Comments (64)

Molly Ivins wrote on October 31, 2007 1:37 PM:

Raise Hell! and don't feed the Trolls!

Xopl wrote on October 31, 2007 1:45 PM:

I'm disappointed in you, Spencer Ackerman...

"If someone did this to an American citizen against his will, has that person committed a crime?"

Is this not a crime if it is done to a foreign citizen?

Mari wrote on October 31, 2007 1:48 PM:

too late for this guy to be approved as AG. He has equivocated too long now. He is a Bushie through and through. He has no moral compass and he will shame our country as the AG just as Gonzales did. VOTE NO!!!!! DO NOT CONFIRM THIS RECKLESS MAN.

Dee Illuminati wrote on October 31, 2007 1:53 PM:

Well what did you expect? The careful line of Q%A between Mukasey and Lindsey Graham was the ongoing rationale where the act of waterboarding and coercion stand as a 'policy.' In deferrence to the individuals whom seek to close the GITMO facility including secretary of defense Gates, and the efforts of Graham a Jag officer whom has tried to have his cake and eat it as well on this topic, and whom I have personally met and liked as an individual, I do not like to use the word torture which is at the center of the issue.

But the argument is this: What the hell to do about the 'coercion' that took place in the past and in regard to due process without calling these acts torture?

And that is where the semantics of this debate remain, while I agree that we do not want 'closed documents' produced by say a nation state such as Iran or Venezuela against US nationals, where state secrets and the means that were used to produce them are inadmisssable in court and a conviction is produced based on that evidence upon US citizens, something that Graham enumerated in his sophistry, (an admission in argument that the practice was wrong) on the other hand, Graham does not want to admit the coercion techniques performed at Gitmo and rendition facilities as to nullify the cases of the detainees.

So the argument is that: While repugnant we did not break our own laws, while we assert that these practices are inapplicable to international law.

Did you really expect Mukasey to state: Coercion is wrong and pronounce judgement on the documened GITMO acts that took place? Or did you expect him to say that these acts were consistent with international law and subject that opine to due process upon not only citizens but corporations abroad?

So the Jag officer has a problem, how to square the 'designation' of enemy combatant to terrorist to civillian? And that slippery slope is where Graham has illustrated most succinctly in his arguments with Mukasey where the circumstances remain.

There is no repudiation of coercion unless that implies a 'judgement' upon committed acts.

And that is the consequence of a lack of leadership where conflicting marching orders were issued by Sr. leadership and where Jr. officers now find themselves.

The discussion between:

Top U.S. military officer contradicts his civilian boss

Posted: 11/30/2005 07:00:35

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's top military man, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said American troops in Iraq have a duty to intercede and stop abuse of prisoners by Iraqi security personnel.

When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contradicted Pace, the general stood firm.

Rumsfeld told the general he believed Pace meant to say the U.S. soldiers had to report the abuse, not stop it.

Pace stuck to his original statement.

The unusual exchange occurred during a discussion at a news conference about the relationship between U.S. forces in Iraq and an Iraqi government considered sovereign by the United States.

A questioner asked whether the United States and its allies might be deemed responsible for preventing mistreatment of people under arrest in Iraq, given that the U.S. and its allies train Iraqi forces.

"There are a lot of people involved in this, dozens of countries trying to help train these Iraqi forces. Any instance of inhumane behavior is obviously worrisome and harmful to them when that occurs," Rumsfeld said. "Iraq knows, of certain knowledge, that they need the support of the international community. And a good way to lose it is to make a practice of something that is inconsistent with the values of the international community."

He added: "Now, you know, I can't go any further in talking about it. Obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility when a sovereign country engages in something that they disapprove of."

Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked what orders the troops have to handle such incidents. He responded: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it."

He said soldiers who hear of but don't see an incident should deal with it through superiors of the offending Iraqis.

That's when Rumsfeld stepped to the microphone and said, "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."

Pace then repeated to Rumsfeld that intervening when witnessing abuse is the order the troops must follow, not just reporting it.

Just as a note: Don't expect Rumsfeld to agree like Mukasey that these acts were illegal, and don't expect either of the two to be material witness's in a case were a Jr. officer is on trial for abuse.

Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, 51, is the last of 12 defendants -- and the only officer -- charged in a probe triggered by photographs showing low-ranking U.S. soldiers assaulting and humiliating naked detainees at the prison in Iraq in late 2003 and early 2004.

Jordan, the former director of the prison's interrogation center, is not in any of the pictures but is accused of illegally approving the use of dogs and nudity during interrogations, allowing the mistreatment of prisoners to continue, and lying about it afterward.

And the circumstance where Jr. personnel are made scapegoats to an ill advised civillian policy and where the people whom approved and orchestrated this policy seek to exonerate their decisions continues.

Mukasey simply wasn't nominated for the position of Attorney General by the people whom advocated this policy initially to condemn their decisions.

And in summation, there is no policy change that the DOS and the DOD can evoke in their approach with making progress in Iraq and the GWOT until such time the political obstinance to defend the practice of coercion is politically abandoned. And this is to be done by whom? The people that authorized it?

And then...

Some poor S.O.B. at some low level will be made available as a scapegoat, prosecuted, while the people whom created this policy attempt to escape accountability while making progress and performance metrics difficult for the people tasked with that chore as a result of the initial bad policy.

Mukasey passing judgement on this before the Senators whom might have been briefed into the extent of the acts is amazing and a genuinely historic moment.

Peter Pace, professional intel community people, and those whom refused, recursed, and avoided these acts did so with 'reasonable professional objections.' It was not a case of as Runsfeld would have it, "your either for us or against us" on this issue. Or maybe it was, you do condone coercion or you do not. I can't figure out where Graham stands.

Mari wrote on October 31, 2007 1:54 PM:

It is too late to confirm this guy. The Senate now has far too much damaging evidence on him. NOTE NO on his confirmation!!!! His twitching answer to the question made him unacceptable immediately. That he claimed he did not know what the process of waterboarding was when he knew it was a hot button issue shows that he is not to be trusted. Let e give you a clue, Mr. Mukasey. Waterboarding that this administration has allowed, even encouraged is a blight on the reputation of our country. We cannot tolerate anyone who equivocates about it.

jimijazz wrote on October 31, 2007 2:15 PM:

Mukasey is damaged goods. Even if he is confirmed, people have already recognized him as Gonzales II. But let's hope the Senate stops playing internal politics, shows some courage and sinks this guys nomination.

Speechless in Seattle wrote on October 31, 2007 2:19 PM:

If he doesn't know what torture is, then how do you expect him to understand more complex issues like Voting Rights,Free Speech, Democracy, Justice, Tax Fraud, Civil Rights, you know constitutional stuff etc.

If Bush picked him its for some reason to protect Bush. It's gotta be.

theswan wrote on October 31, 2007 2:20 PM:

With the likes of McCaskey I can see the neighbor kids trying it out for sport. Repugnant, is a word kids just love to toy with.

Anonymous wrote on October 31, 2007 2:20 PM:

Please stop listening to the "military experts". This is a legal issue.

1. Geneva Prohibits Abuse

The more time people listen "waterboarding is or isn't torture", the less time they focus on the clear violation: Geneva does not permit any abuse. Arguing over whether waterboarding is or isn't torture is a waste of time. It is clear abuse. Geneva prohibits this. Whether it is "alot" or a "little" abuse is meaningless.

2. POWs May Not Be Abused

The people detained are not involved, in many cases, with any combat. They have to be treated as POWs.

3. Bounties Are A War Crime

Before waterboarding can start, we have to look at how the prisoner is obtained. The US illegally offered bounties. Civilians in Pakistan, relying on this illegal bounty, offered civilians to the US. The isse of how the prisoners were originally captured is important: It was based on a war crime: An illegal bounty.

Geneva prohibits putting a price on the enemy's head. This is prohibited because civilians may get involved, and lose their protections. A civilian inducted by a bounty to capture someone in wartime would lose their non-combatant status. The Geneva protection is designed to ensure the invading army does not do things that will deny Civilians of their protected status. One error is to offer money, inducing civilans to act, and they do things which are not supported by evidence. The real concern is the invading army will induce civilians to engage in combat, and be subject to "unlawful combatant" charges.

