Red Cross Torture Report

[Xiahou]

Reading this thread, the only word that springs to mind is 'naivete'. People seem to have a very sanitized view of things.

The president swears to uphold the Constitution, not to make us safe, right? Pick any crisis or disaster in our nation's history. In the Civil War, Lincoln's administration suspended habeas corpus, jailed critical journalists, and instituted a scorched earth policy through southern states designed to terrorize the civilian population. Rebel POWs were denied food and used as human shields. Where were the charges against policy makers in his administration?

How about World War 2? Our leaders executed enemy spies (I'm sure they didn't use enhanced interrogation first though) and imprisoned US citizens because of their race. There were widespread reports of Allied soldiers massacring enemy POWs. Do we even need to get into the Bombing of Dresden? Any members of the administration brought up on charges?

Do we still remember the Cold War? We may never know all the covert actions taken during those decades. We do know that enemy spies were 'disappeared' to CIA black sites and we know that our government engaged in assassinations. But this is America! We don't torture!

As Gore famously advised Clinton when debating extraordinary renditions "Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." If Bush made a mistake, it was in letting matters get so out of hand that it's covert status was lost.

Obama's a much better PR manager, so I doubt he'll make those mistakes. He says he's going to close Gitmo- but has that stopped us from grabbing suspects from foreign countries and jailing them? Hell no, now we just send them to Bagram instead of Gitmo- it's much further from the eyes of those nosy civil libertarians. And last I heard, Obama still reserves the right to covertly authorize interrogation techniques beyond the army field manual- with luck, we'll never hear about it and everyone can have a clear conscience.

Show me any case where a subsequent administration investigated and jailed their predecessors for their policies. That's the stuff of banana republics. I remember after 9/11 hearing all the "experts" complain how the CIA and intelligence community was woefully unprepared to detect terrorist attacks. It had lost its ability to get its hands dirty and collect "human intelligence". Now we hear from our congressional leaders, feigning outrage, they they plan to start their own investigations into our intelligence agencies. I look forward to the 3 ring circus that will become. I know history is supposed to repeat itself, but so quickly?

Clearly, Obama is still hoping this will all go away. He's likely contemplating some of the same things that people want Bush to be tried for and I think he knows what kind of precedent this could set. Every time the party in charge changes, we'll see criminal investigations of the previous administration as angry supporters demand retribution.

Well anyhow, that's my perspective. I'm sure most will disagree.....

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There are 3 reasons why the US treatment of their prisoners is wrong.

A) The information you get from torture is worth very little.

As has been noted in discussions on this topic before, the only POSSIBLE excuse for such methods is a requirement for speed (the proverbial ticking bomb scenario). Any other use simply threatens to denigrate the very information you are trying to obtain. Unless torture is the end goal itself (having now read a bit about the frequency of the waterboardings etc., I begin to fear this may have been the case for some -- very disturbing).

B) What you do to others, others do to you. You have just set the standards for what it is ok to do to US militarymen caught in combat.

Since most of the SERE methods were taught to us the old fashioned way in nearly every conflict we've been involved in since the 2nd World War, I could argue that you've got the thing reversed, but Kukri handled this one best -- we should have been the ones strong enough to break the cycle.

C) It's just plain wrong and barbaric. When I did my military time they drilled us HARD about what we could and could not to do POWs. I'm sad the US doesnt live up to the standard set by themselves.

Agreed. R.G.H. Siu once noted that "cruelty is the tantrum of frustrated power." I am coming to believe that this frustration pushed us past limits we should not have gone.

[Furunculus]

people like the rest of you guys that get your knickers in a twist over a little waterboarding are precisely the reason why i have no objection to beardy fellows with cemtex and flight plans getting a little rough treatment when caught.

TBH i read this one of two ways...

I support rough treatment (like waterboarding) because people get upset about it... which doesn't make to much sense unless your someone who argues for the sake of winding other people up...

or

I support rough treatment (stuff worse than waterboarding) because people get upset about waterboarding... can take this one of two ways... either your a really big wind up merchant... or you support harsher torture because everyone else supports none at all.. thus to make up for everyone else's moderation you make yourself far more extreme...

