AP Mobile: Internal CIA Report :Interogators threatenned to kill suspects children.

[ZoEd]

No those are the people we put in Abu Grab..... 98% of which were released unconditionally after the abuse pictures were released.

112 people died in United States custody during from 2003-2005 43 known homocides....

http://journal.medscape.com/viewarticle/547787

Can't read the last link, not a member of medscape. 43 known or 43 theorized. I'll admit one homocide is too many and the person committed it should be punished.

However, almost everything I've read has been theorized and frankly most of it has been a reach by people with a political agenda to push.

[ZoEd]

Yeah I hate those arm chair therists... .... Like Colin Powell CJC

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/09/14/GR2006091400728.html

Four more CJC join with Powell and call Bush torture efforts bad for the troops.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/20/shelton-objects/

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs which have come out against Bush's torture...

( all living Chairman of the Joint Chiefs not appointed by President Bush ).

1. Collin Powell
   
2. John Shalikashvili,
   
3. William Crowe,
   
4. John Vessey
   
5. Henry `Hugh" Shelton,
   

Ronald Reagan's secretary of State George Shultz also came out against toture.

They've got 70 other generals and high ranking Pentagon civilians who signed the petition against torture..

http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06913-etn-military-let-ca3.pdf

Freaking "ARMCHAIR THEORISTS" Lucky you've got Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowits, and Douglas Feith on your side who served a total of 0 days in the military between them......

So who exactly is following the no experienced theorists here on torture policy?

JMS, no one in their right mind would support torture. However, not all interrogation methods are torture. What you consider torture may differ from someone else. I for one support water boarding and stress positions, if done to me I would probably think it was torture. It would also be torture for me to be put in a confined place, especially with a spider since I'm not too fond of them.

That being said, if it takes waterboarding, stress positions, spiders or smack upside the head to get information that saves the lives of US servicemen and women then go for it.

Of course we got some wrong. We probably interrogated many who knew nothing but I doubt we knowingly rounded up innocents for the sake of doing so jus so we could torture them. Intent is everything. If the intention was to capture bad guys and get intel from them it's sad but forgivable. If the intent was to be a sadistic **** and torture innocent people then they should be punished. I doubt the latter is true.

[JMS]

Can't read the last link, not a member of medscape. 43 known or 43 theorized. I'll admit one homocide is too many and the person committed it should be punished.

However, almost everything I've read has been theorized and frankly most of it has been a reach by people with a political agenda to push.

Well my other link was a general and an admiral preface to another document which described 12 deaths in US custody and called 12 deaths a policy.

Here is the abstract.. from the link you couldn't get too.

Deaths of Detainees in the Custody of US Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan From 2002 to 2005

Scott A. Allen, MD; Josiah D. Rich, MD, MPH; Robert C. Bux, MD; Bassina Farbenblum; Matthew Berns; Leonard Rubenstein

In light of the large number of detainees who continue to be taken and held in US custody in settings with limited judicial or public oversight, deaths of detainees warrant scrutiny. We have undertaken the task of reviewing all known detainee deaths between 2002 and early 2005 based on reports available in the public domain. Using documents obtained from the Department of Defense through a Freedom of Information Act request, combined with a review of anecdotal published press accounts, 112 cases of death of detainees in United States custody (105 in Iraq, 7 in Afghanistan) during the period from 2002 to early 2005 were identified. Homicide accounted for the largest number of deaths (43) followed by enemy mortar attacks against the detention facility (36). Deaths attributed to natural causes numbered 20. Nine were listed as unknown cause of death, and 4 were reported as accidental or natural. A clustering of 8 deaths ascribed to natural causes in Iraq in August 2003 raises questions about the adequacy and availability of medical care, as well as other conditions of confinement that may have had an impact on the mortality rate.

http://journal.medscape.com/viewarticle/547787

if that link doesn't work for you google on [ deaths in us custody ]

then pick the third link.

[Lil Kenzo]

Everybody is looking to far into this....ITS WAR! End of discussion.

