When is Torture not Torture? When The President Says It Isn’t.

The torture called waterboarding is a pretty violent business.The torturer straps down the victim, feet elevated above the head, then covers the subject’s face - often with cloth or cellophane - and pours water onto it. This triggers the gag reflex, persuading the mind that the body is drowning, provoking an atavistic terror. The straining and flailing against the restraint straps can sometimes break bones. If the torture is protracted, lung and brain damage can occur.

Now.

This would be the Bush administration’s description of the same procedure: The detainee, an illegal combatant who may have intelligence valuable to the Worldwide Struggle Against Extremism, is restrained, and subjected to a robust interrogation. An enhanced interrogation technique is used, which for national security reasons must remain classified. But the detainee is not tortured, because the United States does not torture people.

That’s not a caricature. It is a composite of actual administration jargon. And the last bit of circular logic has become the fulcrum of Washington’s policies on treatment of foreign prisoners: The U.S. does not practise torture. Therefore its interrogation techniques cannot be torture, because if they were, then certain prisoners in the United States’ secret prisons would have been tortured, and that cannot have been, because the U.S. does not practise torture.

By that logic, the following are not torture, either: dousing a prisoner with water and shackling him naked to the floor for extended periods in frigid temperatures; striking him on the head during questioning; manacling him in “stress” positions for prolonged periods; and inflicting sexual humiliation.

And, necessarily, the prisoners who have turned up dead in American custody after being beaten senseless, smothered in a sleeping bag or shackled to the ceiling, shrieking, as jailers using the technique of “peroneal strikes” smashed their legs into useless mush could not have been tortured.

“This government does not torture,” President George W. Bush has declared time and again.

He will not get into the game, as he puts it, of entertaining detailed discussion.

“A simple question,” said one White House reporter during a Bush news conference last week.

“Yes?” said Bush.

“What’s your definition of the word ‘torture’?”

“Oh,” said Bush. “That’s defined in U.S. law, and we don’t torture.”

Asked for his personal definition, Bush replied: “Whatever the law says.”
Legal loophole

And indeed, American law does now forbid the “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners, defining it in minute detail: infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering, or even threats of death.

Bush and his advisers opposed passage of that law a few years ago, presumably wishing to reserve the right to inflict all those things in the United States’ secret overseas prisons.

Having lost that fight, though, they devised a neat device to circumvent the new law: The president simply signed secret executive orders declaring that none of the CIA’s or the Pentagon’s “enhanced techniques” fall within the law’s definitions.

Members of Congress, who thought they were banning torture when they passed the law, were unhappy to hear about the secret orders, and said so.

“After telling us and the world that torture is abhorrent,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate judiciary committee and a Democrat, “it appears that … they reversed themselves and reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret.”

During the nomination hearings last week of Michael Mukasey, Bush’s new choice for attorney general, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, asked this simple question: Is waterboarding constitutional?

“If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional,” replied Mukasey.

“I mean, either it is, or it isn’t,” replied Whitehouse.

“If it amounts to torture,” said the former judge, “it is not constitutional.”

Note the “if.” It’s not a word most experts would use in discussing waterboarding.
Euphemisms border on Orwellian

“Absolutely, waterboarding is torture,” said Prof. David Luban of Georgetown University’s law school, who has written extensively about torture.

“My test for waterboarding,” said Luban, “is to tell someone ‘Blow all the air out of your lungs and see what it’s like not to be allowed to breathe in for two minutes.’”

Luban regards terms like “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “robust interrogations” as euphemisms bordering on Orwellian, or worse: “The Gestapo used the phase ’sharpened interrogation techniques.’”

The Bush position, said Luban, is essentially that government employees do not use cruel, inhuman or degrading techniques, unless they do. Luban said the “dagger in his heart” is that the justification comes from lawyers employed to find ways around the law. In the end, he said, “any proposition is arguable.”
Successful political strategy

What’s more remarkable, though, is that as a political strategy, it works.

By simply asserting that its techniques are not torture, the administration creates a debate where none existed before. As Luban put it, what were once questions of common sense are transformed into legal issues.

Newspaper editors and television news producers are naturally reluctant to flatly contradict the president, so the soldiers and CIA agents and private contractors who carry out the interrogations are not referred to as torturers, as they would be if they worked for, say, the governments of Russia or Egypt.

