Interrogation techniques

With a single stroke of his veto pen, President Bush blocked a tough law forbidding the CIA from using despicable interrogation techniques. I am extremely disappointed that President Bush vetoed HR 2082, the Intelligence Authorization bill, which prevents the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. agents from using waterboarding, sexual humiliation, dogs and other techniques that amount to torture and ill-treatment.
I believe that torture is wrong everywhere, all the time, no matter the circumstances, and no matter which agency or country does it. It is also unwise and unfair to put people on trial based on torture-tainted evidence.
The president’s action further compounds the incalculable damage to the United States’ standing at home and abroad. I believe that the citizens of this country prefer to take the higher road.
Barbara J. Curtis
Warrensburg
Congress passed a bill to limit the methods that can be used for interrogation of this country’s prisoners. However, President Bush vetoed it. He objected because the bill would have limited intelligence agencies to interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. Congress does not have enough votes to override the veto. What a sad day for the United States. Torture is un-American and it is immoral. No good can come of it.
The lame-duck president’s position will not prevail. The next person in the Oval Office, no matter who it is, will reverse this ugliness. But by then the reputation of our country will be further eroded and further compromised.
Stephen King
Kansas City

Comments

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

solomon -

I guess I don't get your point. I'm talking about the Japanese, because Jim provided a link saying that some Japanese were hung for torture in WW2. Their acts went beyond waterboarding. Regarding what we did 100 years ago is frankly irrelevent to this conversation, except to state that we do not do those type of things now.

[Engineer]

jack
To me it seems clear that the Administration is convinced that useful information can be obtained by waterboarding. If they were not, why would they take the position they have taken and which they know will create controversy? I don't think anyone, even Rogue or I, wants to waterboard anybody just for the fun of it.

[Engineer]

Jim
As I have never heard that the information from Libi was secured by waterboarding or other means that you would call torture, I do not see how the quality of the information obtained from him pertains to the question of whether or not useful information can be obtained under duress. On another subject-the list of treaties President Bush has "withdrawn from"?

[Engineer]

newdealer
If you have experience, then you know that all intelligence gathered must be checked and evaluated. Jim's references to Libi underline that fact. But isn't the evaluation of information one of the tasks of interrogators and aren't they trained to increase their skills in doing so? We do know that fear can elicit good information. There was the case of the Lt. Col. who fired his handgun close to a captive's head to get him to divulge enemy positions. It worked like a charm.

[solomon]

Kcstar,

I made a very lengthy post here a few months back about the Congressional hearing 100 years ago concerning the actions of our soldiers during our subjagation of the Phillipines. Our soldiers did things just as horrible as the Japaneese did 35 years later. The common thread in this barbarity was racism, as both americans and Japaneese felt that the natives were beneath them. In one case President Rossevelt congratulated General Leonard Wood and his men, after the killing of 600 men, women and children, "upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and the so well upheld the honor of the American flag."...(American Violence, A Documentary History...Hofstadler and Wallace....Knopf, 1970)

This entire thread seems to have two sides in denial, it is not right and wrong that prevails, it is the nature of some people to set themselves above that you would call civilized activiity. There will be no end to it.

[stone]

One Sided- you have obviously not listened to Metallica's music lately... anything that wasn't done with a symphony is absolutely torturous to listen too!

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

Here are other documented things the Japanese did in the Philippines in WW2. I'd suggest that these are the reasons that there were hangings.

"Of the manifold instances of such torture and sadism in the Philippines, our proof will point out that in February 1945 in Manila, in the home of Bartolome Pons, a pregnant woman with an 11-month-old baby in her arms was shot and killed. The Japanese started to leave, but hearing the baby cry, he returned and killed it with two shots.

"At the Campos residence, the breast of one woman was hacked out. At St. Paul's College, a baby was hurled into the air by a Japanese soldier and impaled on the bayonet of another. At Fort Santiago, a piece of skin was sliced off the back of a prisoner's hand and he was forced to eat it. The skin on his face and arm was twisted with a pair of wooden pliers.

"At Palo, Leyte, in the Visayan Islands, three members of the Palacio family, including a woman, were arrested in February 1942, their hands tied behind their backs and hanged by the arms from the branch of a tree for five hours. They were beaten with thorn switches until they bled. On the armpits of the two male members gasoline was poured and set on fire.

"In Iloilo, on Sept. 18, 1943, Lucas Doctolero was crucified on the ground, three six-inch nails driven through each wrist and the base of his skull. In Romblon, on Nov. 17, 1943, a blind woman was dragged out of her house and stripped naked. She was hog-tied and then hanged from a tree head down.

"At Kabayo, Mountain Province, in Northern Luzon, Tayambang Chagsa was forced on two occasions, in March 1943, to drink a four-gallon can of water. A Japanese bounced on his distended belly, then he was hanged with his hands tied behind his back. While he was hanging, his G-string was set on fire, consuming all but two feet of it. The remaining portion was tied around Chagsa's head and again ignited.

"In Bacolod, Negros Occidental, a man was beaten with a club, thrown across the floor, and the next evening, he was forced to jump from a window to the asphalt pavement 20 feet below. Another was strapped to a table and his wrists burned with an alcohol flame until the odor of burnish flesh filled the room. A third man had a bayonet thrust through
his arm progressively deeper as he was questioned.

