Tuesday, September 19, 2006
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CIA Interrogation Techniques: Witness the Horror!
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Posted by:
Mary Katharine Ham at
5:18 PM
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John McCain has been alternately parading around the Northeast and the capital this week proclaiming that our moral compass will point due terrorist if we dare to clarify the text of Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions for our intelligence officers.
Colin Powell has been preening his moral feathers as well.
Here's the part of Common Article Three in question (you can read it all at the link):
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
"Outrages upon personal dignity?" Pretty vague, I'd agree.
Then, I read about the secret torturous techniques the CIA wants to be able to use:
The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the "belly slap"; and sound and light manipulation.
So, I started doing some serious citizen journalizing on this story. I mean, if someone's leaking the interrogation techniques, maybe they're leaking tapes of the interrogations as well. I didn't have to go far to find these travesties, each one of which, for the record, makes me weep with heart-ache for the future of my country and its appalling lack of moral GPS.
Just be prepared before you click.
Induced hypothermia:
That shiver you feel is the American soul leaving your body.
"Attention slap":
Gobsmackingly fascistic.
"Belly-slap":
Belly-smackingly vile.
Sleep deprivation:
Curse you, Bushitler!
Sound and light manipulation:
This one's actually kinda cool if you're high, but the American government almost never lets the terrorists get high. Little teetotaling Eichmanns!
All right, all right, I jest, but there's a "larger truth" here. If the majority of interrogation techniques McCain and Co. are threatening will put us on the same moral plane as our enemies can be found in You Tube videos of drunk college students, that argument becomes rather ridiculous.
Or, opportunistic. It could go either way, and neither way's good.
For my part, I think McCain's seriously overestimating the electoral good will this will earn him. Good press, yeah, but if he wants a primary win, he's gonna have to start wooing some people like me, and he doesn't have all that much time left to do it. Between making up for this, McCain-Feingold and the Gang of 14 display, he's got a busy schedule ahead of him. But the the noble maverick must buck, I reckon.
Update: I forgot to add the actual news, which is that McCain wants a compromise. Warner is 50-50 on the chances of getting something done this week, and the White House is apparently changing the bill to appease the Gang of 14 alums, though there are no details on how (scroll down).
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"(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;"
Eek, that means that geeks across the country have had their rights violated every time they attend gym class. |
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Pink Belly! Pink Belly! Pink Belly!
Torture is fun! |
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MKH,
Yeah, when I first saw the infamous Abu Ghraib photos, I was reminded more of my own college days rather than the hyberbolic left-wing comparisons to the Gulag.
Lots of dudes in American colleges spend thousands of dollars of year to be sleep deprived, and wear panties on their head while listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers !
On top of that, while the lefties are making erroneous comparisons to the Gulag---I don't ever recall them being particularly animated about the 'real' Gulag during the Cold War, nor Castro's prisons, for that matter.
After all, Jimmy Carter and Steven Spielberg sure do love that Fidel Castro.
And if lefties are truly so animated about 'abuse' in prison, why do so many of them walk around wearing Che Guevara t-shirts ?
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was tortured in horrifying fashion by the North Vietnamese. There is no way that he is ever going to sign off on ANYTHING that even smells like what he went through. You may not like it, but he is that rare breed of politician who actually stands on a principle. As for face and belly slaps, you can definately do it in a way that does damage. I have little sympathy for terror suspects, yet I wonder at what point we slip over the edge of moral conduct. For now, I can give the benefit of the doubt to the President, but I think we may hear of criminal conduct at some point coming out of this where a suspect is maimed or killed during interrogation. What do we do then? |
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celtic-dragon,
Respectfully, you make the point AGAINST McCain's position.
As you point out, Geneva did NOT protect John McCain from torture by the North Vietnamese---and McCain was clearly a uniformed soldier representing a state.
Evil regimes, and evil state-less terrorists are not motivated by the parameters of Geneva.
They are going to torture our men, regardless of international agreements about war.
By definition, acts of terrorism committed by non-uniformed, state-less 'combatants' is ALREADY in violation of the international protocols of war.
Therefore, it is already established that our opposition is not interested in adhering to any international agreement.
On the other hand, if we can coerce detainees into providing us with useful information, we may be able to save lives.
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This list of interrogation techniques has already been reproduced on a copy machine in Tehran. It's being circulated throughout the Muslim world as we speak, and every non-uniformed soldier of Allah now konws precisely what to expect if he is captured.
