A sin of ommission?

[Bullypulpit]

All that existential philosophical bullshit means nothing if one is trying to find a bomb planted in a school

The "ticking time bomb" scenario is a popular myth used by right wing-nuts to justify torture.

 

[editec]

Nothing is going to be done about it.

Now that Bush II broke the damn this torture option is too useful for all administrations that follow to give up.

 

[Skull Pilot]

All that existential philosophical bullshit means nothing if one is trying to find a bomb planted in a school

The "ticking time bomb" scenario is a popular myth used by right wing-nuts to justify torture.

So if there was credible information that would have saved more than 3000 lives on 9/11/2001 and it could not be gotten in time but by torture you would just let the towers come down?

The ticking time bomb scenario as you call it, thus implying that it is somehow fiction, has already happened once hasn't it?

 

[Skull Pilot]

The Memos Prove We Didn't Torture - WSJ.com

The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.

Interrogations were to be "continuously monitored" and "the interrogation team will stop the use of particular techniques or the interrogation altogether if the detainee's medical or psychological conditions indicates that the detainee might suffer significant physical or mental harm."

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo describes the practice of "walling" -- recently revealed in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which suggested that detainees wore a "collar" used to "forcefully bang the head and body against the wall" before and during interrogation. In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a "flexible false wall," designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades -- not head -- were the point of contact, and the "collar" was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.

The memo says the point was to inflict psychological uncertainty, not physical pain: "the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action."

Shackling and confinement in a small space (generally used to create discomfort and muscle fatigue) were also part of the CIA program, but they were subject to stringent time and manner limitations. Abu Zubaydah (a top bin Laden lieutenant) had a fear of insects. He was, therefore, to be put in a "cramped confinement box" and told a stinging insect would be put in the box with him. In fact, the CIA proposed to use a harmless caterpillar. Confinement was limited to two hours.

The memos are also revealing about the practice of "waterboarding," about which there has been so much speculative rage from the program's opponents. The practice, used on only three individuals, involved covering the nose and mouth with a cloth and pouring water over the cloth to create a drowning sensation.

This technique could be used for up to 40 seconds -- although the CIA orally informed Justice Department lawyers that it would likely not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time. Unlike the exaggerated claims of so many Bush critics, the memos make clear that water was not actually expected to enter the detainee's lungs, and that measures were put in place to prevent complications if this did happen and to ensure that the individual did not develop respiratory distress.

All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military's own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.

The actual intelligence benefits of the CIA program are also detailed in these memos. The CIA believed, evidently with good reason, that the enhanced interrogation program had indeed produced actionable intelligence about al Qaeda's plans. First among the resulting successes was the prevention of a "second wave" of al Qaeda attacks, to be carried out by an "east Asian" affiliate, which would have involved the crashing of another airplane into a building in Los Angeles.

The interrogation techniques described in these memos are indisputably harsh, but they fall well short of "torture." They were developed and deployed at a time of supreme peril, as a means of preventing future attacks on innocent civilians both in the U.S. and abroad.

The dedicated public servants at the CIA and Justice Department -- who even the Obama administration has concluded should not be prosecuted -- clearly cared intensely about staying within the law as well as protecting the American homeland. These memos suggest that they achieved both goals in a manner fully consistent with American values.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey, who served in the Justice Department under George H.W. Bush, were U.S. delegates to the U.N. Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

 

[Bullypulpit]

The Memos Prove We Didn't Torture - WSJ.com

The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.

Interrogations were to be "continuously monitored" and "the interrogation team will stop the use of particular techniques or the interrogation altogether if the detainee's medical or psychological conditions indicates that the detainee might suffer significant physical or mental harm."

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo describes the practice of "walling" -- recently revealed in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which suggested that detainees wore a "collar" used to "forcefully bang the head and body against the wall" before and during interrogation. In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a "flexible false wall," designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades -- not head -- were the point of contact, and the "collar" was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.

The memo says the point was to inflict psychological uncertainty, not physical pain: "the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action."