"In Dumanjug, Cebu, a three-and-a half-year-old child was bayoneted and thrown into the sea."

BTW, ... these are all cases of torture, no doubt.

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

"Considering that "conservatives" claim that they distrust the government about everything else, why are they saying we should trust the government about torture?"

Conservatives believe that the government is set up primarily to provide security to the populace. I don't think it makes sense to have private groups providing that type of service for our country.

Whether this is torture or not is up for debate. Chopping off fingers to get info...no doubt torture. Electricity to the nads.. again, not doubt. Pulling fingernails... torture. Listening to loud Metallica music... not torture. Being placed in a cold room, naked... not torture.

[newdealer]

one-sided - Now that is one thing that I can absolutely agree with you on!!! That's funny!

[newdealer]

engineer - There is no question but that torture does, indeed, provide information. A subject under torture will tell you what ever he thinks you want to hear. You can get tons of information. You just cannot rely on it as being good intelligence. Torture is not an effective interrogation technique. There is no argument about that among those professionals who have been trained in interrogation of terrorists.

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

Rogue and Jim...

But then no one expect the Spanish Inquisition..

Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....
Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency....
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
Our four... no...
Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry...
are such elements as fear, surprise...
I'll come in again.

Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!

[jack]

eng: I have many times heard: A) We obtained useful information from KSM and; B) That he was "waterboarded". I have never heard WHAT useful information was obtained and HOW we know this information could only have been gotten by waterboarding him. Seems like important info to me.

Three things I have said before:

If, in order to protect ourselves from the terrorists, we become like them, haven't we lost what is most important?

Why is it okay for use to use tactics that we have condemned when used by others.

Considering that "conservatives" claim that they distrust the government about everything else, why are they saying we should trust the government about torture?

[Jim]

Eng,

You always bring up KSM when we discuss torture.

And you always ignore the al-Libi story when we discuss torture.

Here it is again from the 11/6/05 NYT:

"A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons."

You also ignore the people who train the interrogators, the interrogators themselves, and CIA experts on torture who say that torture does not get good intel, who I've quoted here before.

Instead, you want to talk about KSM, whose statements to the military tribunal were heavily redacted by the Pentagon. Those statements, by the way, are the only thing anyone has been able to present to back up the claim that we got "actionable" intel from torturing KSM.

We're just supposed to take their word for it, I guess.

[Engineer]

Jim
The action affects only limited operations. It does not mandate the use of any method. And useful information was obtained from KSM despite what might be said. And could you list some treaties actually signed by the
Executive and approved by the legislative from which President Bush has withdrawn? A treaty is not in effect unless it is both signed by the President and approved by the Senate.

[Jim]

"Again you are the one bringing up the "Spanish Inquisiton....are you kidding me?? Where did that come from?"

Waterboarding was used routinely in the Spanish Inqusition. That's common knowledge. It would help you to at least have some basic understanding of a topic before you go spouting off as if you're an expert.

Again, you're saying that waterboarding isn't torture. But there are plenty of people with experience in the matter who say that is undeniably is torture. If the choice is between believing you, a person who doesn't even know that waterboarding was used in the Spanish Inquisition, and them, I'll choose them.

They know what they're talking about, and you don't. Plain and simple.

[solomon]

My friends,

This one will never be resolved because torture and brutality are part of all wars, done by all sides.

You can be on the side of whats right or wrong but they are moot in war. War is hell, not utopia.

[Rogue]

sorry last word should be "on", not no....

[Rogue]

Again you are the one bringing up the "Spanish Inquisiton....are you kidding me?? Where did that come from? It is like talking to a woman when you spout off!

I do not, have not, will not advocate "Torture", but I do think that the bill was horrible because it limited that field commander from effectively proscecuting the war and in particular the ability to gather intel. We must agree to disagree on that point.

Lastly, as I understand it the last rewrite of the Geneva Convention provided the same protections for terrorists who target civilians as it provides for POW's taken in combat fighting in a recognized force of a given country. That, as I understand, is why the US, and serveral other countries as well did not sign no.

[Jim]

The concept of "doing all we can to defend the nation" is not "foreign" to me.

No one is suggesting that we get the terrorists a nice pillow and blankie to sleep on while we ask them a couple of non-intrusive questions.

But using techniques that were devised by the Spanish Inquisition, used by the Nazis and the Japanese and found to be illegal in US court in the early 20th century is clearly not the American way. The concept of loving your country and wanting to preserve our freedoms while preserving who we are at the same time is obviously foreign to you. They aren't mutually exclusive, no matter how forcefully you lie to make it seem like they are.

You've applauded Bush for withdrawing from treaties when it suits him. Why not demand that we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions? If we're no longer a part of them, then we don't have to worry about the fact that we're violating them.

[Rogue]

Again Lib Jim, you guys are the ones using the word "torture", and I recall the so-called "experts" you referenced in the last discussion. None of these experts have ever advocated that we disclose our interrogation techniqus to our enemies. If so, show me that quote and I will show you an idiot.

Torture is not my "fetish", I simply believe n doing all we can to defend the nation. That is no doubt a concept that is foreign to you. By the way I do not condone "torture" either, but I do beleive that we should aggressively interrogate all captives in the war on terror. The President was absolutely correct in vetoing this horrible legislation.