I actually hesitated in writing the first sentence of this column without a qualifier, knowing it would give my editor pause.

After Mukasey’s exchange with the Senate panel last week, Human Rights Watch called his statements “preposterous,” but the response was tinged with disbelief that such criticism even needs to be uttered.

The group pointed out that U.S. military courts have in the past prosecuted soldiers of other countries for using waterboarding on American troops, and that the U.S. government often criticizes other countries for the practice.

And, in fact, this was in the first paragraph of a presidential declaration on the UN’s day of observance for victims of torture in 2004: “The United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture. The non-negotiable demands of human dignity must be protected without reference to race, gender, creed or nationality.”

Somewhere in the last three years, that became: “Whatever the law says.”

-Neil Macdonald

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33 Comments so far

critojazz October 24th, 2007 12:04 pm

Waterboarding will always be torture; only the faces of the torturers have changed. America does torture, it saddens me to say.

curmudgeon99 October 24th, 2007 1:12 pm

And waterboarding is apparently not a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’ by Pelosi and her Pelosivik lickspittle allies in Congress.

Impeach Now!!!! or accept responsibility for the actions of this administration in the next 14 months and the consequences thereof.

jlocke123 October 24th, 2007 1:34 pm

This is a very good article. One thing I noticed about the recently held hearings with Maher Arar was that the panel was made up totally by “no-name” politicians (I didn’t recognize any of them, anyway). I suppose the heavy weight American presidential contenders (Democratic and Republican) want to keep their torture options open.

LeeAnnG October 24th, 2007 1:45 pm

As a hardcore agnostic (I don’t know and you don’t either), I have to say once again that Bush and his cronies are not Christians. No matter what they profess, nowhere in the New Testament is there any reference to “blessed are those who inflict pain and suffering.”

Simply believing - if, in fact these monsters really do - that Jesus was a deity, does not make one a Christian. If I’m wrong and the true Christians got it right and people are rewarded or punished in the afterlife, is there anyone out there who believes “we don’t torture because I say so” Bush, “proof that wart hogs can mate with humans” Cheney, Alito, hypocrite “druggies have to pay the price” Rush, that disgusting androginous harpy Ann Coulter, pompous windbag Hannity, or the rest of the horrorshow stars that grace our government and airwaves will wind up in Heaven to hang out with God?

Torture is “unAmerican” (whatever that really means, unChristian, unGodlyl by any standards, and inhumane. How did these creatures from the darkside ever get so much power?

Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 2:40 pm

LeeAnnG - ‘I don’t know and you don’t either’ - so, how do you know that ‘I’ don’t either’? Better to say simply that you don’t know. I say that perhaps one day you will know. In particular, I don’t mean any of the organized religions, which are merely expressions of human power and control - I mean personal religious or spiritual experience. Perhaps one day you will know.

But you are right to point out the hypocracy of Christians and others who practice and advocate torture. Or death in Iraq. Or poverty everywhere. It is all so Orwellian. All these things are evil except when I do them.

There is no debate. Torture is torture. We don’t need to agonize over defititions or leagalities.

Bush said, “This debate is occurring because of the Supreme Court’s ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article III of the Geneva Convention. And that Common Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It’s very vague. What does that mean, “outrages upon human dignity”? ”

Bush is an agnostic - he doesn’t know what outrages are, and neither do you.

Except for one small thing. We all do know.

vaudree October 24th, 2007 3:27 pm

It is John Yoo’s definition of Torture that Bush is going by:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/badapples/interviews_yoo.html

Since you guys have already mentioned Maher Arar, there has been an updade.

Condi admits, for the first time, that the US mishandled the Arar case. However, she still clings to the old notion that it has not been proven that Arar was tortured nor did the US expect Arar to be tortured when they sent him to Syria.

On the CTV link, you can also hear Condi in her own words. I don’t think that she looked this uncomfortable at the 9/11 inquiry?