[JMS]

JMS, no one in their right mind would support torture. However, not all interrogation methods are torture. What you consider torture may differ from someone else. I for one support water boarding and stress positions, if done to me I would probably think it was torture. It would also be torture for me to be put in a confined place, especially with a spider since I'm not too fond of them.

The 70 flag officeers and high ranking former civilian officals at the pentagon and five former CJC's were all protesting Bush's proposal to weaken the Geneva Convention. Read the Petition.

http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06913-etn-military-let-ca3.pdf

Torture isn't arbitrary..... It has sixty years of precident defining it in this country, and these folks stepped over ney leapt over that line.

That being said, if it takes waterboarding, stress positions, spiders or smack upside the head to get information that saves the lives of US servicemen and women then go for it.

Or killing 43 people that we know of so far.... and we can claim to have "saved" lives without anything but known liers words for it.

[Larry]

JMS, no one in their right mind would support torture. However, not all interrogation methods are torture. What you consider torture may differ from someone else. I for one support water boarding and stress positions, if done to me I would probably think it was torture. It would also be torture for me to be put in a confined place, especially with a spider since I'm not too fond of them.

That being said, if it takes waterboarding, stress positions, spiders or smack upside the head to get information that saves the lives of US servicemen and women then go for it.

Of course we got some wrong. We probably interrogated many who knew nothing but I doubt we knowingly rounded up innocents for the sake of doing so jus so we could torture them. Intent is everything. If the intention was to capture bad guys and get intel from them it's sad but forgivable. If the intent was to be a sadistic **** and torture innocent people then they should be punished. I doubt the latter is true.

So in your opinion "good intentions" is the only burden of proof needed?

Or is something more needed, like, say, "Probable cause" (to pick a term we've heard before)?

My assertion is that the overwhelming evidence says that the standard we've been using is "They might know something useful".

(As evidence of this I'll point at the large numbers of people we've released from these places. My reasoning is that evidence against someone never goes away. If, after years of interrogation, we don't have anything that says Prisoner Number 6 is a threat to America, then we never had such evidence in the first place. (Interrogation can't remove information against someone. It can only add to it.))

Larry's conclusion, therefore, is: If we don't have a "case" that says a prisoner is a threat, now, then we never did.

Is that a good enough standard for you?

[Larry]

Everybody is looking to far into this....ITS WAR! End of discussion.

So your point is that, for example, what the North Vietnamese did to our POWs, you're OK with that?

In fact, if al Qaeda tortures someone to death on camera, that's OK with you, 'cause "it's war"?

[Midnight Judges]

This particular case doesn't bother me at all. It's just words.

By comparison, over the past 8 years some of our agents shackled an innocent man to the ceiling and beat him to death.

A CIA contractor beat a guy with a flashlight and kicked him in the groin during two days of interrogations, until the guy died. There was no evidence that this person was a criminal or terrorist, and in fact he turned himself in for questioning. The guy who did the beating/murder originally got 40 years but was reduced to 8 on appeal. His actions were systematically encouraged by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their yes-man lawyers.

In our nation's history, this is the first time torture was supported by a political party and an administration. And it's truely repulsive. Simply telling sombody something does not register on this scale.

[Midnight Judges]

I'll take this moment to quote one of my fav actresses, in one of my fav movies..."Suck my dick"

Stay classy.

[ardowling]

So in your opinion "good intentions" is the only burden of proof needed?

Or is something more needed, like, say, "Probable cause" (to pick a term we've heard before)?

My assertion is that the overwhelming evidence says that the standard we've been using is "They might know something useful".

(As evidence of this I'll point at the large numbers of people we've released from these places. My reasoning is that evidence against someone never goes away. If, after years of interrogation, we don't have anything that says Prisoner Number 6 is a threat to America, then we never had such evidence in the first place. (Interrogation can't remove information against someone. It can only add to it.))

Larry's conclusion, therefore, is: If we don't have a "case" that says a prisoner is a threat, now, then we never did.

Is that a good enough standard for you?

