Red Cross Torture Report

[Lemur]

I don't suppose it's even worth pointing out that corporals and sergeants at Abu Ghraib were prosecuted for far less than is outlined in these memos. Moral of the story: Don't be a grunt who takes pictures.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Torture - Egregiously destructive and repetitive abuse.

My definition. I used to define it as too much homework or having to go to church. I guess those wern't too bad in hindsight.

I wouldn't consider putting someone through waterboarding for a few minutes as torture. A few hours and we are talking torture. I wouldn't call someone being hit in the face while tied to a chair once torture. I WOULD call someone being hit in the face repetetively while tied to a chair torture.

Removing even 1 fingernail with pliers? torture. The physical destruction and pain last. Telling someone that their parents and children have been killed or will be killed while under the perp is under arrest? Not torture. Showing them pictures of their bodies being defiled for weeks? Torture.

The "stand around naked and feel bad about yourself" thing isn't torture. It is weird and unsettling, but I think it should be governed by a different description.

[Lemur]

TuffStuff, you do know that waterboarding is effective in minutes rather than hours, right? Point of fact, if you waterboarded someone continuously for half an hour, the odds are quite high he would die.

Given your definition of torture, should any of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib have been tried in a court martial?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Given your definition of torture, should any of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib have been tried in a court martial?

Yes. I think punishing people in a degrading, amoral and unusual way should be grounds for court martial. They should be ashamed of themselves, but most of it wasn't torture.

Torture is essentially putting someone with no recourse into physical/emotional shock that lasts and lasts. It elicits a serious and unequivocal response with duration.

I do believe that waterboarding to an extent is a gray area.

[Lemur]

I'm not trying to be dense, TuffStuff, but I don't understand. Your definition of torture is egregiously destructive and repetitive abuse. There's a lot of room in that definition, and I'm curious about the coupling of "destructive" with "repetitive." So if I chop your foot off, it's certainly destructive, but it's not repetitive. Is that torture?

Going back to Abu Ghraib, I don't understand what was done by those soldiers that meets your definition. Enforced nudity? Ritual humiliation? A light beating or two? Dragging a detainee around on a leash? Human pyramids?

None of this seems to approach your definition. None of it is nearly as bad as some of the stuff authorized in the Bybee Memo. Why should Lynndie England have gone to the brig?

I want to understand where you're coming from.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Given your definition of torture, should any of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib have been tried in a court martial?

They should have been court-martialed for dereliction of duty and general lack of sense, regardless of whether or not the abuses they heaped on prisoners rose to the level of torture -- and there is zero doubt that their behavior was abusive.

[Lemur]

Dereliction of duty? According to the soldiers and their C.O., they were specifically asked by Army interrogators to "soften up" the prisoners. "General lack of common sense" is not a criminal offense in the UMCJ, last I checked. "Abusive"? So what? President 43, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld all announced in public that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees.

So: The detainees were not tortured. The non-coms at Abu Ghraib broke no laws. By all reputable accounts they were obeying lawful orders from fellow soldiers. The abuse they heaped on their detainees was absolutely nothing compared to what went down at Baghram and Guantanamo. So why did they go to jail? Why is anybody shocked at what they did?

Is it just the pictures?

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm not trying to be dense, TuffStuff, but I don't understand. Your definition of torture is egregiously destructive and repetitive abuse. There's a lot of room in that definition, and I'm curious about the coupling of "destructive" with "repetitive." So if I chop your foot off, it's certainly destructive, but it's not repetitive. Is that torture?

Going back to Abu Ghraib, I don't understand what was done by those soldiers that meets your definition. Enforced nudity? Ritual humiliation? A light beating or two? Dragging a detainee around on a leash? Human pyramids?

None of this seems to approach your definition. None of it is nearly as bad as some of the stuff authorized in the Bybee Memo. Why should Lynndie England have gone to the brig?

I want to understand where you're coming from.

Chopping a foot off is egregiously destructive and the pain lasts for quite a while in a serious way and it doesnt grow back. I would consider it torture.

I don't see how most of that stuff is torture. It is weird, has no place anywhere, and should be punished, but c'mon.

