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rulemylife -> RE: On torchure. Obama is WRONG (4/20/2009 4:30:21 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
The Memos
From your link:
quote:
The memos are also revealing about the practice of "waterboarding," about which there has been so much speculative rage from the program's opponents. The practice, used on only three individuals, involved covering the nose and mouth with a cloth and pouring water over the cloth to create a drowning sensation.
This technique could be used for up to 40 seconds -- although the CIA orally informed Justice Department lawyers that it would likely not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time.
From today's news:
quote:
Sept. 11 planner waterboarded 183 times: report | U.S. | Reuters
Mon Apr 20, 11:26 am ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the September 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another al Qaeda suspect, The New York Times said on Sunday.
Now while it couldn't have happened to two nicer guys, I think most people would find it hard to believe that if it was used on two individuals a total of 266 times in a one month period for each, that the practice wasn't used more extensively.
Also recent news:
quote:
Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A. - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday made public detailed memos describing brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, as President Obama sought to reassure the agency that the C.I.A. operatives involved would not be prosecuted.
In dozens of pages of dispassionate legal prose, the methods approved by the Bush administration for extracting information from senior operatives of Al Qaeda are spelled out in careful detail — like keeping detainees awake for up to 11 straight days, placing them in a dark, cramped box or putting insects into the box to exploit their fears.
Some senior Obama administration officials, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., have labeled one of the 14 approved techniques, waterboarding, illegal torture.
The United States prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War II for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the memos.
So how is that what we prosecuted as a crime 60 some years ago is now being defended by us as acceptable?
Also from the Times article, regarding how safe waterboarding was for the prisoners:
quote:
The memos include what in effect are lengthy excerpts from the agency’s interrogation manual, laying out with precision how each method was to be used. Waterboarding, for example, involved strapping a prisoner to a gurney inclined at an angle of “10 to 15 degrees” and pouring water over a cloth covering his nose and mouth “from a height of approximately 6 to 18 inches” for no more than 40 seconds at a time.
But a footnote to a 2005 memo made it clear that the rules were not always followed. Waterboarding was used “with far greater frequency than initially indicated” and with “large volumes of water” rather than the small quantities in the rules, one memo says, citing a 2004 report by the C.I.A.’s inspector general.
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