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September 14, 2006
Senate Panel Defies Bush on Detainee Bill
By DAVID STOUT
NYTimes
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — President Bush went to Capitol Hill today to rally Republican support for his anti-terrorism policies, but a Senate committee dealt him a serious setback after a former member of his cabinet broke with him on a crucial issue.
Hours after Mr. Bush huddled with House Republicans, he suffered a defeat on the other side of the Capitol, as the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed legislation that would give suspected terrorists more legal protections than the president desires.
Four of the panel’s 13 Republicans joined all 11 Democrats in rejecting Mr. Bush’s proposal to keep defendants from seeing classified evidence against them.** The vote came a day after the House Armed Services Committee adopted a measure that more closely parallels what the president wants.
Mr. Bush said after conferring with Republican House members that he had “reminded them that the most important job of government is to protect the homeland.” As part of his plan, the president wants Congress to enact legislation that would authorize tougher interrogations of suspected terrorists.
And that is what Congress must not do, said Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state. “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” Mr. Powell said in a letter to Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the Republicans who differ with Mr. Bush’s policies.
Mr. McCain was one of the four Armed Services Committee Republicans who voted against Mr. Bush’s proposals. The others were Senators John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman, Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina and Susan E. Collins of Maine. The measure that the panel endorsed and sent to the Senate floor would let suspects see evidence against them and would bar statements obtained through torture or coercion.
Mr. Powell’s repudiation of the White House’s anti-terrorism approach was both stark and highly unusual for a former cabinet member. In 1980, Cyrus R. Vance resigned as President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state to protest the failed mission to rescue American embassy personnel held hostage in Iran.
President Bush has contended that a section of the Geneva Conventions that applies to the humane treatment of prisoners is too vague, and that Congress should pass a measure redefining the extent of the United States’ compliance with that section, known as Common Article 3.
As part of its push for the legislation, the White House released letters sent to the Senate and House armed services committees by high-ranking military lawyers who said that clarifying the obligations of the United States under Common Article 3 “would be helpful to our fighting men and women at war on behalf of our country.”
Back at the White House after his visit to the Capitol, but before the Senate Armed Services Committee vote, Mr. Bush said he was seeking “legal clarity,” so that Americans interrogating terrorist suspects would not be vulnerable to charges of mistreatment.
“It is very important for the American people to understand that in order to protect this country, we must be able to interrogate people who have information about future attacks,” Mr. Bush said. “And that idea was approved yesterday by a House committee in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion.”
The president was referring to the House Armed Services Committee’s endorsement on Wednesday of a bill in line with what the White House desires regarding electronic eavesdropping. The Senate Armed Services Committee also sent such legislation to the Senate floor, but with competing measures, thereby guaranteeing a vigorous debate.
Mr. Powell, a former four-star Army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and had a leadership role in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, said in his letter to Mr. McCain that redefining Common Article 3 would only deepen worldwide doubts about America’s moral stature.
“Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk,” Mr. Powell said in his letter to Mr. McCain. Critics of the Bush administration approach have argued that, if the United States is seen to be mistreating captives, Americans who are taken prisoner could be subjected to cruelty.
Mr. Powell resigned as secretary of state in November 2004 after it had become widely known that he had had deep misgivings about the Bush administration’s war to topple Saddam Hussein and was tired of repeatedly clashing with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the issue.In recent months, Mr. Powell has been advising Mr. McCain in connection with the senator’s possible presidential candidacy in 2008, according to McCain aides.
In 2002, despite his misgivings about the coming war, Mr. Powell argued the Bush administration’s case before the United Nations, asserting that there was strong evidence that the Baghdad regime had deadly unconventional weapons. When those weapons failed to materialize after Mr. Hussein was deposed, Mr. Powell was said to be hurt and angry.
Mr. Powell’s letter to Mr. McCain was the latest development in a struggle over Mr. Bush’s approach to fighting terrorism, a struggle that also involves how much power government should have to monitor communications, and under what circumstances surveillance can be done without warrants.
Democrats who oppose Mr. Bush’s policies have been strengthened of late by Republican dissenters. Senators McCain, Warner and Graham held a tense half-hour meeting with Vice President Cheney in July 2005 in which Mr. Cheney scolded them for proposing legislation that Mr. Cheney said would weaken President Bush’s power to protect Americans. The legislation, sponsored by Mr. McCain, bars cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners in American custody.
“The three of us were firmly of one view, he of another,’’ Mr. Warner said of the meeting.
The Senate and House eventually approved Mr. McCain’s measure by overwhelming margins.
