question: do you think water boarding of American pilots and special forces in SERE school is torture also?
Posted on 04/05/2014 8:42:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
People might think it is wrong for me to condemn a report I haven’t read. But since the report condemns a program I ran, I think I have justification.
On Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify and release hundreds of pages of its report on U.S. terrorist interrogation practices. Certain senators have proclaimed how devastating the findings are, saying the CIA’s program was unproductive, badly managed and misleadingly sold. Unlike the committee’s staff, I don’t have to examine the program through a rearview mirror. I was responsible for administering it, and I know that it produced critical intelligence that helped decimate al-Qaeda and save American lives.
The committee’s staff members started with a conclusion in 2009 and have chased supportive evidence ever since. They never spoke to me or other top CIA leaders involved in the program, or let us see the report. Without reviewing it, I cannot offer a detailed rebuttal. But there are things the public should consider.
The first is context. The detention and interrogation program was not built in a vacuum. It was created in the months after Sept. 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 men, women and children were murdered. It was constructed shortly after Richard Reid narrowly missed bringing down an airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes. It continued while U.S. intelligence learned that rogue Pakistani scientists had met with Osama bin Laden to discuss the possibility of creating crude nuclear devices.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
question: do you think water boarding of American pilots and special forces in SERE school is torture also?
I bet cows will fly before you get an answer...lol. This one hates having her motives questioned.
“Under the Laws of Land Warfare they can be shot on the spot as they are simply terrorists.
Whatever it takes to get information to protect American lives, I am all for. Better that those scum get a tough dose of justice rather than see Americans (which I swore an oath to protect) die.”
Thank you.
Is there any doubt terrorists want us dead? No! So we owe them no apologies for doing what we have to do.
As you said, “Whatever it takes...”
Whether or not it was done to our people is irrelevant. The US is obligated not to perform acts which meet the following conditions (we set these conditions ourselves):
(1) ...the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting fromhttps://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-9&chapter=4&lang=en#EndDec
(1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(2) 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;
(3) the threat of imminent death; or
(4) 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...
I do, but I support it 100% for illegal combatants and mass murders.
By that definition, ratified by the US Senate under the Constitution, waterboarding is most certainly torture.
I guess you don’t have to worry about the muzzies attacking Vermont, the hippies have already destroyed the place.
i do not see how water boarding fits ANY of those descriptions... 1 it is not severe, uncomfortable and unpleasant, but not severe
2 it's not a drug
3 there is NO threat of imminent death
4 no one else is being threatened
Ah yes...we must never make a hardened terrorist uncomfortable. Thousands of innocent lives at risk? Who cares, eh?
It's certain you've never been on the board.
It is severe. Number 3 and 4 of your statement are also incorrect.
Even the CIA has admitted it causes permanent, physiological changes to the brain (from unclassified sources).
SERE West is the only place it's still employed if it hasn't been stopped there by now, too.
Air Force and Army SERE didn't ever employ it according to official docs, but if there's somebody on this forum from one of those services who has been boarded we'd sure like to hear from them.
I do worry about both Moslems and the hippies but I also worry about my government getting too comfortable with torture. If you think they will stop with torturing Moslems you are in for a surprise.
no i haven't but i take it you have, a guy i work with was a Navy Corpsman CWO4(at retirement and one of the first in the Navy to go through their PA program) and was at the SERE school during times it was done we talked at great length about this at the time and he says it's "Unpleasant and uncomfortable but not torture." i take him at his word
3 what threat of imminent death is there, dead men don't talk, and 4 who else is being threatened if they don't cooperate?
If you are OK with torture and think that should be our policy then you should petition your senators to pull out of the treaty. Until then engaging in torture makes us demostrably dishonest.
I think #3 is the sticking point. I honestly have waffled back and forth on this over the last 10 years. I think that this is VERY close to the line but probably is not torture.
Most of the other enhanced interrogation techniques (loud music, confined space, constant light) are not close to the line, especially when they are limited in time.
Lots of egrerious laws are passed all the time. Doesn't mean they are moral, particularly when they are passed by socialists.
Refusing to pursue all means necessary to protect the innocent is immoral.
The threat of imminent death is not only experienced on the waterboard (there are known, serious medical events on the board), but also in SERE there are mock executions.
When another is being question while the primary is on the board, in the fitful throes of what seems like imminent death, that applies to #4.
Even ebing witness to such and event will burn in your memory forever. For those who participated, PTSD candidates all.
Nobody has ever applied the waterboard who has not been on it themselves. That's rule #1.
Definition of torture with enemy combatants that are NOT part of the Geneva Convention?
The threat of imminent death is not only experienced on the waterboard (there are known, serious medical events on the board)this is where we differ, a gun to the head/knife to the throat is a threat of imminent death and medical events on the board are collateral to the process not the intended outcome, that is why when KSM and his cohorts were on the board there were medical personnel in attendance
honest question: how long did you last on the board
I was not given the opportunity to capitulate. If I had been given that opportunity it would have been in the first session.
I would have only told them enough ( in accordance with training)to get them to stop.
But in real world you would be going back...time after time.
I was rendered unconscious...3rd or 4th application.
Another man was asked questions while watching me.
DOD and CIA already knew any man could be broken with it...then they started testing whether a responsible witness could be broken by it.
Of note there was a civilian present with a clipboard, he was reading from a list and giving instructions to those who applied it.
I think they consent to that
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