Hitchens' voluntary waterboarding
- Thread starter pitz96
- Start date
You'll note the article's title date, 1988, twenty years as public information, classified still?
Not so clever eh........
I've been more then a little disgusted at the Democrats and like minded federal employees are willing to 'leak' just enough information that is classified to raise the ire of people KNOWING that those that can easily clarify it won't because they actually respect the reasons the information is classified.
Willingness to undermine the work people are doing that will never be acknowledged because it has to be done covertly for the sheer political gain of it despite lives being lost quietly is, in my assertion, grotesque, evil, and traitorous.
Prancing around with the severed POLITICAL head while an actual HUMAN lives are put in peril and lost quietly as a result is what is going on with this dance around covert activity. Taking advantage of the fact that those lives are lost in classified activities and won't become public, not even in discussion, and then asking for 'answers' knowing they can't be divulged, THEN pointing at that non-divulgence and knifing out some more blood by crying 'conspiracy' or 'Fascism'.
Next time a Democrat stands up says 'This lack of open disclosure is blah blah blah' I'd like them to explain what their own Chairman of the oversight committee appropriate to the matter has specifically discussed behind closed doors relating to their cooperation with these 'heinous' charges. Confidential sources say that in closed hearing the chairman endorsed this action and now won't fully divulge the minutes of that hearing. HRMMMM.....looks like HE is aiding in this fascists hording of power.
Put them in the seat. THEY then have to either violate (and subsequently lose) their security clearance or endure without clarification, the speculation of their political rivals and peers.
That Nicholson line speaks volumes. The story in the movie aside, it holds alot of truths.
Want a definition of torture? How's this one, something you would not subject your own people to.......
Not so clever eh........
I've been more then a little disgusted at the Democrats and like minded federal employees are willing to 'leak' just enough information that is classified to raise the ire of people KNOWING that those that can easily clarify it won't because they actually respect the reasons the information is classified.
Willingness to undermine the work people are doing that will never be acknowledged because it has to be done covertly for the sheer political gain of it despite lives being lost quietly is, in my assertion, grotesque, evil, and traitorous.
Prancing around with the severed POLITICAL head while an actual HUMAN lives are put in peril and lost quietly as a result is what is going on with this dance around covert activity. Taking advantage of the fact that those lives are lost in classified activities and won't become public, not even in discussion, and then asking for 'answers' knowing they can't be divulged, THEN pointing at that non-divulgence and knifing out some more blood by crying 'conspiracy' or 'Fascism'.
Next time a Democrat stands up says 'This lack of open disclosure is blah blah blah' I'd like them to explain what their own Chairman of the oversight committee appropriate to the matter has specifically discussed behind closed doors relating to their cooperation with these 'heinous' charges. Confidential sources say that in closed hearing the chairman endorsed this action and now won't fully divulge the minutes of that hearing. HRMMMM.....looks like HE is aiding in this fascists hording of power.
Put them in the seat. THEY then have to either violate (and subsequently lose) their security clearance or endure without clarification, the speculation of their political rivals and peers.
That Nicholson line speaks volumes. The story in the movie aside, it holds alot of truths.
Want a definition of torture? How's this one, something you would not subject your own people to.......
IZinterrogator
New member
Torture is ineffective and unreliable. That's the professional opinion of an interrogator with 12 years of experience and not a politician. Guess which one of those professions advocate these kinds of techniques?
Actually, the fact that the suspect played the police like fish on a line is vitally important to your example. Your example proves nothing because the suspect took advantage of the buddy-buddy treatment and at no time provided an accurate result of the technique's effectiveness.
I have no doubt that the buddy-buddy treatment works on some people, but your example doesn't show that. Also, as the saying goes, "Different strokes for different folks." For example, some people love money; some people despise it. There are Buddhist monks in Thailand and other countries who refuse to touch money. Bribing them with money won't work because they don't value it in the same way as most other people. The same holds true for the buddy-buddy treatment.
For the most part, the kinds of things we value are the kinds of things that incense Islamic terrorists. What we call freedom of speech, they call an abomination against Allah. They don't hate us because of our slow progress on Gay Marriage. They hate us because we even consider such things.
We seem to be comparing two different scenarios. One is a law enforcement objective, to obtain a confession, and the other an intelligence objective, to gain ACTIONABLE intelligence.
Waterboarding has been proven to be effective in the later and is utterly futile in the prior. KSM spilled in less then a minute and gave up enormous amounts of valuable, actionable intel. Effective aplication of the technique. He was 100% 2 minutes after that. Maybe still damp.......
The aplication is for when it is KNOWN that the asset has ACTIONABLE intellegence (ticking time bomb is only one example). Note the word KNOWN. Not suspected, not reasonably assured, but KNOWN.
Intellegence is not law enforcement. In fact it has the odd distinction of being an illegal activity in the jurisdictions (foreign countries) it is found being practiced in except when done by their own intelligence operators.
