Waterboarding is Torture… Period
SWJ Blog - Waterboarding is Torture… Period by Malcolm Nance.
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I’d like to digress from my usual analysis of insurgent strategy and tactics to speak out on an issue of grave importance to Small Wars Journal readers. We, as a nation, are having a crisis of honor.
Last week the Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey refused to define waterboarding terror suspects as torture. On the same day MSNBC television pundit and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough quickly spoke out in its favor. On his morning television broadcast, he asserted, without any basis in fact, that the efficacy of the waterboard a viable tool to be sued on Al Qaeda suspects.
Scarborough said, "For those who don't know, waterboarding is what we did to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is the Al Qaeda number two guy that planned 9/11. And he talked …" He then speculated that “If you ask Americans whether they think it's okay for us to waterboard in a controlled environment … 90% of Americans will say 'yes.'” Sensing that what he was saying sounded extreme, he then claimed he did not support torture but that waterboarding was debatable as a technique: "You know, that's the debate. Is waterboarding torture? … I don't want the United States to engage in the type of torture that [Senator] John McCain had to endure."
In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique...
Much more at the link...
Yeah, it had something to do with it. So did the
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Originally Posted by
tequila
Uboat - So you do not believe what GEN Taguba found regarding GEN Miller bringing in Gitmo tactics, where MPs were asked to essentially soften up detainees for interrogators as having anything to do with the resulting abuses?
decision to go into Iraq in the first place. As did the decision to ram airplanes into buildings. The failure to correctly react to the Embassy siezure in Tehran in 1979 had an effect also. So too did Sanchez well meant but stupid directive to the Intel fokks to "Get more intel!!!"
None of which has anything to do with the fact that a bunch of poorly trained Reserve MPs who almost certainly should not have had the job they had were assigned that job (whose fault was that?) went overboard and got stupid -- and all acknowledged at their trials that they essentially knew what they were doing was wrong (does that make it their fault?). You forgot to mention the senior NCOs and the Officers of that Battalion and Company who did NOT check on their people and allowed that to happen (Surely you don't want to let them slide?). Or former BG, now Colonel Karpinski who got dropped a grade for failure to supervise (ala Martha Stewart, this is a good thing...).
There's plenty of blame for many -- but the bottom line is those kids screwed up, got caught and most got punished. The system worked.
The good news is that both Sanchez and Miller were quietly retired. The Armed forces of the US, all of them, rarely punish active component Flag Officers for errors. I don't agree with that either but neither you nor I will get that changed -- thus I'd ask, what's your point?
Serious question.
Tequila, you disagree that the system worked. You do not
say in what way it did not. Could you clarify that?
If you meant that the GOs not getting more than a rushed retirement was a miscarriage of justice, we can agree but your point is then fallacious because, as I said and you should know, that doesn't happen in the US. It should but it generally does not and that is historical fact. You and I are not going to change that so you're living in a dream world on that score.
Your last paragraph is essentially correct though your "Hollywood tough guy" comment is both telling and incorrect. It is also irrelevant. We can agree on what should not have happened, however we all have to live with what did and does happen -- mistakes are made in wars. Many have been made in this one, the whole interrogation effort is just one of them. Like many of the other mistakes, that one was rectified. You can disagree that the system worked but you'd be wrong.
It's also easy to take the moral high ground in hindsight and sitting here in CONUS, isn't it? :rolleyes: