I’ve made no bones about my stance on torture – it’s bad. See this post, for example.
And then today I was flooded with links to this CNN dialog about torture, where Christine Amanpour and Phillipe Sands hammer author Marc Thiessen on the issue:
…and frankly, I’m appalled at Sands and Amanpour.
The idea that what we call ‘waterboarding’ – where a cloth is placed over someone’s face, and water poured over the cloth to give the sensation of drowning – is comparable to actually handcuffing someone with their head underwater (which usually leads to actual drowning) as was done by the Khmer Rouge is factually wrong, deeply offensive, and unhelpful to the very real debate of what the rules ought to be.
There’s a real debate over what the treatment of captured non-American resident terrorists ought to be (note that American residents ought to be entitled to the protections of American law as they are prosecuted for treason). Clearly real torture is Right Out, as should be a Chicago 7-style trial by farce.
Having the commentariat confuse harsh treatment (which I’d certainly say our version of waterboarding is) with torture (which the Khmer Rouge version certainly is) doesn’t remotely help that discussion, and doesn’t remotely add to their credibility – such as it is.
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Thiessen is full of crap. To suggest waterboarding isn’t even painful…
_”The idea that what we call ‘waterboarding’ – where a cloth is placed over someone’s face, and water poured over the cloth to give the sensation of drowning”_
That’s a misnomer as well. The water is inhaled into the lungs. That ‘sensation of drowning’ is the sensation of water in your lungs, which IS drowning. Its said to be horrifically painful. And if not, why is it so effective?
OK- Amanpour and Sands do conflate the other EITs with waterboarding and torture etc, and that is indeed ridiculous (by their logic, virtually any prison sentence is torture, particularly solitary confinement). BUT, waterboarding is indeed torture, and they are right that whether its a barrel of water compared to a pitcher, and handcuffs vs other restraints is really irrelevant. Whether your getting your genitals electrocuted with a car battery or a shock therapy device doesn’t make much difference to your genitals, the effect is the same.
You can’t be ‘a little bit waterboarded’.
Funny you should mention the Khmer Rouge. The Cambodian Museum of Genocide has a picture of Khmer Rouge waterboarding. It’s right on the Wikipedia page for waterboarding. The Khmer Rouge apparatus and technique appear to be identical to ours. Perhaps you can write to the museum and ask them to change the exhibit label from ‘Torture’ to ‘Extremely Harsh Treatment’, although I don’t expect you will get a civil response.
OK, off to check my facts…will be back soon with a plate of crow if necessary.
Marc
The Wikipedia entry reminds me that there was a bill to declare waterboarding torture and it failed to pass. I have to assume that since Obama became President that the bill was passed again and he signed it? Am I mistaken? Or is this all grandstanding and argument?
I have to assume that since Obama became President that the bill was passed again and he signed it?
Obama has prohibited waterboarding going forward.
And the Khmer Rouge picture shows a watering can sprinkling a cloth over the victim’s face. Their technique was the same as ours. How Uncle Jimbo would have described it had it happened to him in Phnom Penh and not a training camp, I don’t know.
Don’t even consider any crow Marc. The fact that there is a cloth shown in a Khmer version of water torture shows only a starting point. The cloth inhibits water from flowing into the mouth or nose. We are scrupulous in ensuring that is maintained throughout the procedure a grand total of three still living terrorists underwent.
Do we really believe the Khmer were that careful? Did they carefully make sure they were only using the mind against itself. I kinda wonder where those pyramids of skulls came from if so. It’s ridiculous to make those comparisons and you should discount anyone who wants to equate them.
There is no comparison between the carefully controlled procedure we used three times operationally, and tens of thousands of times in training, and any of the various water tortures performed by evil bastards anywhere.
Cordially,
Uncle J
_”The torture method is as you mentioned or they actually pour water down the nose and throat in bulk. We do neither.”_
Not according a former SEAL survival school instructor:
His training:
_”In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat,” Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. “It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.”_
…
_”If Mohammed faced waterboarding for 90 seconds, Nance said, about 1.2 gallons of water was poured down his nose and throat while he was strapped to a board.”_
“link”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110802150.html
I’d like to see some evidence that there is some form of waterboarding where ‘no water is inhaled’. Seems rather like electrocution with no electricity to me, i’m skeptical.
Regardless, the entire argument of ‘simulated drowning’ is flawed to me. Pain is a sensation, if you are simulating it, what does that mean? Your not in horrific pain and instinctual panic/terror for you life.. your brain just thinks it is? Can you really parse that? If your brain believes your in pain, can you claim its not real pain?
_”used three times operationally”_
It was used on three subjects, not three times. And of course that’s what we know of.
I want to make a point that although I believe waterboarding is torture, i’m not against using it in all situations. I’d take an even wider view of the ‘ticking timebomb’ scenario- somebody like KSM would have known of ticking bombs we might not even be aware of. But I think that worse than even torturing is convincing yourself that what you are doing isn’t torture and dumbing it down. That’s dangerous. If its no big deal, no harm done, well hey- use it all the time.
I guess that’s a point right there- if its not torture why confine the practice to only 3 individuals?
If the president decides he has to torture someone, he should do it knowing it is against the law and pardon whoever executes it. And then hope whoever follows him will accept his logic and pardon him in turn (or at least not prosecute). Its a damned serious thing, and people should face the consequences of it. If its worth doing its worth risking going to jail for. If not, not.
bq. _I want to make a point that although I believe waterboarding is torture, i’m not against using it in all situations._
Which is what Obama apparently believes since he has banned waterboarding by an executive order that he can revoke at the stroke of a pen. I’m shocked that liberals turned out to be such cheap dates on the surrounding rule of law issues. Shocked I say.
My reading of the history of U.S. anti-torture laws and conventions is that they were intended to project a moral stance to the world community, while allowing psychological methods of interrogation to continue despite the ban on inflicting severe mental health. The word commonly used is hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy twenty years ago has been superseded by the hypocrisy of an executive order fix, which will continue to permit waterboarding at the whim of the President. Mark and others would replace it with another type of hypocrisy which is a clear legal ban with implied guarantees of pardon.
_”Mark and others would replace it with another type of hypocrisy which is a clear legal ban with implied guarantees of pardon.”_
Yes. But war is the greatest hypocrisy. There is no getting around it. Put yourself back in the 9/12 mindframe, not knowing what AQ had up its sleeve. Waterboarding the 911 mastermind isn’t even a tough call. We wring our hands in retrospect and I applaud that (its who we are), but when the when the chips are down we do what we need to do to survive. Always have, always will.
To be clear, I mean no insult or disrespect by brandishing the hypocrisy label.
It may actually be the pre-Torture Convention norm for the U.S. During the Philippines conflict, there were a few soldiers charged with using the “water cure,” which I believe would have been a broader, more dangerous practice, involving pouring water into the open mouth, either held open by a stick or by holding the nostrils closed. The Court Martials for this resulted in minor penalties and stressed that the technique had not been used in “exceptional circumstances.” The one significant conviction (because the water cure had killed the victim) was pardoned by Roosevelt.
By the way, If you haven’t read the Harpers magazine article on the “Guantanamo Suicides”:http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368 it’s worth a look. I’m about halfway through, but it’s cringe-inducing.
I need to get back to work, but I’ll finish it tonight.
I haven’t abandoned this, I’m mulling.
Marc
It seems waterboarding isn’t even all it’s cracked up to be as an investigative tool. CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding: A study in “enhanced reporting techniques.”