Torture doesn't work......ok.......waterboarding does work.......conclsion must be waterboarding isn't torturous.
An interrogation technique rises to torture when it is something you wouldn't do to your own people. So far no rebuttal, acceptable definition?
Waterboarding has been proven to be effective in the later and is utterly futile in the prior. KSM spilled in less then a minute and gave up enormous amounts of valuable, actionable intel. Effective aplication of the technique. He was 100% 2 minutes after that. Maybe still damp.......
The aplication is for when it is KNOWN that the asset has ACTIONABLE intellegence (ticking time bomb is only one example). Note the word KNOWN. Not suspected, not reasonably assured, but KNOWN.
Intellegence is not law enforcement. In fact it has the odd distinction of being an illegal activity in the jurisdictions (foreign countries) it is found being practiced in except when done by their own intelligence operators.
Torture doesn't work......ok.......waterboarding does work.......conclsion must be waterboarding isn't torturous.
An interrogation technique rises to torture when it is something you wouldn't do to your own people. So far no rebuttal, acceptable definition?
I agree that torture isn't reliable. However your argument assumes that waterboarding is torture. I don't agree.
As far as effective, we already know it works. Thats beyond argument, its simply a fact. Furthermore, and most importantly, most of the people with an "informed" opinion about waterboarding have no personal experience with it, much less witnessed it in real world circumstances.
allenomics
New member
Christopher Hitchens is an excellent reporter/writer. He says it the ways it is, IMO!
Actually I think the fact that they were buddy buddy with the suspect he then provided details that were later proven to be totally false under further investigation is the reason he was disproven so successfully and quickly. I was just showing a well known way the cops/interogattors play the "relationship" game with suspects. Do a little research on the interogation of Saddam Hussein by the US, it was not done by any harsh methodology at all just total control of his enviroment and talking.
The Jon-Benet guy and S. Hussein are very different from the Islamo-terrorists we're fighting. JB Guy liked being wined and dined; Hussein liked living in luxury. Contrast that with the top Al Qaeda people, such as Bin Laden, who came from wealth but now live in tents and caves. I don't know how anyone is going to "buddy-buddy" those guys, when the buddy-buddy treatment consists of the things they despise most. What are you going to give them? 70 virgins? Jews to kill? Civilians with heads for them to saw off?
IZinterrogator
New member
Yes, but SERE training doesn't count because it exposes you to torture techniques used by our enemies. So by your definition, it is torture since exposure to torture techniques is the only reason it is done in the military.Bruxley said:
Then we agree to disagree. But it is torture. It was torture when it was done in WWII by the Japanese, according to the military tribunals held after the war. A soldier was court-martialed during the Vietnam War for doing it, and it was expressly forbidden there. A Texas sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison for doing it in 1983. That's three precedents for you, as decided by the U.S. government.STAGE 2 said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
If that technique is always effective, why do I have 19 approaches to choose from? I should only need one. Oh, wait, not everyone is the same and not everyone breaks on any one approach, that's right. I remember them mentioning that in school once or twice.STAGE 2 said:
I've done it to myself out of professional curiosity. Plus I am trained to use my judgment as to where the line is and when someone has crossed it. It's torture. Don't believe me? Go throw a towel over your face, lean back so your head is over the tub below your shoulders, pour water on the towel, and continue to breathe normally. Get back to me when you're done with that and if you still believe it isn't torture, rig yourself up like Hitchens was in the video and have some friends do it.STAGE 2 said:
If I hold your head underwater until the bubbles stop, it's torture. Waterboarding is nothing more than forcibly drowning someone without using a body of water to do it in.
It would not suprise me to find out that it's use at the SERE course came about as the result of an instructor reading U.S.S. Seawolf by Patrick Robinson and deciding to try it out there for himself. That was the first reference to it I had ever heard of (although it wasn't referred to as waterboarding in the book) and that book came out in 2000.Darren007 said:
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When I went through SERE the waterboard was used at the initial capture, I was one of the lucky ones. As has been stated (I believe), a lot of intelligence data is fluid. The sooner you can get the info, the more reliable it is.
Well, then you will be surprised. I know for a fact that it was used 3 times in 1979, and that was just on me. No telling how many more were given the same treatment during the same training experience.
bob
IZinterrogator
New member
Well, like I said, I had never heard of it until I read the book. It wasn't exactly part of the cirriculum at the interrogation course. They don''t give you a list of illegal techniques because that would imply that anything else was legal. They have since fixed that by giving us a list of approved techniques that we are not allowed to deviate from, but a very creative mind could still use torture and try to justify it as an approved technique, so they rely on us to police each other and to use our own judgment when approving and supervising interrogations. I never heard anything official about it until its use was reported in the media, and after that it was only referred to as an illegal technique for military interrogators to use by the guys at JAG.
I like how the attitude of many is that water boarding is acceptable because we really don't like the people we are doing it to and we believe they are guilty.
No open trials. No review of evidence. We think they are guilty so we can do what we want to them...