Rice admits U.S. handling of Arar case ‘imperfect’

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/24/rice-arar.html

Rice admits U.S. improperly handled Arar’s case

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/arar_rice_071024/20071024?hub=TopStories

ccc

Joel S. Hirschhorn October 24th, 2007 3:52 pm

How to Interrogate Terrorists: Colonoscopy

Joel S. Hirschhorn

The Bush administration obviously lacks true out-of-the-box thinkers. There is an absolutely creative way to get the truth out of captured terrorists. It surely is not prohibited by the Geneva Conventions or any US laws. In fact, it is doing something positive for the overly silent suspect; it is giving them a sophisticated medical procedure designed as an early detection measure for colon cancer. It is highly unlikely that terrorists have had the good fortune to have had a colonoscopy and so we would be performing a terrific service at no cost to them. Let me amplify.

The day before you get a colonoscopy you are told to follow a regime to completely clean out your entire intestinal system. This is extremely important, because the physician must have a very clean set of internal passages if even the smallest inklings of cancer are to be seen through the ingenious devices inserted into your body. The day before the procedure I could not eat any solid foods whatsoever. I could only drink clear liquids.

But the best feature of this regime is to take what seems like a pretty small amount of an over the counter substance called phosphate soda – just 1.5 fluid ounces in a half a glass of clear liquid. For those that have never had the pleasure of taking this “oral saline laxative” let me explain. Think of the most foul tasting hard to swallow liquid that somehow has come from a distant planet inhabited by sentient beings totally unlike human beings. No matter what you mix it with you cannot escape this material’s absolutely unique taste and consistency. The first sip is shockingly difficult. Following sips only get more challenging. I started to think about a new way for interrogating terrorists while drinking this concoction. It helped. A little.

After finally finishing this initial promoter of colon cleansing you must drink four more full glasses of clear liquid during the next three hours. This is more difficult than you might first think. Why? Because in about an hour after you have taken the first dose of the phosphate soda you will be hurrying – probably running – to the nearest toilet. To imagine the experience I suggest you picture in your mind one of the world’s very large dams – like the Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas, Nevada, or those really big ones in China and Egypt. Now also imagine that there is some magical spigot that technicians can remotely open completely very suddenly. Unimaginable billions of gallons of water behind the dam want to emerge very quickly. Your anus will be such an opening. Phosphate soda seems to have some unique capabilities. It quickly turns whatever you have consumed into a high pressure stream of fluid.

Now for the even better news. In the subsequent hours, as you consume more and more clear fluid, you will be experiencing many, many openings of your own personal anal dam valve. All this will be taking place many hours after you have stopped eating any solid foods whatsoever. Think of yourself becoming progressively hungry, weak and totally evacuated.

It is as if some ingenious person has figured out a way to connect a hose to a fire hydrant and feed it directly into your gut, and then opened the hydrant up repeatedly. Talk about a terrorist suspect spilling their guts!

Now tell me, can’t you imagine the impact of this experience on a stubborn, silent terrorist?

And all this is being done for his or her benefit – to prepare for a medically esteemed procedure to detect at the earliest possible stage colon cancer.

But you are thinking: Sorry, this sounds awful but a proud terrorist will be able to suffer the discomfort and indignities of all this colon cleansing. Well, there’s more coming. Some hours after the first phosphate dose and subsequent drinking guess what comes next?

You have to take a second 1.5 fluid ounces of phosphate soda in clear liquid followed by several glasses of clear liquid. Still, you have eaten no solid food whatsoever. You are thinking, after many, many trips to the toilet, what could there be possibly left inside my body to be cleaned out. Well, physicians don’t want to take any chances. So you must muster the courage to swallow yet another seemingly infinite amount of phosphate soda – and trust me it does not matter what flavor it has or what liquid you put it into. You are now ready for the ultimate unplugging of the largest dam on the planet.

You still are skeptical? You still think that the terrorist will not reveal all secrets? Well, there is one more opportunity. The next stage the next day is the colonoscopy itself. This is when the physician and staff prepare to insert into your rectum what seems like the equivalent of the entire Alaska oil pipeline. A lot of sophisticated medical tubular technology allowing the doctor to see and cut out stuff, if necessary, must travel very long distances up and through your large and small intestines.

The medical community recognizes our trepidations about having all this endoscopic hardware inserted and manipulated through our bodies. So you will receive intravenous sedation for the procedure. The stated goal is to prevent the patient from having any recall or discomfort during the procedure.

