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US finally clarifies stand on Interrogation

Full marks to John McCain for steadfast pursuit of a civilised standard for treatment of detainees and others.

I give credit to Bush for finally agreeing. He can hardly claim high ground himself for taking so long to formally recognise what is really quite obvious to civilised and intelligent people around the world, i.e. Torture and abuse do not belong in a civilised and just society. To all those still confused as to whether the imminent doom dilemma justifies exemptions to certain governments, you really need to look at the facts :

1) Statements extracted under torture don't equal truth.
2) People who use torture are not credible witnesses
3) The consequences of using torture and abuse totally outweigh any possible benefit of extracted information
4) Humane and civilised methods have been shown to be effective in many cases, not only in producing useful information but in educating the detainee that the captor is not the evit he had been taught to believe.

Goodnight Dick!

Comments

  • Friday, Dec. 16, 2005 11:04 a.m. EST
    U.S. 'Torturing' Thousands of American Citizens


    The U.S. military is engaged in the systematic "torture" of hundreds of thousands of American citizens - according to new standards established by the McCain amendment, which forbids cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorist detainees.

    Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot blew the lid off the outrageous torture scandal earlier this week, reporting:

    "There are major facilities all over the country where thousands of men and women who have not committed any crime are held for prolonged periods while subjected to physical and psychological coercion that violates every tenet of the Geneva Convention."

    Boot details the horrific "torture" techniques carried out on these unsuspecting Americans.

    • They are routinely made to stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions.
    • They are made to walk for hours while wearing heavy loads on their backs.

    • They are bullied by martinets who get in their faces and yell insults at them.

    • They are hit and often knocked down with clubs known as pugil sticks.

    • They are denied sleep for more than a day at a time.

    • They are forced to inhale tear gas.

    • They are prevented from seeing friends or family.

    "Some are traumatized by this treatment," notes Boot. "A few even die."

    Worse still, the systematic torture of Americans appears to have been sanctioned at the highest levels of the White House.

    Yet the abuse continues without a peep of protest from Sen. McCain and his Democratic allies - like Sen. Dick Durbin, who decried the "Nazi-like" interrogation techniques employed on terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay.

    The locations of these U.S.-based Abu Ghraibs? Parris Island, S.C., Camp Pendleton, Calif., Ft. Benning, Ga., Ft. Jackson, S.C., and other bases where the Army and Marines train recruits.

    We trust that Sen. McCain will launch an investigation into the brutal techniques employed by U.S. military trainers as soon as he's finished tying the hands of America's military interrogators.

  • Instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for trivializing responses like this, you may care to read what others around the world think. Include the views of leaders of countries which have had to overthrow dictators and come to terms with the methods they had used.

    Making pathetic excuses for torture is increasing the risks to American security by giving people reasons to hate it, or at least despise its hypocrisy.

    Anyway, now that President Bush had admitted another abuse of citizen’s rights to freedom, you have plenty to be concerned about at home.

    Americans need to revisit the 911 inquiry and see just how inadequate that piece of work was, Yet Bush claims authority beyond the law all in the name of doing what he thinks was necessary after 911.

    If 911 was to be some watershed in rewriting presidential powers, then it deserved an unfettered, high level inquiry which answered the crucial questions raised instead of ignoring them

    Who is going to raise the question of how to impeach a President when his VP may be as bad or worse.

    In reading comments on BBC, one sees well written arguments, honed to reflect facts, history and logic, with responses from the hip by gullible American citizens who don't seem to understand what freedom and rights are all about.

    Isn't that what tens of thousand of American servicemen and women (far more than in Iraq alone) died fighting for?

    And Bush single-handedly, writes these away in secret!
    ...and now tries to shoot the messenger, blaming the NYT for providing information to America's enemies.

    What terrible information did they give?
    America spies on its own citizens!

    Could it be that that information, even if shocking and an admission of Americas "big brother" systems, might actually inhibit communication and make it more difficult for the enemy to plan the dreaded next attack.

    But NO, let them plan it, and TRUST US to catch them, like we didn't in 911 and haven't with Bin Laden, or Zaqawi. But it lets the president do what he likes. Except for that pesky John McCain and Rep Murtha. Well we know what do with heroes don't we?
  • They are bullied by marionettes who get in their faces and yell insults at them.
    :hehe:




    [Edited on 18/12/2005 by Clown]
  • The locations of these U.S.-based Abu Ghraibs? Parris Island, S.C., Camp Pendleton, Calif., Ft. Benning, Ga., Ft. Jackson, S.C., and other bases where the Army and Marines train recruits.
    Pathetic Quig, even for your right wing self.

