>>we act on information gained by holding people under water to make them think they are drowning and that we interrogate people for months using pain
It doesn’t actually qualify as proof to my mind. But I have seen Guantonomo interrogation logs that say we use painful stress positions and forced enemas.
The report issued by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general warned that 10 techniques approved by the administration including painful positions for extended time and water and feigned drowning could violate the UN convention against torture.
The government can’t now come back and say the Haditha interrogations are invalid because they lasted 18 hours and didn’t include food.
So, strategically, I believe this defense approach will fail.
But “proof” that we systematically torture? No, I have not seen that.
I just hesitate to believe any of that, without seeing it from a source I trust. The news media is NOT one of those sources I trust. (Think the Gitmo Koran flushing thing.) It’s not a slam on you, just a statement that I choose to believe the absolute best about our military unless presented with irrefutable proof to the contrary.
In the Canteen thread here for the last few Monday threads, we’ve been looking at the Geneva Conventions. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on that subject, and the thing that makes my blood boil is to realize that we have signed these documents about how we’ll treat our enemies, POWs, etc. and our enemy hasn’t. IOW, we treat them with kid gloves, and they behead our soldiers and hang their burned carcasses from bridges. So I guess I have a little trouble getting upset if one of our guys might sleep deprive one of their guys a little in order to get some information that might save an American life or two.
So I suppose I could see how this argument WOULD work. If our Marines were treated outside of Geneva convention rules for POWs, then they do have a leg to stand on. IMHO.