So, when the US gov't feels you are guilty of something should they do the same to you until you confess simply to end the abuse?
You cannot profess to stand for the ideals of America only when it suits you. If you have a prisoner entirely within your power you do not behave like a terrorist to get what information you THINK they may have. For those who love to bring up the "where is the nuke" scenario all I can say is that is why they have Presidential Pardons. Extreme solutions for extreme situations.
No open trials. No review of evidence. We think they are guilty so we can do what we want to them...
So, when the US gov't feels you are guilty of something should they do the same to you until you confess simply to end the abuse?
You cannot profess to stand for the ideals of America only when it suits you. If you have a prisoner entirely within your power you do not behave like a terrorist to get what information you THINK they may have. For those who love to bring up the "where is the nuke" scenario all I can say is that is why they have Presidential Pardons. Extreme solutions for extreme situations.
Whether or not this is torture has nothing to do with the standards of conduct between uniformed military personnel. I don't believe that its acceptable to waterboard soldiers of an opposing army, not because its torture, but because I don't believe that POW's should be treated like that. However we are not dealing with members of the military, we are dealing with terrorists. Thats a big difference.
As far as the TX sheriff, thats simply a ridiculous example. There are all sorts of violations that LEO's can commit. That doesn't make them torture, merely a violation of someone's rights.
Not only did you side step the question, but you supported my argument. If in fact some people break under some conditions but others do not, that is an argument for keeping waterboarding in our arsenal of interrogation techniques in case we run across folks that don't break under other methods.
Then you are one of the few.
And that proves what? That its uncomfortable? That it induces panic? That people don't like it? I've no doubt that I nor anyone else here would like to be waterboarded. But thats the point. If it were all peaches and cream then it wouldn't be effective would it.
In the interests of full disclosure, I don't believe that something which does not cause physical injury/pain is torture. Waterboarding doesn't. And I know that if EVERYONE here were given a choice between this, a die hard to the nards, or a makita to the kneecaps they would trip over themselves to get to the dunk tank.
No, its drowning, and as someone who is as versed in this subject as you stated to be you should know full well that there is no danger of drowning with waterboarding.
See above. Tricking the brain into thinking you are drowning doesn't mean you are. If we were just trying to drown them, then all we would have to do is hold them underwater. Thats not what is happening here and for good reason.
The people we have waterboarded were guilty beyond any doubt. You seem to think that its SOP to dunk every detainee at gitmo. Thats not the case. KSM and the two others were known terrorists with vital information.
No, we knew these three were guilty.
No because I have constitutional rights that these folks dont have and I'm not slaughtering 'infidels'.
There isn't anything inconsistent in believing in the American ideal and wanting waterboarding available to interrogators. Unless you are going to sit there and make the case that foreign terrorists captured in foreign nations are due constitutional rights, then everything "american" is satisfied.
As far as 'behaving like a terrorist' I already addressed this. A person isn't evil because they kill, they are evil because they wrongfully kill. We don't harm innocents. We go after people that are trying to kill us. We don't saw off heads or hook up body parts to car batteries even though this is what they do and are completely deserving of reciprocity.
IZinterrogator
New member
I can get fast garbage intelligence with waterboarding or I can do my job properly and not let up and get good intelligence. Shouldn't take longer than 48 hours or so.
But the disenchanted folks over in the Middle East view the people we refer to as terrorists as soldiers defending them against the oppressive Americans. They don't see their armies the way we see ours. So we are torturing their soldiers and torturing captured soldiers is illegal, plus turnabout is fair play. There goes our moral high ground and their opinion of us, which makes them more likely to oppose us.
Suffocating because you have water in your nose and mouth cutting off your air supply is the same as drowning. I can pull you out of the pool after two minutes or I can take the towel away. If I don't, you'll die, either way. By your definition, I can hold a guy underwater as long as I want as long as I don't kill him and it isn't torture. No court of law would agree.
So if I turn someone into a babbling idiot who is so psychologically damaged that he spends the rest of his days smearing his feces on the walls of his rubber room, it's not torture? I don't think you would believe so if that person was an American. You'd be calling for me to be drawn and quartered and you would be correct. Just because the terrorists aren't Americans doesn't make it okay to violate their human rights. If we do, where do we stop? If they're European, then we won't do it? We'll spare the Canadians, but everyone else is fair game? Screw it, we'll do it to whoever we want and to hell with world opinion? I think it would only become a matter of time before the government turned these tactics against us on the argument of the necessity of maintaining national security.
You've already trotted out the "they actively violate our human rights" and the "they don't fall under the Constitution" argument. But as a free society with the ability to define our moral values, we can do better than waterboarding terrorists and claiming we're still the good guys. After all, the Constitution didn't grant us our rights, it restricted the government from taking them away. We have those rights because we are human, not because the Constitution says we do. That makes those rights universal to all mankind, we're just lucky enough to live somewhere that still respects them, despite the wishes of the administration.
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