4. How Does Accuser Know?

Rather than focus on the accused, ask the accusory: "Do we need to waterboard you to find out why we should believe your accusation?" Can't argue over whether waterboarding is "good or not" when the basis for the waterboarding as an unproven assertion: How does anyone know that the person they propose to waterboard has the information? SOmeone, other than the prisoner, must have a reason to "know" that the prisoner "has" this information: Then ask the accuser. If waterboarding is "OK", then "waterboard the accusor". (See 3), and you'll know why the accusors are doing what they're doing: They're induced to make charges not because of evidence, but because of money.

TheraP wrote on October 31, 2007 2:36 PM:

Spencer,

Thank you for this info from Malcolm Nance. Since you know him, could you find out from him whether waterboarding is associated with involuntary defecation? Or other degrading and humiliating results?

Thanks if you can help here.

Dave111 wrote on October 31, 2007 2:52 PM:

Perhaps as part of his research into waterboarding Mr. Mukasey should have undergone it himself as some of our brave servicemen apparently must.

Orwell's Intuition wrote on October 31, 2007 2:53 PM:

"Repugnant" is dog vomit on your carpet. Torture is a criminal activity.

Jay wrote on October 31, 2007 2:53 PM:

I know and like Malcolm Nance. He is a tough cookie with no love lost between him and terrorist groups, whom he has studied extensively and knows as few others do in the government. But he is drawing a bright line here between what they do and what we should be doing. His is a type of leadership the Democrats should be emulating: a leadership of toughness and hope, not fear and degradation in the shadows of the secretive Bush administration.

Thera P: The answer is yes, because in the last stages of drowning just before death, all the muscles relax.

Dan D wrote on October 31, 2007 3:10 PM:

Hey Jake D, there's your answer. Satisfied? It's f'ing torture. Torture. Keep saying it until you realize how repugnant the Bush Administration is, and vow never to support people who support torture.

Unless you, yourself support torturing people.

TheraP wrote on October 31, 2007 3:10 PM:

Thank you, Jay. I presume you know whereof you speak.

Clueless wrote on October 31, 2007 3:18 PM:

I don't get it: if waterboarding isn't torture, then what is? Mustn't there be some act that is considered torture?

Troll Patrol wrote on October 31, 2007 3:23 PM:

Dan D - perhaps you'd care to contribute your vote to ban the troll. Click my name if you are a cafe member.

This is a public service announcement.

Jay wrote on October 31, 2007 3:23 PM:

I saw a documentary on "Los Desaperrados" of Chile after Allende was assassinated. The death squads would round people up and torture them, sometimes just for fun. I'll never forget an especially chilling scene where one of the former torturers gives an interview. When the person being waterboarded gave up and went limp, he chuckled, they called it "the submarine." This was because the anus would open up "because there was no other way they could get any air."

We shouldn't even be discussing this.
There is no "torture debate," and torture apologists should be called out as
despicable disgraces to humanity. Those who authorize, facilitate, observe,
and practice torture should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent
of the law. It is a crime against humanity. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is a war crime.

lestatdelc wrote on October 31, 2007 3:26 PM:

Where is the clueless bigoted moron troll Jake D to call Nance, the ex-Navy Seal that he is a wussy and that waterboarding isn't relaly torture?

lestatdelc wrote on October 31, 2007 3:32 PM:

And right on cue the "jakeass" shows up. So you going to call ex Navy-SEAL Malcolm Nance a wimp and a pussy because he states unequivocally that waterboarding is torture?

Are you really that stupid that you can't comprehend what is torture or not?

Are you really that much of a sociopath and an idiot?

Troll Patrol wrote on October 31, 2007 3:35 PM:

We cannot necessarily take the credit. But yes, Josh did ban Jake D.

And since no post has ever gone up by Josh saying that Jake's banning has ended, we hereby assume the continued banning!

Take your toys and go home.

M M wrote on October 31, 2007 3:37 PM:

I look forward to Jake D's take on Nance's description of waterboarding as torture, period.

I don't look forward to the Judiciary Committee's vote tomorrow to see how many Dems cave yet again.

And Lindsey Graham is dispicable with his Army / CIA different strokes for different folks mentality. The law doesn't cover the CIA, Lindsey. They can waterboard to their hearts desire.