    Hmmmmmm...... are people forced to join the military now? And denied access to their families for years at a time? No chance to D.O.R and leave?

    Not even close to what the Guantanamo Bay detainees are going thru, 100% against their wills.

    I'd like someone to answer why the US deems it even has the authority to put these people before a 'court'. Most of these people are guilty only of being pro-Taliban and being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Afghanistan, 2002/03). Sure, they might be bad people and a little fucked in the head, but who are the US to detain them for 4 years? :o

    Geez I hope David Hicks succeeds in embarassing the Australian Govt for it's pandering to the US on the Guantanamo Bay matters. :spank:
  • I hope David Hicks IS granted his British citizenship. Then has to apply to come to Australia, and with any luck will be denied access as an undesirable. FUCK HIM. He wanted to go to Afghanistan and play with the big boys, he has to learn to put up with the big boys games consequences. Although I do think we should have bought him back here, where he could've spent the rest of his life rotting in a cell. If proven guilty of course.

    As for this stuff,

    • They are routinely made to stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions.
    • They are made to walk for hours while wearing heavy loads on their backs.

    • They are bullied by martinets who get in their faces and yell insults at them.

    • They are hit and often knocked down with clubs known as pugil sticks.

    • They are denied sleep for more than a day at a time.

    • They are forced to inhale tear gas.

    • They are prevented from seeing friends or family.

    "Some are traumatized by this treatment," notes Boot. "A few even die."

    I remember these times, they were good days.......
  • • They are routinely made to stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions.

    • They are made to walk for hours while wearing heavy loads on their backs.

    • They are bullied by martinets who get in their faces and yell insults at them.

    • They are hit and often knocked down with clubs known as pugil sticks.

    • They are denied sleep for more than a day at a time.

    • They are forced to inhale tear gas.

    • They are prevented from seeing friends or family.
    Sounds like going to Rookies.
  • It's like what rookies used to be, before all the teddy bear cuddling, tree huggers got involved, but then, you'd know that Adam, being ex-RAAFie.
  • Latest allegations from Afganistan:

    "They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks a time," the organisation said.

    Rap for weeks? ... sounds like torture to me! ;)
  • "They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks a time," the organisation said.
    I miss only one ingredient to call it a 'dark room' :hehe:
  • Instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for trivializing responses like this, you may care to read what others around the world think.
    This is a tad insulting Doc. I am serious and what I wrote is true. "Abuses" like the article outlined or pointed out do occur every day to recruits but under the McCain rule they would be considered torture.

    But like Oz said - it was some of the best times I ever had as well.

    Anyway, now that President Bush had admitted another abuse of citizen’s rights to freedom, you have plenty to be concerned about at home.
    Funny how all the Dem leadership was aware that this was going on for some time now. Bought off on it too. Now they are ppissing and moaning. Oh yeah - it is an election year.

    But on that same note were you as outraged back during the Clinton administration when a similar series of events were going on?

    Here is a walk down memory lane:

    Monday, Dec. 19, 2005 11:45 a.m. EST
    Clinton Used NSA for Economic Espionage

    During the 1990s, President Bill Clinton ordered the National Security Agency to use its super-secret Echelon surveillance program to monitor the personal telephone calls and private email of employees who worked for foreign companies in a bid to boost U.S. trade, NewsMax.com has learned.

    In 2000, former Clinton CIA director James Woolsey set off a firestorm of protest in Europe when he told the French newspaper Le Figaro that he was ordered by Clinton in 1993 to transform Echelon into a tool for gathering economic intelligence.

    "We have a triple and limited objective," the former intelligence chief told the French paper. "To look out for companies which are breaking US or UN sanctions; to trace 'dual' technologies, i.e., for civil and military use, and to track corruption in international business."

    As NewsMax reported exclusively on Sunday, Echelon had been used by the Clinton administration to monitor millions of personal phone calls, private emails and even ATM transactions inside the U.S. - all without a court order.

    The massive invasion of privacy was justified by Echelon's defenders as an indispensable national security tool in the war on terror.
    But Clinton officials also utilized the program in ways that had nothing to do with national security - such as conducting economic espionage against foreign businesses.

    In his comments to Le Figaro, Woolsey defended the program, declaring flatly: "Spying on Europe is justified."

    "I can tell you that five years ago, several European countries were giving substantial bribes to export business more easily. I hope that's no longer the case."

    During hearings in 2000 on the surveillance flap, Woolsey told Congress that in 1993 alone, U.S. firms obtained contracts worth $6.5 billion with the help of timely intelligence information.


    "We collect intelligence on those efforts to bribe foreign companies and foreign governments into awarding an airport contract to a European firm rather than an American firm," Woolsey said in a 1994 speech, in quotes picked up by the New York Post.
    Predictably, European officials were outraged by what they regarded as a massive abuse of the NSA's spying capacity.

