It seems so. Not much evidence left that it was of real help in getting the info. we really needed.

Ad hoc torture is either illegal –and probably immoral under any belief system - or it is not. Whether torture “works” or not cannot affect the legality or morality of the act.

      And whether torture works is not a yes or no question anyway. Of course it “works” on some individuals quite effectively and probably on all individuals to some degree. But it most likely elicits false information and disinformation as well as true information, so you are never quite sure what you are getting.

       I don’t have a problem with torture in all circumstances – the proverbial terrorist who knows the location of a nuclear bomb in New York City should be tortured. But there has to be process and standards and torture should only be permitted when LE obtains a warrant to torture.

      My problem is the way the Bush administration did it– in secret, without standards, without review, and most of all as a part of a fishing expedition rather than to locate that ticking bomb.

      And then the Bush admin at various levels simply lied about what they had done, used semantics to redefine the torture as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” manufactured a phony legal opinion for cover, all the while destroying the videotapes of the torture sessions.

       So the debate as to the role of torture in the evil one’s death really misses the point.

I would say the ocean is made up of angel's tears if that's what you wanted to hear. Or quite the opposite. I remember as a little kid my mom spanked me (yes, spanked...ooooo), and if I wanted to stick to my story, I stuck to it.

The one time I was held up at gun point, I refused to let that dummy get the best of me so I started shouting "You want my stuff - Well shoot me then. Shoot me. You so bad." First, let me say I am not crazy, but I knew he wanted what I had more than he wanted to kill me. Plus, I could tell he was an idiot (story details for another time). Someone under torture knows the person wants info more than they want him/her dead. And even if they kill him/her, they still don't have the info. If he believes himself to be right, then he is probably already willing to die for it.

Not saying torture will never someone talk, but it may not yield accurate information. And wasting time following inaccurate leads or info is really bad.

So something that "might" work and is illegal should not be used.

As for a "warrant" for torture. That's like saying let me get this second constitution to violate your rights. LOL

I never expect a liar or my enemy to tell me the truth.

McCain says torture did not lead to bin Laden

'This is a moral debate. It is about who we are,' says Ariz. Republican, former POW

WASHINGTON — Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator insisted Thursday.

Sen. John McCain, who spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, also rejected the argument that any form of torture is critical to U.S. success in the fight against terrorism.

Trump: 'Torture' led to catching bin Laden
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, the Arizona Republican said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and others who supported those kind of measures were wrong to claim that waterboarding al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, provided information that led to bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

Other political news of note Senate targets oil and gas tax breaks but simplification will have to wait
Thursday morning’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies isn’t really part of the broader long-term effort to shrink budget deficits and the debt by ending tax breaks.

Updated 11 minutes ago 5/12/2011 6:31:51 PM +00:00 McCain says torture did not lead to bin Laden
Ron Paul plans 'major announcement' Friday
Updated 7 minutes ago 5/12/2011 6:36:33 PM +00:00 Ethics Committee leaders to speak on Ensign case
Ind. first lady tests waters with rare speech
..McCain spoke with an unrivaled record on the issue. He's the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who consistently challenged the Bush administration and Vice President Dick Cheney on the use of torture and a man who endured brutal treatment during the Vietnam War.

Story: Obama broaches bin Laden death at campaign event
He said he asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and that the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information for Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country.

"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said. He called on Mukasey and others to correct their misstatements.

A call to Mukasey at his New York law firm was not immediately returned Thursday. Mukasey was President George W. Bush's last attorney general.

.On Thursday, McCain also penned an opinion piece for The Washington Post on the topic, saying, "I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading."

He concluded, "This is a moral
debate. It is about who we are."

Last week, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the U.S. got vital information from waterboarding that led directly to bin Laden.

McCain said he opposes waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, and any form of torture tactics. He said that they could be used against Americans and that their use damages the nation's character and reputation.

"I do not believe they are necessary to our success in our war against terrorists, as the advocates of these techniques claim they are," he said.

