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 ...
(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
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
arder...
I think that this is the current legal definition. It does not seem to include anything about "lasting physical injury" as I recalled. It may be that I read somebody's interpretation or an out-of-date definition. I took the liberty of highlighting the obvious grey areas where 1 side or the other might hang their arguments.
You miss my point. The point is that you may have to set a policy that is more restrictive than you would ideally like in order to prevent abuses.
“I think anyone who uses fear to push a political agenda is a terrorist, plain and simple. “
Thank you for finally declaring the Democrat Party of the USA as the terrorists they are.
Good cite. Thanks.
Thank you! Sounds too mild to me!
Yet, in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the opposite is true.
Read the Army Field Interrogation manual (FM 2-22.3). Sometimes that approach (incentive approach) works better than a hostile interrogation.
That is not a reason to abandon upholding the rule of law as a general policy.
Thanks. Nice citation.
“My delight does not define the law.”
Not delight. Necessity. Your family, innocent Americans.
If the question is, what would you do if it was your Mother/Wife/Child, then a personal, emotional response is reasonable and justified. Who wouldn't react that way?
If the question is, what should our government do as a matter of policy, the answer must be very different. Our government cannot allow the emotional response of the individuals involed to set policy for the nation.
Keep going.
It is also irrelevant to the question of setting policy for the reason I noted earlier. If the situation is truly that dire, it doesn't matter whether or not it's legal -- you do it and you worry about the legalities later when the criminal charges are filed. That's the only way to insure that it doesn't become routine.
Fine, then. My necessity does not define the law, either.
It works against terrorists very well and should be used only when necessary.
(I completely agree with your extrapolation of Romulus's "logic." No only does it make the Democratic Party terrorists but that fear mongering Al Gore would have to be the greatest terrorist of all.)
This begs the question.
If it's useless than why do we use it?
This bears repeating.
ROFLMAO
There is a time to reap and a time to sow, my friend...and a time to compromise.
You'd rather enter into a national suicide pact than sully your high-minded ideals merely for survival? I already have my answer. Are you psychotic?
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