But why should we feel any need to give sedation to a terrorist that is receiving this wonderful cancer prevention and detection procedure for free?

I say we let the terrorist lay on the table looking at all the endoscopic equipment that will be inserted into their body and have awhile to think about experiencing the procedure without any sedation. “If you answer all our questions truthfully we will delay this procedure,” is what they should be told.

And should they still remain silent and uncooperative, then after they receive the entire examination without sedation they are told that to ensure that they do not have colon cancer they will be going through the entire soda phosphate-unsedated colonoscopy experience every few weeks.

I really see this approach to interrogation as much more civilized than all the terrible torture techniques we have heard about. It’s worth trying. And remember even if it is discovered that the terrorist really has colon cancer, they can be given the choice of telling all they know or NOT having their detected colon cancer treated.

No matter what, I still believe in colonoscopies. I’ve had two. Everyone should muster the courage and have one because they really have reduced deaths by colon cancer.

Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 3:57 pm

Vaudree, the CTV link has been updated and changed to this:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/arar_rice_071024/20071024/

And here’s the direct link to the video:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate?tf=/ctv/mar/video/new_player.html&cf=ctv/mar/ctv.cfg&hub=TopStories&video_link_high=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/10/24/ctvvideologger2_500kbps_2007_10_24_1193248643.wmv&video_link_low=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/10/24/ctvvideologger2_218kbps_2007_10_24_1193246561.wmv&clip_start=00:00:26.55&clip_end=00:03:14.66&clip_caption=U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is questioned about Maher Arar before the House Foreign Relations Committee&clip_id=ctvnews.20071024.00219000-00219101-clip1&subhub=video&no_ads=&sortdate=20071024&slug=arar_rice_071024&archive=CTVNews

Wasa-zitayo-on October 24th, 2007 4:00 pm

Torture had been used by this administration before the 2004 election, and was well publisized by the media. Anyone, therefore, who voted for Bush is just as complicit as he is.

gimmesometruth October 24th, 2007 4:07 pm

Joel Hirschorn: I think you are trying to share some humor inspired by an unpleasant, but necessary and useful medical procedure that you underwent voluntarily. In another context it might have been funny. As a response to this article I find it bizarre, inappropriate and offensive.

vaudree October 24th, 2007 4:32 pm

CSIS is accused of sharing information with the CIA and the FBI.

I am glad that colon cancer does not run in my family.

I think that Maher Arar would prefer the colonoscopy to what really did happen to him. This is Maher Arar’s original statement (the Statement he gave to congress was a shortened version of this):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/arar_statement.html

Maher got of easy compared to what happened to Abdullah Almalki. Abdullah Almalki’s young daughter is having a hard time dealing with all this, which means that Almalki’s torture continues:

http://www.amnesty.ca/english/main_article_home/almalkichronology.pdf

Why was the American government interested in Muayyed Nureddin? Muayyed Nureddin doesn’t know and wants to find out. Seems that until this whole thing is settled he can’t visit his elderly parents in Iraq.

Why was the American government interested in Ahmad El Maati? Ahmad El Maati had a tourist map of Ottawa in his possession - that is all he knows.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071012/iacobucci_inquiry_071012/20071012/

GhostRider October 24th, 2007 4:35 pm

Someone should subject Bush, Cheney, and anyone else in the administration who says that “We don’t do Torture” to waterboarding, stress positions or “simulated” hypothermia. After about two hours of the this treatment, ask them the simple question “Is this Torture”. You might find that they answer differently than “whatever the Law says”.

vaudree October 24th, 2007 5:00 pm

Malfoyd, my link has been fixed up - checked it again before the time ran out. Your direct link is not working.

Well, Maher Arar is not going away so the Bush administration better decide who among their number is going to take the fall.

Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 5:53 pm

vaudree - don’t know what’s up, but all the links work for me now…

Anyhow, yeah. Rice seems to be admitting that they made a mistake, but… without really making a mistake. Orwell would be proud.

She’s aware of the three inch thick Gomery report exonerating Arar… but she had claimed that they had their own independent information that showed Arar was still guilty of something… but again she must know that New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler has seen the file only last week and said there was ‘nothing there’ to indicate he was guilty of anything.

Her State Department classifies Syria as a ‘horrific torture state’, but she had no idea Arar would be tortured when her government sent him there there against his will… Her memory has ‘faded’ about what assurances they had that he wouldn’t be tortured.

She is just certain there wasn’t any torture, she says

Arar still can’t fly in the US.

So, I guess that answers all our questions.

These are supposed to be the ‘leaders’ of the free world.

canuckchuck October 24th, 2007 6:12 pm

The USA does not practice torture, period.

(They dont need to practice, they perfected the evil art years ago)

frank1569 October 24th, 2007 8:25 pm

I know!

When it’s Tickle Torture!

What? It works, especially on evil doers. They hate laughing.

militantliberal October 24th, 2007 8:53 pm

In a just world Bush and Cheney would have been impeached and removed even before the 2004 election, and they would now be in jail. The Constitution used to be the law of the land. Now it’s just a naive suggestion. I wish that someday the system would make them pay for their crimes.

citizen1 October 24th, 2007 9:46 pm

It’s not torture when USA does it.

dinmusicjf October 24th, 2007 10:29 pm

No Torture Left Behind

d19jordan57 October 24th, 2007 10:48 pm

“This (U.S.) government doesn’t torture.” This statement taken literally is pretty shakey, and neatly avoids the reality that this government has other countries do it’s torture for it. Deniability, don’t you know.

vaudree October 24th, 2007 10:51 pm

Malfoyd, your Canadian aren’t you? Gomery was the Sponsorship
scandal - O’Conner did Arar. Know it is a slip but most
Americans have never heard of Gomery. :evil

Not only is Arar still on the no fly list, but Baraa and Houd
still have their names on America’s terrorist watch list. Who
are Baraa and Hood? By my calculations, Baraa would be about 10
and Houd would be 5 - the are Maher and Monia’s children.

As rude as Condi Rice has been in the past concerning Arar,
she has always been much nicer than David Wilkins on the topic
of Maher Arar:

David Wilkins: “It’s a little presumptuous for him to say who the
United States can and cannot allow into our country,”

David Wilkins: “We’re committed to making sure our borders are
secure and our country is safe. Will there be other deportations
in the future? I’d be surprised if there’s not!”

David Wilkins: “You’re talking about regrets by the United States?
We made the decision [to deport Arar to Syria] based on the facts
we had and in the best interest of the people of the United States.”

David Wilkins is the American Ambassador to Canada.

AlexLawyer October 25th, 2007 4:40 am

Can you imagine that I tell the jury that my client, who was shown on the bank’s security cameras holding a gun to the tellers and running out the door with sacks of money, “My client does not rob. This is expedited loan procedure with flexible, optional repayment. Therefore my client is not a robber and you must acquit him.” The judge would immediately disallow such a statement because individuals are not free to apply their own, personal, idiosyncratic, non-mainstream interpretations of the law as a defense. Torture is and has been well defined, and the techniques in question absolutely constitute torture and would be so classified in any competent court. The torturers, and those who ordered or authorized their acts, are guilty of serious crimes and should be held to account, and if Congress had any courage, any moral decency, any respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, it would hold hearings, ratify the International Criminal Court statute, and turn the offenders over to the ICC since clearly the federal judiciary is so biased in favor of the neocons that a fair trial would be impossible. Justice must be done, and must be seen to be done.

vaudree October 25th, 2007 4:51 am

You do know that the US had, for a while, negotiated themselves an
exemption from the International Criminal Court?

greatbear215 October 25th, 2007 9:21 am

People walking around wearing dog collars, on the ends of leashes; performing “dog tricks,” and wearing women’s underwear on their heads. How is this gathering intelligence for the prosecution of terrorists? How is this uncovering information regarding terrorist plots? This is nothing but the degradation of human beings. I hear rumsfeld oversaw these methods personally. I’ll just bet he did! This is nothing but the degradation of people with brown skin. The republican party has not changed in the least. What they used to do nationally, they are now doing internationally. That’s all. People being forced to masturbate in front of members of the opposite sex. How is this gathering information regarding terrorist activity? Sickening. Absolutely sickening.

pdf October 25th, 2007 9:21 am

I’m not going to argue the international perspective. On a personal level; if my son or daughter had be kidnapped and were being held in an undisclosed location under unknown conditions ~ and I had the perpetrator of this crime in my control, I”m trying to mentally define my own limits as to what I’d do to get information from this person. Am I going to use harsh language? Am I going to offer sympathy to their cause? Am I going to withhold food/water? What am I going to do that will influance them to reveal the location of my child?