Yep, you ever hear of LTC Allen? He fired a round next to the head of "someone who might know something" because he felt that the prisoner had information that might keep his troops from being blown up by an IED, guess what??? He did, and LTC Allen used that info to save his troops. So is this torture, maybe by the standard of the Holder wannabe OP but in my book this man is a hero unfortunatly it cost him his career. Now some people did bad things (not talking about waterboarding and such) and they should pay for it but Mr Holder, I mean the Op has a hard on for the former Admin that he cant let go so I expect that if we let a fly land on a prisoner he would consider it torture and some sorry assed lawyer would agree.

[ZoEd]

So in your opinion "good intentions" is the only burden of proof needed?

Or is something more needed, like, say, "Probable cause" (to pick a term we've heard before)?

My assertion is that the overwhelming evidence says that the standard we've been using is "They might know something useful".

(As evidence of this I'll point at the large numbers of people we've released from these places. My reasoning is that evidence against someone never goes away. If, after years of interrogation, we don't have anything that says Prisoner Number 6 is a threat to America, then we never had such evidence in the first place. (Interrogation can't remove information against someone. It can only add to it.))

Larry's conclusion, therefore, is: If we don't have a "case" that says a prisoner is a threat, now, then we never did.

Is that a good enough standard for you?

Again, prove to me that the military or CIA intentionally sought out innoncents just to torture them. I'd have to assume that the person was detained for some apparent reason. I'd also have to assume that there are probably several who did absolutely nothing and was interrogated for it.

So what's the answer Larry? Stop interrogating the bad guys because there's a chance we may have some good guys among them? The people detaining possible terrorists are making decisions on the streets of Iraq in hostile conditions with their lives in danger. It's hard to do due dilligence in these conditions. It's hard to "prove" that they're bad. You have to trust that the people detaining them in the first place did so for the right reasons.

Until someone can come up with a better way to do things I say it's collateral damage. Sad, but sometimes necessary. Again, to me it's all about intent.

[skinfan133]

:doh: from the great legal minds resident at ES. You honestly don't think a judge would have a problem with a confession to murder extracted by an officer who said he was going to pop the kids of the accused.... It's like a bad Rockford files script...

You are making a mistake in that you are treating war like the civilian world. Let me just go on record and say I'm glad you aren't the one who writes the SOPs and ROEs.

let me ask you this, just who exactly is the arbitrator of war: who is your so-called "judge"?

Oh and here is another nuget of knowledge for you. Give me a pliers and 10 minutes and I could have a signed confession from you that you were Saddam Husein, Osama Bin Laudin, and the Easter Bunny. But who cares, after all you'd be 2/3rds a confessed terrorist.

spelling errors aside, you are making a straw man here. You just switched to talking about torture. We, being everyone else, were talking about your original topic, percieved threats of violence by interogators toward the interogated.

plus, you underestimate my and our servicemens' resolve: for most of us, it would take much more than that to get us to confess to war crimes or something as ridiculous as the situation you came up with. technically we can be faced with death for signing confessions as a prisoner under the UCMJ.

Case in point, contrary to Quinten Terotino's latest film. We did not torture SS men in WWII as a sanctioned policy of the Military or the OSS.

yeah, I haven't seen that yet (want to ).

let me ask an honest question: do you, in your heart of hearts, think that I believe we tortured prisoners during WWII like the no good ****ing japs?

even better question, what ever gave you the idea I was talking about torture in the first place? or that I approve of it???

[skinfan133]

So your point is that, for example, what the North Vietnamese did to our POWs, you're OK with that?

In fact, if al Qaeda tortures someone to death on camera, that's OK with you, 'cause "it's war"?

Larry, you're doing the same thing as JMS: none of us are talking about torture. We're talking about the original topic, verbal threats.

That being said, if it takes waterboarding, stress positions, spiders or smack upside the head to get information that saves the lives of US servicemen and women then go for it.

I strongly disagree. as a matter of principle, the ends hardly ever justify the means.

[Larry]

Again, prove to me that the military or CIA intentionally sought out innoncents just to torture them.

