Hitchens: if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing

You can make the argument that incarceration in any form is torture. It doesn't have to do with living/dying issues. Is a tough interrogation with bare bulbs glaring in your face torture? You get my drift; it's a movable line.

 

Blog entry from Sic Semper Tyrannis:

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Guantanamo and the SERE schools

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"In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.

“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”

A Defense Department spokesman, Lt. Col Patrick Ryder, said he could not comment on the Guantánamo training chart. “I can’t speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current D.O.D. policy on interrogations,” Colonel Ryder said. “I can tell you that current D.O.D. policy is clear — we treat all detainees humanely.”

Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods,” sometimes in conditions of “extreme cold.” Such passive methods, he wrote, were more common than outright physical violence. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold have both been used by American military and C.I.A. interrogators against terrorist suspects. " NY Times

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I wrote some years ago in these pages that I thought the methods in use at Gitmo and other places sounded a lot like the resistance to interrogation training that had been done in the '60s in the US armed forces. The supposedly sophisticated methods of psychological manipulation then said to have been used against French POWs in Indochina and Americans in Korea had inspired a lot of that kind of that training.

SERE training was intended to prepare people for the illegal bestialities that it was expected would be inflected on American prisoners if they fell into the hands of the communist enemy. The armed forces had been horrified at the number of "collaborators" who had emerged among American prisoners in Korea. This kind of training and the adoption of the "Code of Conduct" were seen as specifics against a recurrence. An exagerated fear of the "Manchurian Candidate" phenomenon was widespread.

It was clearly understood that such methods were to be expected of an enemy devoid of decency. I experienced such training and it was no fun at all.

The methods of interrogation authorized and thought productive by US forces were very different from that. They stressed what was essentially a process of seduction similar to that used in recruiting foreign agents.

The US armed forces have no peacetime mission to interrogate prisoners. Discussion of methods in the context of peacetime military life is a completely abstract subject.

The national intelligence agencies debrief defectors from foreign countries of interest but this is not a hostile process. The defectors want asylum and for that reason are normally eager to tell what they know.

Clearly, some sadist or group of sadists with a vivid imagination took advantage of the national trauma of 9/11 to use the old communist enemies' methods as a model.

Whoever did that inflicted a grave injury and disgrace on the United States. The culprits should be punished as an example to future generations of sadists. pl

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to repeat:

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SERE training was intended to prepare people for the illegal bestialities that it was expected would be inflected on American prisoners if they fell into the hands of the communist enemy. It was clearly understood that such methods were to be expected of an enemy devoid of decency. I experienced such training and it was no fun at all. Clearly, some sadist or group of sadists with a vivid imagination took advantage of the national trauma of 9/11 to use the old communist enemies' methods as a model.

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Until recently, the US military clearly realized that these methods were illegal, sadistic, and evil. That was consistent for decades; I guess right up we got scared and someone decided we need torture. Then the weak, frightened, and morally ambiguous half of the population (i.e. Republican) decided to come up with some sort of justification how it wasn't really torture. And I'm sure they even really believe their new moral position. 9/11 changed everything, indeed.

At least the Takfiri terrorist psychos are consistent in what they believe.

 

Yes, you CAN make that argument - the point is, no one does because it's a stupid and ridiculous argument. Whereas everyone does draw the line where waterboarding is included as torture. I could say 120 degrees isn't hot either by drawing the line at 130, but everyone would tell me I'm a moron. It's no different here. Everyone from the military to the FBI to the CIA agrees that waterboarding is torture. The only people that don't are the ones that simply want to justify whatever the administration does.

 

John McCain and other Vietnam POWs would be dead if it weren't for international outcry against the Viet Cong torturing our troops.

If we had done the same in kind, the world response would not have been as great.

 

So, you have no problem with hypocrisy?

 

This year it's torture; next year it won't be. In spite of your posturing that line can be moved. The real question is should/does torture go on. I'm not wasting time arguing whether or not waterboarding is torture; I'm more interested in whether or not waterboarding is useful.

The argument attempting to be made is that the enemy is stooping to their level because we stoop to their level. Well, which came first? I reject the argument that we are doing it in retaliatory fashion. Perhaps it is a desperate move... well, who wants another national terroristic disaster?

As a child I used to ride on the back dashboard and the floorboard of my Dad's car. Today, he would probably be arrested for allowing that. Are you trying to say that he was a bad father?

