SERE called their tactics "Torture" in 2002

[lostfan]

Comparing Al Qaeda to Saberi is ridiculous - I'm sure she was there to kill thousands of Iranians and even has stated that cause to the entire world! But to you all, it's the same. Whatever.

Totally not the point. You can't seem to get past the "terrorists killing Americans" thing and it's affecting your perspective in places it shouldn't be.

Edited May 15, 2009 by lostfan

[kapkomet]

Totally not the point. You can't seem to get past the "terrorists killing Americans" thing and it's affecting your perspective in places it shouldn't be.

And your point isn't relevant either, unless I'm missing it.

[Balta1701]

And your point isn't relevant either, unless I'm missing it.

If you really want to get down to it, spending 3 months waterboarding 2 guys after you've spent months interrogating them doesn't exactly argue that we were facing the ticking time bomb scenario either.

[lostfan]

And your point isn't relevant either, unless I'm missing it.

My point being that information collected via torture can lead to bulls*** information (e.g., Saberi's "confession") that can be dismissed as invalid (therefore making a trial using this information a pointless sham), and this information can be used by government officials to advance an agenda? That's 100% relevant and I'm trying to show what it looks like when the shoe is on the other foot.

 

As far as al-Qaida operatives go, we can, and were, collecting information from them through other means (there are probably dozens of methods, I don't even know them all off the top of my head), but the Cheney crowd f***ed up the whole process.

[kapkomet]

If you really want to get down to it, spending 3 months waterboarding 2 guys after you've spent months interrogating them doesn't exactly argue that we were facing the ticking time bomb scenario either.

I never said it did.

 

[StrangeSox]

Comparing Al Qaeda to Saberi is ridiculous - I'm sure she was there to kill thousands of Iranians and even has stated that cause to the entire world!

 

Iran said she was a spy--her giving up state secrets could lead to the death of thousands of Iranians! If they tortured her into confessing that, they could easily show it to be 'true'!

 

Furthermore, Saberi is indeed a citizen, which is covered under Geneva Conventions, unlike some terrorist organization that is nebulous at best, who has no defined "country" to determine a nation under Geneva Conventions - they are an idealogue, not a "citizen" of any one nation that has rights under the Geneva Convention.

 

So, if we're not bound by some international rule, we should torture?

 

edit: according to wikipedia, spies are considered unlawful combatants. So she's fair game.

 

But to you all, it's the same. Whatever.

 

You can't be seriously saying that after your sarcastic "its always different" mantra the past few months.

Edited May 15, 2009 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

As far as al-Qaida operatives go, we can, and were, collecting information from them through other means (there are probably dozens of methods, I don't even know them all off the top of my head), but the Cheney crowd f***ed up the whole process.

Depends on your goal. If your goal was to get them to give information, then yes, the torture f***ed up the whole process. If your goal was to get them to say that they were working with the Iraqis...then the torture did its job very well.

[bmags]

America isn't a threat to killing thousands of Iranians?

[Nixon]

At least when the US does it it'll be a laser guided bomb that hits MILITARY TARGETS (that just happen to be next to hospitals/schools/apt buildings/etc)... These AYRABS don't even have the decency to stockpile multi-million dollar weaponry, they steal our CORPORATE ASSETS to do their dirty work. Tragic stuff really.

[Balta1701]

Another piece of the "Why did Cheney want to do this so badly" puzzle.

Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn't true.

 

Cheney's 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship.

 

...

A key proponent of the Iraq invasion and of harsh interrogation methods, Cheney has become the leading defender of such measures, which included forced nudity, prolonged sleep deprivation, stress positions and waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

 

The Rocky Mountain News asked Cheney in a Jan. 9, 2004, interview if he stood by his claims that Saddam's regime had maintained a "relationship" with al Qaida, raising the danger that Iraq might give the group chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to attack the U.S.

 

"Absolutely. Absolutely," Cheney replied.

 

A Cheney spokeswoman said a response to an e-mail requesting clarification of the former vice president's remarks would be forthcoming next week.

 

"The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back," he said. "We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it."

 

No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.

 

It's not apparent which Guantanamo detainees Cheney was referring to in the interview.

[HuskyCaucasian]

See? Waterboarding is torture, Mancow can attest to it.

 

Erich "Mancow" Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.

 

Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.

 

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous... and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

 

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face... I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Edited May 22, 2009 by Athomeboy_2000

[lostfan]

Ironically though, the whole reason SERE does waterboarding in the first place was to give Americans exposure to things done by eastern bloc countries, the Japanese, etc., basically all the "bad" governments that did things we considered immoral. Actually using it was never the point.