CIA chief admits waterboarding

[Mr. G]

i am not a citezen of other countries i am a citezen of the states as i presume you are. and what i think of what my own damn country does is an important point

To you, certainly.

I'm not feeling the same imperative.

 

[pjdude1219]

To you, certainly.

I'm not feeling the same imperative.

what i was impling that what an american thinks of america is important

 

[Mr. G]

what i was impling that what an american thinks of america is important

So, me being an American, you think what I think about America is as important to you as what you think about America?

 

[pjdude1219]

So, me being an American, you think what I think about America is as important to you as what you think about America?

for the most part

 

[original]

Clinton lies about oral sex and gets impeached, yet Bush lies about torture and repeatedly violates the U.S. Constitution and is still in office.

The United States is bound to the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Waterboarding is a form of torture.

...

Article 17 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 discusses in part the captivity and treatment of prisoners of war. No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind. [1]

In November 2005, President Bush was quoted as saying, "We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." [2]

Thanks to research of many credible sources online (related links posted at the end) I have affirmed that the United States Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) [3] ruled that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 applied to those detained at Guantanamo Bay and in other CIA-established prisons. [4]

A few months after this U.S. Supreme Court decision, President Bush requested and signed a bill called the Military Commissions Act of 2006, during which time he also restates that "the United States does not torture." [5]

An Executive Order signed by President Bush in July 2007 claims that the Supreme Court decision does not apply. "The Military Commissions Act defines certain prohibitions of Common Article 3 for United States law, and it reaffirms and reinforces the authority of the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions." [6]

...

President Bush is overriding the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers. The Patriot Act endangers the Fourth Amendment. His interpretation of the Geneva Conventions is absurd, more so after declaring the decision by the Supreme Court practically void, while also endangering the idea of habeas corpus. Not to mention that most of his supposed authority seems to rely on laws passed while he was in office. Oh, and what about perjury? He's not being tried in a court of law but he's bound under oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. He claims that we do not employ methods of torture. There is overwhelming evidence that we do. By we, I mean they, not I.



---

1. International Committee of the Red Cross. "Geneva Conventions of 1949". August 12, 1949. International Humanitarian Law - Treaties & Documents.

2. Office of the Press Secretary. November 7, 2005. President Bush Meets with President Torrijos of Panama.

3. Supreme Court of the United States of America. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. 2006. No. 05-184: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al.

4. Council on Foreign Relations. "The United States and the Geneva Conventions." September 20, 2006. The United States and the Geneva Conventions.

5. Office of the Press Secretary. October 17, 2006. President Bush Signs Military Commissions Act of 2006.

6. Office of the Press Secretary. July 20, 2007. Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Other links of interest:

PDF. Public Law 109-366: Military Commissions Act of 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld

http://www.slate.com/id/2145592

 

[S.A.M.]

When the CIA starts beheading folks I'll start caring about America's image around the world, and on the Left.

Famous last words.

 

[NightFall]

What if they were innocent before being tortured? I know that if I'm an innocent guy who's captured and tortured for NO good reason, and released, I'm going to get angry and do something violent in return.

no one else sees that. look at who's running for president.. and no one thinks about it.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Originally Posted by Mr. G
When the CIA starts beheading folks I'll start caring about America's image around the world, and on the Left.

Famous last words.

Already been spoken, and your are most eloquent in your lack of care about it.

 

[sandy]

Three terrorists were waterboarded. They were not innocent. We don't round up innocent people. We get them in the act, with video, eye-witnesses, etc...

These are not innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. These are vile monsters who kill innocent people.

 

[S.A.M.]

Were they charged? tried? What was the result of the trial?

 

[sandy]

Were they charged? tried? What was the result of the trial?

We've already been through this in this very thread.

 

[S.A.M.]

We've already been through this in this very thread.

I haven't heard a response yet. When were they tried?

 

[spidergoat]

Three terrorists were waterboarded. They were not innocent. We don't round up innocent people. We get them in the act, with video, eye-witnesses, etc...

These are not innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. These are vile monsters who kill innocent people.

You are incorrect as usual. These three may have been known to us, but there were many others who were simply caught up in a capturing spree.

 

[spidergoat]

When the CIA starts beheading folks I'll start caring about America's image around the world, and on the Left.

Does beating them to death count too?

 

[sandy]

You are incorrect as usual. These three may have been known to us, but there were many others who were simply caught up in a capturing spree.

No. They said they were innocent. They all do.

I don't think even one was innocent. They all had some kind of connection to terrorism. We wouldn't bother with them if they didn't.

 

[decantemix]

Please, I'M SICK of this S***. These are people whom got pissed on in their beds. For running their mouths/mouts/ for god(dess)es sakes.

 

[spidergoat]

That's like saying if the police arrest you, you must be guilty. You have such an uncritical view of government power, I wonder if that will remain when it's under new management. It's frankly un-American and fascist in nature.

 

[iceaura]

The Japanese in question was convicted of inflicting the, Water Treatment or Water cure is a form of water torture in which the victim is forced to drink large quantities of water in a short time, resulting in gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death. The method used involved pumping large amounts of water in to the victim's stomach by a water hose being forced down his throat, and pumping him up with water, them strapping him on the floor and beating or jumping on the victims stomach, the victim being a POW, and this was done as punishment, or just because the Jap's though it was funny to watch.

A "torture relativist" are you? It's not torture if something worse can be found ?