Shackling and confinement in a small space (generally used to create discomfort and muscle fatigue) were also part of the CIA program, but they were subject to stringent time and manner limitations. Abu Zubaydah (a top bin Laden lieutenant) had a fear of insects. He was, therefore, to be put in a "cramped confinement box" and told a stinging insect would be put in the box with him. In fact, the CIA proposed to use a harmless caterpillar. Confinement was limited to two hours.

The memos are also revealing about the practice of "waterboarding," about which there has been so much speculative rage from the program's opponents. The practice, used on only three individuals, involved covering the nose and mouth with a cloth and pouring water over the cloth to create a drowning sensation.

This technique could be used for up to 40 seconds -- although the CIA orally informed Justice Department lawyers that it would likely not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time. Unlike the exaggerated claims of so many Bush critics, the memos make clear that water was not actually expected to enter the detainee's lungs, and that measures were put in place to prevent complications if this did happen and to ensure that the individual did not develop respiratory distress.

All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military's own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.

The actual intelligence benefits of the CIA program are also detailed in these memos. The CIA believed, evidently with good reason, that the enhanced interrogation program had indeed produced actionable intelligence about al Qaeda's plans. First among the resulting successes was the prevention of a "second wave" of al Qaeda attacks, to be carried out by an "east Asian" affiliate, which would have involved the crashing of another airplane into a building in Los Angeles.

The interrogation techniques described in these memos are indisputably harsh, but they fall well short of "torture." They were developed and deployed at a time of supreme peril, as a means of preventing future attacks on innocent civilians both in the U.S. and abroad.

The dedicated public servants at the CIA and Justice Department -- who even the Obama administration has concluded should not be prosecuted -- clearly cared intensely about staying within the law as well as protecting the American homeland. These memos suggest that they achieved both goals in a manner fully consistent with American values.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey, who served in the Justice Department under George H.W. Bush, were U.S. delegates to the U.N. Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

Please note Article I Para 1 of the UN Convention Against Torture...

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means 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, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The techniques outlined in the memos fall well within that definition of torture, you tool. And that includes water-boarding which has been prosecuted as a war crime by the US for over 100 years. Never mind that the legal arguments put forth in them are regarded by many legal scholars to be shoddy and so flimsy as to laughable, were the subject not so sobering. Dismissed...tool.

 

[Indiana Oracle]

You gotta take some more time looking around the board. Most people here refuse to believe that there was any torture going on, because Bush is American, and because this is America, so it just doesn't happen, and whatever this whole "waterboarding" thing is about, it's better left under the rug, and we better not worry ourselves too much about it. And that's because torture is bad, but 'we're' good, so 'we' can't be committing torture. It doesn't make any sense! And even then, even if 'WE' are torturing people (which is impossible because 'we're' good and torture is 'bad'), then it must be for the general good- and the government knows that, they know exactly what is acceptable torture and unacceptable torture, and well, interrogations are like sausages anyway! (Better not know how they're made).

Nonsense. There a few posters here who blindly believe or believed in Bush. Afraid I cannot say the same for those of the left persuasion now in the thrall of The Prophet. As the saying goes, if you do not believe in anything, you will believe anything.

 

[Indiana Oracle]

All that existential philosophical bullshit means nothing if one is trying to find a bomb planted in a school

The "ticking time bomb" scenario is a popular myth used by right wing-nuts to justify torture.

So if there was credible information that would have saved more than 3000 lives on 9/11/2001 and it could not be gotten in time but by torture you would just let the towers come down?

The ticking time bomb scenario as you call it, thus implying that it is somehow fiction, has already happened once hasn't it?

Look, if you have the luxury of time you can use psychological interrogation. It can work under those circumstances. One of the things that (horrors) made Guantanamo a good approach despite all its other flaws (like making its existence public for example) was injecting time into the equation. Am reasonable sure that is what the Colonel was referring to. Any military/CIA person with an intelligence background will say the same thing.