Troll Patrol wrote on October 31, 2007 3:48 PM:

Here is the post where Josh says Jake is banned (for verification, click my name and search for "Josh")

Josh Marshall wrote on July 27, 2007 10:50 PM:

I notice a few folks who asked or wondered what became of Jake D. Simply put, we banned him. We heard the many emails and requests you sent in describing how much he was intentionally disrupting the conversation and community here. We agreed and we banned him from the site. We weren't ignoring your complaints. The delay was caused by the fact that TPMm was not set up in a way to make it easy for us to ban someone. But we made some changes to make that possible. In the nature of things, Jake my resurface with another name or log-in-point of entry. And if that happens, let us know, and we'll get rid of Jake 2.0 too.

As I've noted on other occasions at TPMCafe, conservatives or people who for whatever reason don't share our editorial viewpoint are welcome here. The comments are not for adulation. But there's a difference between dissent and willful efforts to disrupt the conversation. Jake D. clearly went way over that line.

Josh

Argie wrote on October 31, 2007 4:06 PM:

Jay wrote on October 31, 2007 3:23 PM:
I saw a documentary on "Los Desaperrados" of Chile after Allende was assassinated. The death squads would round people up and torture them, sometimes just for fun. I'll never forget an especially chilling scene where one of the former torturers gives an interview. When the person being waterboarded gave up and went limp, he chuckled, they called it "the submarine."

Jay, I am from Argentina and was unfortunate enough to live there through the late 70's and 80's when most South American countries were under US-backed military dictatorships.
Who do you think gave the orders to make all those people disappear? (30,000 in Argentina, 100,000 in Chile, 10,000 in Uruguay, etc.)
Where do you think the torture squads were trained on those techniques?
Here, in the US! [The land of the free and home of the brave!]
[CIA headquarters, to be precise]
Who do you think coordinated the "Plan Condor"? [A concerted plan to track down political refugees from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay that had managed to flee their country, capture them and make them dissapear]
How do you think that catchy phrase "We do not torture" from the mouth of any American official sounds to anybody that lived through that period in South America and lived to see some loved ones in the DESAPARECIDOS list?
SHAMEFUL!

Mary wrote on October 31, 2007 4:51 PM:

Anonymous @ 2:20 - very good comment. The other aspect of #3 - bounties - that you don't touch on there but do hit on in your #4, is that bounties motivate people to lie about who they are turning over, if it means money. Especially in the situation that we set up, of offering to pay for people based on a non-descriptive, non-identifying ideologic phraseology. Turn over the "terrorists" and get money.
**********

When Mukasey says he doesn't want to address hypotheticals and insinuates things like a "ticking time bomb" scenario, it is still a very easy answer. Exigent circumstances are a DEFENSE to breaking the law. They don't make the law "less broke" but they do provide a defense, if they can be proven.

So you do not have to know whether or not circumstances giving rise to a defense exist to call the action illegal (and anonymous is very right that the focus is and should be on abuse - both under the Geneva Conventions and the text (Bills of Attainder) and amendments (8th) of our Constitution. The reason torture is the issue being pushed is that the Geneva Conventions, especially as adopted in the US without real enabling legislation, do not provide for any way a victim of violation of those Conventions can seek redress. Either the military or domestic prosecutors (via the War Crimes Act or other domestic statutes) take action, or nothing.

However, the Torture Victims Act is out there as a source of recovery that can be pursued by a victim themselves, in the event prosecutors engage in the "see no evil if it is politically expedient not to see it" approach we have seen to date.

Unfortunately, the death of the el-Masri claim pretty much tells Muslims everywhere that there is no law to protect them from US abuse. No legal recourse of any kind.

Mary wrote on October 31, 2007 4:57 PM:

One last note - don't just read the excerpt to Malcolm Nance's article. Follow the link and read the whole thing.

Appropriate on halloween, because it is haunting.

Anonymous wrote on October 31, 2007 5:06 PM:

If Rumsfield believes that...
"Obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility when a sovereign country engages in something that they disapprove of."

then why oh why is Bush upset about what Iran does ??

mbbsdphil wrote on October 31, 2007 5:11 PM:

Nance's article is a must read. Not just about waterboarding, but about torture in general. It provides no useful information. It exhausts and breaks the prisoner - any prisoner - who will then say anything.

