I just can't believe how readily the revelation of using insects stuffed with you inside a coffin to exploit an individual's phobia is getting latched onto and so easily dismissed. Particularly since it was, to me, one of the most horrific facts in the memo. That is literally Orwellian. 1984, 'everyone knows what's in room 101' level Orwellian. But oh I'm not afraid of caterpillars so abloo bloo bloo Mr. Ayrab. The lack of universal condemnation here just makes me weep. And not crocodile tears like Mr. Beck.
Yeah, that was the one that hit me hardest, too. It helps that I have a wife who suffers from panic disorder and has some pretty deep-seated phobias. I think deliberately exploiting that sort of thing is easily worse than whatever physical discomfort results from waterboarding.
I was especially pissed by the willful obfuscation inherent in saying they would make sure "no reasonable person" would think they stood a chance of serious harm from the stinging insect. Phobias are inherently unreasonable, you cuntbiscuits - the person is potentially going to be terrified to the point of permanent psychological damage no matter what fucking bug you lock in with them.
That said, my understanding is that certain officials wanted to do this, but that they weren't given the go-ahead. Is that accurate?
It reads to me that they were given the go ahead as long as the insect in question was not stinging but they did not have to tell the prisoner that.
The insect interrogation technique, as it turned out, was never used by the CIA, according to a second declassified memo released Thursday. "We understand that — for reasons unrelated to any concerns that it might violate the [criminal] statute — the CIA never used the technique and has removed it from the list of authorized interrogation techniques," wrote Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, in the footnote to a on May 10, 2005 document. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has admitted that U.S. interrogators used waterboarding on three detainees, including Zubaydah.
"Its a logistical nightmare! Lets just smash his head against the wall for an extra hour."
It's fucking depressing because it's probably true.
ElJeffe on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited April 2009
Yeah, why would you be at all concerned about violating criminal statutes?
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
It helps if you start by not assuming all of them are guilty. It should become obvious pretty quickly.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Well, ask someone who was a POW in the Pacific Theater during WWII what they think about Stress Positions. Keep in mind that those Marines were some very tough SOB's. I seem to recall reading that they were popular with the Vietnamese as well. Oh yeah, and when we use them, we like to strip them nude, with no bathroom breaks. Something tells me you didn't experience this in Basic Training.
Sorry if I'm coming off a bit hostile here, but there is nothing in those memo's to be blase about. This is the worst kind of travesty and one we better make people answer for, people like Bush for starters. Otherwise we may end up answering to some one else.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
How long were you at it, because they'd go at it for at least 11 hours. Speaking of going at it, the difference between a healthy burn and stress positions could be compared to the the difference between sex and rape.
Well, I think the international law reading on it is that stress positions by themselves aren't torture but combined with other techniques they can be. And that was the problem here.
I THINK.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
How long were you at it, because they'd go at it for at least 11 hours. Speaking of going at it, the difference between a healthy burn and stress positions could be compared to the the difference between sex and rape.
So you can use stress positions, as long as you yell, "surprise!" ?
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Did they slam you into walls after keeping you awake for 5 days straight in a stress position altered every 11 hours in a room cold enough to give you hypothermia? Because if not then any comparisons aren't really applicable.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Well, ask someone who was a POW in the Pacific Theater during WWII what they think about Stress Positions. Keep in mind that those Marines were some very tough SOB's. I seem to recall reading that they were popular with the Vietnamese as well. Oh yeah, and when we use them, we like to strip them nude, with no bathroom breaks. Something tells me you didn't experience this in Basic Training.
Or med school, for that matter (yes, I've realized that that's not the type of vet he meant).
Slamming into a wall is not physical discomfort. It's assault and abuse. Making me stand with my feet flat against the ground, my back flat against a wall, and my knees bent at a 90-degree angle is physical discomfort.
Keeping someone awake for 5 days isn't physical discomfort, it's pschological abuse.
Okay so from what you all are saying the physical discomfort was only used as icing on the torture cake, so what I said doesn't apply, since I was specifically referring only to physical discomfort.
Okay so from what you all are saying the physical discomfort was only used as icing on the torture cake, so what I said doesn't apply, since I was specifically referring only to physical discomfort.
Mere physical discomfort in a vacuum may not be torture.
Mere physical discomfort for people who are held indefinitely against their will, absent due process of law? I'd think that even absent other abuses, that may indeed rise to the level of torture.
How would you have felt about BCT if you had been dragged there involuntarily, then told you would never be allowed to leave?
Okay so from what you all are saying the physical discomfort was only used as icing on the torture cake, so what I said doesn't apply, since I was specifically referring only to physical discomfort.
Mere physical discomfort in a vacuum may not be torture.
Mere physical discomfort for people who are held indefinitely against their will, absent due process of law? I'd think that even absent other abuses, that may indeed rise to the level of torture.
How would you have felt about BCT if you had been dragged there involuntarily, then told you would never be allowed to leave?
Don't get me wrong, I understand what everybody's saying, which is why I semi-recanted. Though, I'd say your second example is probably more abuse than torture. That doesn't make it okay, but it's a question of degrees. Abuse gets the case thrown out, torture gets the case thrown out and a new case brought against the torturer.