I think you understand my personal definition. It is a common sense defenition. I used to dunk my brothers head under water for prolonged periods of time when I was a kid. Some jerk held my head under water over and over again until I inhaled water and cried and cried. I wouldn't want him to be tried on torture charges because it wasn't torture. I can't imagine a few minutes of waterboarding being torturous. Exasperating and horrifying, yes - torturous, no.

We should keep "torture" rather specific, otherwise it loses its meaning. If forcing someone to stand around naked or be shaven is torture, I don't buy all of the cosmic condemnation of torture. It desensetizes.

Constant beatings and bone breakings ARE torture. Lets use our common sense like a civ.

[Lemur]

I can't imagine a few minutes of waterboarding being torturous.

You'll pardon me, but that sounds kinda ill-informed. Here's a journalist being waterboarded. Enjoy.

[ICantSpellDawg]

You'll pardon me, but that sounds kinda ill-informed. Here's a journalist being waterboarded. Enjoy.

Pardon me if I don't take a fat, posh and scuzzy drunk seriously in what he "can't bare".

I'm sure that it is aweful, I'm not contesting that - I just don't believe it is as cut and "dry" as people are making it. It rides the line. Almsot all of the other stuff listed is nonsense. Next thing you know you'll want to make shooting the enemy illegal because a gut shot or serious wound could take hours to die from or suffer through.

Repetetive, however could be the clincher. Water board someone for hours and you've got yourself a case. Doesn't real torture usually have a mortality rate significantly higher than merely talking to someone just because of overdoing it and mistakes?

You asked for opinions, here they are.

[Lemur]

Almsot all of the other stuff listed is nonsense.

Slamming someone's head into a wall is "nonsense"? Hypothermia is "nonsense"? Putting someone in a blacked-out coffin with insects is "nonsense"?

Next thing you know you'll want to make shooting the enemy illegal because a gut shot or serious wound could take hours to die from or suffer through.

When, in this entire conversation about torture, has anyone suggested that battlefield rules be changed? You make it sound as thought a bunch of soppy humanitarians want to change the rules of war. Excuse me, but the people who introduced a re-definition weren't on the left; it was President 43 who excused us from the Geneva Conventions. It was President 43 who side-stepped the Convention Against Torture, to which we are a signatory. If you want to get irritated at someone for fundamentally altering how we handle prisoners, you'd do better to glance right than left.

Water board someone for hours and you've got yourself a case. Doesn't real torture usually have a mortality rate significantly higher than merely talking to someone just because of overdoing it and mistakes?

Um, no. Incorrect. Leave-no-marks torture, as perfected by the Soviets and the Schutzstaffel, has a very low mortality rate. And while it's very hard to get hard numbers about it, something around a hundred detainees have died in "suspicious circumstances" at Baghram and Abu Ghraib. Many of those deaths were ruled homicides by Army investigators. I'll link to the pathology reports if you need backup for that assertion.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Slamming someone's head into a wall is "nonsense"? Hypothermia is "nonsense"? Putting someone in a blacked-out coffin with insects is "nonsense"?


Um, no. Incorrect. Leave-no-marks torture, as perfected by the Soviets and the Schutzstaffel, has a very low mortality rate. And while it's very hard to get hard numbers about it, something around a hundred detainees have died in "suspicious circumstances" at Baghram and Abu Ghraib. Many of those deaths were ruled homicides by Army investigators. I'll link to the pathology reports if you need backup for that assertion.

Well sure. A significantly higher mortality rate than questioning would indicate passing the line into torture. If you have a much higher chance of dying AND it is painful, then it is probably torture.

Physical abuse like punching and kicking is much easier to ascertain as torture. Leave no marks torture actually does leave marks - people die from it.

I want to see physical evidence. Evidence such as bruises, gashes and corpses that far outpace normal mortality. If any of those are present, most likely torture is going on.

Bring on the corpse rate vs general pop in their country. If it is much higher, I'll agree with you that torture is going on in a way that needs to be addressed urgently.

[HoreTore]

It amazes me that some people still think that you can only cause pain to a body, not a brain.

Unfortunately, torturers world-wide have found out that you can cause far more pain and suffering to a brain... And as an added bonus, it's much harder to detect.

[Lemur]

Bring on the corpse rate vs general pop in their country. If it is much higher, I'll agree with you that torture is going on in a way that needs to be addressed urgently.

Hmm, an interesting challenge. Here is a report from 2005, indicating that 108 people had died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's 108 confirmed detainee deaths in less than two years. If you can tell me how many people we were holding, you're doing better than the Department of Defense.

Here are some autopsy reports from Abu Ghraib and Baghram. I've posted some of these before, but let's skim over the highlights. Remember, these are reports by U.S. military investigators.

DOD 003146 - DOD003155; DOD003299: Multiple blunt force injuries. Abrasion in upper right forehead. Abrasion on right lower forehead above eyebrow. Multiple contusions on right cheek and lower nose, left upper forehead, back of head. Abrasions on chest, lower costal margin. Contusions on arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, upper inner arm, groin, inner thigh, right back of knee and calf, left calf, left lower leg. Cause of death was pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injuries.

DOD003156 - DOD 003163; DOD 003296 - 003297: Detainee was found unresponsive restrained in his cell. Death was due to blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease.Contusions and abrasions on forehead, nose, head, behind ear, neck, abdomen, buttock, elbow, thigh, knee, foot, toe, hemorrhage on rib area and leg. Detainee died of blunt force injuries to lower extremities, complicating underlying coronary artery disease. The blunt force injuries to the legs resulted in extensive muscle damage, muscle necrosis and rhabomyolysis. Electrolyte disturbances primarily hyperkalemia (elevated blood potassium level) and metabolic acidosis can occur within hours of muscle damage. Massive sodium and water shifts occur, resulting in hypovolemic shock and casodilatation and later, acute renal failure. The decedent's underlying coronary artery disease would compromise his ability to tolerate the electrolyte and fluid abnormalities, and his underlying malnutrition and likely dehydration would further exacerbate the effects of the muscle damage. The manner of death is homicide.

DOD003164 - DOD003170; DOD 003301: Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy reveleaved bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominatnly recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide.

DOD003171 - DOD3177; DOD003298: Death caused by the multiple blunt force injuries of the lower torso and legs complicated by rhabdommyolisis (release of toxic byproducs into the system due to destruction of muscle). Manner of death is homicide. Decedent was not under the pharmacologic effect of drugs or alcohol at the time of death.

DOD 003220 - DOD 003227; DOD003305: Male detainee died while in U.S. custody. The details surrounding the circumstances at the time of death are classified. Cause of death: Asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression. Manner of Death: Homicide. Significant findings of the autopsy included rib fractures and numerous bruises, some of which were patterned due to impacts with a blunt object. DOD 003329 refers to this case as "1 blunt force trauma and choking; died during interrogation." DOD 003325 refers to this case with note "Q[uestioned] by MI [Military Intelligence], died during interrogation."

There are lots more where those came from.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Hmm, an interesting challenge. Here is a report from 2005, indicating that 108 people had died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's 108 confirmed detainee deaths in less than two years. If you can tell me how many people we were holding, you're doing better than the Department of Defense.

Here are some autopsy reports from Abu Ghraib and Baghram. I've posted some of these before, but let's skim over the highlights. Remember, these are reports by U.S. military investigators.

DOD 003146 - DOD003155; DOD003299: Multiple blunt force injuries. Abrasion in upper right forehead. Abrasion on right lower forehead above eyebrow. Multiple contusions on right cheek and lower nose, left upper forehead, back of head. Abrasions on chest, lower costal margin. Contusions on arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, upper inner arm, groin, inner thigh, right back of knee and calf, left calf, left lower leg. Cause of death was pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injuries.

DOD003156 - DOD 003163; DOD 003296 - 003297: Detainee was found unresponsive restrained in his cell. Death was due to blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease.Contusions and abrasions on forehead, nose, head, behind ear, neck, abdomen, buttock, elbow, thigh, knee, foot, toe, hemorrhage on rib area and leg. Detainee died of blunt force injuries to lower extremities, complicating underlying coronary artery disease. The blunt force injuries to the legs resulted in extensive muscle damage, muscle necrosis and rhabomyolysis. Electrolyte disturbances primarily hyperkalemia (elevated blood potassium level) and metabolic acidosis can occur within hours of muscle damage. Massive sodium and water shifts occur, resulting in hypovolemic shock and casodilatation and later, acute renal failure. The decedent's underlying coronary artery disease would compromise his ability to tolerate the electrolyte and fluid abnormalities, and his underlying malnutrition and likely dehydration would further exacerbate the effects of the muscle damage. The manner of death is homicide.