I think you were right that it would be terrible to live in a society that approves of torture, guess i should just be more thankful other britons put more thought into the subject...

Government will ALWAYS have to do nasty things, and given the nature of Gov't they will do nasty things to the general populace unless the general populace consistently reacts with horror and revulsion when such activity occurs.

Therefore:
I agree with the UK's interventionist foreign policy and therefore recognise that the UK will accumulate many state & non-state enemies.
I support the secret use of effective interrogation techniques against enemies of the state, even if they are distasteful to me.
I recognise that many of the brutal torture techniques provide zero certainty for interrogation purposes, and are thus ineffective.
I realise that the general public will find it very difficult to distinguish between effective/distasteful & ineffective/brutal interrogation methods.
I accept that the general public do not always make rational choices about the public good which is why we elect governments to make those tough choices.
I encourage public uproar about distasteful & brutal interrogation techniques as the most effective ward against the incipient totalitarian state.

Is that clearer?

[drone]

Reading this thread, the only word that springs to mind is 'naivete'. People seem to have a very sanitized view of things.

It doesn't bother you at all that torture was used to extract false information (essentially propaganda) from prisoners that could be used as justification to invade Iraq? That's what it's looking like, and funny enough, that's the whole point of the SERE techniques.

Alongside with the ginned up WMD evidence, the connection of Iraq to AQ was necessary to get the population and Congress behind the invasion. Hence causing the death of thousands of American troops, enriching Cheney's cronies, and draining the US treasury like rock stars in Vegas. Screw the morality of the acts of the interrogators and their enablers. This should piss off every American, except the most blind (or most guilty) of the Bush administration apologists.

[Lemur]

Today one of Abu Zubaydah's FBI interrogators broke his silence. Good for him.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

The entire essay is worth a read. Maybe the most heart-breaking part:

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).

My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue.

[Lemur]

Seems that the Speaker of the House has woken up to what may lie in store for her: Pelosi denies being briefed. I expect she's lying.

"In that or any other briefing...we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used," said Pelosi. "What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel...opinions that they could be used, but not that they would."

[Spino]

I'm still trying to make heads or tails of this bone headed decision. Did they not examine this from all the angles before committing to action? Clearly not. Do they think the public is so stupid that they could just let this loose into the wild and nobody would demand to see the cage where it was kept? Obviously. Clearly the Obama administration has overlooked the fact that the sheeple have gone back to the pasture and the only voters paying attention nowadays are those with IQs over 85.

The administration probably thought that releasing all this info would win them major political points by putting them on the moral high ground, thus helping them push their agenda while improving their standing with the public. Anything to make them look good while exposing GW Bush & the Republicans as the sum of all evils. It would have been a great success story were it not for the sticky and inconvenient fact that it's also bringing to light evidence that many members of Congress who happen to have a (D) after their name instead of an (R) were accessories to the crimes thanks to the numerous (30+) Congressional briefings that took place during the previous administration. I mean, how can you cast stones at the sinners when your own people were complicit in the sin to begin with? Sacrificing a bunch of low ranking personnel who wrote some incriminating documents that allowed other low level helpers to torture some fundies when everyone knows the rabbit hole runs much deeper and splits off into a dizzying array of tunnels is only going to make people angrier when those formerly and currently in power are above recrimination.

Honestly now, this move had the potential to be huge during an election year where they could play it up to the sheeple in speeches, rallies and whatnot. This could certainly have played a part (however small) in hurting Republicans during the 2010 elections.

The Obama administration has put itself in a Catch-22 situation. In their bid to appear to be righteous and virtuous they have put their colleagues at serious political risk. There is simply too much paperwork and too many loose lips within our intelligent agencies that will allow the Democrats to control the release and dissemination of this information so that it works perfectly to their political advantage. At some point Obama is going to have to drop the issue altogether and let it sink into red tape lest he turn his 'love affair' with Congressional Democrats into a quietly antagonistic relationship. If the Obama administration does drop the issue it will make our POTUS look like the same hypocritical waffler who days after being sworn in promised no lobbyists in his admininstration... except for a few notorious ones who slipped in before the proclamation. This accumulated dirt is piling up and will work against the Democrats in 2010.