Why torture? It is the point of the Cheney spear (or his head). It is a declaration that, He. Can. Do. Anything. No law or politics or moral indignation can touch him; all you can do is fear him.

Ostensibly, this is directed at those who would harm us. As in any testosterone-driven pursuit, sports, rival gangs or elephant seals, such chest thumping merely invites a contest: it doesn't determine the outcome.

Practically, torture is Cheney-the-wolf marking his stretch of forest. He uses it to command obedience. His template is the Bad CEO (like the Bad Seed). He commands and pays off his board into subservience (Congress); he "assures" his shareholders (voters) into passive acceptance; and he brutalizes his employees (the federal bureaucracy) into silent, invisible service. But it has nothing to do with making us safer.

Scribe wrote on October 31, 2007 5:21 PM:

Perhaps Jake D might want to copy Nance's article over and over in longhand, till the truth sinks in.

Dee Illuminati wrote on October 31, 2007 5:27 PM:

Thera P

The laxatives referenced were given as a means to combat hunger strikes.

"Interrogation Log of al-Qahtani"

Under a google search will provide more insight into the practice.

I guess what I found disturbing is that medical professionals were utilized while the coercion was applied.

I also note that it is quite an act of serendipty that al-Qahtani ended up at Tora Bora and imagine that that alone was sufficient circumstancial evidence for detainment. However the repeated proclomations that these people 'confessed' to crimes that even experienced investigators know that they could not have committed, or said conversely were interrogated by individuals without sufficient background on the investigations, that lack of a focused interrogation by people read into the case files, resulted in coercion of admissions of facts that were false and uneeded coercion.

I doubt that after significant time decay after the initial apprehension at Tora Bora that the actionable intelligence was very valuable if the detainee was not an educated individual.

What I can share with you is this:

The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary
by Douglas Linder

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.

Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton. Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter). Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded. the judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck) (SCENE DEPICTING EXAMINATION FOR MARKS). Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted. Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal. Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community.

By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips. The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches.

Utopia wrote on October 31, 2007 5:34 PM:

I may regret this but, Jake, why the continual question about cellophane and 10 seconds of water? Clearly it is not the waterboarding Nance described.

So, I put the question to you--is the waterboarding that Nance described, i.e., slow motion drowning, torture?

U

mbbsdphil wrote on October 31, 2007 5:36 PM:

Torture is not about obtaining useful information or making us safer. It's purpose is to intimidate and exact revenge. It is a state sanctioned vendetta used in aid of a Rovian, no holds barred contest for supremacy.

Bush's administration has become, in part, like Mao's China: we know that something is true only when the government officially denies it. Torture is official Bush policy, we know, because Bush adamantly denies doing it, even as he contends that former prisoners cannot reveal their torture in court because it is a state secret.

The argument against torture is not just utilitarian - that it doesn't "work". It also invites our enemies to engage in torture without consequence. It corrupts the torturer and the government that condones his actions. It offends our laws, our morals and our allies. And perhaps most exquisitely brutal of all, it robs us of hope that we are or can be better.

lestatdelc wrote on October 31, 2007 5:40 PM:

Jake, waterboarding is torture. THe Navy SEALs knows its torture and calls it such. Everyone who lives in reality knows its torture. Only fraudulent bigots and pantywaists like yourself and your GOP blowhard pals jerking off to reruns of 24 think otherwise.

You are a total disgrace as a human being, much less someone who claims to have been in the military.

mbbsdphil wrote on October 31, 2007 5:46 PM:

Please. Do. Not. Feed. The. Trolls.

Their mess, like pigeons', is hard to wipe clean.

Alguien wrote on October 31, 2007 5:47 PM:

For the record:
Whenever you see Jake D. repeating himself like a broken record, it's a sign that he is losing ground. Faced with the fact that his ideas/theories/arguments have been disproved and/or ignored, he refuses to concede defeat and becomes a pest instead(pretty much like an annoying mosquito in a hot summer night!)
He'll say anything just to get attention!
His hypertrophic ego can handle anything except indifference.
So, next time he starts with the same old song...restrain yourself and ignore him!
There's no need to ban him.
It's very entertaining to watch him push people's buttons in order to get a response!

