Guantanamo, Waterboarding, etc

[flobbergob]

I heard an interview on Radio 4 this morning in which Obama's decision to ban waterboarding was described as "the most dangerous decision ever taken by an incoming president within 48 hours of taking office". Sorry I forget who it was, some CIA guy maybe.

He was emphatic that the use of waterboarding had directly elicited information that prevented many terrorist plots, including crashing a plane into Canary Wharf. It's difficult to prove a negative, but he was emphatic.

I've been researching waterboarding, and it is very very unpleasant, but then so is flying jets into skyscrapers. International definition of "torture" seems woolly, but this is not in the same league as pulling out fingernails or applying electric shock to the genitals.

So, any views? The claim is that this ban will deny vital intelligence to the bodies trying to defend our countries. Many top terrorists are trained in techniques to resist interrogation. Therefore, it is possible that while this is hardly wrapping them in cotton wool and giving them a tv in the cell, it could by damming the flow of information lead to more terrorist outrages.

Maybe it should?

[Gromit]

President Barack Obama's choice for top U.S. spy declined on Thursday to call waterboarding "torture," only days after his attorney general nominee condemned the interrogation practice as precisely that.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/i dUKTRE50L63F20090123

[Gromit]

Torture can be incredibly useful but that does not mean it is right to use it.

We are either in favour of it or against it, there is no middle way. If waterboarding becomes allowed then something more extreme will creep in if that does not work.

The whole point about defending ourselves from the terrorists is that they want us to change our rights and freedoms to suite them. If we give up these rights and freedoms voluntarily, then the terrorist have won by default.

[sandmaster]

The trouble with prolonged torture is that even the innocent 'confess' - just to get a respite. The information cannot be depended on. Also, if you are fighting for freedom and justice for everyone how can you defend denying someone of their basic right of not to be tortured? I have no sympathy for the guilty at Guantanamo - but there are bound to be some innocent men and the law has failed to protect them. It could have been you or me!!

[flobbergob]

Well sandmaster, no way could it have been me, a solid middle-class white Englishman!

My interest is not in whether or not waterboarding is torture, or in human rights and moralities. This is a related discussion, but not what I am asking, which is, could (and indeed should) this result in more terrorist outrages which otherwise might have been prevented?

[sandmaster]

So if someone confesses and says one of his fellow terrorists is someone with the codename flobbergob, and you are arrested, would you think a future terrorist act had been avoided? You just cannot rely on all of the information obtained from torture. What is a solid white middle class Englishman?

[flobbergob]

Well, I'm white, I came from a middle-ish class background, public school and uni, in a well-paid demanding career, and I can hardly envisage some terrorist in far-off parts shouting out my name.

The interviewee was EMPHATIC that outrages, including Canary Wharf, had been prevented. Now that is useful information.

[Gromit]

I am sure Saddam Hussein's torturers prevented many a action against the state.

[sandmaster]

But now that flobbergob is known on the internet - someone may well use the name in future!!

[jake-the-peg]

This argument is basically that the means justify the ends.

This is a very dangerous one, touted by dictators throughout history.

If torture is illegal but used, what other laws will be ignored by an unscrupulous government.

We're in danger of losing habeous corpus, the right of trial by jury already

Guy Burgess was a nice white middle class man - he was also a spy

Jean Charles de Menzies was a case of mistaken identity.

We also have anti-terrorist legislation being used in non-terrorist cases.

Are you really going to let the Government act outside the law?

Do you really trust them that much?

[WaldoMcFroog]

Perhaps you might like to read the Pro-war Christopher Hitchen's article on what it's actually like to be waterboarded and whether it is torture or not.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/20 08/08/hitchens200808

Video footage here:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/vi deo/2008/hitchens_video200808

[flobbergob]

Interesting Waldo, and horrible. My interest however is whether or not the potential loss of intelligence will lead to further outrages. There hasn't been one for a long time. We have to wait, and hope.

[sp1814]

To say that one specific interrogation technique is repsonsible for the prevention of very specific planned terrorist attacks sounds a bit...far fetched.

There are a whole slew of very affective techniques used by the CIA, and in Guantanamo - sleep depravation, stress positioning etc etc.

This is an interesting article:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/10/torture _as_an_interrogation_te.html

By the way, it's not written by some lefty liberal, but Major Anthony F. Milavic's, who had a 25 year Marine career included service as: an instructor in Communist Interrogation, Indoctrination, and Exploitation of Prisoners of War; a tactical interrogator in Vietnam and a CIA strategic interrogator; the principal intelligence officer of a Marine squadron, regiment, and division equivalent in combat; and, a DIA briefer for the CJCS/SECDEF.

So I think he knows what he's talking about.

[sp1814]

WaldoMcFroog

I'm shocked by that article.

I always thought that waterboarding was supposed to simulate the feeling of drowning...but Hitchens says that you actually are drowned although under controlled conditions.

Blimey.

[carsonking]

Yes unfortunatly torture does not work.

[rov1200]

The problem is the technique of waterboarding is so well known how can it have any effect in the future. Even terrorists read the press. I'm sure there are other psychological techniques that are used that we are all unaware of and they will continue to be used.

[flobbergob]

On R4, the interviewee said that the very fact that Hitchins agreed to be waterboarded proved that it wasn't torture! He would never have agreed to fingernail-pulling or electric shock.

I thought this was rather a weak argument, nonetheless, it is clear that you have to put a suspect under some sort of duress, otherwise he is just going to stay schtum, particularly if he is so ideologically opposed to his captors. Therefore some at least of the intelligence is going to dry up. Let's hope not too much.

[WaldoMcFroog]

That's a frighteningly weak argument!

Of course he wouldn't agree to fingernail-pulling or electric shock - there's no disagreement whatsoever that such things are torture. The whole point is that the US claimed waterboarding WASN'T torture.

[DrFilth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold



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[danchip]

the problem with waterboarding is that it is quite common and easy for somebody to die from it,

the same can be said for all types of torture however for waterboarding to be effective it gives very little chance for the person being tortured to speak therefore the person carrying it out thinks your not cooperating and increases the torture.

the british now condemn the use of this technique and have done officially for a number of years due to the uncertainty of it

[Haggisdj]

DrFilth - that's why we were GREAT Britain lol