On a personal level in the above scenario; I’d hate to admit it, but I’m not actually seeing a level that would be too harsh in my mind.

Question: Am I evil for thinking this way?

tlcs_3 October 25th, 2007 9:54 am

Bush et. al. are criminals. They should be tried for treason for using their positions to start war to enrich themselves and their cronies. It is the fall of America they seek, the destruction of democracy to enrich themselves and be in power to control people for their own nefarious gain. Parsing laws, sowing terror, redefining words, stealing elections…

Torture is just one of the biggest symptoms of this evil. It makes people afraid to stand up to them, who knows what might happen to you, your family, your money (informational mining), your job, your security. I really know people who won’t sign any petition for fear that “something” might happen to them!

Anyone who thinks it can’t happen here is fooling themselves. Thieves go where the money is, megalomaniacs go where the power is, sadists go where the torture is. They really aren’t well-meaning misguided people. And I am losing patience with our Congress and primary races and media.

How do we do this????????
Voting is a sham.
Marching is ineffective.
Writing letters is inconsequential.
What do we do?

Peace, Justice, small hope

pdf October 25th, 2007 10:24 am

AlexLawyer ~ I present to you my above scenario. What level of influence or physical force would be too tough, too cruel, too heinous for you to learn the location of your children?

I’m not playing a silly game here, I’m trying to put myself into a scenario where personal, meaningful decisions would have to be made and trying to decide under what circumstances would I personally torture someone, and if admitting that I actually would is reason enough for me to be considered evil.

hedology October 25th, 2007 10:40 am

No statement by the President of the United States of Israel, or his Cronies, puppet masters,
Dick Cheney or anyone involved with that criminal administration, has any worth whatsoever in the realm
of truth or justice, save that it marks their intention to stuff up, kill or rob, or slander the grammatical objects
of their sentences, or cover up their previous crimes of doing the same. Their word is worth much less than only one US dollar,
if its worth is only capture in words, who or what has been designated as next victim.

Only the possession of the illusions of power, by pointing the bone
at one victim nation or another, do they hope to distract the rest of the rabid collection of human nations into petty enmity, to pick
on some nation defenceless enough, to round on it till it is weakened, then, like starving cannibals who have found
their next victim amoungst themselves, with lusts and promises of satiety. All that has to be done to rob the USI of power, is for each and every other nation,
to say, “no thanks, not this time”. To the USI government, keep your blood-thirsty terror wars, weapons and sanctions to yourself.
Go stuff up your own country, leave the rest of us to solve our collective problems together.

jlocke123 October 25th, 2007 1:12 pm

From some of the above posts I see that there is still some confusion regarding the efficacy of torture.

Take the case of Mr. Maher Arar. In 2002, Kidnapers working for the US government broke international laws, their own laws and their own regulations when they held him incommunicado for days, forced him onto a private jet, and sent him to Syria for months of torture. The US judges, to this day, have accepted their leaders’ argument that if Maher Arar was to have his day in court, it would reveal to the world the most closely guarded secrets of the US secret police, namely that they kidnap, hold incommunicado and torture innocent people.

Note:
1) The US police were not looking for their own children.
2) The US police were not looking for someone else’s child.

The US government was seeking information from Maher Arar. Why? They erroneously believed that he had information regarding Afghan groups. Result, An innocent person is tortured.

If you think that an innocent person being tortured is a good thing, then you need more help than this website can provide.

Now if you want to play games with the word “evil”, let’s imagine the scenario where a father is beating up on someone because he (the father) thinks that the victim knows where his children are. Notice that I say that the father “thinks” and not “knows”. Why? Because, in the real world as opposed to fictional “24” scenarios, we don’t have perfect knowledge. If the father in the scenario had perfect knowledge, he would know the whereabouts of his kids. So he is assuming that the person that he is assaulting knows where they are.

Is this effective? Even the US government officially states that the use of torture is counterproductive.