Jay wrote on October 31, 2007 5:50 PM:

Argie,

Yes, every right-wing dictatorship seems to have friends at CIA when the conservatives are in place or ascendant. I understand that there were questions about John Negroponte's involvement with death squads in Nicaragua. Now there are death squads in Iraq. Playing both sides against the middle? There's so much we'll never know.

TheraP wrote on October 31, 2007 5:58 PM:

Dee, not laxatives.... it's an involuntary response.

I agree that the article is "must reading." That torture yields no means of knowing if what is said is accurate or not, because the person will say anything, anything at all, admit to crimes they never did.

And, to my mind, just as bad - it harms the torturer. How such an individual can ever be human again is beyond me. That the process, even as used by SERE, utilizes psychologists, I find repugnant to the extreme!

That we are even having such a discussion in our day takes my breath away and leaves me speechless!

Cal Damage wrote on October 31, 2007 6:09 PM:

When I was 8, a rabid dog got trapped between the drug store and grocery store in my neighborhood, and I got to watch it freak and foam, from behind a chain link fence, until the firemen came. Educational.
I used to call my local NPR station, probably the only one who called, after David Horowitz's weekly half-hour show, to tell them that, as much as I was disgusted by what he said, I thought the community was served by hearing the other side, especially presented that badly. You get soft not having to challenge the others.
So I often enjoy Jake D's repetition of the official VRWC talking points, as issued from Grover's weekly Wednesday Breakfast meeting.
It (the troll) reminds me that there has not been a new thought from that quarter in almost 80 years, that only marketing, with its sloganeering and endless repetition, have been used to repackage the failures of their pre-FDR policies as anything new.
As for its heroes, Reagan hated the middle class he came from, Bush doesn't know a working man, and they're both cowards who, faced with the prospect of being treated the way they treated others, whether by being financially impoverished or physically tortured, would cry like the babies they are.
I vote to let the troll hang around. We always need some comic relief.

JMOHR wrote on October 31, 2007 7:14 PM:

Jake D is performing his usual disinformation strategy. The Republicans and neo cons have become very adept at misleading the public. Their disinformation is geared toward creating questions concerning issues that have long since been settled as a matter of law and international standards of morality.

1. We all know that water boarding is torture. I taught the law of war while an Air Force JAG. Every single TJAG (The Judge Advocate General) disagreed with the WH and Rummy approach. We need not even go through the long line of US cases treating water boarding as torture whether practiced by US military/civilian personnel or by foreign persons. The history only goes back to the Spanish-American war. However, Republican operatives try to make it sound like water boarding is a walk in the park. No torture! However, we all know that water boarding is effective only because it makes a person believe they are going to die. This is the definition of torture.

2. The Republicans try to say that these terrorists are not protected by the Geneva conventions. Sorry, but a person is either a combatant, a non-combatant, a civilian. So instead, the Republicans make a up a new category that obviously is not in the Geneva Conventions. Gosh, a new class that may be tortured or killed at will. BS, THERE IS NO SUCH CLASSIFICATION. Any serious student of the conventions know this. It is, however, a tactic to confuse the public.

3. The Republicans keep talking about this ticking bomb. We know that this is BS. One would have to believe that there are thousands of terrorists in the United States, each with a weapon moments from going off. Those of us with military or law enforcement experience know this to be false. We see the pathetic excuses for terrorist plots that have been thwarted - someone going to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch. However, the purpose is to create a perpetual state of fear.

WHAT WE NEED IN THIS COUNTRY IS A TRULY RESPONSIBLE PRESS THAT WILL START REPORTING THE TRUTH. WHERE IS THE REPORT THAT WATER BOARDING HAS BEEN HISTORICALLY TREATED AS TORTURE? WHERE IS THE REPORT NOTING THAT TERRORISTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INVOLVED IN WARFARE AND ARE ALREADY COVERED UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS?

Not that gullible! wrote on October 31, 2007 7:30 PM:

If that is a photo of Jake D, either he never fought in Korea (as he stated) or he posted a fake photo.

