“Zero Dark Thirty” and our interrogation legacy
“In the end, everybody breaks, bro — it’s biology,” says the CIA man in the movie, tactically but inaccurately, to the detainee undergoing “enhanced interrogation.” This too familiar term has lost its capacity for making us uneasy. America’s Vietnam failure was foretold when U.S. officials began calling air attacks on North Vietnam “protective reaction strikes,” a semantic obfuscation that revealed moral queasiness. “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” wrote George Orwell, who warned about governments resorting to “long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
Viewers of “Zero Dark Thirty” can decide whether or which “enhanced interrogation” measures depicted — slaps, sleep deprivation, humiliation, waterboarding — constitute, in plain English, torture. And they can ponder whether any or all of them would be wrong even if effective. …
The government properly cooperated with the making of this movie because the public needs realism about the world we live in. “We live,” says Col. Jessep, “in a world that has walls. . . . You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.” Regarding terrorism, the problem is that we live in a world without walls, without ramparts that can be manned for the purpose of repelling an invasion by a massed enemy.
Blowback
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I’m sure Hussein knew HOW the CIA got info about Osama
( by torturing his muslim brothers)
so
WHY did Hussein give the kill order for Osama?
He should have put his foot down and should have refused to even consider using info obtained by torturing his fellow islamists by the evil CIA , as his protest against torture and Bush .
burrata on January 12, 2013 at 9:54 PM
So when Japanese soldiers waterboarded American soldiers in WW2 it was a war crime, when the US does it, it’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
“There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn’t have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans,” McCain said during a news conference.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/politics/main3554687.shtml%27
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 9:59 PM
NO credible info to locate Osama was divulged by a detainee whilst being tortured. In fact, the divulging of information (to Kill Osama), only came when the interrogators used non-abusive techniques (tricking them, giving them food, or basic questioning).
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:05 PM
Sugarpants, or “NotTheFacts”, what else did the Japanese do to American soldiers? Care to elaborate? No, you don’t.
arnold ziffel on January 12, 2013 at 10:07 PM
The Torture Act defines torture as an act “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering” upon another person in their custody or physical control. [18 USC § 2340(1)] Severe mental pain or suffering is defined by acts intended to evidence prolonged mental harm, such as the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering, the threat of imminent death, the threat that another person would imminently be subjected to death, or severe physical pain or suffering.
Just looking at waterboarding and its variations, Courts and tribunals here have found that waterboarding constituted torture. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:09 PM
Here’s a reality check on ‘torture’ for liberals, hand-wringing grandmothers, and other people who should go watch a soap opera and leave the discussion to those who can handle hard facts.
MelonCollie on January 12, 2013 at 10:11 PM
Torture Conspiracy 18 USC § 2340A(c)
(1) two or more persons agreed to commit or cause the commission of acts of torture, under color of law, upon persons who were in the conspirators’ custody and control; and (2) the defendant knowingly joined the illegal agreement at any time.
After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as ‘water cure,’ ‘water torture’ and ‘waterboarding,’ according to the charging documents.
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:16 PM
Should the US throw out all of its torture laws like the below?
Torture is defined generally the same as the federal anti-torture statute but also requires that the torture be done for the purpose of “obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.” [18 U.S.C. § 2441(d)(1)(A)] Severe mental pain or suffering is defined exactly as it is defined in the federal torture statute for both torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. [18 U.S.C. § 2441(d)(2)(A)]
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:34 PM
Answer the question. What else did the Japanese do to American POW’s? You are disgusting. I don’t know you from Adam and yet I do know you. Someone could walk up to your wife /gf, squeeze her titties and you wouldn’t do anything.
arnold ziffel on January 12, 2013 at 10:35 PM
So according to you:
Sen. McCain said; “Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding.”
“There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn’t have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans,” McCain said during a news conference.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/politics/main3554687.shtml%27
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:47 PM
and you know that how exactly?
burrata on January 12, 2013 at 10:49 PM
I read a book about “Japanese waterboarding” in WW2. They would shove hoses down throats of captured soldiers and force water into their intestines and then stomp on them until their internal organs burst. I saw “Dark Zero Thirty” today and missed those borrowed from the WW2 Japanese techniques.
Marcus on January 12, 2013 at 10:52 PM
@
If the US wants prove to be a nation of laws shouldn’t all the torture laws be thrown out?
What good is it for the US to have torture laws and why did Ronald Reagan and others decide to enact torture laws?
