solarbird | Torture states love

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Yeah, and "waterboarding isn't torture" is a load of crap and a direct product of redefining torture as is politically convenient for the people backing the use of torture. It was torture when the US rightly condemned the Khmer Rouge for it; it was torture when the US rightly condemned the USSR for it; it's still torture when the US suddenly pretends it isn't, and all the holding-your-breath-and-turning-blue about it not be doesn't change that.

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your world is a sad and terrible place.

i'll admit it. i lol'd.

Being sincerely convinced you've died is not anguish? I'll grant that I am not a mother-tongue speaker of your language, but that argument seems a bit hard to swallow.

The Laws of War (which I suspect your country has by now formally repudiated) specify that prisoners, detainees and Protected Persons (under Geneva) are to be treated with dignity, in a manner similar to that by which one's own troops are treated. Same rations, same housing, same expectation to perform necessary work for their own maintenance. Nowhere in there, nowhere, does it ever say that maltreatment is permissible. And frequently noted is the principle that maltreatment is forbidden. We have the historic example of Bataan, and others, to provide an example of how not to conduct conflict.

And that is regardless of the provocation. Sure, that's one of the glaring asymmetries of irregular and guerilla warfare, but if we stoop to a level of savagery, then that is what we have become. Savages.

Never on my watch, thank you.

Dude, what about when the terrorists ARE citizens?

Here are the doctrinal references, from American sources (Training and Doctrine Command, but widely adapted under NATO standardisation agreements); all of these were still currently in force at the time that I retired (except perhaps for field manual 27-2, which was up for revision although I don't know how far that got). None are classified. If I can find online references to these I will send them presently; but for now, this is a start.

Field Manual 27-2, Your Conduct in Combat Under the Laws of War, Nov 1984. This manual explains the Law of War in very simple terms and highlights those laws that soldiers are most likely to encounter.

Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, July 1956, combines into one document a complete text of the Geneva/Hague Conventions.

Field Manual 19-40, Enemy Prisoners of War, Civilian Internees, and Detained Persons, Feb 1976, provides guidance for the treatment of detainees from point of capture, through evacuation to internment and release from captivity.

Training Circular 27-10-1, June 1979, Selected Problems in the Law of War.

Training Circular 27-10-2, September 1980, Prisoners of War.

Training Circular 27-10-3, April 1985, Instructor's Guide to the Law of War.

I used to have copies of all of these in my working library: when I retired, I passed them back to folks who were still serving, and who would find them useful (none of these were universal issue for us, owing to budget constraints). The 27-series TCs were meant for company, squadron or battery-level training exercises, typically for 'tailgate training' in theb field. The idea all along was to put the ground rules in simple, comprehensible and teachable form. Nowhere in there was maltreatment of prisoners ever suggested, advocated, or permitted; contrarily, the case-studies and problems presented explained why, despite occasional severe provocation, the rights, dignity and well-being of prisoners and other detainees was paramount.

If the command guidance has changed recently, and it might well have, in my deeply-held opinion this was a change to the ill. Warfare, to the extent that it is just and conscionable at all, has clearly definable limits. Torture in any way, shape or form goes beyond those clear limits.

Edited 2007-11-14 01:47 (UTC)

Are you going to make me play this stupid fucking game for you? Are you really going to make me do this?

Christ.

Fine. I'll do better. Here, American soldiers court-marshalled for waterboarding in Vietnam:

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

"The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College. [src]

Also, you'll find that the US held the same position in the Spanish-American War. But okay, here's Americans pressing war-crimes charges for waterboarding against a Japanese soldier after World War II:

in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said. [src]

Here is part of a transcript from another WWII waterboarding war-crimes trial, for another Japanese officer. Here are more (some repetition). Here are several more.

Does "tried, convicted, and sentenced" count as condemnation?

Here's a picture of the waterboarding equipment used by the Khmer Rouge a few short years after the US army was court-marshalling soldiers for waterboarding. This being one of their principal methods of torture, we can safely assume that this is one of the torture methods prosecuted as war crimes later. The US Navy includes waterboarding in its torture-resistance training programme, because it's torture. Here's a bit of older history on the "water cure," or water torture, or, as we're calling it today, waterboarding, between 1620 and 1940, with references and quotes from original material. President Theodore Roosevelt condemned waterboarding (under another name) in the 19th century. I can't link to the 1949 New York Times article discussion how the Soviet Union forces fake confessions through water torture, but here's a Salon article discussion some of the history of water tortures, all of which are defended by their practitioners the same way you're defending this latest current iteration.