"Ultimately, this is about morality. What is at stake here is the very idea of America — the America whose values have inspired the world and instilled in the hearts of its citizens the certainty that, no matter how hard we fight, no matter how dangerous our adversary, in the course of vanquishing our enemies we do not compromise our deepest values," he said. "We are America, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard. That is what is really at stake."

McCain did reject the idea of prosecuting any U.S. officials for using interrogation tactics in the past.

McCain's remarks drew immediate praise from several Democratic senators who have been at political odds with him in past campaigns.

"No one in the Senate could have given this speech," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "He speaks with personal knowledge. He still remembers the most dark nights when he tried to rest, when he was tortured brutally."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said McCain's opinions may not be the popular view, but they were the right ones.

"Thank you for your leadership," Durbin said.

.Sponsored links.Discuss: McCain says torture did not lead to bin Laden

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speaks at the 41st Washington Conference on the Americas on Wednesday at the State Department in Washington.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43007276/ns/politics-more_politics

...is that when we tortured people who claimed that al Qaeda (a name bin Laden never called his organization until we called it that...a name a torture victim made up) was planning on blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge based upon watching remake of Godzilla, that since we knew that this was false, we didn't have to worry about protecting the Brooklyn Bridge. Gotcha. I'll make sure to forward a memo to Dick Morris.

Once the means of interrogation crosses the line from legal rough interrogation to illegal torture, what possible difference does it make legally as to criminal liability whether the torture on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 1 or a 10? Obviously it makes a difference to the victim but we are talking about law and policy here.

      Maybe it makes a difference in sentencing - the 10s get the chair while the 1s just go to jail - but it makes no difference at all in criminal liability.

But for me the core issue is that most professional interrogators say it doesn't produce reliable info. And it seems not to have in this case, despite the rantings of the righties who desperately want to claim some contribution by the Bush Administration.  I think Bush did contribute, but not in this way.  I give the Bushies full credit for keeping the CIA funded, as well as the SEALs and Delta Force.  That should be enough.
PS:  In the "find the nuclear bomb" scenario, I have no problem with torturing someone so long as  it would produce evidence that might help.  The reality is, it probably wouldn't.

-- Modified on 5/17/2011 9:46:53 AM

and non-torture interrogation - which is legal.

      I certainly have no disagreement with that obvious point but this post is about torture which is illegal. Once you cross the threshold to illegal torture, at that point the degree of pain inflicted is not relevant to criminal liability.

    We don't have "first degree torture," second degree torture and so on.

  But certainly I understand the distinction between interrogation where a person is frightened and where his eyes are poked out.
The first is not unlawful torture and the second is.

In many investigations, it is rarely one piece of evidence that cracks the case.  A lot of times, it is one little thing added to another added to another.

It is rare that one piece is the smoking gun, and it is often the case that there are many pieces to the puzzle.

Often cops are alerted to something because a witness with a known bias is lying, and they have reason to suspect it is a lie.

This is especially true in intellegence work where the game is a little evidence here, corroborated by that piece over there.

In Panetta's letter he says that the info gotten under "enhanced interrogation" (my term) was often false. But the important thing that he says is  "These attempts to falsify the facilitator/courier’s role were alerting."

The means that even though what was said was proven false, the interrogators knew (or found out) it was false, and that itself "alerted," i.e. was part of the puzzle.

Panetta's letter is an amazing work of legalese.  It attempts to minimize the information, but never can really come out and say, "We never got anything from that source."  

There are also degrees that are very important.  Some cause permanant injury and pain.  Saddam used to poke you people's eyes and cut off ears.  Some hurt at the time, but the pain is gone after an hour and are meant to scare.

My fav example is the photo from Abu Grahib (SP???) with the guy standing on the box with electodes attached to him.  The U.S. was interrogating him.  The electrodes weren't attached to a source of power.  When Saddam did it, they were.  The difference is 50,000 volts going through your balls or not at all.

That is a difference that is more than a difference in degree, but in kind

I make a huge distinction because of degree.

exception for the way you described the waterboarding issue.

