Posted on 10/01/2006 7:58:27 AM PDT by dennisw
As Congress has debated legislation that would set up military tribunals and govern the questioning of suspected terrorists (whom the Bush administration would like to be able to detain indefinitely), at issue has been what interrogation techniques can be employed and whether information obtained during torture can be used against those deemed unlawful enemy combatants. One interrogation practice central to this debate is waterboarding. It's usually described in the media in a matter-of-fact manner. The Washington Post simply referred to waterboarding a few days ago as an interrogation measure that "simulates drowning." But what does waterboarding look like?
Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown. He currently is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic staff in the Senate, but the views expressed here are his own observations.
His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge. Here's the first:
Here's another view:
How were they used? Here's a painting by a former prisoner that shows the waterboard in action:
In an email to me, Blank explained the significance of the photos. He wrote:
The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods. Incidentally, the waterboard in these photo wasn't merely one among many torture devices highlighted at the prison museum. It was one of only two devices singled out for highlighting (the other was another form of water-torture--a tank that could be filled with water or other liquids; I have photos of that too.) There was an outdoor device as well, one the Khymer Rouge didn't have to construct: chin-up bars. (The prison where the museum is located had been a school before the Khymer Rouge took over). These bars were used for "stress positions"-- another practice employed under current US guidelines. At the Khymer Rouge prison, there is a tank of water next to the bars. It was used to revive prisoners for more torture when they passed out after being placed in stress positions.
The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn't a coincidence. As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.
Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.
These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to "simulate drowning" or to "make the prisoner believe he might drown." But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.
The legislation backed by Bush and congressional Republicans would explicitly permit the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding and other forms of torture. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other top al Qaeda leaders have reportedly been subjected to this technique. They would certainly note--or try to note--that at any trial. But with this legislation, the White House is seeking to declare the use of waterboarding (at least in the past) as a legitimate practice of the US government.
The House of Representatives voted for Bush's bill on Thursday, 253 to 168 (with 34 Democrats siding with the president and only seven Republicans breaking with their party's leader). The Senate is expected to vote on the bill today. Its members should consider Blank's photos and arguments before they, too, go off the deep end.
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Corn is hard to digest... *cough*
Ahhh - but see, that's why they plan on getting rid of the Electoral College - which would nullify the red state votes and assure them victory - no matter the actual votes.
They just passed a bill in California to do just that - the state with the most E. votes....that state alone would just about tip elections.
Hitlery has been screaming to get rid of the Electoral College ever since it went against them.
Thank God ARnold S. VETOED the bill this week. But look for it to pop up all over in other states - and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Calif. vetoed bill go to the libRats shills in court and be overturned!
We need to keep on top of this
Please, you are making the asumption that the liberals care what brings them to power. They would have financed him if they were out of power.
Its more likely that they fear that someone might get interrogated who can name names.
So the professor states that waterboarding is the "most viciously effective" form of torture, but doesn't physically injure or kill.
Hmmm. Terrorists use beheadings and other forms of torture on their captives.
Can I stomach "viciously effective" means to stop them? I don't think I'll lose any sleep over it.
The question for me is why David Corn has so much empathy for terrorists. I guess he identifies with anyone who opposes the U.S. government, and the people in the World Trade Center and Pentagon were just collateral damage to him.
What a creep. I feel sorry for his mother.
Perhaps our lack of communication arises from the fact that one of us is thinking and reasoning in English, while the other is extrapolating, conjecturing, and engaging in the most simple-minded of hero worship, thereby forsaking even the most rudimentary of analytical thought.
uh.... ok.
I'm thinking that this could be one of those makeover shows to clean up the wood, put some color on the leg and arm restraints... maybe a color coordinated hood with a water can or hose with decorations on it.
Now the room could get redone into a little colonial or French provincial type of furniture...
the libs would like the stark more "modern' stainless steel look... I'd like the rustic look with maybe a couple of heads mounted on the wall, some posters or photos of the employees holding battery cables, cattle prods, dremels, just the fun loving happy photos that make the work place a nice place to work..
maybe some 2 ply Koran toilet paper in a camel shaped dispenser....with a Mohammad plastic target in the bowl of the toilet.
Waterboarding is done many different ways. We do it differently. Wikipedia has some info on different ways of water boarding
Great that Arnold vetoed that POS bill. The nerve of those libs messing with the Electoral College.
I am saying that I see no reason to think that we can't trust our President, Vice President, Centcom, CIA, FBI and others when they tell us of achievements attained since 9/11. For your reasoning and your baseless attacks on my beliefs, skills, and knowledge to be on solid ground, the lack of attacks since 9/11 would have to have been sheer luck. This COULD be true as it COULD be true what you stated about me... but Evidence and Events would preclude coming to that conclusion.
I have not attacked you or belittled you in any way. I simply have come to a different conclusion than you. You on the other hand...
LLS
What "evidence?" The testimony of the man who will take credit for the accomplishment? The absence of any demonstrable counter-argument? That's a lot like saying that I am responsible for freeing Nebraska from the terrible plague of tigers that had terrorized them. Then, when you respond that there are no tigers in Nebraska, I say "Thank you."
It is possible that there have been no attacks on the US because of George Bush's counter-terrorism strategy. But it is also possible that there would have been no attacks had George Bush done nothing, or had he done far less.
Besides, this wasn't about Bush's strategy in the WOT; it was about the usefulness of information gathered through coercion of prisoners. I was merely dealing with a logcial reality in developing my syllogism. You extrapolated that into an indictment of the Bush administration's handling of the WOT.
I have not attacked you or belittled you in any way. I simply have come to a different conclusion than you.
I don't see that. I don't know WHAT conclusion you have come to. You seem obsessed with my doubt of Bush's absolute credibility rather than the topic at hand.
You on the other hand...
... argue rationally and to a logical conclusion? Guilty.
We are not going to agree. As I said before and should have kept to it, I'm leaving it at that.
LLS
Take your moral values and shove them
islamics want to destroy human civilization and these idiots want us to place nice
I bet there's places in san francisco you can pay to have this done to you..........
Did you know that they served carrots occasionally at the Nazi death camps?
They also serve carrots occasionally in American schools.
American schools are just like Nazi death camps.
They also serve carrots occasionally in American schools.
American schools are just like Nazi death camps.
Exactly. Every person fed carrots dies.
Well, we can't peg the Nazi death camps for serving a certain brand
of carrot juice:
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