DOD003164 - DOD003170; DOD 003301: Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy reveleaved bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominatnly recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide.

DOD003171 - DOD3177; DOD003298: Death caused by the multiple blunt force injuries of the lower torso and legs complicated by rhabdommyolisis (release of toxic byproducs into the system due to destruction of muscle). Manner of death is homicide. Decedent was not under the pharmacologic effect of drugs or alcohol at the time of death.

DOD 003220 - DOD 003227; DOD003305: Male detainee died while in U.S. custody. The details surrounding the circumstances at the time of death are classified. Cause of death: Asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression. Manner of Death: Homicide. Significant findings of the autopsy included rib fractures and numerous bruises, some of which were patterned due to impacts with a blunt object. DOD 003329 refers to this case as "1 blunt force trauma and choking; died during interrogation." DOD 003325 refers to this case with note "Q[uestioned] by MI [Military Intelligence], died during interrogation."

There are lots more where those came from.

US Military and CIA personel should not get carried away. If those deaths can be linked to persons acting on behalf of the United States, whomever is responsible should be held to account. I don't believe that an investigation should be off limits.

[Lemur]

US Military and CIA personel should not get carried away. If those deaths can be linked to persons acting on behalf of the United States, whomever is responsible should be held to account. I don't believe that an investigation should be off limits.

What about their superiors in the U.S. Guv who authorized "harsh interrogation measures"? Should they face consequences? Or should we just convict another round of corporals and sergeants and call it a day?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Lemur:

Take it easy. I am aware of your firm beliefs on this issue and respect them. You will no doubt recall a post I made when this last came up.

You know the lessons of history -- it is a rare thing when the high-level decision makers in any government wrong doing are jailed for these actions, unless they are on the losing side of a war.

President Obama has specifically repudiated these actions, and is moving to close those facilities wherein these events took place. The prisoners currently held will be put into the Civil Justice system in the USA and will be released (save in those instances where untainted evidence actually is available). Many of them will likely receive compensation from the taxpayer.

What more is likely to happen? You don't seriously expect public trials for the 12-20 top level officials responsible for those policies in the Bush White House, DoD, and DoJ to stand trial do you? However "just" it would be on one level, it would only compound the damage already wreaked upon our national image and psyche. I don't see Obama going there.

[Lemur]

You're quite right, of course, President 44 does not want to go there. He's too much of a pragmatist. But I am confounded by the legal/moral side of the equation.

If I walk up to someone on the street and shoot him in the head, am I allowed to argue in court that we shouldn't look back at the past, but instead go forward, because spending time talking about me shooting someone on the head is unproductive? How would that stand up?

Addington, Yoo, Feith, Bybee, these are men who created the (by all accounts sloppy and flimsy) legal framework for torturing detainees. Yes, they should be brought to trial. We Americans have put people on trial for far less, and in more difficult circumstances.

And it really does bother me that we convicted and imprisoned some corporals and sergeants for doing just this sort of thing, while letting their masters walk away to consulting gigs and tenured professorships. "Unfair" doesn't even begin to cover it.

[Xiahou]

President Obama has specifically repudiated these actions, and is moving to close those facilities wherein these events took place.

Yeah, but I hear our prison in Bagram is getting pretty crowded lately.

[Lemur]

Oh heck. If the description of the ruling is accurate, I don't understand why they're fighting it:

The ruling essentially grants all non-Afghan Bagram detainees captured outside Afghanistan and held over six years without due process the same right to federal court review that the Supreme Court gave last year to similarly situated prisoners at Guantánamo.

-edit-

Going back to Seamus' (as usual) thoughtful comment:

You don't seriously expect public trials for the 12-20 top level officials responsible for those policies in the Bush White House, DoD, and DoJ to stand trial do you?

There are three classes of people who should face (at the very least) professional censure: the lawyers who authored some of these memos, the psychologists who helped craft the techniques, and the doctors who kept detainees alive (mostly) as they were abused. A lawyer discusses the Bybee memo:

I am a lawyer who has practiced in Washington for more than 20 years. I'm not sure I have the words to describe my reaction upon reading the Bybee memo, but it's fair to say it sent chills down my spine.