Okay so from what you all are saying the physical discomfort was only used as icing on the torture cake, so what I said doesn't apply, since I was specifically referring only to physical discomfort.
Mere physical discomfort in a vacuum may not be torture.
Mere physical discomfort for people who are held indefinitely against their will, absent due process of law? I'd think that even absent other abuses, that may indeed rise to the level of torture.
How would you have felt about BCT if you had been dragged there involuntarily, then told you would never be allowed to leave?
Don't get me wrong, I understand what everybody's saying, which is why I semi-recanted. Though, I'd say your second example is probably more abuse than torture. That doesn't make it okay, but it's a question of degrees. Abuse gets the case thrown out, torture gets the case thrown out and a new case brought against the torturer.
Actually, in any civilized society abuse gets a case brought against the abuser as well. Of course, in any civilized society there would have been a "case" to throw out as well, rather than indefinite detentions outside due process of law.
Okay so from what you all are saying the physical discomfort was only used as icing on the torture cake, so what I said doesn't apply, since I was specifically referring only to physical discomfort.
Mere physical discomfort in a vacuum may not be torture.
Mere physical discomfort for people who are held indefinitely against their will, absent due process of law? I'd think that even absent other abuses, that may indeed rise to the level of torture.
How would you have felt about BCT if you had been dragged there involuntarily, then told you would never be allowed to leave?
Don't get me wrong, I understand what everybody's saying, which is why I semi-recanted. Though, I'd say your second example is probably more abuse than torture. That doesn't make it okay, but it's a question of degrees. Abuse gets the case thrown out, torture gets the case thrown out and a new case brought against the torturer.
Actually, in any civilized society abuse gets a case brought against the abuser as well. Of course, in any civilized society there would have been a "case" to throw out as well, rather than indefinite detentions outside due process of law.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
It helps if you start by not assuming all of them are guilty. It should become obvious pretty quickly.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
It helps if you start by not assuming all of them are guilty. It should become obvious pretty quickly.
Interesting that you mention that. It appears that many detainees weren't even arrested per se, but dragged from their lives by Bounty Hunters looking for a fat pay day, or to eliminate political rivals and personal enemies.
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
It helps if you start by not assuming all of them are guilty. It should become obvious pretty quickly.
Interesting that you mention that. It appears that many detainees weren't even arrested per se, but dragged from their lives by Bounty Hunters looking for a fat pay day, or to eliminate political rivals and personal enemies.
If they were so not deserving of getting dragged around by bounty hunters what were they doing by Jabba the Hutt's sand skiff?
You go through basic with a while bunch of other people, you are there voluntarily, and after they've broken you they put some effort into making back into a person.
Being taken by force from your homeland, shipped half way across the world to a place where your interaction with other people is severely limited, and afterward you are dumped into a cell isn't really the same.
It's two significantly different situations, and it's not really the physical scars that folks worry about.
You go through basic with a while bunch of other people, you are there voluntarily, and after they've broken you they put some effort into making back into a person.
Being taken by force from your homeland, shipped half way across the world to a place where your interaction with other people is severely limited, and afterward you are dumped into a cell isn't really the same.
It's two significantly different situations, and it's not really the physical scars that folks worry about.
Slamming into a wall is not physical discomfort. It's assault and abuse. Making me stand with my feet flat against the ground, my back flat against a wall, and my knees bent at a 90-degree angle is physical discomfort.
Keeping someone awake for 5 days isn't physical discomfort, it's pschological abuse.
Making you do that for 11 HOURS, even absent anything else they did, is abuse in and off itself.
Phoenix-D on
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
They probably never used the bug thing because the CIA people were too creeped out by the bugs. After all, they'd have to collect them up or something afterward, right?
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
It helps if you start by not assuming all of them are guilty. It should become obvious pretty quickly.
Interesting that you mention that. It appears that many detainees weren't even arrested per se, but dragged from their lives by Bounty Hunters looking for a fat pay day, or to eliminate political rivals and personal enemies.
If they were so not deserving of getting dragged around by bounty hunters what were they doing by Jabba the Hutt's sand skiff?
God bless you, Dilawar, and your brothers. Please forgive us.
I've seen them both already. And others. Plus reading the OLC memos, the ICRC report, and a smattering of other stuff. What does that have to do with anything?
Alright, then check out Taxi to the Darkside or Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You guys should get some good laughs out of those.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
So angry that you post on an internet forum about it, instead of writing your congressional representative/senator/president emphasizing a need for prosecution?
Alright, then check out Taxi to the Darkside or Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You guys should get some good laughs out of those.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
So angry that you post on an internet forum about it, instead of writing your congressional representative/senator/president emphasizing a need for prosecution?
You assume too much. I've been writing Congress, the DoJ and the White House for over two years on this. Got any more stupid, useless assumptions about me?
Alright, then check out Taxi to the Darkside or Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You guys should get some good laughs out of those.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
So angry that you post on an internet forum about it, instead of writing your congressional representative/senator/president emphasizing a need for prosecution?
You assume too much. I've been writing Congress, the DoJ and the White House for over two years on this. Got any more stupid, useless assumptions about me?