What is this, Craig's list? Looking for a man, Jake?

Troll Patrol wrote on October 31, 2007 9:16 PM:

I notice the troll's comments seem to have mysteriously disappeared from this thread.

Either it's a Halloween trick - or praise the Lawd... er tpm!

brian wrote on October 31, 2007 9:21 PM:

The banned troll is a GOP operative. This variety of shill is encountered on all sorts of websites.

He hews to the party line; he echoes the Right Wing Noise Machine; he uses the terms and phrases of his masters.

He has no philosophy; he is not a fiscal conservative; not a Zionist Christian; not a libertarian.

He is a SHILL.

osamabinmartin wrote on October 31, 2007 9:33 PM:

"Michael Mukasey, please -- read the whole thing. Then answer a simple question: If someone did this to an American citizen against his will, has that person committed a crime?"

If it good for one, its good for the other as well. You can't have it both ways and say that its ok to do this to a foreigner and not ok to do it to an America citizen.

Mr. Ackerman, if that wasn't just a slip of the keyboard, you're as bad as the rest of the waterboarding administration.

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Malcolm Nance wrote on October 31, 2007 10:54 PM:

Just for the record I am NOT a SEAL ... I am from the intelligence community. SEALs, pilots and others were my students.

brian wrote on October 31, 2007 11:11 PM:

Thanks Malcolm for making the details clear to everyone.

Americans are still good enough to be repulsed by that sort of thing. They do not want the government to have torturers on its payroll.

baba durag wrote on November 1, 2007 12:46 AM:

Well done Malcolm, and Spencer. Thank you.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, Spencer, but you're point at the end was that waterboarding an American (by an American) is an obvious crime under our laws. And since Mukasey must admit that, then he must admit that it's a crime against anybody.

garimundi wrote on November 1, 2007 12:59 AM:

This from the NY Times today- "Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation." But Nance's article makes it clear *pints of water go into the victim's lungs*. Is this an extreme version? or is the truth being withheld from the public by even the Times?

I found Nance's article to be the most disturbing information I've read in months.

JEP wrote on November 1, 2007 10:28 AM:

Malcom, write a book!

We need people like you on Amazon.com, and on the talk-show circuit!

Personally, my feeling is that if an interrogator decides he's got to cross the line to get the info that saves the day, then that interrogator should be willing to accept the fact they crossed the line.

We shouldn't be moving the line to accomodate the interrogators, that line needs to be very well defined, so they have to make the deliberate choice of crossing it based on the gravity of the moment, not the hypocricy of the policy.

I think most agents would agree with me, but their political-desk-job handlers are all worried the legal repurcussions will bleed over to them.

My point is, The Bushies aren't trying to change the torture doctrines to protect potential interrogators caught between Iraq and a hard place, they are just protecting their own sorry arses from culpability.

JEP wrote on November 1, 2007 10:41 AM:

" Near-drowning is defined as recovery after submersion. Victims are typically children or adolescents. Males more often engage in risk-taking behavior and have a significantly greater incidence of drowning and near-drowning than do females.

Victims of near-drowning, if rescued and resuscitated quickly enough, may fully recover.

In many instances, however, near-drowning victims are left with mild to severe neurologic effects."

Key word?

SEVERE!

That was from an article in the Salem Press,
http://salempress.com/Store/samples/magills_medical_guide_4/magills_medical_guide_4_drowning.htm
taken DIRECTLY from Magill's Medical Guide, 4th rev. ed.

Which basically certifies waterboarding as torture, according to our own restrictions...

When the aveoli are rinsed of their protective and chemically-interactive coating, the damage can be permanent, and is quite often fatal.

openmouthedfool wrote on November 1, 2007 10:49 AM:

Very interesting discussion and I would hope that this level of information might somehow reach the offices of our elected representatives! As a side, my understanding from someone who went through the SERE program is that the use of waterboarding there is actually to demonstrate to trainees that no matter how tough they think they are, they will NOT be able to resist these methods. Apparently, EVERYONE breaks.

SuperSloMo wrote on November 1, 2007 12:00 PM:

The previous attorney general was ready to allow anything up to organ failure as acceptable and not torture. Even by that flimsy and inexcusably horrific standard, waterboarding qualifies as torture.