 

giddy, so did I, and I would respond to you this way... ignorance was bliss. However, this isn't a case of ignorance. This is a case of torture being condoned by a US government, namely that of George W. Bush, and it is a direct threat to the health and safety of our military and that of our citizens abroad. By condoning torture, Bush has explicitly said that torture is "OK." He has made the use of torture by an enemy something all our service men and women have to worry about now, by tearing the Geneva Conventions into shreds, and increased the likelyhood that abducted Americans will be tortured, should our enemies want to do so. After all, all our enemies have to do is point at George W. Bush as an example of a US government approving the use of torture.

If you think torture is "OK" and that the ends justify the means, then I really don't know what to tell you. There is no proof, to my knowledge, that torture will gain you any information that couldn't be obtained by other means. There is proof, if you care to google it, that using other means besides torture can be effective in getting the information needed by interregators.

I thought the United States, to quote Ronald Reagan, was the City on the Hill. The beacon for all the people of the world who desire freedom and a better way of life. To condone torture goes against the very fabric of what makes the United States a great country. In my opinion.




Impeach Bush/Cheney.

 

Not unless it's convenient to, in which case he does...

 

Well at least we got basso well into the thread before he reversed positions and started to lick Dubya's face again.

I still don't know what the point was of posting this then saying Dubya is "against torture". I think its clear that Dubya is against torture unless he or his agents have ordered it.

 

QUESTION: Would any one do what Mr. Hitchens did?
just try to see what it was about. . . .

A part of me says I would. . .cause I would like to understand
However . . .my level of trust is low. . and i don't know if i would trust the people to let me go . . .

Overall . . . I am constantly worried about the slippery slope into facism that we move on . . . so i like to watch these things and limit them as much as possible


Rocket River

 

1. I would daresay that torture has been undertaken knowingly by every administration engaged in any kind of signficant conflict. Don't act like Bush is the first please...

2. I think the jury is out on waterboarding. We hear conflicting analyses. However I have no doubt that some methods of torture move in the fast lane while others do not so it's not just a question of another method. Sometimes (and quite possibly in the few cases of waterboarding that seem to be out there) time may be of the essence.

3. Before waterboarding there were beheadings. Our servicemen and -women had to worry about torture before GWB and before water-boarding.

4. Tell the enemy to put on a uniform and pay any mind to limiting civilian casualties, then talk to me about the Geneva Conventions.

5. Historically, I wonder if other presidents were ever put in the position of having to "condone torture?" Let sleeping dogs lie. Remember the story about the German spies caught on the Eastern Seaboard and were summarily executed. Andersonville. I'm sure the list goes on and on...

6. I think I just crapped my pants: Deckard extolling Ronald Reagan! I love his remarks; they are inspirational but they are but remarks. We can stare out into the starry night and be run over by armies of terrorists eager to die or we can do everything within our might to destroy them. I go with the latter because they will not rest... even if we do.

7. I'm uneasy endorsing torture but I don't see a better way. This is an unusual enemy-- one that no one has faced in this amount of opposition. We are still the good guys-- maybe not perfect but still the good guys. Sometimes you do things you are ashamed of; maybe sometimes you almost have to. I think this is one of those issues and these are some of those times.

FOOTNOTE: My son is considering/planning a move to Austin to establish residency for grad school. He visited some last month and loved it. His politics are probably closer to yours.

 

When the people representing us sanction torture, we are no longer the "good guys".

 

How long do you reckon the US has been sanctioning torture? Did it start with GWB? And I'm not talking about a public posture. Sometimes you have to take a public posture when someone asks the question.

What about those dead German spies? Isn't that worse than a few monsters being water-boarded?

 

giddy, you honestly can't see the difference between spies being shot during wartime and torturing prisoners of war? The British shot spies during WWII. The Germans shot spies during WWII. It was an accepted practice. Everyone who worked as a spy back then knew the risk. You can attempt to split hairs, but the circumstances just aren't the same.



Impeach Bush/Cheney.

 

The U.S. officially sanctioning torture did start GW Bush

 

Please read up on how we got information from terror suspect that the govt. admitted using it. Using non-torture tactics we learned plenty of information, then the CIA came in and used waterboarding. Not only did they not get any good information from it, they began getting a ton of false information.

Sorry traditional non-torture interrogation seems to be a much better alternative.

 

In the first place, the waterboarding is practiced on a select few-- not every POW. Your description offers no such distinction.

Accepted practice? What does that mean? Legal? Illegal but done anyway?

Seems like there is a new risk for those fighting in the war on terror...

Your acceptance of killing spies willy-nilly seems arbitrary. How do you justify it... because everyone is doing it?

 

That's not what I inquired about; I admitted as much.

 

Premature conclusion, I say. Misfire there for sure, but why throw the baby out with the bath water?

If you know nothing, you'll say anything just to stop the torture. That was one guy who need not have been waterboarded.