    "[This is] an intolerable attack against individual liberties, competition, and the security of states," complained Martin Bangemann, then-European commissioner for industry.

    But the complaints went unheeded in Washington.

    In 1996, President Clinton signed the Economic Espionage Act, which, according to the Christian Science Monitor, authorized intelligence gathering on foreign businesses.

    "The Clinton administration has attached especial importance to economic intelligence, setting up the National Economic Council [NEC] in parallel to the National Security Council," the Monitor reported in 1999.

    "The NEC routinely seeks information from the NSA and the CIA," the paper continued, citing anonymous officials. "And the NSA, as the biggest and wealthiest communications interception agency in the world, is best placed to trawl electronic communications and use what comes up for US commercial advantage."
  • What's your point?

    We don't have to do anything about Bushism, all we have to do is find something or some one worse!

    ..and you find my suggestion about raising the level of the debate a tad insulting?

    Well at least I respect your research. Nothing like starting at the bottom. Keep working up! ;)
  • I find it insulting because it is a legitimate concern. Oz - even Brooks see that the "New Standard Of Torture" is the equivalent of the types of treatment that recruits from first world countries all over the planet subject their people to.

    I am against torture - the kind that Mengele and the North Vietnamiese and others practiced - but playing loud music and sleep dep? Panties on heads? human pyramids?

    Come on Doc,

    What would YOU do to an individual who knew the whats and when about a nuke in or around the locals of your family?

  • Sleep deprivation and forced standing was the primary method Stalins goons used to gain confessions for the show trials of the 30's. It was called 'The Conveyor.' described as 'extremely uncomfortable' after 12 hours and 'as painful as any torture' at somewhere between a day and half on.

    Read 'The Great Terror' and see what ridiculous things these people were 'confessing' to and you'll see how ludicrous using these methods is.

    If you still don't think that's torture I'll volunteer to keep you awake and standing by not so nice ways for about 6 days and I guarantee I'll have a confession that you shot Reagan, JFK and Lincoln.

  • Bring it on - we'll see who is who's master.

    However - it is not surprising to see who is in the know of Communist torture techniques.

    [Edited on 20/12/2005 by MCSF]
  • Emmet, despite your strong opinions and beliefs on matters military, you are not addressing the real issues. I can't believe that you do not see the immense difference between training exercises, where the trainee is in an approved course aimed at helping his survival or more to the point the survival of his unit and comrades, and ragging and hazing incidents used for initiation or acceptance into some society and ...
    capture and torture by a hostile force intent on breaking you mentally and quite possibly physically by cruelty and pain.
    The methods and conditions are designed to destroy hope and break the spirit, and usually succeed in this quite inhuman objective.

    What would I do if my country or family was threatened and I had the whip hand so to speak?

    I would heed the research and history of investigative methods reputed to work to gain real information. What use would be a confession of lies?

    As you may know I have led a number of investigations into industrial disasters, where misinformation is the order of the day. Yet, logic and methodology can yield the truth even when it may be uncomfortable or inconvenient.

    The alternative of acting on lies or false confession and the consequences which flow from unjust and inhuman acts are unacceptable. The US hasn't faced the full brunt of its mistakes in this area, and guys like McCain are trying to correct the situation before it gets worse.

    As McCain says, it isn't about who they are! It's about who we are. Profound words.

    Spin

    [Edited on 20/12/2005 by Dr_Spin]
  • you'd know that Adam, being ex-RAAFie
    Ex-RAAFie? Not quite, only 19 dude! I live just a stones throw away from Richmond base, meaning just about everyone i went to school with, as well as there parents have joined or are in the RAAF. I took the easy way out - joining uni to become a school teacher...kinda regreting it too, those guys are having the time of their lives while i'm buried in bookwork.
  • However - it is not surprising to see who is in the know of Communist torture techniques.
    Was that really necessary? Did it advance this conversation any further?

    Quig, you should have been in politics. You avoid the issue like no one else I know.
  • I think dst is much better at it.
  • However - it is not surprising to see who is in the know of Communist torture techniques.
    .........and so it would seem, American torture techniques. Read your history, how is getting a taxicab driver to admit he is involved in a bomb plot via torture any different than torturing a doctor who was a thousand miles away that he personally poisoned Stalin? Even if good info is beaten out, how to separate it from the lies? It's a worthless endeavor, as pointed out repeatedly by those who've undergone it. The fact that this reiteration is neccessary is just shameful.

    [Edited on 20/12/2005 by dst]
  • I do not advocate torture - but the standards you are setting or endorsing make even asking a question of a detainee just about worthless.

