#ConfirmHaspell
Posted on 05/07/2018 8:47:45 AM PDT by deplorableindc
An attorney for the only terrorism suspect known to have been waterboarded during Gina Haspel’s time leading a secret CIA facility in Thailand is blasting her “failure to stand up for what’s right,” just ahead of her confirmation hearing to be CIA director.
Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, a military defense attorney representing Guantanamo Bay inmate Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, emailed the statement to the Washington Examiner ahead of Haspel’s Wednesday confirmation hearing, where she is likely to be grilled on her post-9/11 actions.
"I was an enlisted sailor during 9/11 and I understand the impulses that led people to want to torture," he said. "However, the purpose of leadership is to be able to stand up for what’s right in tough times. Ms. Haspel did not do that. Failure to stand up for what’s right is not toughness. In a time when we needed professionalism and leadership, we got torture instead."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
I observed. So yes I saw it. Lasted about a minute. The type A individual that got selected from our POW group demonstrated very quickly how effective it was at getting people to comply. He would have taken physical beatings and not talked, but about 15 seconds of gasping for breath and he was ready to say whatever the instructors wanted him to say.
It is unpleasant, but nobody has been killed or injured using it as an Interrogation tool used on Terrorists.
Seem to recall they also are required to have a physician there when doing this....
Oh, and that same individual was eating pizza with us that evening (no physical after effects) at the conclusion of our wee of training.
...week of training
Comey approved of our torture methods....including waterboarding.
"Gina Haspel showed 'true leadership' say families of those innocent victims that this terrorist could have murdered."
There is a line between advocacy and zealotry. This attorney should be aware of that. I am so fed up with attorneys who believe that advocacy means ‘by any means necessary’ to help your client. Especially when the client wants to bring down the USA.
“Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, a military defense attorney representing Guantanamo Bay inmate Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,”
Waterboard his ass just for fun.
L
In 1978 I witnessed a man on the waterboard for no less than 5 minutes.
At least 45 seconds for each covering of the face.
At the end he was unconscious and had to be tended by the Doc. He returned later in the day but was quite timid and hyperventilating.
Id say what you witnessed was going overboard on the part of the instructors. Might have even called for some disciplinary action. But times were different back then. Real POWs who had returned from Korea or Vietnam were training newbies on the realities they would face if captured by certain elements that had no respect or intent to follow rules of war or Geneva conventions. Even back then, waterboarding would have been mild compared to real torture.
Violence in movies is just a movie but the one scene that sits in my mind forever is the dentist scene in Marathon Man........
#ConfirmHaspell
I would use all means possible to save Americans. The idiot military lawyer does not get it nor does he know what real torture is. Interrogation techniques (being uncomfortable) and torture are totally different. It is widely known torture is a poor interrogation technique anyway. “Torture” is just leftist speak and code word for mean Americans.
So, in addition to illegal aliens, the legal system of the United States is now granting citizen privileges to unlawful combatants?
The military would have been within their legal rights to shoot every one of these jihadists on sight; the fact the US is providing them legal assistance is a blight on every innocent killed by these terrorists.
Madness!
You don’t consider that event real torture?
Gina Haspel is a PATRIOT who did what needed to be done. Period. The Senate needs to approve her post haste and move on!
You don’t consider that event real torture?
They didn’t even ask him any questions.
They asked a “confessed” Naval Pilot the questions. And made him watch the waterboarding.
The guy on the board would have gladly told them anything. Eventually even the pilot relented when the guy went limp.
Like I said, the staff probably took the scenario too far and discipline may have been warranted.
But going in up front, any of those aviators, SEALS, or others who were going through SERE were briefed as to what they would be subjected to. They also knew that they could “opt out” or ring the bell in SEAL speak at any time. I got beat up on, within the limits of the physical limits allowed, slammed against walls, sleep deprived, hyper thermic, starved for about a week, and pretty much mentally messed with while I was in SERE. I don’t consider any of that to have been torture today. It was done to get people to know what to expect and how to survive if actually captured. One of the things learned was being type A almost always got you the most attention, most abuse, and most likely to be killed as a POW. Seems like the two in your scenario tried to test the type A theory.
After 911, if we are constrained by laws of war regarding torture, and waterboarding being so effective, no, I still don’t consider it torture on the enemy, or as a training tool in controlled conditions for our warriors.
I served in the same squadron with the guy.
He was a heavy drinker then.
I reconnected with him many years later and we began visiting.
He’s been married 3 times. Fired 3 times. Estranged from his family. Had guns everywhere. Still drinking heavily and started, sometime, using drugs.
Said it was the only way he could sleep.
His wife called me once, she was apoplectic. He came home from work one day (Clinton era) and started loading his guns, had them all laid out on the floor of the living room. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her “they” were going to confiscate everyone’s guns and that they were3 not going to take him alive.
I drove over and convinced him to go to VA. They rejected him as he was not in the system.
Luckily he had good insurance at the time and went to a civilian psych.
There he was diagnosed with PTSD...and the psych was ALSO a VA contract specialist. Filled out his forms.
He’s 50% VA disabled for PTSD, and for decades he didn’t know what was wrong.
He’s sober now and back with the wife that called me. He appears to be much better, but he did what the VA psychs told him to do, went to all the group sessions etc.
And he still triple checks all the doors and windows every night. Keeps a gun in every room.
And privately tells me he’ll never be taken alive. He will not be in a situation where somebody else has physical control of him.
https://openjurist.org/title-18/us-code/section-2340/definitions
I think it is torture, and would gladly apply it to a terrorist if I though I could derive some good from it.
I know it works.
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