Today, just before the armed forces panel met, Mr. Graham said, “We are not going to win the war by killing every terrorist with a bomb or bullet,” according to Bloomberg News. “You win the war by persuading those people in the Mideast to reject terrorism.” Mr. Graham is an authority on military law.
** I heard two military lawyers -- one retired and very highly-placed in Reagan and Bush I's admins, the other a former JAG top guy -- on radio yesterday. BOTH said there are already existing provisions for the redaction and restriction of classified material to federal defendants. The older guy said 'therefore extending it more broadly is not a new precedent,' and should pass the SCOTUS, and the other guy said, 'therefore, there is no need to expand those already very adequate safeguards.'
Then the older guy said he didn't see anything especially heinous about coerced confessions because it would all be 'more or less' under Geneva rules, and not like it would apply to US citizens, and the other guy said basically what Colin Powell is saying -- the erosion of our moral authority and ethical integrity is really damaging us both domestically and internationally in the long-haul, at the likelihood of very small gains.
BOTH said -- and the older guy sounded truly disgusted -- that Dubya's constant attempts to end-run the law -- our laws, our Constitution, Geneva Convention -- is totally unacceptable and very damaging to our international reputation as a source of democracy, rule of law, and human rights.
McCain-Powell in 2008?
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__________________ When the body has a cancer - even a very small one - physicians use every means at their disposal to eradicate it. There is no talk of proportionality. Healthy tissue may suffer the treatments, but radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will, sooner or later, snuff out life.
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
I don't know how this could put our troops at higher risk. The people we are fighting now are one step above an animal. Torture and beheadings are their normal way of life. How many Israeli captives have come back alive and in one piece? To me, this is a very weak argument against getting really tough with these terrorists.
I don't know how this could put our troops at higher risk. The people we are fighting now are one step above an animal. Torture and beheadings are their normal way of life. How many Israeli captives have come back alive and in one piece? To me, this is a very weak argument against getting really tough with these terrorists.
Getting tough with terrorists?
You mean torturing them?
I'm all for killing them in a fight, but to capture and torture them?
Just for the record are you for torturing them?
If you are, Why are you for that?
__________________
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
How many Israeli captives have come back alive and in one piece?
Not a one, yet. Pretty much everyone that has ever come back alive from Egypt, Syria, or Jordan in the past was in one piece physically (mostly) but sustained severe nerve, muscle, and joint damage (and PTSD) from near-constant torture. Islamic terrorists in Africa used to throw them live into alligator ponds and videotape their death and send the tapes back to Israel.
It's not our troops in the hands of other troops or militants -- I agree with you there, sort of -- but it is our ALLIES who are getting disgusted with our extreme hypocrisy. And for that matter, a lot of Americans, like me. I'm a hawk-and-a-half on terrorism, but we are fighting this battle as stupidly as I can even imagine. Getting 'tougher' isn't going to gain us enough to be worth corrupting any remaining vestige of integrity. Getting smarter -- now that would be a great idea!
And in terms of the moderates and intellectuals in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, India -- there are large numbers of people there -- shrinking minority, yes, but large numbers -- who believe that we really do stand for a better way of life; that we stand for certain ideals. We are losing them.
I'd like to believe it too. I can't kid myself anymore under this administration.
__________________ When the body has a cancer - even a very small one - physicians use every means at their disposal to eradicate it. There is no talk of proportionality. Healthy tissue may suffer the treatments, but radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will, sooner or later, snuff out life.
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
I'm all for killing them in a fight, but to capture and torture them?
Just for the record are you for torturing them?
If you are, Why are you for that?
Depends on what you call torture. I consider torture to mean inflicting intense physical pain on someone. If that's your definition of torture also, then I am against it. If your definition of torture is mental aguish or putting someone in an uncomfortable position for a long time, I will tell you that I do not believe this is torture and find nothing wrong with doing this.
The idea that we have to give them the same legal rights as we do our citizens is ridiculous. POW's have never had legal rights in any country.
They think we are soft and don't have the will to fight and that if they persever long enough, we'll get tired of it and quit. We need to show them how wrong they are.
Depends on what you call torture. I consider torture to mean inflicting intense physical pain on someone. If that's your definition of torture also, then I am against it. If your definition of torture is mental aguish or putting someone in an uncomfortable position for a long time, I will tell you that I do not believe this is torture and find nothing wrong with doing this.
The idea that we have to give them the same legal rights as we do our citizens is ridiculous. POW's have never had legal rights in any country.