Unfortunately for the legalistic defense, that is not the only water torture technique used by the Japanese, nor the only one that resulted in severe punishment after conviction by a US Court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cure

The tribunal also reported the case of a prisoner being tortured in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:

"A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.[10]

Chase J. Nielson, who was captured in the Doolittle raid testified at the trial of his captors, "I was given several types of torture... I was given what they call the water cure." and it felt "more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[10]
- - - -
In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."[10] The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years
- - - - -
Water cure was among the forms of torture used by American soldiers on Filipinos during the Philippine-American War.[12] President Theodore Roosevelt privately assured a friend that the water cure was "an old Filipino method of mild torture. Nobody was seriously damaged whereas the Filipinos had inflicted incredible tortures on our people." [13] However, a report at the time noted its lethality; "a soldier who was with General Funston had stated that he helped to administer the water cure to one hundred and sixty natives, all but twenty-six of whom died".[14] See the Lodge Committee for detailed testimony of the use of the water cure.

We see that the "they do worse" excuse is more than a hundred years old. Nevertheless, some US military personnel were convicted and punished for particularly brutal incidents of water torture in that war.

The Philippine War era US legal opinion that waterboarding is torture, and a war crime, was reaffirmed in the aftermath of WWII:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

"in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,"

http://lawofwar.org/Water_Torture_Article.htm

One compelling example is found in the Manilla trial54 of Sergeant-Major Chinsaku Yuki of the Kempentai for torture and murder55 of Philippine civilians. There, the Commission heard testimony from Ramon Lavarro, a Filipino lawyer who had been arrested by the Kempentai and questioned by the Defendant on suspicion that he knew of and supported guerilla activities.

His testimony was the only direct evidence received by the tribunal about SGM Yuki’s interrogation techniques:

Q: And then did he take you back to your room?
A: When Yuki could not get anything out of me he wanted the interpreter ti place me down below and I was told by Yuki to take off all my clothes so what I did was to take off my clothes as ordered. I was ordered to lay on a bench and Yuki tied my feet, hands and neck to that bench lying with my face upward. After I was tied to the bench Yuki placed some cloth on my face and then with water from the faucet they poured on me until I became unconscious. He repeated that four or five times.

COL KEELEY: You mean he brought water and poured water down your throat?
A: No sir, on my face, until I became unconscious. We were lying that way with some cloth on my face and then Yuki poured water on my face continuously.

COL KEELEY: And you couldn’t breath?
A: No, I could not and so I for a time lost consciousness
- - - -
In his summation, the Prosecutor discussed Lavarro’s testimony noting that “...it’s on his testimony that we have to determine whether there was any torture or not.” Apparently, that testimony was sufficient for the Commissioners. They convicted Yuki of the charges that he tortured and murdered a civilian non-combatant, and sentenced him to life imprisonement.
Id at 241.

So let's summarize: by one confirmed instance of performing "interrogation techniques" essentially identical to those used by the CIA and recently defended by US officials in public, on one person suspected of having terrorist connections in an occupied country during an actual war, a US court was convinced that torture was being employed by this commander.

We also note:

A: Around four or five times from two o’clock up to four o’clock in the afternoon. When I was not able to endure his punishment which I received I told a lie to Yuki....I could not really show anything to Yuki because I was really lying just to stop the torture...

As we see so often: torture produces false confessions. That's what it's good for. That's normally why it's used. There are exceptions - incompetence, inexperience, panic, sadism or other psychosexual abnormalities, etc, but normally:

Whenever you see a government agent using torture, the first question to ask is what they gain from false confessions.

The most recent US legal opinion I could find on actions essentially identical with "waterboarding" as now performed by US government agencies is this, continuing from that link:

- . In the compensatory damages phases of an action against the estate of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, a United States District Court articulated what it described as both “...a human rights violation...” and “...a form of torture.”

The “water cure”, where a cloth was placed over a detainee’s mouth and nose and water poured over it producing a drowning sensation;

In Re Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos, Human Rights Litigation, 910 F. Supp. 1460 at 1463 (D. Hawaii, 1995).

And of course there were apologists back then, as now, for any given technique:

The water cure is very uncomfortable, but not serious. A surgeon attached to one of the regiments and called on for a report as to the water cure, reported to the regimental commander that it was “a crude sort of stomach pump.” That describes it perfectly.
- - -
I am not writing to defend torture, but to let you know what I
have not seen published this Winter–that is, that these vigorous measures were notused against combatants, but used against outlaws only.

That's a description of the type of water torture Buffalo, above, pretends is in a whole different category from the merely uncomfortable and civilized stuff we do now. We see that the kinds of people who justify this sort of thing have always had all the same phrases ready to hand.

 

[original]

Ah, again, President Bush writes that "U.S. law and policy already prohibit torture. Our policy has also been not to use cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, at home or abroad. This legislation now makes that a matter of statute for practices abroad." [1]

From Public Law 109-366, The Military Commissions Act of 2006:

(Sec. 6) Authorizes the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate standards and regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Directs the President to issue such interpretations through Executive Orders.

Amends the federal criminal code to include the following as violations of the War Crimes Act: (1) torture; (2) cruel or inhuman treatment; (3) performing biological experiments; (4) murder; (5) mutilation or maiming; (6) intentionally causing serious bodily injury; (7) rape; (8) sexual assault or abuse; and (9) taking hostages.

Prohibits any person in the custody or control of the United States, regardless of nationality or physical location, from being subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
[2]

The same law that the President uses to interpret the Geneva Conventions also states that everyone in custody or control of the United States is not to be subject to cruel treatment or punishment. It's not the only law, or the first law, but it's still in effect, it's still valid, and it still applies. I'll try and post credible sources of the tribunal hearings and other related information. It would be easier if we knew the names of the people you want to look up.

---

1. Office of the Press Secretary. December 30, 2005. President's Statement on the Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006.

2. Library of Congress. October 17, 2006. Public Law No. 109-366.

 

[decantemix]

Nuthin' but a bunch of cry babies, wit' no Mmm'N'mmms leff' to gii'.

Just whinnin'

close this thread!!!