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 10:54 PM
Wasn’t Hitchens waterboarded for his own edification? Haven’t many special forces people undergone it voluntarily? Would they have allowed themselves to be casually broken on the wheel, beaten on the soles or burned with cigarettes or electrodes? Maybe, but I doubt it.
A teenaged camp counselor held me under water when I was eight years old, in a misguided effort to teach me how to swim. Highly unpleasant, not to mention memorable, but not easy to associate with war crimes.
The problem is, as usual, the slippery slope. Ie, what’s next, with what precautions, and under whose auspices.
Seth Halpern on January 12, 2013 at 10:55 PM
Because torture works, FOOL, and since this isn’t Candy Land we occasionally need to do things that make you uncomfortable. Especially on evil people who will literally laugh at anything short of enough pain to make them decide to tell the lawful people who collared their oxygen-wasting hide exactly what they want to know.
Doubly so if said information will directly lead to innocent people not dying, our soldiers not getting ambushed, or where to splat someone even more wicked then they are.
MelonCollie on January 12, 2013 at 11:07 PM
lol. You are great, If more American women—and men, thought like you do things would be much better.
arnold ziffel on January 12, 2013 at 11:17 PM
I was asking why the US had declared torture a CRIME with laws specifically AGAINST torture such as the ones enacted by Ronald Reagan which further enforced the laws already written before him such the ones bellow.
January 21, 1968: US Soldier Convicted of Waterboarding North Vietnamese Prisoner
The Washington Post runs a front-page photo of a US soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption says the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.” Because of the photo, the US Army initiates an investigation, and the soldier is court-martialed and convicted of torturing a prisoner. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 11:21 PM
oh lord not this reprobate…
tom daschle concerned on January 12, 2013 at 11:26 PM
In the aftermath of World War II, Japanese officer Yukio Asano is charged by a US war crimes tribunal for torturing. His detainee was strapped to a stretcher with his feet in the air and head towards the floor, and water was poured over his face, causing him to gasp for air until he agreed to talk. Yukio Asano was charged for no other crime yet he was convicted for committing an act of torture. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 11:27 PM
I have a good cry every day for my nephew who was waterboarded at SERE.
tom daschle concerned on January 12, 2013 at 11:42 PM
It’s fine that you think it’s ok to use torture but shouldn’t the US at least throw out all of it’s laws and treaty’s that make torture a CRIME?
JustTheFacts on January 12, 2013 at 11:48 PM
Oh dear, the waterworks started again.
tom daschle concerned on January 12, 2013 at 11:52 PM
If a country cant even obey its own laws, (let alone international laws) it is considered a corrupt, lawless government and not the great nation of laws the US was intended to be.
Therefore if the US wants to be a nation of laws it must throw out the laws and treaty’s against torture.
It is hypocrisy and a disgrace to keep any laws and treaty’s that the US has no intention of abiding.
The laws against torture must be thrown out and the only ones with the courage to do it are Republicans.
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 12:11 AM
You wouldn’t know torture if it probed you in the ass, Nancy.
xblade on January 13, 2013 at 12:35 AM
Sen. John McCain said:
“In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.”
CIA chief Leon Panetta:
“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.”
McCain’s and Panetta’s account also represents public, on-the-record confirmation from the CIA.
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 12:44 AM
I know how the LAW defines torture what about you?
On 22 May 2009, a radio talk show host Erich “Mancow” Muller subjected himself to waterboarding to prove that it is not torture, but changed his mind because of the experience.
In May 2008 the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding and concluded that it was torture. He also noted that he suffered ongoing psychological effects from the ordeal.
According to the CIA one detainee, (KSM), was waterborded 187 times.
The Torture Act defines torture as:
“an act “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or MENTAL pain or suffering” upon another person in their custody or physical control. [18 USC § 2340(1)] Severe MENTAL pain or suffering is defined by acts intended to evidence prolonged MENTAL harm, such as the intentional infliction or THREATENED infliction of severe physical pain or suffering, the THREAT of imminent death, the threat that another person would imminently be subjected to death, or severe physical pain or suffering.”
“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 1:28 AM
Obama is a three-faced weasel who benefited -and still benefits- from Bush’s strengths, all while hypocritically denouncing them.
A complete fraud posing as a staunch moral beacon.
And Obama has accomplished more of Osama’s goals than Bin Laden ever dreamed possible.
The Muslim Brotherhood in power, the Arab world in jihadist chaos, and America weaker than ever.
Barack Hussein is a greater promoter of the Caliphate Dream than the late leader of Al Qaeda.
Who he only agreed to have killed for the obvious political gain to himself and his power hunger.