The Democrats in Congress have to be thinking to themselves, "What the hell is Obama doing?" Diane Feinstein seems particularly flustered by this move. It's becoming painfully apparent that the only thing our President is good at is running for office... even after he's been elected.

If I recall Bush was taken to task for preferring checkers over chess, I formally proclaim that checkers is the game of choice for this entire generation of leaders. Short sighted, unimaginative ninnies. Someone PLEASE purchase a few thousand copies of Machiavelli's The Prince and mail them to Washingon because it's positively embarassing when the people you expect to be consumate, coniving crooks keep getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

On the other hand I LOVE watching these egomaniacs fumble and bumble about in the aftermath of a spectacular screwup.

[seireikhaan]

Spino- I know I'm being farfetched when I say this, but maybe, just maaaaaybe... just maybe Obama had it put out because he thought it was genuinely an important matter to be released, regardless of whether both parties get caught in the crossfire? I know I'm asking a great deal from a politician, but maybe you are allowing your cynicism to blinker your view.

EDIT: So, Xiahou, I take it then that you don't really mind anything we do in war time so long as its to "win"?

[Spino]

I know I'm asking a great deal from a politician, but maybe you are allowing your realism cynicism to blinker your view.

Corrected.

Possibly, but politics is no place for idealists, let alone blind ones. And again, given what we've seen from the Obama admininstration so far their righteousness and moral certitude seems to be seriously lacking. If calling and selling a horrendously unpopular, bloated, pork laden bill a 'Stimulus package' that will promise to create (what number did Gibbs say?) 3 million jobs doesn't smack of disingenuine nonsense I don't know what does.

Seriously, this is the same man who decried the illegality of the Iraq war and promised to pull the troops out in six months... who has now committed to the same lengthy scale down plan as the Bush administration. The same President who probably set a record for putting forth appointees rife with tax 'issues' and/or who are currently under investigation. What's worse is this is the same man who voted for the wiretapping bill so where are his real priorities? Which matter is more important for a President, to preserve the rights of American citizens or those of foreigners who have already violated international law?

See the thing is no matter how idealistic Obama may be he did lie down with many of these Congressional dogs on the campaign trail in order to achieve the Democratic nomination and eventually get elected POTUS. Obama still has his own legislative agenda to push and if he continues to shine the spotlight of truth and righteousness uncomfortably close to the folks in Congress who are critical to the success of said agenda he's going to find himself an unofficial pariah within his own party.

[drone]

It would be sweet if Pelosi would get caught up in all this, if not legally then politically. She needs to go as Speaker, either through party action or by the appalled fire-breathing liberals in California's 8th come primary time.

If this does go forward, we need a independent investigator/prosecutor, letting Congress do it would be pointless, too many rear ends would get covered. We need to know the "what did you know and when did you know it" from everyone. If the leadership of both parties gets implicated, so be it. Spring cleaning time.

On the memo release and the aftermath, Justice is P.O.ed at Rahm for his "no prosecutions for the interrogators" comment. That is not the chief of staff's call, he's stepping on Justice's turf. I agree with Spino, politically this has been a huge misstep by Obama and he opened a huge can of worms, but it is possible that he has morals, so .

[Lemur]

For what it's worth, drone, the Prez seems to agree with you.

At a White House meeting Thursday, President Obama told Congressional leaders that he thinks it would be a mistake to set up a commission to investigate excesses of the Bush administration’s war on terror. [...] Sources said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her support for a “truth commission,” but her comments came near the end of the 90-minute session, after Obama had already thrown cold water on the idea. At another point in the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed support for Obama’s position that a broad-ranging inquiry would be an unhelpful distraction.

My take: Pelosi wants an investigation in Congress so that she can manager her own exposure, since she's probably guilty as hell.