        Waterboarding does not cause pain per se but it presumably is extremely unpleasant to be choked by water. The cliche the Bush admin used was "we waterboard our troops" and therefore it's not torture. Of course that's not what happened to KSM - he was waterboarded every 4 hours every day for a month. To say that waterboarding in that manner is not torture is absurd, even if it causs no permanent injury or pain per se.

      But we needn't argue about it bc now the president himself has said waterboarding is torture and has outlawed it.

No.  You take what I say to the silly extreme. I can do that with any argument you make. But it is silly and a sign of a weak argument.  (Gosh, Willie thinks only true and verified info. Therefore, we won't do anything until the info is established beyoned a reasonable doubt.  See how easy it is to distort and exaggerate the other person's view?)

I did not say that false info is part of the puzzle.  Panetta said it.  I did not say that lies that people tell can be valuable in the total mix. Other people said that.

Indeed, it is a standard way of evaluating every piece of intel and info - look at the source, look at the circumstances, how does it all fit in with what you know.  Is this a source that may be less than honest? Can we corroborate what he is saying? Do we know he is lying in part, and if so, does that help us evaluate the rest?

I'm not saying if someone says, "We are going to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge" that they close down the bridge that day and arrest everyone with in 10 miles. I am not saying you drop all surveilance of the Bridge. But you can exaggerate my argument to mean that.

What I am saying is that it is one piece of the puzzle.  If one person says they are bombing the Brooklyn Bridge, another says the Oakland Bridge, a third says the Golden Gate, and you get 10 people all talking about a bridge, when none of those people had a chance to coordinate their stories, you may see a pattern and start looking at bridges.  It is one piece.  

Hey, here is my question for you.  If Panetta is downplaying it, why can't he just say, "NO. Info from enhanced interrogation did not play a part in reaching this result. It had no value."

Instead, he has to dance around it and "Well, maybe," and "It came from all sorts of,"
and "the ultimate info was complex."   Blah, blah, blah.

Just say, "It had no value."  But he can't say that.

So that leaves you exaggerating what I say.

I am making a distinction between interrogation where a person is frightened and one where his eyes are poked out.  And you need to ask the difference.  

Well here it is: With one method, a person is afraid, but next month he is okay. With the other, he gets a dog and a cane and can never see a movie again.  Is that a big enough difference for you?

I am making a distinction between two forms of interrogation, one which threatens electricity and the other that uses it.  And you need to ask what is the difference between being zapped with 50,000 volts and not.   Take a wire, run it to a lamp, tie it aroud your balls, turn on the lamp.  Then ask me what is the difference between electricity and no electricity.

In fact, if you define torture as causing permanant or serious damage, then it makes a difference in whether a crime was committed - not just sentence. In CA, torture requires the infliction of "great bodily injury" (PC 206)
That refers you to 12022.7 which requires "significant or substantial physical injury."  

I would think that "significant or substantial injury" is not caused by "sleep deprivation" or the "walling" (a person slammed against a false wall that sound scary) or that technique where they made a person sit is an uncomfotable position for a long time (forget the name).

Therefore, none of these would be "torture."  I don't even think that waterboarding causes "significant injury."  Every GBI case I ever saw involved at least substantial medical treatement or at the very least some permanant body change.

Does that explain the difference?

revoking all Bush admin defintions of torture including Yoo's memo and limiting interrogation to the Army Field Manuel which did not permit waterboarding:

For your midnight reading, here is the current law going forward:

(a) Common Article 3 Standards as a Minimum Baseline. Consistent with the requirements of the Federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340–2340A,section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 2000dd,
the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, and other laws regulating the treatment and interrogation of individuals detained in any armed conflict, such persons shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and shall not
be subjected to violence to life and person (including murder of all kinds,
mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), nor to outrages upon personal
dignity (including humiliating and degrading treatment), whenever such individuals
are in the custody or under the effective control of an officer,
employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within
a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of
the United States.
(b) Interrogation Techniques and Interrogation-Related Treatment. Effective
immediately, an individual in the custody or under the effective control
of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government,
or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department
or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict, shall not be subjected
to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to
interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual
2–22.3 (Manual)


    As far as criminal law is concerned, criminal torture does not require any physical pain; severe mental pain alone can constitute unlawful torture under US law:


18 U.S.C. § 2340. Definitions As used in this chapter — (1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

     (2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from — (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

Again, here is his partial quote from the link in my OP: "Let me further point out that we first learned about the facilitator/courier’s nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in 2002. It is also important to note that some detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques attempted to provide false or misleading information about the facilitator/courier. These attempts to falsify the facilitator/courier’s role were alerting.