Mukasey should be asked where he stands on Gonzales's sliding scale. Would he also say that interrogation methods that do not lead to organ failure are not torture? If not, where would he draw the line? In his view, are the Geneva Conventions quaint? If it is shown that high level members of the Bush administration authorized the use of torture, will he suddenly not be able to remember everything he has done for the past twelve months?

Tim wrote on November 1, 2007 1:48 PM:

An interesting article, released in draft form, is linked above. It describes the use of waterboarding on and by the United States for the last 100 years or so.

The upshot is this. When the technique was used by the Japanese, Vietnamese or Cambodians, we called it torture. When we used it on insurgents in the Philippines, it was called torture by the US Army. When it was used on US civilians by US law enforcement, it was considered a human rights violation and cruel/unusual punishment. In all of the above cases, people were tried, convicted and sentenced for waterboarding.

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jim wrote on November 1, 2007 8:50 PM:

Thanks, Josh.

I didn't think I was going to be able to read the comments anymore.

Goodbye, Jake and welcome back when you figure out who your real friends are.

Utopia wrote on November 1, 2007 10:59 PM:

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U

Pete wrote on November 3, 2007 5:38 AM:

Your all right. How about we treat these A-holes over there with cookies and tea then maybe just maybe they will like us. This is a culture that understands an iron fist they dont sit down and talk about it. Maybe we should be real nice to them until they start killing us in our country. When they start to come in your homes and kill your childern then you will all blame the government for not doing their job. Unless your a warfighter stay out of the war you dont understand it.

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Palm PIlot wrote on November 7, 2007 4:53 PM:

If your child or a loved one is ever abducted and they catch they creep that did it but he won't tell you a thing about the location of condition of your kid, you will waterboard, or worse. I guarantee it. Luckily we have the luxury of debating such inantity in this country.

slm wrote on November 7, 2007 6:10 PM:

Boy, you people watch too much "24." If they caught the creep that abducted a loved one, you think torture is going to have him screaming out the location. As bad ass as you may think he sees you, imagine how bad ass he sees the people who he works with or for. He would wait out your whitebread stuffed shirt little torture because he would REALLY get tortured if he got back to HQ and they knew he squealed. 24 is entertainment and bad entertainment at that. OK, it is entertaining, but boy is it unrealistic. Just think about some of those explosions with someone just standing there,not even getting knocked off of their feet from the percusive shock. You eardrums would "POP" and bleed like Hines and you would never hear again in some of those explosions. Kind of like Tom Cruise in MI when the copter explodes in the tunnel and he just gets blown out of their without getting flash fried and deaf for life. I guess that's why Sunday morning torture-backs believe this stuff. They can't even understand the laws of physics with stuff on entertainment like "24" and believe, "wow, this is how stuff works, torture worked for Jack, its gotta be real."

Loring Ivanick wrote on November 8, 2007 7:55 AM:

Clueless wrote on Hallowe'en: I don't get it: if waterboarding isn't torture, then what is? Mustn't there be some act that is considered torture?

Simple: torture is not what the U.S. government does. If the U.S. government does it, it is not torture. Fabulous circular reasoning so obvious, a junior high school English teacher wouldn't accept it in a 13-year old's composition.

Remember Nixon? "If the president does it, it is not illegal." This is the same mindset. Bush said something similar about himself some time ago, something like: See, I'm the president, and the president can do these things and no one can question them. And he wasn't talking about demanding that broccoli be left off the White House menu. Ironic that it is the conservatives who rail against relativism.

ct wrote on November 10, 2007 8:29 PM:

Having served with CTIC Nance (not a SEAL) for half of his naval career and coming to respect his person, I regret to say that most of what he says in his background is only minimally based in truth. I don't even completely disagree with what he say it is just unfortunate that he has to wrap himself in this fiction in order to get in front of a camera.

Ask one of his former division officers who had to rain him in, Montel Williams.

Additionally, his public discussions of training tools used to help protect our servicemen by teaching them to resist such activities puts American men and women in greater danger. He signed a contract saying that he wouldn't discus this and now he is betraying his word and his shipmates.

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