Is it evil? How many innocent people would you have to remove fingernails from before you found the one that actually took your children? And then what? Is it evil for your victims and their families to seek revenge on you?

Instead of playing these moronic hypothetical ticking bomb games, let’s stick to reality for a while ok?

pdf October 25th, 2007 2:34 pm

j locke ~ pardon me, I was confused there for a moment. I was living in a world where reasonable people discussed substantive issues in a rational and reasoned debate. I’m sorry.

Malfoyd October 25th, 2007 11:10 pm

pdf,

Yours is the same kind of argument that is used to justify capital punishment.

If you saw a person blah blah blah blah blah blah to your child/mother/wife, wouldn’t you want to kill them.

Simply an appeal to emotions, which has no place in the legal system.

OK. How about if your child/mother/wife was falsely accused of being a
terrorist/murderer and was sentenced to be tortured/killed/incarcerated in some foreign secret jail.
Would you still believe in capital punishment/torture?

The state gets these things wrong very often, and the innocent need to be protected from these errors.

Malfoyd October 25th, 2007 11:17 pm

vaudree, thanks for the correction on Gommery/O’Connor

Yeah, I’m a Canadian… and I’m guessing you are too.

As a Canadian, I’m glad our government can deal with a situation like Arar’s,
recognizing their errors, and giving compensation as well as having the RCMP
take responsibility at the highest levels.

America knew about these values, but no longer practices them.

pdf October 26th, 2007 12:46 pm

Malfoyd ~

I don’t advocate torture. I’m just examining if there isn’t a situation where I PERSONALLY would use it to save the life of a loved one.

From my perspective, our societial laws should be representative of our personal beliefs ~ the problem being we don’t all have the same beliefs.

Peace and thoughtful discourse ~

PDF

critojazz October 24th, 2007 12:04 pm

Waterboarding will always be torture; only the faces of the torturers have changed. America does torture, it saddens me to say.
curmudgeon99 October 24th, 2007 1:12 pm

And waterboarding is apparently not a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’ by Pelosi and her Pelosivik lickspittle allies in Congress.

Impeach Now!!!! or accept responsibility for the actions of this administration in the next 14 months and the consequences thereof.
jlocke123 October 24th, 2007 1:34 pm

This is a very good article. One thing I noticed about the recently held hearings with Maher Arar was that the panel was made up totally by “no-name” politicians (I didn’t recognize any of them, anyway). I suppose the heavy weight American presidential contenders (Democratic and Republican) want to keep their torture options open.
LeeAnnG October 24th, 2007 1:45 pm

As a hardcore agnostic (I don’t know and you don’t either), I have to say once again that Bush and his cronies are not Christians. No matter what they profess, nowhere in the New Testament is there any reference to “blessed are those who inflict pain and suffering.”

Simply believing - if, in fact these monsters really do - that Jesus was a deity, does not make one a Christian. If I’m wrong and the true Christians got it right and people are rewarded or punished in the afterlife, is there anyone out there who believes “we don’t torture because I say so” Bush, “proof that wart hogs can mate with humans” Cheney, Alito, hypocrite “druggies have to pay the price” Rush, that disgusting androginous harpy Ann Coulter, pompous windbag Hannity, or the rest of the horrorshow stars that grace our government and airwaves will wind up in Heaven to hang out with God?

Torture is “unAmerican” (whatever that really means, unChristian, unGodlyl by any standards, and inhumane. How did these creatures from the darkside ever get so much power?
Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 2:40 pm

LeeAnnG - ‘I don’t know and you don’t either’ - so, how do you know that ‘I’ don’t either’? Better to say simply that you don’t know. I say that perhaps one day you will know. In particular, I don’t mean any of the organized religions, which are merely expressions of human power and control - I mean personal religious or spiritual experience. Perhaps one day you will know.

But you are right to point out the hypocracy of Christians and others who practice and advocate torture. Or death in Iraq. Or poverty everywhere. It is all so Orwellian. All these things are evil except when I do them.

There is no debate. Torture is torture. We don’t need to agonize over defititions or leagalities.

Bush said, “This debate is occurring because of the Supreme Court’s ruling that said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article III of the Geneva Convention. And that Common Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It’s very vague. What does that mean, “outrages upon human dignity”? ”

Bush is an agnostic - he doesn’t know what outrages are, and neither do you.

