Originally Posted By hopemax I know I am taking a risk, since this is one of those topics that doesn't seem to get anywhere. However, there is some new information, and so I have a few specific questions for those that were okay with what happened. Released reports indicate that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding 183 times in March 2003. And Abu Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/21detain.html?_r=1&hp" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04...?_r=1&hp</a> So my questions are: 1. Did you ever imagine it was so many times to one person? 2. How many times do you think you can put one person through the same thing before they become immune to its effects, ie is the 183rd time as effective as the 1st? 3. Does this new information change your opinion of the effectiveness and/or necessity of waterboarding?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Is it effective? Well, apparently not on this guy. But, I think it does answer any question about its "safety". And I'm being serious. The guy survived the torture 183 and, at least from a physical point of view, was unscathed. You do have to wonder if, after the 25th or 26th time the interrogators didn't just look at each other and say, "ok...this ain't going to do it."
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>But, I think it does answer any question about its "safety". << Because he survived? I am sure there are any number of ways to torture someone and keep them alive. To me, it calls into question the whole "ticking time bomb" reason some use to say why torture is sometimes necessary. If someone is committed to their cause, they aren't going to spill the beans even when being tortured. Remember John McCain giving the names of the packers defensive line or whoever back in the days of Vietnam? I wonder what the effect of these water boardings were on the people performing them on the prisoners? Is there a psychological toll on them?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Well, McCain was tortured and kept alive...though he has physical accounts of what happened. Unless there are other physical effects on this prisoner you have to conclude that the water boarding was not only not lethal...it was completely safe. Now, making me listen to rap music for 24 hours straight might not cause me any physical damage but I suspect I would have some mental damage from that.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder My goodness, simply because the person survived such ridiculous measures doesn't mean this was safe. Anyone who thinks it is go right ahead and endure this that many times yourself and then get back to us. It's nothing short of barbaric, and sounds much like someone was just getting their pounds of flesh.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Unless there are other physical effects on this prisoner you have to conclude that the water boarding was not only not lethal...it was completely safe.<< If it is physically safe, would it be okay to perform it on American soldiers? Or someone in your own family, perhaps? If it is "completely safe" why would you be opposed to that?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Attaching someone's genitals to electrodes and shocking the crap out of them is also "safe, per se" if they don't die. But it's also torture.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I could stand just about anything except wearing women's panties on my head. Please oh please; if I am ever captured and tortured PLEASE don't let them do that to me... ;-)
Originally Posted By hopemax I think there is some semantics going on here. Wahoo is using the word torture, so I am assuming he is considering it as such. I think he is discussing the lethal-ness of the torture. Circus performers throwing knives at each other is not something I would deem as "safe," however, that does not mean circus performers can not train themselves to reduce the risk of injury. But any given day, it would not be inconceivable that something really bad would happen. I would put waterboarding in this category. Dangerous, but not something that will usually result in death in trained hands. Or something like free climbing.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo <<I could stand just about anything except wearing women's panties on my head. Please oh please; if I am ever captured and tortured PLEASE don't let them do that to me...>> Please don't throw me in dat briar patch! On a more serious note, I think the fact that circus performers willing perform such feats, and that it does not induce any sort of immediate pain, differentiate the two examples. A trained doctor can hit us with a defibrillator, and while “safe” under his watchful eye, it is certainly torture. Now, I say this as someone who nearly drowned as a teenager, and I remember it feeling of suffocation vividly. It is freaking painful and traumatic. Even now when I go swimming, I get flashbacks of the event.
Originally Posted By hopemax Again, there appears to be a misunderstanding here. I was not saying that waterboarding was NOT torture. And I don't think wahoo was either. I was disagreeing with him that just because death did not happen, does not mean something is SAFE. And I used the example of circus performers, as something else I consider not safe, even though some people do it all the time without death occuring.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo I see. But as far as I know (and I might be wrong), the safety of the tactic was never in question; so I’m curious as to why its “safety” (if defined as non-lethal) was even brought up. There are numerous non-lethal modes of torture, and many that don’t involve physical evidence (e.g., the defibrulator, controlled temperature exposure, etc...).
Originally Posted By hopemax You'll have to ask Wahoo that one. IMO, torture wouldn't be very effective if it regularly leads to death. Hard for people to tell you what you want to know if they're dead.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Well, apparently not on this guy.> That's not true. The technique provided valuable information on al queda, allowing us to capture more terrorists and stop acts of terrorism. The 183 incidents are not 183 sessions of waterboarding, but refer to the number of times a washcloth was put over his mouth and water dripped on it, for 10 to 20 seconds. If you read through the "torture" memos, you'll find that the techniques used in harsh interrogations were limited, considered, and very selectively applied.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>That's not true. The technique provided valuable information on al queda, allowing us to capture more terrorists and stop acts of terrorism.<< Examples? Evidence? We do know that at least one Al Qaeda operative that we tortured gave us all kinds of information that was bogus. The CIA went all over the world chasing phantoms.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh George Tenet, former CIA director, said, "the interrogations uncovered networks and broke up plots in the U.S." <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/25/60minutes/main2728375_page3.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...e3.shtml</a> Another former CIA director, Michael Hayden, just wrote a column for the WSJ, in which he states, "The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S." <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993446103128041.html" target="_blank">http://online.wsj.com/article/...041.html</a> Here's an article that summarizes what was shown in the "torture" memos - <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124018665408933455.html" target="_blank">http://online.wsj.com/article/...455.html</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <We do know that at least one Al Qaeda operative that we tortured gave us all kinds of information that was bogus.> How do we know that?
Originally Posted By ecdc >>How do we know that?<< <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066.html?hpid=topnews" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/...=topnews</a> We already went through this. You of course discounted the Washington Post for that bastion of journalism, National Review.
