Posted on 11/09/2007 6:14:39 AM PST by RDTF
A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use by U.S. interrogators because it is a relic of abusive totalitarian governments.
Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.
"In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn't know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat," Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. "It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured."
-snip-
If Mohammed faced waterboarding for 90 seconds, Nance said, about 1.2 gallons of water was poured down his nose and throat while he was strapped to a board. Nance said the SERE school used a board modeled after one from Southeast Asia, though it had leather straps instead of metal clamps.
SERE attendees expect to be released and assume that their trainers will not permanently harm them. Nance said it is "stress inoculation" meant to let U.S. troops know what to expect if they are captured. "The SERE community was designed over 50 years ago to show that, as a torture instrument, waterboarding is a terrifying, painful and humiliating tool that leaves no physical scars -snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Conversely, since we abstained, it made John McCain's torture not happen?
If we questioned them while having a cup of coffee. Would it be torture if we didn’t offer them cream or sugar?
I understand only three people(bad guys)have been wb’d. To listen to all of the ruckus one would think it is rampant. This whole thing is ridiculous and just designed to give the administration a rough time.
Check your mail
Gotcha - you're dismissed, bedwetter.
I am sure that the only reason our Islamic enemies use beheading (slow variety, more properly called "butchering," I think) is because of our extreme barbarism and if we would only behave in a civilized manner we would having nothing to fear for our own people who are captured by our honorable enemies. /extreme sarcasm off
I would call waterboarding "no nonsense coercion" rather than torture. Its very limited use in this war has been neither punitive nor sadistic (to distinguish it from the prolonged barbarism of some of our former enemies such as the North Vietnamese). And rarely -- if ever -- has one of our few "special" captives needed more than one or two sessions, meaning less than five minutes total time of coercive interrogation.
Granted it is a slippery slope, and I wish it were not necessary. But we are dealing with people who are attempting -- and have succeeded -- in unleashing mass murder on thousands of utterly innocent American civilians. And -- for the most part -- this enemy refuses to confront us on the battlefield. It is the enemy who has chosen this type of warfare.
The duty of the president of the United States is to do whatever is necessary -- whatever is necessary -- to protect the American people from this murderous enemy.
If we have become so weak, so morally fastidious that we can not use aggressive, coercive, noninjuring interrogation against key plotters in the mass murder of Americans....well, a people that weak doesn't deserve and needn't expect to survive.
Thank you. I disagree, but I don't have the will, time or (probably) the abilty to convince you otherwise. Again, thank you.
The ‘torture’ is all psychological and not much different from hard interrogation.
“I have told them. They agree with me.”
And probably secretly pray that decision will never really be up to you.
No problem. At least you (unlike others around here) can simply accept that we disagree.
Hmm...then why is it that people submitted to it comment on the physical pain?
I know that it is a side issue, but it is your side issue...
So 1000 guilty men is too many for you. What would be the appropriate number of guilty men to go free to prevent the wrongful conviction of an innocent man? 100? 10? 1? Jail 10 innocents just to make sure we get the 1 guilty?
After all, if preventing the harm, murder, rape or robbery of an innocent is at stake...
Arderkrag, so you agree that it’s torture. Do you think most of us share your view? Probably not. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 (2,988 dead, some 7,000 injured) wouldn’t talk for months. After waterboarding, he talked and gave up SIX major terrorists, including some that were plotting to take down the Brooklyn Bridge...AND KILL DOZENS TO HUNDREDS OF AMERICANS. Here’s my question: Will you sign their death certificates as being partially responsible because you care more about terrorists who don’t follow the Geneva Convention not being in discomfort than the lives of our fellow people? THIS IS THE EXACT POSITION OF THE DEMOCRATS...AND TO BE HONEST IT TICKS ME OFF.
Okay Arder, how to we get information from known terrorists...if you please.....
“can you tell which branch of the military or intel services you served in and how many times you have experienced waterboarding?”
Well, I was in military (USAF) and intel (Arabic Linguist). I didn’t get the waterboard but it was used on others in my group at Survival School. They were very good at finding just the right thing to use on us.
Trying to take the high road in war only leads to more of our guys getting killed. We should be doing everything and anything to either kill or break the spirit of our enemy. Right now, waterboarding is a good psychological weapon and should be available.
We understood this in WWII when we nuked Japan twice. Don’t let the enemy save face. Destroy their will completely and totally as a reminder for the next ones that want to start a fight with us.
I think it should be acknowledged it is torture and that on certain select subjects that we believe to have critical and/or lots of intelligence, that we will use this on them. According to army reports we have gotten excellent information from the few selected/specifically targeted people this has been used on.
It is something that if done properly will not hurt them, it does not cause permanent damage physically. People who have gone through this rebound from it in a minute or two, from their own experiences they have said this. As for you bleeding hearts that worry about terrorists’ psyches, I’m not concerned if they have nightmares about it for the rest of their lives. Their psyches are already WAAAAY messed up to begin with.
Waterboarding is not torture, despite the opinion of this renegade Navy type. See upthread where it is pointed out that torture has a specific legal definition, and that waterboarding doesn't meet it.
Sorry, dude, but you're wrong.
That was a mouthful, Johnnie. Tell me: if you’re not afraid, why are you so ready to see your country stooping to barbarity? Am I to believe that you just like barbarous cruelty for its own sake?
I think you’re afraid. I think fear has been planted in your heart by politicians who know what a powerful motivator fear can be. I think anyone who uses fear to push a political agenda is a terrorist, plain and simple.
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