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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:33 pm Post subject: NY Times: Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
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When the Justice Department publicly declared torture �abhorrent� in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales�s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on �combined effects� over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion�s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be �ashamed� when the world eventually learned of it.
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Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.
With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away. |
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thiophene
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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| The line get blurrier and blurrier. Is anyone surprised? |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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Islamic males seem to be very susceptible to certain types of interrogation. This includes their dietary and sexual conduct. "Unclean" or agressive women, "in their face" is one. Another are their consideration of pork, swine and dogs.
Another is isolation. Ridiculing their "manhood" or masculinity is another. Preying on their backward or peasant limitations is yet another.
Compared to beheading, killing generally, rape, sodomization and feeding people thorugh wood chippers these are pretty mild.
I wonder just what is wrong with using highly presuasive and even coercive methods that leave no lasting scars or disbility?
Come on - enlighten me!! |
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koon_taung_daeng
Joined: 28 Jan 2007
Location: south korea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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i think torture should have different definitions. I really dont think its as black and white as the media is making it.
If your a prisoner of war in America, you'll get interrogated hard core slapped around a bit photographed naked etc...
Try becoming a POW in China or Russia for example
*beep* cut off, burned alive.death of a thousand paper cuts
american operatives shouldn't use torture unless its ABSOLUTELY necessary, like on Fox's hit show 24 |
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Sleepy in Seoul
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: Going in ever decreasing circles until I eventually disappear up my own fundament - in NZ
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| By now, the only thing that the U.S. government could do that would surprise me would be to be honest. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:53 am Post subject: |
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Have these forms of torture been proven to work?
I don't think so but if someone has a link to a study or the literature on this subject it would be helpful. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| JMO wrote: |
Have these forms of torture been proven to work?
I don't think so but if someone has a link to a study or the literature on this subject it would be helpful. |
They certainly work well at obtaining false confessions. There a quite a few known examples where captives at Guantanamo confessed to all sorts of bollocks, which was later proved to be nonsense. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:32 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| JMO wrote: |
Have these forms of torture been proven to work?
I don't think so but if someone has a link to a study or the literature on this subject it would be helpful. |
They certainly work well at obtaining false confessions. There a quite a few known examples where captives at Guantanamo confessed to all sorts of bollocks, which was later proved to be nonsense. |
yea i heard this as well. It seems like it is morally dubious and ineffective. I understand the need to get information but choosing the most effective way is a must. This seems like a job for the FBI who are as far as I am aware the experts in this field. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know of any publicly available hard data on the effectiveness of torture. But for what it's worth, here is what American interrogators of captive Nazis had to say recently.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html
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"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.
Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
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"We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.
The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.
"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity." |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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Who here can HONESTLY say they're in the LEAST surprised by revelations, confessions, accusations etc.
along these lines?
Some terrible inexcusable crimes being committed daily.
BUT HEY, IT's LEGAL! 
At best these sadistic abusers, if they're fingered, turned-in, or better yet FILMED, usually are
only ever made to face MARGINAL ACCOUNTABILITY.
They were " ... only following orders ..."
No justice, no peace. |
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