nobody can go to a variety of countries... but a portion of the last Admin would be arrested upon setting foot there.

Obviously we wont extradite our own.

[Bia]

Had some not been hell bent on drumming up dirt on the Bush administration, these techniques would have remained on a need-to-know basis. In turn, it would not have been able to be used to "hurt our image" round the world. Frankly, I could give a rat's a$$ what the rest of the world thinks as long as what they're doing is keeping us safe.I think the "bottom line" is that it helps our image to be accountable instead of arrogant.

One can be humble and powerful... arrogance isnt required.

[loganinkosovo]

Let the Spanish courts indict anyone they want.

I very seriously doubt any US President will surrender any US officials or former officials to a foreign government to stand trial.

Especially when the activities in question may have yielded important information about terrorists.


You obviously don't know Obama.......:roll:

[Mackie]

IMHO disrupting terror plots > approval

Whats about torture against US troops? Allowed?
actio and reactio

[Femto]

The correct question is what about harsh interrogation to American captured soldiers ? Is it ok to waterboard them 180+ times ?

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

I think the "bottom line" is that it helps our image to be accountable instead of arrogant.

One can be humble and powerful... arrogance isnt required.
On most issues

I believe a government should only have to be accountable to its citizens. I think a country should be given some latitude in how it manages its own affairs.

I think it's possible to be assertive without being arrogant.
Trying to please an audience is dangerous.


But isnt that main point symbolic more than a plan?

The fact I, an average citizen nobody can go to a variety of countries... but a portion of the last Admin would be arrested upon setting foot there.
They were public officials doing their job.


Whats about torture against US troops? Allowed?
actio and reactio
I seriously doubt those who would do such things to our troops study legal memos.

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Let me post some answers to a few questions before I excuse myself.

Do I approve of using "enhanced techniques" for regular LEO and interrogation of regular POWs? No

Would I feel comfortable watching something like this? Probably not

Could the rationale of "protecting the lives US citizens" be abused and used to justify horrible activities? Yes

Has it? It doesn't appear so, given that the current administration's reluctance to bring charges against former officials.

[SBL]

. They all talk!

That's kind of the point, isn't it? The fact that not all of [the information] is reliable means that some of it is reliable, which makes it a matter of sifting the good information from the bad.

[RxOnco]

The correct question is what about harsh interrogation to American captured soldiers ? Is it ok to waterboard them 180+ times ?

With the current enemy, I would think that waterboarding would be a walk in the park in comparison to what they would do to our soldiers.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Whether or not the methods described amount to torture, and whether or not they are effective, the administration should not be conducting this debate in public. Make a decision, and implement it without comment, and without disclosure. I hear there's a war on.

[California Joe]

Yeah, I agree with that. Silly me, I thought that's the direction he was headed with the whole "No charges..." report.

Seems now like it'll be "No charges sought by the Executive Branch, just dirty laundry aired so that Congress can investigate for 3 years and damage our national interests, just so everyone realizes that **** Cheney was the evil prick we all thought he was..."

He should have sought no charges, gave orders to stop certain aspects of intelligence gathering methods, and used his current popularity abroad to repair our slightly damaged image.

I also think that someone should tell Cheney to shut the f*ck up on Sunday morning press shows. "Hey, sure we tortured some assholes but they shouldn't have ratted on us to the public. But now that they did lets release a lot more even more classified sh*t just to validate meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

[BearInBunnySuit]

Whether or not the methods described amount to torture, and whether or not they are effective, the administration should not be conducting this debate in public. Make a decision, and implement it without comment, and without disclosure. I hear there's a war on.

I agree. The only result of the full disclosure espoused by the current administration seems to divide and polarize people more and I think we had enough of that in the last 8 years. I know it's the nature of the beast but as a spectator sport, it's getting tiresome because I see no clear champion in the endless battle of rhetoric.

[socom6]

The correct question is what about harsh interrogation to American captured soldiers ? Is it ok to waterboard them 180+ times ?

What kind of stupid dumb ass statement is that?:roll: You know what happens to US soldiers AND civilians when they fall into the hands of al qaida terrorists? They decapitate them and defile their corpses by dismemberment and are encouraged to do so by sick cvnts like bin Laden and al Zawahiri.:roll:

You behave as if the US will waterboard captured enemy soldiers who are protected by the Geneva convention. It does not follow you know, so take your head out of your ass.

Jeez some people...:bash:

[JKD]

You behave as if the US will waterboard captured enemy soldiers who are protected by the Geneva convention.

We shouldn't be waterboarding anybody.

It's not about who they are, it's about who we are.

[I can't think of a name]

We shouldn't be waterboarding anybody.

It's not about who they are, it's about who we are.

That is fine, under your personal ideals. But their is no law to prosecute as you wish.

[jmiller]

Funny thing is people had more insight on what was going on in Guantanamo Bay. Now we don't have a clue what exact methods are going to be used or where to identify camps. "Where do we put them? What do we do with them?"

[socom6]

We shouldn't be waterboarding anybody.

It's not about who they are, it's about who we are.

I say use intensive interrogation techniques to extract intel from captured terrorists to way lay any planned/future attacks.

Of course its not about who they are, its really about us I agree. So no to decapitations nipple ripping nail pulling and body dismemberment in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[MaDuce]

SERE C POW camp is a good deal worse than Gitmo ever was.