Our ability to interrogate is ALREADY demolished by this craven, brainless moral preening by "leaders" like McCain.
Don't bother telling me McCain stands on principle. The only principle that man knows is "This will help me get elected President." The inability of some Americans to see a man's character from his public actions is truly frightening; what have we become? |
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I've heard (ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866) waterboarding is one of the techniques in question as well. Funny that Ms. Ham's "article" fails to mention this technique.
"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess. "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.[2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-boarding
Is this what we've come to? Is this the example we want to set for the rest of the world? |
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Excellent posts! I find it interesting that McCain and The Gang are asserting that our "enemies" are going to adhere to some sort of "appropriate" behavior when they've captured our soldiers, most especially terrorists.
I suppose the torture, cutting off the soldier's pen*s and putting in his mouth, dragging his dead body through the town and then beheading him wouldn't be high on McCain's list of appropriateness, so what makes someone like McCain think that anyone who would perform the acts I've described would EVER agree to the light-hearted techniques that he's proposing? Are you kidding me?
They are terrorists. They are the enemy. They have no conscience. They seek death of us. They don't care.
I'm not sure why McCain and The Gang don't seem to get this point. And I'm finding his use of the credential that he was a war hero who was tortured, running thin these days. There are only so many times you can go to that well.
Using the argument, "we don't want to be like them" is missing the point to begin with and that is, WE WERE NEVER LIKE THEM TO BEGIN WITH.
Finally, I can't wait for the Senate Hearings to begin when we are attacked again here in the U.S. and we find out that our "techniques" would have gleaned information to stop it.
Keep your eye on the ball people, don't get caught in the political cr*p. |
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The Manchurian Candidate cannot be trusted. |
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with regard to your post....SO WHAT? I don't care if they have to sing sissy songs to 'em to get the information or make 'em watch gay porn, I want our CIA, Soldier's, and anyone else involved in the fight, to do what they need to in order to fight this fight.
Don't be such a wuss. |
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Look, this is not the movies, o.k. This is not some Sly Stallone flick where people scream when they are tortured and the lights go up and you go home to snuggle up with your wife. This is reality. If you've ever broken a bone or had an eye injury or thought you might drown or had someone actually beat you up, you might feel differently about how innocuous "torture" is.
So here are the two main arguments for torture (can't believe we even have to have this discussion):
1) There are American lives at risk from terrorists and we should do EVERYTHING possible to glean information to prevent that risk from coming to pass.
and
2) They are TERRORISTS and they do far worse to American citizens and soldiers then anything we're talking about in the current debate.
So, argument 1): Most experts agree that torture is not the best method of obtaining information from captives. Garbage in, garbage out.
"Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html
As for argument 2 which is basicaly that "they do it too!" I mean, wow. Are you people that barbaric. There has to be somehting that separates "us" from "them". How can we say that America is the baest country in the world when we torture. How can we say that our society should be emulated when we torture. When we adopt the tactics of our enemies we BECOME the enemy.
Should Martin Luther King have pushed for Blacks in the 60's to use the same tactics that were used to terrorize them? Should Blacks have started lynching people because "they do it too?"
I also find it amusing that most of the people pushing for torture and military intervention have generally never seen combat nor been in any serious danger in their pathetic, bloated, jingoistic, war-mongering lives.
Sincerely, A Wuss
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tubbs:
Argument 1 is fake. If, as you say, "torture" is a lousy way to get information, don't you suppose the military and CIA know this? You even quote a military source for the assessment. So we can infer that the techniques currently in use by these agencies, who know what works and what does not, DO NOT FIT THEIR DEFINITION OF TORTURE!
In other words, your evidence is the evidence demonstrating that the US does not torture, and we're debating nothing but false accusations from America's long-term enemies.
Argument 2 is even worse. We're not saying "They do just as bad," and if you actually think that's what we're arguing, you can't read. We never, on our worst days, reach the place of dementia or moral filth that they reach when they get up in the morning and scratch themselves. If we use rough methods to drag out of these beasts what attacks they have planned, we might, on occasion, borrow a comma or an exclamation point from the Quran-length book they live by.
That's the cost of fighting demons -- you have to take on some aspects of demonization yourself in order to match their ferocity. And it does change us, a little; but it's never changed us enough to even CONCEIVE of the evil they plot on a daily basis, and it won't this time, either.