They think we are soft and don't have the will to fight and that if they persever long enough, we'll get tired of it and quit. We need to show them how wrong they are.
I just don't see the point 40.
You can't half ass torture someone, it's all in or it's useless.
You're not going to break someone by making them pee themselves because you won't let them go to the bathroom.
To break someone you've pretty much got to cross the line, without doing that what good is any of it?
BTW 40, I'm sure we didn't just make them uncomfortable, I'm sure in some cases we got out the black book and went medieval on them.
__________________
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Noise torture is one of the most destructive mental tortures known. That plus a little dehydration plus sleep deprivation for 24-48 hours will have you screaming and hallucinating and willing to do anything to make it stop. Yet it is not physically painful. It's very hard to recover from.
Being confined in a low-air-exchange coffin for weeks on end is not physically painful, but its a very effective torture. Well, it is painful when you tear your fingernails out clawing at the lid.
Being made to stand with your hands against a wall above your head at a leaning position for 24, 48 hours -- that's an uncomfortable, ultimately physically debilitating position -- torture.
CIA-trained Latin American squads used to bring a new victim in and make him or her watch as another person -- often the age and sex of a family member -- was slowly mutilated over 6 or 8 hours. Sometimes they would make the person pick which of two ghastly tortures would be done next -- the slow painful one, or the quick, hideous one. You really don't think that's torture because it doesn't cause pain to the one forced to observe?
The Shin Beit interrogator told us they consider psychological torture... err, pressure... much more effective than mere pain. Pain makes many people angry so they harden at first and it slows the process.
He said "One of the most effective forms of torture is to tell a man since he won't cooperate we are picking up his little child from school. Then we play a tape of a child being dragged down a hall later in the day. You don't think that's torture? Believe me, I put myself in that man's situation, and it is agony. They beg to talk. Yet no one is ever 'hurt.'"
__________________ When the body has a cancer - even a very small one - physicians use every means at their disposal to eradicate it. There is no talk of proportionality. Healthy tissue may suffer the treatments, but radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will, sooner or later, snuff out life.
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
Noise torture is one of the most destructive mental tortures known. That plus a little dehydration plus sleep deprivation for 24-48 hours will have you screaming and hallucinating and willing to do anything to make it stop. Yet it is not physically painful. It's very hard to recover from.
Being confined in a low-air-exchange coffin for weeks on end is not physically painful, but its a very effective torture. Well, it is painful when you tear your fingernails out clawing at the lid.
Being made to stand with your hands against a wall above your head at a leaning position for 24, 48 hours -- that's an uncomfortable, ultimately physically debilitating position -- torture.
CIA-trained Latin American squads used to bring a new victim in and make him or her watch as another person -- often the age and sex of a family member -- was slowly mutilated over 6 or 8 hours. Sometimes they would make the person pick which of two ghastly tortures would be done next -- the slow painful one, or the quick, hideous one. You really don't think that's torture because it doesn't cause pain to the one forced to observe?
The Shin Beit interrogator told us they consider psychological torture... err, pressure... much more effective than mere pain. Pain makes many people angry so they harden at first and it slows the process.
He said "One of the most effective forms of torture is to tell a man since he won't cooperate we are picking up his little child from school. Then we play a tape of a child being dragged down a hall later in the day. You don't think that's torture? Believe me, I put myself in that man's situation, and it is agony. They beg to talk. Yet no one is ever 'hurt.'"
The permutations are endless, most Americans have no idea how far this stuff goes and would find it hideously distateful to observe.
Just hearing someone testify before congress vaugely about it means nothing.
You've got to decide if you are willing to go down that path or not. There is no middle ground.
It's like being a benevolent Nazi, what would that term even mean?
If you are going to torture, then by all means lets do it right, but don't let these guys fool you with their crap about it being non harmful to the participant.
Like AZ said, if you really want to absolutely drive someone up a tree with modern video techniques, find his kid and imply your going to torture the child, it's inhuman but it works, that's a path I don't want my government going down, not that they don't already, they do. I DO NOT want them to get legal cover to do this on our own soil.
You do not want to remove the fear of prosecution from these guys, then things would get out of hand very quickly IMO.
__________________
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
This is from a top CIA trainer in 1981 - an American running a class in South America:
"I can teach you about torture, but sooner or later you'll have to get involved. You'll have to lay on your hands and try it yourselves... The precise pain, the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect."
Every single time I read that, I get an icy chill down my spine. That is a man who enjoys his work.
