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 ...
Do you know what the policy is now? Do you know how restrictive it is?
If not, then how do you know it’s not good the way it is now? If you do know the policy then tell us what it currently is.
I can tell you from what I have heard from the military folks talking about it, it is very selectively used, it is used on a very small percentage (in the 1-2% range) of people, the people they select are because they are known to be high ranking folks who have a lot of info, or key info - not the run of the mill average terrorist fighter. My primary source for this was believe it or not, a Charlie Rose interview with a US general (also a lawyer) who was involved in this process in Iraq for several years and was involved with developing this policy. Over this time they refined the process and refined the selection process so that it would only be done on the potentially best candidates for info.
“So you are using an entirely fictional scenario...”
Duh.
But one that is entirely possible. If you had Khalid Sheik Mohammed in custody on September 10, 2001, and you knew something was going to happen the next day, what would you have done to make him talk?
These are things that need to be thought out and decided. If you expect to say “no torture” to make yourself feel better now, don’t wring your hands and ask “why, why, why?” if something bad happens because of it.
Sorry, but wrong. The laws against torture were passed LONG before this issue came up. If anything they are likely to be MORE lenient that laws passed today. IMO, torture is anything that does physical damage. Waterboarding is a PSYCHOLOGICAL technique that does no physical harm. I've got no problem with it.
Yes, thanks for correcting that. Wasn’t gunning for you. :)
But is waterboarding always wrong? That's the question.
I resist the practice of some people to treat the Founding Fathers like demigods. They were flawed individuals, far from perfect. Still, their wisdom is unquestionable, and the survival and thriving of the United States in the same period that has seen European and Asian empires rise and disintegrate is testimony to that.
But are their extra-Constitutional words to be treated as gospel, to be given the weight of Scripture? I think not.
Are you going to address any of the questions?
Thank you for your observation of nice distinctions. Please explain why someone who incites terror to get his way isn’t a terrorist.
“My necessity does not define the law, either.”
This might be a new category for the Darwin Award.
“If it’s useless than why do we use it?”
Because individually it could be suspect. If two guys say the same thing under duress, that’s called corroboration and makes the intel more useful.
“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.”
Prove to me that the waterboarding policy has been set totally or primarily because of emotion, please?
Well, Hillary and a great many other Democrats went along for the ride, so they certainly qualify. But unfortunately it’s the Bush Administration that was driving the bus.
You can’t change the essence of something by just changing its label. If the law says waterboarding isn’t torture, then the law is an ass.
“:No problem at all. You simply reward good intel and punish the bad.... and confirm everything.
Very simple.”
Not simple. Some things take months or years to verify. If policy decisions are made based on information gained in this way that can’t be verified(which it often can’t in a short amount of time), the whole policy is flawed.
Actually, my argument is totally emotionless. I WOULD waterboard ONE or a FEW to save MANY. That has no basis in emotion. It’s totally pragmatic. You on the other hand are attempting to take the “moral” high ground with your position. My previous post simply showed your flawed morality. You are against waterboarding because you believe it relects badly on us as a country. No amount of waterboarding would reflect more badly on us than another 9/11 or worse. The fact that you can be so cavalier about sitting by and doing nothing while you put others at risk is the problem.
At the point in time terrorist acts threaten our national survival.
You have mistakenly imagined that I have a desire to dialogue with you. I responded to your post only to ridicule it for the pleasure of the competent people who are posting here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.