[drone]

My take: Pelosi wants an investigation in Congress so that she can manager her own exposure, since she's probably guilty as hell.

For all the complaining they did during the Bush years (especially the last 2), the Dems in Congress let it happen, either through inaction, cowardice, or complicity. They just hid behind the helpless victim role and reaped the political benefit. You could tell Pelosi was waist deep in it when she said impeachment was out of the question. Too many skeletons.

[Lemur]

I am amazed by the unintentional irony of the torture apologists. Today, James Taranto, a man who publicly and unreservedly backed a President who claimed an Imperial Right to suspend habeas corpus, sidestep the Geneva Convention, ignore the Convention Against Torture, obliterate domestic law, and establish the right to seize any citizen (U.S. or otherwise) and torture them in black sites indefinitely without bringing charges ever ... well, guess what this neo-authoritarian thinks of the idea that some of the architects of the torture program might be prosecuted someday? Guess, go ahead, guess.

What Obama is offhandedly contemplating, then, amounts to a step toward authoritarian government

I am truly at the road's end of irony. I'm ironied out. The fact that the people who supported authoritarianism most strongly are now those who scream "Fascism!" the loudest ... gah.

[Xiahou]

Rasmussen has an interesting poll on the subject:

Only 28% of U.S. voters think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) are opposed. Democrats are evenly divided over whether further investigation is necessary. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party are against more investigating.

I guess I'm in the majority for once....

[Lemur]

Only if you read the numbers with extreme prejudice.

As you can see, Americans differ on the method, only 34% believe nothing should be done. So sez my poll. I'd certainly like to see broader polling on the issue. Where's CA?

-edit-

An exhaustive round-up of public and semi-public facts about who in Congress knew what, and when. "Murky" is the word that springs to mind. Several congresscritters complain that they were briefed, but not "fully." Hrm. Well of course they weren't briefed fully, who is? The outstanding question is what were they briefed, and what was their response, and did they skip any opportunity to raise objections?

[Xiahou]

Your poll is almost three months old and doesn't take recent events into consideration- the poll I cited was released Thursday. Make of it what you will.

[CountArach]

My name is called and my polling (Dare I say...?) expertise is requested... I shall not delay...

The only recent poll regarding the specific action of release of the CIA torture memos was that one conducted by Rasmussen. I do, however, have a serious concern with the question asked in the poll:

Does the release of CIA memos on interrogation techniques help the image of the United States abroad or does it endanger the national security of the United States?

The question is bound to get misleading results because you aren't required to pick a side on whether or not it endangers national security - the only other option is that it helps your image abroad. This would, to some degree at least, account for the high level of undecideds in the poll. Torture, as I shall show, is a very contentious issue and one on which there are generally few undecideds. As such any poll with this many undecideds should be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism.

As for general polling on torture, not much has been released outside of questions relating to Guantanamo Bay. The most recent polls are:

• Pew Research (April 23rd) - 49% support/47% oppose (4% undecided)
• Gallup (February 12th) - 62% support some investigation into use of Torture (Ignoring the fairly strong partisan divide here you get 59% of Independents supporting these investigations). Interestingly it has been said that this will be re-poll over the weekend... hold on for that one.
• Gallup (February 2nd) - 74% of people approve of Obama's limitting of interrogation techniques.
• WaPo/ABC News Poll (January 16th) - 40% support torture/58% oppose (2% undecided).

I can't find any others at the moment, but I'm fairly sure that's enough to be going on with. As can be seen the public is fairly evenly divided on this particular issue. Pew is always trustworthy and non-partisan so I would go with their numbers over any of the other organisations.

Your poll is almost three months old and doesn't take recent events into consideration- the poll I cited was released Thursday. Make of it what you will.

When it comes to opinions on specific political questions such as this the public is often quite static in their viewpoints (compare the results of the recent Pew surveys... they are al within the Margin of Error). Actions such as this are likely to release a small degree of "noise" into the polling, and it remains to be seen whether that will hold or not - my guess is that it will not cause any major public opinion shifts in the long-run. This is simply because there are so few undecideds out there to shift and it is always incredibly difficult to cause long-term shifts in the other side's numbers... just look at polling on abortion for example.