Perhaps you'd have a little better luck persuading us that we're doing the wrong thing if you could demonstrate that ANY of the techniques currently in use against our enemies have never been used in prior wars. 'Cause from where I sit, we've done it all before, and it's never dragged us down to the level of the Fascists. Or perhaps you could provide an instance, just one, of ANY nation, at ANY time, that did not vigorously question captured enemies for the chance of saving some of their own soldiers. |
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Fyi, waterboarding isn't mentioned because it's not on the list of CIA techniques leaked to the Guardian, which I linked to and excerpted for your convenience. Why is it not on the list? Because it's been reported that Bush has agreed to drop it from the list of techniques in private negotiations: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14871154/site/newsweek/
It's understandable if you missed that. The press has been kinda quiet about it, given that waterboarding is one of their favorite things to scream about-- it being a little more effective an argument than calling the belly slap, "torture."
Celtic dragon, I have to disagree about McCain being a man of principle all the time, though he undoubtedly is much of the time. Notice he's doing his "moral authority tour" mostly in New Hampshire. Curious. It's not all a political ploy, but some of it is.
And, tubbs, I have almost drowned before, and I'm betting many people on this thread have broken bones and been in fights. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but my experience doesn't make me feel different. |
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Surely you know that the phrase "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;" is vague on purpose. If you have a laundry list of outlawed items then it could be taken that anything not mentioned in the list is approved. Also you can not possibly compare a sleepy college student with a prisoner that has been denied sleep for an extended period and is being questioned in a threatening and intimidating environment. What are we fighting for if we treat people the same way the dictator we deposed did? If we can't show the world that there is a better way, what reason do they have to follow us? |
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I don't ever recall them being particularly animated about the 'real' Gulag during the Cold War,
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I'll bet you were in grade school during the cold war and you didn't pay a lick of attention to world affairs. There was an effort to force the Soviets to observe human rights in the gulags, also in many south american countries. BTW if you were in grade school then how come you're not in the military now? The best way to show your support is to join. |
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I have an idea, Lets give in to what McCain is saying, but with one caveat.
No prisoner shall have better food, shelter, clothing, amenities etc. than ANY U.S. soldier. Especially infantry. Better yet, our government should only provide our prisoners with what is left over by our soldiers. |
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Generally speaking, prisoners exist because they were viewed as combatants who would be a future combatant,too. Some have no intelligence value, and certainly would never be subject to any extreme interrogation techniques. They are detained to keep from having to fight them again. Others have some intelligence value. This value varies, and initial screening attempts to sort them into categories indicating what value they have, and what happens to them. I do not think anything revealed about Abu Grahib or Guantanamo Bay indicates that real torture happens officially under military orders. CIA probably only sees prisoners that might be considered higher value intelligence sources, or who were captured outside of military operations.
These are considered bad folks.
If there is no intelligence that can be obtained, more than his name, rank, and serial number, then prisoners are a pain to take, care for, feed, transport, and merely keep from fighting them again. As the old, old saying goes, "take no prisoners!", or "he tried to escape."
This is the fifty-cent solution, and has been part of military operations unfortunately since recorded history. The United States has not been using this technique, to speak of, since the start of the 20th Century, but I bet it has happened. If prisoner treatment is severely restricted to what McCain and all other U.S. pow's would have wanted for themselves, then this solution will informally be reinstated.
Military training probably still says to try to withhold more than name, rank, and serial number, of course. But everyone knows that Germans, Japanese, Koreans, VC, Chinese, Russians, American Indians, Federal troops in the 1860's, the British in 1775-1814, Spanish in 1898, and our Iraqi (etc.) enemies now would/will do whatever they had to do to obtain any information a G.I. had. Eventually.
The Geneva Conventions seem only applicable when the Americans, the British today, or some of our allies capture prisoners. It is immaterial who signed these treaties. |
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Anyone who thinks that torture allows only the acts mentioned above is naive, drugged, or living in a broom closet.
This is an attempt to make voters rest comfortably in the thought that it's not really serious, it really won't corrupt our already corrupted values and morality because it's actually fun.
I can't wait until I hear the next so-called Christian or overbearing, sanctimonious conservative talk about the American moral fibre. We are the country that sent hundreds of our own citizens to concentration camps in WWII. The ugly fact is, we are capable of anything and everything, and Bush will lead the way. |
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Yes, McCain was tortured. Especially in the mental category. If ever there was a mentally unstable candidate, it is McCain. Does being imprisoned by the enemy make one a top notch candidate? What about the vice-presidential candidate who ran with Perot? |
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