Lawyers are a cynical lot - it comes with the territory - but we all know that we have some basic obligations to our clients. One of them is to tell them the truth, and not to conceal facts or law that the client should know about. Even as you must represent your client zealously in disputes, you are required as an officer of the court not to hide adverse precedent. And failing to tell your client about cases that run against the client's preferred result is a profound dereliction of duty.

In that context, the Bybee memo is a lawyer's worst nightmare. It's an F-minus in law school, a zero on the bar exam, grounds for firing a first-year lawyer for an utter lack of understanding of what the practice of law requires.

It is beyond conception to imagine a competent lawyer not even mentioning the cases when the U.S. prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding, let alone asserting that "there have been no prosecutions" under the specific statute. It is nearly as inconceivable that the memo concludes that the insect technique, used against someone with a known insect phobia, would not cause "severe mental pain."

The only rational conclusion is that this memo is not, in fact, legal advice at all, at least not in the sense that a lawyer would use the term. None of the people involved in writing are incompetent, after all, and none of them would have made these kinds of elementary mistakes in writing for a private client. It was written purely to provide cover. To do that, Bybee and the others involved in these memos knowingly subordinated their oaths as officers of the court and their ethical obligations to give carte blanche to the interrogators and those who directed them. Perhaps they thought it was their patriotic duty; perhaps they thought that the "chatter" mentioned in the memo created an exigent circumstance that demanded that shortcuts be taken; or perhaps they expected that the memos never would see the light of day. I doubt we'll ever really know. Regardless of the reason, though, the dull legalese conceals an utter lack of respect for the law and for any constraints that the law might require. And that's what's really chilling about it.

[KukriKhan]

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh:
You don't seriously expect public trials for the 12-20 top level officials responsible for those policies in the Bush White House, DoD, and DoJ to stand trial do you?

I do, indeed. I expect the process to begin, charges be laid, evidence publicly revealed - and probably Presidential Pardon(s) issued, ala Ford for Nixon.

If the process is good enough for the enlisted swine, it's good enough for the rest of the chain-of-command too. No one is above the law.

[Tribesman]

Pardon me if I don't take a fat, posh and scuzzy drunk seriously in what he "can't bare".

Thats funny , since that fat git took a similar line on torture to yours .
He underwent that little test because people were suggesting the line he was spinning about torture was bollox
He soon changed his mind about torture didn't he

[HoreTore]

No one is above the law.

Sadly, we live in a democracy, and, as it turns out, democracy means that you are above the law if you are in the right position or have the right connections....

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sadly, we live in a democracy, and, as it turns out, democracy means that you are above the law if you are in the right position or have the right connections....

We live in a republic, about which I am not saddened at all.

To date, there have been ZERO human polities where all laws and regulations have been enforced with complete and total impartiality. EVERY historical polity has had members who were "more equal" than others for one reason on another (power, connections, money, lineage, whatever).

In principle, no one should be above the law. It is something for which we should all strive. However, expecting to attain that level of impartiality and to then keep it at that level is quixotic at best.

If, as seems likely based on what we now know, those lower echelons who got hammered for their abusive (and in some instances torturous) efforts were indeed following instructions from those in the chain of command above them, then the charges and punishments should also head up the chain. Such would be mete and fair -- but I'm not gonna hold my breath and wait for it to happen.

[Lemur]

Repetetive, however could be the clincher. Water board someone for hours and you've got yourself a case.

According to page 37 of the OLC Memo:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

Digest that for a moment. A detainee who proved to have no actionable intelligence was waterboarded 183 times in a single month. (Certainly clarifies why doctors were on 24-hour call.)

I don't have a soft spot for Khaleed Sheikh Mohammed, and I don't think he should have been treated like he was staying at the Hilton. Frankly, if he were dead the world would probably be a better place. However, it's degrading to us to have him treated this way.

Another thing I don't understand: If waterboarding is so freakin' effective, why apply it 183 times in a single month? Maybe it's because torturing a guy who has no new data for you yields bupkiss?