    Just lock them up and feed them is about all your definition allows.

    I have two books to recommend to you on this very subject. They are an in depth look at torture - on the receiving end.

    The first is a book by Nick Rowe - a Green Beret officer who was the only soldier to escape from the NVA POW system. The title is 5 Years to Freedom and is just an amazing story of willpower, determination and survival. This book was part of the reason I joined the ARMY.

    I wish Col Rowe was around today - he died at the hands of terrorists in the Philipines. His take on this torture issue would be interesting.

    Go here for more info on him and his life
    http://www.psywarrior.com/rowe.html

    The next book is called Bravo Two Zero - by Andy McNab. He was a SAS NCO and was on a deep behind the lines operation in the first gulf War. He and his Team were compromised and had to go into E & E mode and al but one were captured or killed. The book "The One That Got Away" tells the story of the one SAS troop that walked his way out of iraq and into "freedom" in Syria.

    He suffered greatly at the hands of the iraqi's - to the extent that his career as a soldier was ended.

    Know too that no ARMY expects an individual to never break - they know that more then likely it will happen. The key - or at least what we were told - was to hold out for as long as possible so that any knowledge you do posess is irrelevant by the time it is extracted from you.
  • If the point of interrogation is to get good, 'actionable' information, how is using methods which result in the subject admitting he nailed Christ to the cross effective? You will get more information surely, but I'd venture that almost none of it is worth anything, again as stated by the subjects themselves. They will say whatever they have to to make the torture stop. If I ask you a question and hit you over the head every time you answer, you WILL start guessing for what I'm looking for in hopes of pleasing me enough to stop.

    It's immoral, puts our own troops if captured in greater danger and results in dubious at best information. My country should be better than this.
  • Slightly off topic but after a cursory look into Mcnab's accounts, it's a good thing he's not running for office in the USA.
  • Fair enough Brooksey. It was the use of the term "rookies" that caught me out. Never heard anyone use it except RAAFies, not even Army or Navy use it.
  • Right, at last we're getting toward the understanding that:

    1. information extracted may be questionable, probably too late to be actionable, and likely confused with misinformation.

    2. there are very serious consequences of being seen or even suspected of engaging in torture or techniques which offend civilised people. One should understand the views of those who have experienced torture and gulags at the hands of dictators. Anti-torture sentiment is burned into the psyche of many Eurporeans, South Americans and Asians. Was America too young and isolated by its own propaganda to understand this?

    My next point is that the information extracted inevitably is then processed by firstly the torturer then those commanding the torturers. Anyone who chooses to believe such information, which will be filtered to protect the record, has to be naive. There won't usually be tapes recording the shocks, blows and screams and context of the confession, will there?

    Our wisest jurors have determined clearly that such information is not admissable in courts of law. Perhaps someone who doesn't agree with this can nominate some torturers who would meet standards for credible witnesses.
    (Fine, upstanding citizens whose word can be trusted)
    Let us exclude those who threaten their detainees with death or injury to their families, since such action is criminal)

    My last point is that there are better ways to get information through humane treatment. Unfortunely that takes a little more training and cost of professionals. The politicians don't go for this option since they don't even want spend to provide armour for the troops.

    For the record, I read McNabs Bravo Two Zero when it first came out, and of McNabs later comments and critiques plus many other writings for and against tough action.

    I've done some pretty tough training and still do myself and seen others crack under the same pressures. On this subject, like most things in life, the solutions lie more holistic approaches than doggedly pursuing a single issue.

    The world needs models of democracy and good government, with leaders who respect international norms, accountability, consultative processes, respect for differences, honest appraisal of strengths and weaknesses rather than divisive labels or "good and evil".

    These are worth fighting for, but fighting doesn't have to be killing.

    Spin

    [Edited on 21/12/2005 by Dr_Spin]
  • Fair enough Brooksey. It was the use of the term "rookies" that caught me out. Never heard anyone use it except RAAFies, not even Army or Navy use it.
    Do the Army and Navy have rookies? Or some form of it?

    I'm in a situation where 3 friends of mine have each joined a part of our defence forces. It's funny talking to each, as they explain why what they're doing it better than the other two. So far though, only the RAAF stories have interested me. A good friend of mine joined as a firey, and has been there for two years now. I regret not joining with him. 4 days on, 4 days off, decent pay and a job that's a heck of alot more interesting than teaching 16 year olds how to make wooden dildos for their unsatisfied girlfriends.

    btw - I've been told they no longer have the tear gas chamber test at rookies, because of the fear it 'may' cause cancer? So I guess the enemies have stopped using it too? :rolleyes:

    [Edited on 21/12/2005 by Brooksey]
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