The Tortured Party

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
The Tortured Party
472
Fri, 12-12-2008 - 11:15pm

Now that he's got nothing to lose by dropping the pandering, McCain issued a joint report just that found that Rumsfeld was right in the middle of authorizing the torture:

"Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Approves Aggressive Techniques (U)
(U) With respect to GTMO’s October 11, 2002 request to use aggressive interrogation
techniques, Mr. Haynes said that “there was a sense by the DoD Leadership that this decision
was taking too long” and that Secretary Rumsfeld told his senior advisors “I need a
recommendation.” On November 27, 2002, the Secretary got one. Notwithstanding the serious
legal concerns raised by the military services, Mr. Haynes sent a one page memo to the
Secretary, recommending that he approve all but three of the eighteen techniques in the GTMO
request. Techniques such as stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of
dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli were all recommended for approval.
(U) Mr. Haynes’s memo indicated that he had discussed the issue with Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, and General
Myers and that he believed they concurred in his recommendation. When asked what he relied
on to make his recommendation that the aggressive techniques be approved, the only written
legal opinion Mr. Haynes cited was Lieutenant Colonel Beaver’s legal analysis, which senior
military lawyers had considered “legally insufficient” and “woefully inadequate,” and which
LTC Beaver herself had expected would be supplemented with a review by persons with greater
experience than her own.
(U) On December 2, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld signed Mr. Haynes’s recommendation,
adding a handwritten note that referred to limits proposed in the memo on the use of stress
positions: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
(U) SERE school techniques are designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our
enemies. There are fundamental differences between a SERE school exercise and a real world
interrogation. At SERE school, students are subject to an extensive medical and psychological
pre-screening prior to being subjected to physical and psychological pressures. The schools
impose strict limits on the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of certain techniques.
Psychologists are present throughout SERE training to intervene should the need arise and to
help students cope with associated stress. And SERE school is voluntary; students are even
given a special phrase they can use to immediately stop the techniques from being used against
them.
(U) Neither those differences, nor the serious legal concerns that had been registered,
stopped the Secretary of Defense from approving the use of the aggressive techniques against
detainees. Moreover, Secretary Rumsfeld authorized the techniques without apparently
providing any written guidance as to how they should be administered. "

http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf

What a surprise! There will be a lot more on this. If we don't hold those who broke the law accountable, the rampant rate of lawbreaking in the Republican Party will not slow down in the slightest. It will also be a good message to Democrats not to make the same mistakes.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 3:19am
They HAVE "captured" (arrested actually) terrorists. Quite a few of them, and as far as I know not with the help of the CIA. Why would you assume such a thing?
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-24-2008
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 3:21am

That is still my favorite line in MOB!! I also laughed at it, and it still makes me smile.


Unfortunately, there are areas in which we are not the best of the best any longer. If we don't start valuing education more than we do now, we will continue our downward slide. The lack of compassion, ethics and morals, is contributing to our downward spiral. We value our sports teams and players, more than we do someone with brains! Where are our priorities?! $180 million for a baseball player, but nothing to help send kids to college. In Europe, college is paid for; here it's paid for if they can play ball...or exceptionally intelligent. We don't believe in helping those less fortunate than we are. Grrrr...lol, sorry, I'll get off my soap box now!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 3:30am
Which is exactly the problem when you decide to suspend the rule of law.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 4:13am

Because that's what the story reported...

"American authorities helped Danish security officials locate the suspects through electronic intercepts from Pakistan, just as they did in arrests the same day in a bombing plot in southern Germany, intelligence officials in Washington said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/europe/17denmark.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2008
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 9:51am

I see no difference between a "crazy person going around saying 'Yay for torture!'" and those who promulgate/defend torture or "enhanced interrogation techniques". The end result is identical either way. When we collectively adopt unscrupulous and immoral acts out of FEAR, we start down a path which has previously involved the incarceration of Nisei, the hounding of "communists" by Joe McCarthy, and a host of other episodes which are blots of shame on our nation's human rights record.