[Xiahou]

If, as seems likely based on what we now know, those lower echelons who got hammered for their abusive (and in some instances torturous) efforts were indeed following instructions from those in the chain of command above them, then the charges and punishments should also head up the chain. Such would be mete and fair -- but I'm not gonna hold my breath and wait for it to happen.

I still don't agree with conflating the insanity at Abu Ghraib with the deliberate and methodical interrogations carried out by the CIA.

The much publicized guards at Abu Ghraib were sick perverts, plain and simple. They took torture pictures "for fun", posed with dead bodies, posed with naked detainees, filmed detainees masturbating, and even photographed themselves having sex with each other. They're disgusting and deserve every bit of punishment they got and then some- they broke every rule by which people in the military were supposed to live by. It's also worth noting that not just the perpetrators, but their superiors were also punished for their lack of oversight- probably not as much as they should have been though.

You're free to think that waterboarding, etc (as outlined in the OP) is morally reprehensible and should be punished, but please don't put abusive interrogations on the same level as these sickos. They weren't making porno under orders- they were completely out of control.

[Lemur]

Factual problems with the above post:

"Enhanced interrogations" (that's verschärfte Vernehmung to those of you with a sense of history) have not been exclusively carried out by the C.I.A., and nobody has made any serious argument that this is the case. Organizations known to have been carrying out "enhanced interrogation": various elements of the Army, the C.I.A., private military contractors and the Navy SEALS. (The Marine Corps, with its usual savvy, has avoided stepping into this tar pit.)

The C.O. of Abu Ghraib was merely demoted; a serious punishment for a career officer, but hardly the same as imprisonment and conviction. The theater commander received no punishment of any sort ever.

With the exception of taking pictures and having sex with each other, absolutely nothing done by the guards at Abu Ghraib was outside the scope of the newly released torture memos. Once again, I think what makes everybody get prickly is the fact that they took pictures. Enforced nudity? Legal, says the Bybee memo. Sexual humiliation? Perfectly legitimate. Beatings? Legal. Tying someone up and leaving them there for days? Authorized.

I have this funny feeling that if pictures had been taken at Baghram or Guantanamo, we would be hearing from torture apologists how the "bad frat party" had happened there too. Heaven forbid we consider the possibility that legalizing and instituting torture might have had something to do with the excesses. That's just unthinkable.

-edit-

Not that much of anyone in my country seems to care, but by releasing the torture memos and then declaring that we will not investigate or prosecute anyone involved, we appear to be in breach of the Convention Against Torture. But that's just a treaty we signed, like the Geneva Convention. Who reads those meaningless scraps of paper anyway?

[Lemur]

Reference:

Just so we're all clear on what we're talking about, here are some of the newly released memos. PDF warning.

18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC (Office of Legal Counsel), to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.

46-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.

20-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.

40-page memo, dated May 30, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.

[Xiahou]

With the exception of taking pictures and having sex with each other, absolutely nothing done by the guards at Abu Ghraib was outside the scope of the newly released torture memos.

How about keeping a mentally handicapped man on a leash and dragging him around the prison as their pet? That on there? Desecrating a corpse?

[Lemur]

Taking the Yoo perspective, show me how any of this is illegal with detainees who are effectively non-persons. Look at the autopsy reports. People were getting killed in these interrogations. How is putting someone a leash legally more reprehensible than driving a detainee's core temp down until he dies?

According to the memos, it's perfectly legitimate to keep a detainee from sleeping for 11 days. This was common practice. It's not nearly as shocking as a picture of a guy on a leash, but it's far worse for the individual who's on the receiving end.

Desecrating corpses? So what? These are legal non-persons. Why should their bodies receive more respect after life than during?

-edit-

Oh, and lest I forget, should charges be brought on the people who waterboarded a (most likely) mentally ill detainee 83 times in a single month? According to most everyone except some people with a vested interest in President 43's "enhanced interrogation" regime, Abu Zubidayah was not even remotely sane, unless sane people maintain journals in which multiple personalities discuss their feelings.

Zubaydah turned out to be mentally ill, keeping a diary "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. The book also quotes Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, telling a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality." According to Suskind, this judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," yet two weeks later Bush gave a speech and labeled Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."

So which is worse: Being naked and on a leash when you're mentally disabled, or being waterboarded 83 times in a month while you're mentally disabled?