Posted on 04/19/2009 7:58:20 PM PDT by Kaslin
The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.
Interrogations were to be "continuously monitored" and "the interrogation team will stop the use of particular techniques or the interrogation altogether if the detainee's medical or psychological conditions indicates that the detainee might suffer significant physical or mental harm."
An Aug. 1, 2002, memo describes the practice of "walling" -- recently revealed in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which suggested that detainees wore a "collar" used to "forcefully bang the head and body against the wall" before and during interrogation. In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a "flexible false wall," designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades -- not head -- were the point of contact, and the "collar" was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.
The memo says the point was to inflict psychological uncertainty, not physical pain: "the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ping
It’s the caterpillars that got ‘em to talk.
Oh boy the DUmmies are not going to like this story one bit. Look for them to be in full attack mode immediately.
I’m sure there will be a major new conference for the apology for the incorrect assertions against our brave men and women....
/sarc...that would NEVER happen I know...
And still the NYTimes is calling for the impeachment of Judge Bybee, author of one of the memos.
It doesn’t matter what the memo’s actually say apparently. The fact that they exist is enough for the entire world to act as if there were torture. weird, but predictable.
bump for morning
They really laid it all out for enemies, didn’t they?
This is also done during SERE training.
They sure did, but the rats don’t care
LIARS. They’ll say anything to make sure WE are the ones who are degraded, not the enemy. This really tics me off.
Cheney Calls for Legal Memos to be Declassified
Mon Apr 20 2009 16:20:53 ET
In a two part interview airing tonight and tomorrow night on FOX News Channel’s Hannity (9-10PM ET), former Vice President Dick Cheney shared his thoughts on the CIA memos that were recently declassified and also revealed his request to the CIA to declassify additional memos that confirm the success of the Bush administration’s interrogation tactics:
CHENEY:
“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”
“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”
“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”
Developing...
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