In the end, no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier’s full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means."

BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Can you confirm that it was as a result of waterboarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after Bin Laden?”

LEON PANETTA: “Clearly some of it came from detainees and the advanced interrogation of detainees…”

BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Are you saying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission.”

LEON PANETTA: “I think some of the detainees, uh, clearly, uh, they used these advanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees.”

BRIAN WILLIAMS: “So finer point, one final time, that includes waterboarding?”

LEON PANETTA: “That is correct.”

The degree of pain is not irrelevant. It is crucial. Below a certain degree of pain and it is not torture.  As I said, with proper authority, without significant bodily injury it is not torture.

The problem that I have had, and in all honestly I don't remember where you stood on the issue, is that everything has been lumped into torture.  The guy on the box with the fake electrodes was called torture, although now you seem to agree that it was not.

"Walling," and sleep deprivation do not cause significant bodily injury, but everyone else had lumped them in with "torture."

Obviously, people have just jumped on water boarding as "torture," including McCain.  However, the main effect of waterboarding is the fear of drowning.  To be fully honest, it CAN lead to injury, but that is not necessary.  If it hasn't led to injury, is it torture?  

Again, this is a quetion of degree.  If a suspect was waterboarded and it caused significant bodily injury, it very well be torture, and then motive will affect sentence, as you correctly stated earlier.

However, if no significant bodily injury was caused, and it was just the fear and sensation, it is very hard to say whether it was or not.

The fact that Bush described it in one way is not a definative definition.  People use words in different contexts and with different meanings. Also, people may concede issues in one context, but that does not bind others in a different context.

Just as an example, if Bush said waterboarding was torture, that would not be binding in a trial of the person who did it.  (I have to think about it, but I am not even sure it would be admissible.)

We are talking about if it is definately torture, not if Bush, McCain, J. Doe, Obama, or anyone else thought it was or said it was.

Assuming your number of times KSM was waterboarded is accurate, I don't know how it can be torture without the level of pain or injury.  If you can have torture without extreme pain or injury, I am not even sure what is so wrong with it.  I always thought the bad aspect of torture came from the pain and injury, and now that is no longer needed.

I have always been uncomfortable with taking words that describe horrible things and dilute them to cover lesser evils.  I don't like genocide unless it really involves wiping out a race, culture, or religion, or at least a very substantial part of that group.  

At one point, I heard someone from NOW describe rape as "any unwanted sexual activity." I always though was rape a man jamming his penis in a woman's vagina by force or fear (or similar method) when she did not want it.  Now it is any unwanted activity, according to her.

Now torture doesn't require pain or injury.  Sorry. If that is the case, then it isn't that bad, and you need a new word for doing something to someone that causes extreme pain or significant injury. Let's call extreme pain and significant injury "Fred," and you can say waterboarding was torture, but I only object to Fred.

That is exactly the type of legal language that you can drive a truck through without hitting any walls.  I wish that CA statutes were that broadly worded.  

The Army Field Manual is one definition, but not necessarily the final word. It just gets vaguer and vaguer.

God bless the attorneys who write legislation.

to deny ANY credit to Bush for having done ANYTHING that lead to the killing of Osama.

They act like "credit" is finite. Like any credit given to Bush is credit taken away from the Messiah.

3 guys were waterboarded but ALL detainess were gathered up under Bush. Therefore ANY information, obtained via waterboard or otherwise, is Bush's intel. Watch the strained arguements about that!

Notice they don't talk about the wiretapping, Gitmo, or the entire universe of other info gathered up by Bush NOT obtained by waterboarding? Is it so damaging to the Messiah to credit Bush for THAT?

This is a manifestation of Obama's juvenile streak.