But he also knows that when time and danger are a problem and you are charged with protecting against a potentially advancing attack, all bets are pretty much off I can tell you. If these naive clowns trying to bend public opinion on this were to have an honest purpose to what they are doing, they would say that. Ever heard one of these single issue bell ringers come at you with a balanced view? If he did, the MSM would probably not run with it.

 

[Bullypulpit]

The "ticking time bomb" scenario is a popular myth used by right wing-nuts to justify torture.

So if there was credible information that would have saved more than 3000 lives on 9/11/2001 and it could not be gotten in time but by torture you would just let the towers come down?

The ticking time bomb scenario as you call it, thus implying that it is somehow fiction, has already happened once hasn't it?

Look, if you have the luxury of time you can use psychological interrogation. It can work under those circumstances. One of the things that (horrors) made Guantanamo a good approach despite all its other flaws (like making its existence public for example) was injecting time into the equation. Am reasonable sure that is what the Colonel was referring to. Any military/CIA person with an intelligence background will say the same thing.

But he also knows that when time and danger are a problem and you are charged with protecting against a potentially advancing attack, all bets are pretty much off I can tell you. If these naive clowns trying to bend public opinion on this were to have an honest purpose to what they are doing, they would say that. Ever heard one of these single issue bell ringers come at you with a balanced view? If he did, the MSM would probably not run with it.

The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as
possible-in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss
oflife-has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture. Conceptually,
proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. In
essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time consuming
conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the
assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate intelligence.
History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption. - JPRA Memo

Pwned.

 

[Skull Pilot]

So if there was credible information that would have saved more than 3000 lives on 9/11/2001 and it could not be gotten in time but by torture you would just let the towers come down?

The ticking time bomb scenario as you call it, thus implying that it is somehow fiction, has already happened once hasn't it?

Look, if you have the luxury of time you can use psychological interrogation. It can work under those circumstances. One of the things that (horrors) made Guantanamo a good approach despite all its other flaws (like making its existence public for example) was injecting time into the equation. Am reasonable sure that is what the Colonel was referring to. Any military/CIA person with an intelligence background will say the same thing.

But he also knows that when time and danger are a problem and you are charged with protecting against a potentially advancing attack, all bets are pretty much off I can tell you. If these naive clowns trying to bend public opinion on this were to have an honest purpose to what they are doing, they would say that. Ever heard one of these single issue bell ringers come at you with a balanced view? If he did, the MSM would probably not run with it.

The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as
possible-in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss
oflife-has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture. Conceptually,
proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. In
essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time consuming
conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the
assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate intelligence.
History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption. - JPRA Memo

Pwned.

YAWN.

That information was obtained that foiled an attack on the L.A. Library tower refutes your assumption that the aggressive interrogation techniques do not work.

And to follow your logic that torture does not result in credible information, ever, then the techniques used at Gitmo must not have been torture because they did result in credible information.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Look, if you have the luxury of time you can use psychological interrogation. It can work under those circumstances. One of the things that (horrors) made Guantanamo a good approach despite all its other flaws (like making its existence public for example) was injecting time into the equation. Am reasonable sure that is what the Colonel was referring to. Any military/CIA person with an intelligence background will say the same thing.

But he also knows that when time and danger are a problem and you are charged with protecting against a potentially advancing attack, all bets are pretty much off I can tell you. If these naive clowns trying to bend public opinion on this were to have an honest purpose to what they are doing, they would say that. Ever heard one of these single issue bell ringers come at you with a balanced view? If he did, the MSM would probably not run with it.

The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as
possible-in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss
oflife-has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture. Conceptually,
proponents envision the application of torture as a means to expedite the exploitation process. In
essence, physical and/or psychological duress are viewed as an alternative to the more time consuming
conventional interrogation process. The error inherent in this line of thinking is the
assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate intelligence.
History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption. - JPRA Memo

Pwned.

YAWN.

That information was obtained that foiled an attack on the L.A. Library tower refutes your assumption that the aggressive interrogation techniques do not work.

And to follow your logic that torture does not result in credible information, ever, then the techniques used at Gitmo must not have been torture because they did result in credible information.