This is stupid. It's all a pointless game of redefinition that comes down to "it's okay if it's us," and quite frankly, I'm just not buying in. And I'm also not buying that "people who oppose torture want the US to lose" line. Fuck that, and fuck you for throwing it at me.

Edited 2007-11-14 01:37 (UTC)

Okay, so I disagree and want to see the stuff which I figured you had so I could read it. That's playing a game? I would like to point out your continual theme of 'torture states (fill in the blank)'.

I'm not of the opinion that 'it's okay for us but no one else' either. I'm curious as to if waterboarding then is the same as it is now.

And I was saying that if you take away all the tools of intelligence (which you have agreed with in at least once case, getting all upset over intelligence gathering of calls that go outside the country) don't be surprised if people reach for tools you like even less.

And excuse me for entering into a conversation that I would never have entered into if I wasn't honestly interesting in hearing more than your (recent) over the top rhetoric in order to see if you might have a point that would convince me. I told you why I feel the way I do. I asked for more information to consider.

I could say more, but what's the point? I will read the links you put here in response, and I will not bother you again.

Yes, waterboarding is the same, now; slightly "improved" for intensity of effect, if anything.

For the record, I'm not deleting the comments shown as "deleted" above. The original poster is.

Also, I've credited you with a good knowledge of history. These things are obvious to people who are historically aware. Accordingly, I did not presume the question was in good faith. I apologise for that assumption if indeed it actually was.

As I have been given to understand it from various sources, waterboarding as practiced today doesn't actually introduce water into the body of the subject. Yes in the cases you cited water got into the stomach, mouth and even lungs, and it caused unconciousness. If ANY of that is happening in what they are doing today, then yes I am opposed to it. It is okay to cause fear in interrogations of terrorists, they fall outside of the conventions, but it still needs to be done carefully and only in rare cases of special need. But if they're getting water in the stomachs or lungs or even mouth then it's wrong.

If I ever claim that you are incapable of making any kind of concession, then I'm a liar.

Personally, if it were up to me, I'd just kill them all.

Well, I'm glad it's not up to you.

Your fractured viewpoint is not based in reality, much as you and the rest of the braindead right wing idiots think otherwise.

"...I'd just kill them all."

A substantial proportion of the troops would be quite willing to do just that. I fear that we will see more of that attitude as the war progresses.

This is *the* mistake, dude. Means. Ends. All that bringing anguish does is bring anguish; it doesn't keep people safe. It doesn't matter how much you think you're trying to keep people safe while doing it. It doesn't matter how much you *say* you're trying to keep people safe while doing it. You need a spirit of service, a heart for protecting *everybody*, and an ironclad *devotion* to the rule of law if you want to make a difference and save people's lives and liberties.

Or else all you're doing is tormenting people with one hand and writing your legal defense with the other.

The purpose of it is to scare and maybe even terrorize people you need information from

See, to me, that's pretty much the dictionary definition of torture. Otherwise you're arguing as to just how inhumane you can be, just how badly you can hurt someone -- is it OK if you provide medical care after, so they'll heal? What about if you do something really painful that has no chance of injury? -- before you're suddenly the bad guy. Rather than arguing how many bamboo slivers make the tortuous beard, I'd just avoid the issue completely.

One of the better "decent right" websites out there is Evangelical Outpost, written by a guy who works for the Family Research Council, one of Solarbird's mortal enemies. But in this case, he's right: he is deeply ashamed that "my fellow Christians have ... treated an issue once considered unthinkable--the acceptability of torture--like a concept worthy of honest debate. But there is no room for debate: torture is immoral and should be clearly and forcefully denounced. We continue to shame ourselves and our Creator by refusing to speak out against such outrages to human dignity." (Go read the original; I do no violence to his intent with that ellipsis.)

The real horror here is the number of people who continue to support torture and try to turn the guy's words against him.

It seems to me that America is just acting like a big ol' whore here. You know the old Churchill joke: "Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?" "Why yes!" "Then would you sleep with me for ten?" "What kind of woman do you think I am?" "We have established that. We are simply haggling over your price."

Ameria is haggling over the price of its soul. Banner just wants to bid low.