Had the mission failed he would have blamed Bush, somehow… but that it succeeded, thanks to Bush (and Bush’s “enhanced interrogation” tactics), he would never, ever admit.
A three-faced little weasel.
Who successfully suckered 51% of the moron-ocracy of America.
And now tortures us all with his socialist Utopian idiocies.
profitsbeard on January 13, 2013 at 4:49 AM
JustTheFacts,
Assassination is technically forbidden by executive order, should we throw Obama and everyone else involved with drone strikes and such in jail?
rob verdi on January 13, 2013 at 7:02 AM
Senator McCain was hanged from the ceiling by his arms and left there for days. To this day, he cannot raise his arms above his head. My Congressman, Sam Johnson, was part of the Alcatraz Gang who were singled out among those in the Hanoi Hilton and taken to a special torture facility about a mile away. His hands are partially paralyzed and he walks with a severe hitch.
It’s understandable that these men would be adverse to anything that even hinted of torture but, in my opinion, until one of these Islamic fucks is limping around with bent and mangled limbs, we are not torturing anyone.
Look at the picture of KSM on the day of his arrest and then after months of being “tortured” at Gitmo. I’m sure most terrorists get down on their mats five times per day and ask their moon god to let them be captured and taken to Gitmo to be tortured with good food, entertainment, and a comfortable bed.
Odysseus on January 13, 2013 at 7:26 AM
Senator McCain was hanged from the ceiling by his arms and left there for days. To this day, he cannot raise his arms above his head. My Congressman, Sam Johnson, was part of the Alcatraz Gang who were singled out among those in the Hanoi Hilton and taken to a special torture facility about a mile away. His hands are partially paralyzed and he walks with a severe hitch.
It’s understandable that these men would be adverse to anything that even hinted of torture but, in my opinion, until one of these Islamic flukes is limping around with bent and mangled limbs, we are not torturing anyone.
Look at the picture of KSM on the day of his arrest and then after months of being “tortured” at Gitmo. I’m sure most terrorists get down on their mats five times per day and ask their moon god to let them be captured and taken to Gitmo to be tortured with good food, entertainment, and a comfortable bed.
Odysseus on January 13, 2013 at 7:31 AM
Wrong. The name of Osama’s courier was revealed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he was waterboarded. The CIA then tracked down the courier and followed him to Osama’s compound.
SoulGlo on January 13, 2013 at 8:23 AM
Thanks for that bit Lt. Weinberg.
Rio Linda Refugee on January 13, 2013 at 8:37 AM
I remain unconvinced that Juan Mcain was tortured.
CorporatePiggy on January 13, 2013 at 9:06 AM
Cowardice from a coward, nothing more. Take your fairy-floss moral authority and go home.
MelonCollie on January 13, 2013 at 9:34 AM
A final though to JustNoFacts: a nation that refuses to do bad things to bad people has condemned itself to be defeated by evil.
Freedom isn’t free, little girl, and it cannot be maintained by being Mr.Rogers. Sometimes you have to cause enough pain and suffering to the wicked people who want to kill and/or enslave you that they run back into their holes.
MelonCollie on January 13, 2013 at 12:28 PM
EVERY nation that did/does bad things to people was/is always in an attempt to triumph over evil. Yet the US condemned those countries for committing acts of torture while calling torture inhuman acts of evil.
As a nation that aspires to set a moral example for the rest of the world, we should never subject any human being to torture. How can anyone call themselves a Christian when they know Jesus would not torture.
With the advent of the “Enlightenment,” many countries baned the practice of waterboarding, with at least one calling it “morally repugnant.”
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 12:57 PM
Most everyone on this thread agrees that the US laws/treaty’s against torture must be thrown out.
If a country cant even obey its own laws, (let alone international laws) it is considered a corrupt, lawless government and not the great nation of laws the US was intended to be.
Therefore if the US wants to be a nation of laws it must throw out the laws and treaty’s against torture and the only ones with the courage to do it are Republicans.
It is hypocrisy and a disgrace to keep any laws and treaty’s that the US has no intention of abiding.
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 1:02 PM
Amazing work. Really. Incredibly stupid. Illogical.
You are a piece of work. Thanks for sacrificing your integrity, as any premise put down from here to eternity can be summarily ignored and or ridiculed.
tom daschle concerned on January 13, 2013 at 4:31 PM
Just because some people like yourself are not Christian does not mean you/they are unable to see how morally repugnant it is to use torture while the US claims to set a moral example for the rest of the world.
At least you have the courage to demand that the US throw out all laws/treatys that criminalizes torture.
JustTheFacts on January 13, 2013 at 8:36 PM