Prove to me that you can read, by actually responding to what I said, instead of what you want to pretend I said.

[Larry]

Larry, you're doing the same thing as JMS: none of us are talking about torture. We're talking about the original topic, verbal threats.

No, in the post you quoted, I'm talking about a claim that merely mentioning the word "war" justifies anything, end of discussion.

By pointing out that no, the word "war" doesn't justify anything.

[skinfan133]

No, in the post you quoted, I'm talking about a claim that merely mentioning the word "war" justifies anything, end of discussion.

By pointing out that no, the word "war" doesn't justify anything.

my mistake.

[ZoEd]

Prove to me that you can read, by actually responding to what I said, instead of what you want to pretend I said.

Actually, what you wrote made little to no sense whatsoever so prove to me that you can write.

Everything you wrote is preception and has no evidence to back it. You call it a standard, say's who? You?

My counter to you, since America and old W is the devil, prove that we knowingly and purposely imprisoned and tortured prisoners that we knew were innocent.

[skinfan133]

My counter to you, since America and old W is the devil, prove that we knowingly and purposely imprisoned and tortured prisoners that we knew were innocent.

bro that's irrelevant as we shouldn't have tortured anyone period.

[ZoEd]

I strongly disagree. as a matter of principle, the ends hardly ever justify the means.

It's your right to do so, I think differently than you.

[ZoEd]

bro that's irrelevant as we shouldn't have tortured anyone period.

Define torture. Waterboarding? Stress positions? Sleep deprivation? Please elaborate?

All the above mentioned tactics were approved if I'm not mistaken.

Pretending to shoot someone in the cell next door? Empty threats? What is torture? You're right, no one deserves to be tortured. We should be above that. However, I don't think any of these tactics are torture.

[Larry]

My counter to you, since America and old W is the devil, prove that we knowingly and purposely imprisoned and tortured prisoners that we knew were innocent.

So your response, when I refuse to prove things I never said, is to demand that I prove things that I never said?

Reading. It's tough, but I bet you can do it.

[skinfan133]

Define torture. Waterboarding? Stress positions? Sleep deprivation? Please elaborate?

All the above mentioned tactics were approved if I'm not mistaken.

Pretending to shoot someone in the cell next door? Empty threats? What is torture? You're right, no one deserves to be tortured. We should be above that. However, I don't think any of these tactics are torture.

whether they were approved or not is also irrelevant. I mean, the goddam Final Solution was approved by nazi high command. (not comparing the two directly, but I hope you get my point).

have you ever been waterboarded? how can you claim something isn't torturous if you have never experienced it?

what you're describing sounds more like an average day in a nazi political prisoner camp or soviet russia, not the United States. we should not tolerate these tactics because they are barbaric, irregardless of whether they are torture or not.

[SLASH83]

has anyone else on here gone through SERE training?

If so, then you completely undestand why the CIA, or anyone else interrogating someone would do that. Part of why they teach you certain things in SERE training, to include not revealing any personal info, to avoid the enemy from using that against you. To get up in arms over this tactic-well, you obviously just don't understand.

I'll take this moment to quote one of my fav actresses, in one of my fav movies..."Suck my dick"

thank you sir thats all that needs to be said. great quote to a great movie.

[ZoEd]

So your response, when I refuse to prove things I never said, is to demand that I prove things that I never said?

Reading. It's tough, but I bet you can do it.

I've read it Larry, several times now and I still don't know what point you're trying to make, except for your assertion. Your assertion that we detained people without probable cause and no amount of interrogation is going to make someone who know's nothing, know something.

That's your assertion. I assert that, the person being detained was detained for a reason, probable cause if you will, and that because of whatever the reason was, they were being interrogated. Until you can prove to me that there wasn't any probable cause I'm going to assert that there was.

Again, prove to me we just walked around the streets of Baghdad arresting innocents for the sake of arresting them, just so we could interrogate them. Because that's what your assertion is asserting.

[skinfan133]

thank you sir thats all that needs to be said. great quote to a great movie.

:secret: ljs is a chick bro