Banner is basically an eager officer in Room 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101): the true torturer's art is not in leaving marks or inflicting pain, but in leaving the victim in such a state of compliance that they'll say and do whatever the torturer wants of them. The point of torture is not to extract information: everything we know says, contrary to popular opinion, "common sense," and Jack Bauer, torture does not extract information. It merely extracts compliance.

Waterboarding may well leave the body undamaged.

Banner doesn't care about a man's soul. Not even when he's wrong. (http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/004068.html) ()

Three words: Bull. Fucking. Shit.

It's torture, flat out. Any of that stuff is.

They torture our people. We torture theirs. It happens left and right so I don't know why in the hell you're trying to act like waterboarding is a form of it. You don't have to be in danger of dying or permanent injury for it to be torture. I don't know where you came up with that definition, but it's not based in reality.

Having some journalists "try" it is a farce, too. They know it's going to stop. The real people it's done to don't. If someone really wanted to, they could make someone drown from it. Harmless? Very possibly.

I suppose you'd say tear spray in the eyes isn't torture just because you recover from it.

Even torture that doesn't leave physical marks leaves psychological scarring for decades.

Of course, but Banner's too far gone to acknowledge that.

waterboarding is a form of it

isn't, that is.

Harmless? Very possibly.

Added: But still torture.

Also, various sources state that it can cause heart attacks, lung damage, other physical problems.

Pfah. Inconsequential side effects. No big deal.

of course the real story about journalists who try it and say 'it isn't torture' is that there was the gentleman-whose-name-escapes-me from the ... Justice Dept? (my brain is cheese) who tried being waterboarded, and his analysis was that it was absolutely torture, and even though he knew the people responsible wouldn't let him die and would be taking care not to hurt him, he thought he was surely going to die.

Is it simply that the people in charge of this stuff want their country to be hated worldwide, for some offset reason or another? Keeps the people from travelling out of country? Enhances the Big Stick model of diplomacy?

And yes, waterboarding IS torture, except maybe in torture states where the very word "torture" means what the folks in charge want it to mean.

I have absolutely no idea how, or even whether, this state of affairs can be fixed. George Bernard Shaw would probably propose making The Old White Guys sleep on the couch for a while.... but how realistic is that idea, when so many women, too, seem to support this stuff?

I can't quite remember an early quote about how it's more important to be feared than to be liked on the international scene from one of the architects of this whole thing. But it's there somewhere.

If my wonky memory serves me correctly, there was a statement to that end in an article in Foreign Affairs a couple of years ago. Guess this is a good time to trundle off to the bedside bookcase and riffle through till I find it.

Sorry - couldn't find it -- must have gone out in one of the potlatches.

In more general terms, state torture has nothing to do with intelligence gathering, even as that is the insisted goal. And as previously mentioned, it does create compliance in the subject, but even that is not the real goal.
The real, ultimate goal of any kind of institutionalized torture is to change the character of the the institution and the state that inflicts it. To make torture socially acceptable, to even make it desireable. The US is already half way to the point where such niceities as "due process" and the old conventions of constitutional law are tossed away for feel good (read feed the blood lust of the mob) instant solutions.
This is all part of the same process that has vilified the judicial system, intellectuals, and progressives, in favor of hollow patriotism and mindless lynch mob populism covering the Right's authoritarian brute state goals.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture2.html

They do things like "restricting breath", you say? why didn't you just SAY 'waterboarding'?

Irrelevant to this discussion. Try again.

It is right to be shocked and horrified by these.

And, yes, to want to stop the people who would do such things, and to bring them to justice, and to contain these sick ideas.

It is right.

To be angry at these . . . is *just*.

But . . .

But I do not think that you are connecting to what solarbird is talking about if you think that it . . . changes how *we* should be.

I don't think your point is . . . in the same argument.

I don't think we should be measuring ourselves by our enemies. We should be the people that measure ourselves by our ideals. We should be the *anti-torture* country, the country of largesse and heroism and compassion and effort as vast and inexplicable as Al-Qaeda's grotesqueries. Not the country of no permanent damage, but the country of give us your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Not the country of stress positions and simulated drowning but the country of celebration of the unalienable rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We should be able to be kinder to our prisoners than Al-Qaeda members are to their *families*.

Torture states love

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i swear i did not go looking for this

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Relevant references (edited for clarity)

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Ugly thought

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Torture states do things like this

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