Perhaps. How many more about me do you have?
moniker on
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Alright, then check out Taxi to the Darkside or Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You guys should get some good laughs out of those.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
So angry that you post on an internet forum about it, instead of writing your congressional representative/senator/president emphasizing a need for prosecution?
You assume too much. I've been writing Congress, the DoJ and the White House for over two years on this. Got any more stupid, useless assumptions about me?
Perhaps. How many more about me do you have?
I'm sorry, direct me to the post where I made such an assumption?
Alright, then check out Taxi to the Darkside or Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. You guys should get some good laughs out of those.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
"Humor is anger with its makeup on." -Stephen King
Not joking about it doesn't make you more righteous. You seem like the kind of person in love with his own outrage and looking for an excuse to denounce the lack of moral purity of others.
Posts
"Its a logistical nightmare! Lets just smash his head against the wall for an extra hour."
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Wait, no, that's not quite right.
It's fucking depressing because it's probably true.
Why, there seems to be a copy sitting at my school's library right now.
Color me interested.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to train mosquitoes?
The CIA does. It was one of their plans to assassinate Castro.
It's pretty famous, so I'm not surprised.
Also, as a vet, I'm kind of blase toward the whole thing about physical stress and discomfort. Hell, that was part of our basic training. Not torture resistance, actual torture, to break us down, so that we could be trained and conditioned. I think waterboarding crossed the line, but something like wall-sitting and crap like that. I mean, it's painful as all hell, but it's not very likely to cause any permanent physical damage.
Do you need me to explain the fundamental difference between a detainee and a soldier?
Well, ask someone who was a POW in the Pacific Theater during WWII what they think about Stress Positions. Keep in mind that those Marines were some very tough SOB's. I seem to recall reading that they were popular with the Vietnamese as well. Oh yeah, and when we use them, we like to strip them nude, with no bathroom breaks. Something tells me you didn't experience this in Basic Training.
Sorry if I'm coming off a bit hostile here, but there is nothing in those memo's to be blase about. This is the worst kind of travesty and one we better make people answer for, people like Bush for starters. Otherwise we may end up answering to some one else.
Did I mention I didn't read the memos and am just going on what I'm reading in this thread? yeah...
Still, waterboarding, the psychological stuff? That's all fucked up.
How long were you at it, because they'd go at it for at least 11 hours. Speaking of going at it, the difference between a healthy burn and stress positions could be compared to the the difference between sex and rape.
I THINK.
So you can use stress positions, as long as you yell, "surprise!" ?
Spend your day like that and tell me it's not torture.
Did they slam you into walls after keeping you awake for 5 days straight in a stress position altered every 11 hours in a room cold enough to give you hypothermia? Because if not then any comparisons aren't really applicable.
Or med school, for that matter (yes, I've realized that that's not the type of vet he meant).
Keeping someone awake for 5 days isn't physical discomfort, it's pschological abuse.
Mere physical discomfort in a vacuum may not be torture.
Mere physical discomfort for people who are held indefinitely against their will, absent due process of law? I'd think that even absent other abuses, that may indeed rise to the level of torture.
How would you have felt about BCT if you had been dragged there involuntarily, then told you would never be allowed to leave?
Don't get me wrong, I understand what everybody's saying, which is why I semi-recanted. Though, I'd say your second example is probably more abuse than torture. That doesn't make it okay, but it's a question of degrees. Abuse gets the case thrown out, torture gets the case thrown out and a new case brought against the torturer.
Actually, in any civilized society abuse gets a case brought against the abuser as well. Of course, in any civilized society there would have been a "case" to throw out as well, rather than indefinite detentions outside due process of law.
Point.
IfTheyWereGuiltyWhatWereTheyDoingGettingArrestedHuh?++
Interesting that you mention that. It appears that many detainees weren't even arrested per se, but dragged from their lives by Bounty Hunters looking for a fat pay day, or to eliminate political rivals and personal enemies.
If they were so not deserving of getting dragged around by bounty hunters what were they doing by Jabba the Hutt's sand skiff?
Being taken by force from your homeland, shipped half way across the world to a place where your interaction with other people is severely limited, and afterward you are dumped into a cell isn't really the same.
It's two significantly different situations, and it's not really the physical scars that folks worry about.
Welcome to about four hours ago. Keep reading.
Making you do that for 11 HOURS, even absent anything else they did, is abuse in and off itself.
God bless you, Dilawar, and your brothers. Please forgive us.
Sorry, but this isn't a FUCKING JOKE.
SLAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE.
I must be weird, but they make me sick and angry.
So angry that you post on an internet forum about it, instead of writing your congressional representative/senator/president emphasizing a need for prosecution?
You assume too much. I've been writing Congress, the DoJ and the White House for over two years on this. Got any more stupid, useless assumptions about me?
Perhaps. How many more about me do you have?
I'm sorry, direct me to the post where I made such an assumption?
"Humor is anger with its makeup on." -Stephen King
Not joking about it doesn't make you more righteous. You seem like the kind of person in love with his own outrage and looking for an excuse to denounce the lack of moral purity of others.