Unfortunately, Conrad, the mere implied threat of harm to a wife or child, as far as I know, is not regarded as torture under most international laws. It isn't painful, it isn't degrading, and while it's cruel -- you aren't actually doing anything. Heck, it's a bit like persuading one criminal that his buddy is singing like a canary down the hall so this one's going to get the lethal injection.
The Shin Beit guy said "The best interrogator is the best liar. I must only convince them that anything goes, but that it is completely within their control to prevent it. It's a very subtle process."
He said another reason for using purely mental techniques is that it is much less harmful to the interrogators and their organizations. Research worldwide has shown that once a torturer starts using physical pain, for a great many men it escalates into pure sadism -- causing unecessary pain and terror for the 'pleasure' of the power to harm and degrade one's 'enemies.'
Those people can become dangerously brutal and callous if they gain increasingly important military or government positions, as they often do, "and a democracy can never afford that risk."
That doesn't seem to happen as much with mental torture, because it requires very fine-tuned control of how the interrogator behaves.
__________________ When the body has a cancer - even a very small one - physicians use every means at their disposal to eradicate it. There is no talk of proportionality. Healthy tissue may suffer the treatments, but radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will, sooner or later, snuff out life.
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
This is from a top CIA trainer in 1981 - an American running a class in South America:
"I can teach you about torture, but sooner or later you'll have to get involved. You'll have to lay on your hands and try it yourselves... The precise pain, the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect."
Every single time I read that, I get an icy chill down my spine. That is a man who enjoys his work.
Unfortunately, Conrad, the mere implied threat of harm to a wife or child, as far as I know, is not regarded as torture under most international laws. It isn't painful, it isn't degrading, and while it's cruel -- you aren't actually doing anything. Heck, it's a bit like persuading one criminal that his buddy is singing like a canary down the hall so this one's going to get the lethal injection.
The Shin Beit guy said "The best interrogator is the best liar. I must only convince them that anything goes, but that it is completely within their control to prevent it. It's a very subtle process."
He said another reason for using purely mental techniques is that it is much less harmful to the interrogators and their organizations. Research worldwide has shown that once a torturer starts using physical pain, for a great many men it escalates into pure sadism -- causing unecessary pain and terror for the 'pleasure' of the power to harm and degrade one's 'enemies.'
Those people can become dangerously brutal and callous if they gain increasingly important military or government positions, as they often do, "and a democracy can never afford that risk."
That doesn't seem to happen as much with mental torture, because it requires very fine-tuned control of how the interrogator behaves.
Sorry guys, but I stand by my position. We cannot tie the CIA's hands when it comes to getting info from these terrorists. Psychological punishment is fine by me if it works.
From as far back as I can remember until the 80's, the CIA was allowed to do anything they pleased and they were very adept at getting what they wanted. They were also allowed to assasinate. When the politicians started to worry that they were getting too powerful (see FBI/Hoover) they started to put restraints on them and gave them guidelines. As usual when a politician is involved, they went overboard. If a CIA agent is using torture today, they are breaking the law.
How about building a small fire on his or her belly? My favorite one is cutting through a gut and tie the end to a horse while you slowly walk the horse away.Bush may have some better ones in mind but these would most likely work.
How about building a small fire on his or her belly? My favorite one is cutting through a gut and tie the end to a horse while you slowly walk the horse away.Bush may have some better ones in mind but these would most likely work.
Is that what they call the "belly slap" technique?
Quote:
Originally Posted by What NEWSWEEK has previously reported
....various CIA techniques such as open-handed slapping were first discussed in Alberto Gonzales's office in 2002 before the then White House Counsel became attorney general.
Scott Horton, a New York City Bar Association lawyer who has advised the Senate on the legislation, says Capitol Hill aides have told him that the CIA has sought to use the following techniques:
(1) induced hypothermia;
(2) long periods of forced standing;
(3) sleep deprivation;
(4) the "attention grab" (the forceful seizing of a suspect's shirt);
(5) the "attention slap";
(6) the "belly slap"; and
(7) sound and light manipulation.
Tom Malinowski, the Washington director for the group Human Rights Watch, says that Hill sources working on the legislation have described the same list to him.
1, 2, 3, and 7 can be torture. I have to think this is a very well-designed list where the real deals are mumbled and the silly ones will get all the attention.
land shark
__________________ When the body has a cancer - even a very small one - physicians use every means at their disposal to eradicate it. There is no talk of proportionality. Healthy tissue may suffer the treatments, but radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will, sooner or later, snuff out life.
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