[KukriKhan]

Does the release of CIA memos on interrogation techniques help the image of the United States abroad or does it endanger the national security of the United States?

Yeah, that's an incredibly tough choice for poll-voters. But, it does capture the two "sides" spirit of intent, I think:

I suspect the memo-releasers simply hoped to engender more trust in the "new, improved USA" from overseas, while reaping some unanticipated push-back domestically (that they wish would just go away),

while that push-back, led by Cheney, wants to cite an "ends justify the means" nat'l security justification, with a side-order of "Hey, it ain't torture if he's still breathing, right?".

This results in a duelling Admins fight, which Xiahou, rightly I think, deplores as "banana republic-ish", and unproductive. That fight obscures the issue: do we (the US) or do we not, torture?

No, sez I. Ever. And when a loose-cannon who does torture is found, he, and anyone in charge of him who either authorized it or allowed it, gets sanctioned.

I'm no psychic, but it feels to me like ex-VP Cheney is out front to take the hit for GW, Condi, Rummy, Gonzo, et al. I expect to see him on TV in the next 10-14 days, pointing his finger at himself, saying: "Yeah I authorized that stuff - I had good reason. See these documents. You wanna charge me with a crime? Bring it on. At your, and your successors' peril." Then, if pursued, a lot of congresscritters current and past, are gonna be awfully embarrassed.

[CountArach]

nevermind...

[Xiahou]

Hot out of my Inbox - a new Rasmussen Poll:

That's the same poll.

[Lemur]

Something to contemplate while we examine polling over torture's popularity:

As a senior interrogator in Iraq, I conducted more than three hundred interrogations and monitored more than one thousand. I heard numerous foreign fighters state that the reason they came to Iraq to fight was because of the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. Our policy of torture and abuse is Al-Qaeda’s number one recruiting tool. These same insurgents have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of our troops in Iraq, not to mention Iraqi civilians. Torture and abuse are counterproductive in the long term and, ultimately, cost us more lives than they save.

Remind me, again, which position is "naive." 'Cause it sure looks as though the people who think "24" is reality are the ones who won't face cold reality.

-edit-

More missives from the reality-based community that will need to be dodged, spun or ignored:

The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

[CountArach]

That's the same poll.

That's what I get for writing at 1am...

[Kadagar_AV]

OK!

I might be a total ... But when I did my army-time the limits of what was torture and not was all clear:

* You have no other obligation than to state your name and personal number (in case of militarys, also rank).

Anything else will be handled by your lawyer...










Is this unclear in any way?

Any action from the opposing side to force you to give up any information apart from that is torture.
That is the Genevé's take on it anyway...


Only exception is VERBAL interrogation.

However, interrogation after 72h of sleeplessness (spelling?) still falls under "torture".





Can someone PLEASE inform me why the US is an exception from these rules?

[Tribesman]

Can someone PLEASE inform me why the US is an exception from these rules?

Because George didn't go to Geneva for no stinking commie liberal atheist treaty telling him what he can and cannot do .
Oh and God told him torture was OK

[Lemur]

Bob Baer being interviewed about the t-word.

Also, a much more detailed article about Abu Zubaydah's FBI interrogator. Enjoy.

"I've kept my mouth shut about all this for seven years," Soufan says. But now, with the declassification of Justice memos and the public assertions by Cheney and others that "enhanced" techniques worked, Soufan feels compelled to speak out. "I was in the middle of this, and it's not true that these [aggressive] techniques were effective," he says. "We were able to get the information about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a couple of days. We didn't have to do any of this [torture]. We could have done this the right way."

Soufan's assertion was buttressed by Philip Zelikow, the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, who last week called Soufan "one of the most impressive intelligence agents—from any agency" that the panel encountered. After joining the Bush administration in 2005, Zelikow argued against the enhanced-interrogation techniques. He wrote a memo questioning the legal justification for the methods—advice he says the White House ordered destroyed.