Again, even though you will not do it, provide documentation to support your assertion. Given the moral cowardice and intellectual bankruptcy you have displayed thus far, I'm not expecting anything.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Pwned.

YAWN.

That information was obtained that foiled an attack on the L.A. Library tower refutes your assumption that the aggressive interrogation techniques do not work.

And to follow your logic that torture does not result in credible information, ever, then the techniques used at Gitmo must not have been torture because they did result in credible information.

Again, even though you will not do it, provide documentation to support your assertion. Given the moral cowardice and intellectual bankruptcy you have displayed thus far, I'm not expecting anything.

there have been other posts by me and others that have cited articles stating that information was obtained thet foiled an attack. go read them.

 

[Bullypulpit]

YAWN.

That information was obtained that foiled an attack on the L.A. Library tower refutes your assumption that the aggressive interrogation techniques do not work.

And to follow your logic that torture does not result in credible information, ever, then the techniques used at Gitmo must not have been torture because they did result in credible information.

Again, even though you will not do it, provide documentation to support your assertion. Given the moral cowardice and intellectual bankruptcy you have displayed thus far, I'm not expecting anything.

there have been other posts by me and others that have cited articles stating that information was obtained thet foiled an attack. go read them.

You've proved my point...coward.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Again, even though you will not do it, provide documentation to support your assertion. Given the moral cowardice and intellectual bankruptcy you have displayed thus far, I'm not expecting anything.

there have been other posts by me and others that have cited articles stating that information was obtained thet foiled an attack. go read them.

You've proved my point...coward.

the only point you have is the one on your head.

You've seen the links to articles why should I post them again when you didn't read them the first time?

 

[Bullypulpit]

there have been other posts by me and others that have cited articles stating that information was obtained thet foiled an attack. go read them.

You've proved my point...coward.

the only point you have is the one on your head.

You've seen the links to articles why should I post them again when you didn't read them the first time?

I did. They're op-ed pieces, not evidence to support your assertions. So go file the point off of yer own head. Your skull merkin will stay on better.

 

[Skull Pilot]

You've proved my point...coward.

the only point you have is the one on your head.

You've seen the links to articles why should I post them again when you didn't read them the first time?

I did. They're op-ed pieces, not evidence to support your assertions. So go file the point off of yer own head. Your skull merkin will stay on better.

If you're trying to be witty, at least use the word "merkin" correctly.

 

[Bullypulpit]

the only point you have is the one on your head.

You've seen the links to articles why should I post them again when you didn't read them the first time?

I did. They're op-ed pieces, not evidence to support your assertions. So go file the point off of yer own head. Your skull merkin will stay on better.

If you're trying to be witty, at least use the word "merkin" correctly.

I know what a merkin is and, in your case, I'm using it appropriately. That it took you this long to find out what it meant is quite pathetic.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I did. They're op-ed pieces, not evidence to support your assertions. So go file the point off of yer own head. Your skull merkin will stay on better.

If you're trying to be witty, at least use the word "merkin" correctly.

I know what a merkin is and, in your case, I'm using it appropriately. That it took you this long to find out what it meant is quite pathetic.

once again you assume i don't know something. m It's not my job to point out your incorrect use of words but since you continued to use the word improperly, i got tired of it.

And since you think there is a point to be filed off so a merkin fits better,you are obviously unfamiliar with the female anatomy as well.

 

[Bullypulpit]

If you're trying to be witty, at least use the word "merkin" correctly.

I know what a merkin is and, in your case, I'm using it appropriately. That it took you this long to find out what it meant is quite pathetic.

once again you assume i don't know something. m It's not my job to point out your incorrect use of words but since you continued to use the word improperly, i got tired of it.

And since you think there is a point to be filed off so a merkin fits better,you are obviously unfamiliar with the female anatomy as well.

AS I said, in your case, I'm using it properly.

 

[Bullypulpit]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx2Nky_PR1c]Military Leaders Speak Out Against Torture[/ame]​