You asked and I will tell you why the nation has not been attacked again. We are safe in large part because of a significant geographical distance between us and hostile elements. Our closest neighbors aren't enemies either so they don't facilitate attacks.

It's also more difficult for a fundamentalist from the Middle East to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb, thanks to language and ethnic differences. We have learned to take seriously applicants to flying schools. BTW, there are STILL plenty of gaping holes in our "security" since box cutters, sharp implements, and imposters have regularly infiltrated our airports and planes, in some cases to prove how flawed the current system is. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security

However, there is more vigilance on the part of law enforcement officials. For example:
During the trial in Federal District Court in Camden, N.J., federal prosecutors said the men planned to attack Fort Dix and military personnel there, and had taken concrete steps to train and arm themselves. Prosecution evidence included hundreds of secretly taped conversations between the defendants and F.B.I. informants; jihadist propaganda videos recovered from one suspect’s computer; and videotapes of an illegal purchase of several machine guns.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/nyregion/23fortdix.html?em
Apparently, this was all accomplished without resorting to torture.

I have done my research about the impact and efficacy of "enhanced interrogation techniques":
http://www.charleswarner.us/articles/tortureart.htm
http://www.livescience.com/history/071019-torture-history.html
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/64/3/277
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilxw3zmT4wQaGyrHexYLTvFwFnxg
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00355

No links were provided to back up any research you may have done or support ANY contention that torture works. Strange to criticize others and then fail to provide any basis for accepting your "facts", particularly when using phrases such as "not scientifically statistically significant in foreign affairs."

Lacking proof that torture works; yet ready and willing to attribute our safety to its use..... Defies logic and morals; and violates any notion that a democracy has any better a stance towards human rights than tyrannies.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 2:05pm
Wow...I can never understand how much the left hates their own country. Big Bad USA...heads out to kill innocent women and children...just picking people up at random and throwing them in prison to be tortured...we must be terrible...whatever were we thinking?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 2:18pm
Ah! OK, yes in that particular case. There have been more than one. However, it sounded as if you were trying to suggest that torture contributed to these arrests. It does not seem that way from what you quoted.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Thu, 12-25-2008 - 6:30pm

No, I wasn't suggesting that the Danes "tortured" their suspected terrorists...but then, the US doesn't typically "torture" suspected terrorists either, so it may be a matter of policy, or it may simply be a matter of circumstance. If the Danish government felt lives were in the balance, time was an issue and believed their prisoner held important information...that would be a true test.

I also doubt that the PET has the resources of the CIA, so I suspect that the Danish government works pretty closely, and regularly, with the American government on matters of terrorism.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-24-2008
Fri, 12-26-2008 - 12:37am
The same ole right wing retoric about the left hating America, is tiresome at best...it's also erroneous. If you don't think we've torture and/or murdered innocent women and children, then you don't know your American history. I'm not saying we run rampant doing these autrocities, but neither are they. Have you read about the things some of our soldiers have done?! If not, you should. Do you know anyone who served in VietNam? You might want to have an honest discussion with them, as to what many of our troops did. War brings out the worst in people, and we aren't immune. We are not perfect, nor are we angels. People need to open their eyes, to our culpability as well. I love this country, make no mistake about it, but I am old enough to have learned of terrible things our soldiers committed in every war we have been involved in.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 12-26-2008 - 3:07am

No, that is not what I said, read again. "No, I wasn't suggesting that the Danes "tortured" their suspected terrorists"

All NATO intelligence services share information. The CIA may have some satellites and other tech stuff that the Europeans can't match. In the excerpt you posted it does sound as if the Danes had tracked these people and asked the CIA if they had anything on them. The CIA intercepts would have been confirmation that the guys were indeed bad guys, and that sort of thing can certainly be very helpful. However, most of the work involved in unraveling these kinds of plots relies on knowing the local situation really well and tracking where people go and to whom they talk.In general, the Americans are more about the tech stuff, whereas the Europeans tend to be better at humint. Also keep in mind that trans-European intelligence is extremely important most of the time. If you are interested, this report gives a good picture of the state of jihadism in Denmark. http://www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/documenten/jihad-dk.pdf

Pages