[Lemur]

Here's the text of the treaty that Ronald Reagan signed. See how it jibes with the defenses mounted by the torture apologists:

Article 1.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2.
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

And here's what Saint Reagan had to say in his signing statement:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

[Kadagar_AV]

- “The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.” President Bush on UN Torture Victims Recognition Day 26 June 2003

Yeah, great example...

- Saddam's rape rooms and torture chambers and children's prisons are closed forever. His mass graves will claim no victims.
18 October 2003, to the Philippine Congress

Well, the torture chambers WERE closed for a week or so, we all know what happened after that.

- “Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law ? Many have been detained, arrested, thrown in prison and subjected to torture by regimes that fail to understand that their habits of control will not serve them well in the long term.” Statement by President Bush released by the White House on June 26, 2005

"protected by the rule of law"? Is teh law he talks about the patriot act, or what?

- "We do not torture." President Bush to reporters during a visit to Panama in November 2005

And the pope doesnt wear a funny hat...

- “The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror — the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives.” President Bush on his veto of a bill that would have outlawed waterboarding in March 2008

Ok, so torture is OK if it's against ENEMIES, now I get it.

- “I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved ... I told the country we did that. And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it.” President Bush in an interview with ABC about interrogation tactics used on detainees in April 2008

Back in the more civilized world it's not legal, no.

[Incongruous]

Government will ALWAYS have to do nasty things, and given the nature of Gov't they will do nasty things to the general populace unless the general populace consistently reacts with horror and revulsion when such activity occurs.

Therefore:
I agree with the UK's interventionist foreign policy and therefore recognise that the UK will accumulate many state & non-state enemies.
I support the secret use of effective interrogation techniques against enemies of the state, even if they are distasteful to me.
I recognise that many of the brutal torture techniques provide zero certainty for interrogation purposes, and are thus ineffective.
I realise that the general public will find it very difficult to distinguish between effective/distasteful & ineffective/brutal interrogation methods.
I accept that the general public do not always make rational choices about the public good which is why we elect governments to make those tough choices.
I encourage public uproar about distasteful & brutal interrogation techniques as the most effective ward against the incipient totalitarian state.

Is that clearer?

No, we do not elect government in order that they may evict fellow subjects from their homelands, we do not elect governments to declare war without concensus, we do not elect governments to abuse the use of Royal perogative to stifle High Court rulings. We do not believe in the government taking blatant liberties with its powers under the pretext of "we know better". You're not a commie are you?

"interventionist policy"...
Oh you mean that stuff about invading countries for the sake of securing oil pipelines which our current group of Chums, the Taliban, can no longer do? Right.
Because our current adventure in the desert has gone sooo well!

The money that has been spent on Iraq could have been spent on the people who actually pay taxes, you know, some of those poor people who don't have much, who live off the crap which is frozen food and multiple jobs.
The only people who support the war in Asia are those whom don't struggle with the black holes which are Public schools and council estates.

[Furunculus]

Article 1.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2.
1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

sounds like an effing stupid thing to sign, for if taken literally then you cannot forcefully interrogate anyone via forced means.

[Furunculus]

No, we do not elect government in order that they may evict fellow subjects from their homelands, we do not elect governments to declare war without concensus, we do not elect governments to abuse the use of Royal perogative to stifle High Court rulings. We do not believe in the government taking blatant liberties with its powers under the pretext of "we know better". You're not a commie are you?

"interventionist policy"...
Oh you mean that stuff about invading countries for the sake of securing oil pipelines which our current group of Chums, the Taliban, can no longer do? Right.
Because our current adventure in the desert has gone sooo well!

The money that has been spent on Iraq could have been spent on the people who actually pay taxes, you know, some of those poor people who don't have much, who live off the crap which is frozen food and multiple jobs.
The only people who support the war in Asia are those whom don't struggle with the black holes which are Public schools and council estates.

that's lovely, and i disagree btw, but it has nothing to do with this discussion.