Except for one small thing. We all do know.
vaudree October 24th, 2007 3:27 pm

It is John Yoo’s definition of Torture that Bush is going by:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/badapples/interviews_yoo.html

Since you guys have already mentioned Maher Arar, there has been an updade.

Condi admits, for the first time, that the US mishandled the Arar case. However, she still clings to the old notion that it has not been proven that Arar was tortured nor did the US expect Arar to be tortured when they sent him to Syria.

On the CTV link, you can also hear Condi in her own words. I don’t think that she looked this uncomfortable at the 9/11 inquiry?

Rice admits U.S. handling of Arar case ‘imperfect’

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/24/rice-arar.html

Rice admits U.S. improperly handled Arar’s case

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/arar_rice_071024/20071024?hub=TopStories

ccc
Joel S. Hirschhorn October 24th, 2007 3:52 pm

How to Interrogate Terrorists: Colonoscopy

Joel S. Hirschhorn

The Bush administration obviously lacks true out-of-the-box thinkers. There is an absolutely creative way to get the truth out of captured terrorists. It surely is not prohibited by the Geneva Conventions or any US laws. In fact, it is doing something positive for the overly silent suspect; it is giving them a sophisticated medical procedure designed as an early detection measure for colon cancer. It is highly unlikely that terrorists have had the good fortune to have had a colonoscopy and so we would be performing a terrific service at no cost to them. Let me amplify.

The day before you get a colonoscopy you are told to follow a regime to completely clean out your entire intestinal system. This is extremely important, because the physician must have a very clean set of internal passages if even the smallest inklings of cancer are to be seen through the ingenious devices inserted into your body. The day before the procedure I could not eat any solid foods whatsoever. I could only drink clear liquids.

But the best feature of this regime is to take what seems like a pretty small amount of an over the counter substance called phosphate soda – just 1.5 fluid ounces in a half a glass of clear liquid. For those that have never had the pleasure of taking this “oral saline laxative” let me explain. Think of the most foul tasting hard to swallow liquid that somehow has come from a distant planet inhabited by sentient beings totally unlike human beings. No matter what you mix it with you cannot escape this material’s absolutely unique taste and consistency. The first sip is shockingly difficult. Following sips only get more challenging. I started to think about a new way for interrogating terrorists while drinking this concoction. It helped. A little.

After finally finishing this initial promoter of colon cleansing you must drink four more full glasses of clear liquid during the next three hours. This is more difficult than you might first think. Why? Because in about an hour after you have taken the first dose of the phosphate soda you will be hurrying – probably running – to the nearest toilet. To imagine the experience I suggest you picture in your mind one of the world’s very large dams – like the Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas, Nevada, or those really big ones in China and Egypt. Now also imagine that there is some magical spigot that technicians can remotely open completely very suddenly. Unimaginable billions of gallons of water behind the dam want to emerge very quickly. Your anus will be such an opening. Phosphate soda seems to have some unique capabilities. It quickly turns whatever you have consumed into a high pressure stream of fluid.

Now for the even better news. In the subsequent hours, as you consume more and more clear fluid, you will be experiencing many, many openings of your own personal anal dam valve. All this will be taking place many hours after you have stopped eating any solid foods whatsoever. Think of yourself becoming progressively hungry, weak and totally evacuated.

It is as if some ingenious person has figured out a way to connect a hose to a fire hydrant and feed it directly into your gut, and then opened the hydrant up repeatedly. Talk about a terrorist suspect spilling their guts!

Now tell me, can’t you imagine the impact of this experience on a stubborn, silent terrorist?

And all this is being done for his or her benefit – to prepare for a medically esteemed procedure to detect at the earliest possible stage colon cancer.

But you are thinking: Sorry, this sounds awful but a proud terrorist will be able to suffer the discomfort and indignities of all this colon cleansing. Well, there’s more coming. Some hours after the first phosphate dose and subsequent drinking guess what comes next?

You have to take a second 1.5 fluid ounces of phosphate soda in clear liquid followed by several glasses of clear liquid. Still, you have eaten no solid food whatsoever. You are thinking, after many, many trips to the toilet, what could there be possibly left inside my body to be cleaned out. Well, physicians don’t want to take any chances. So you must muster the courage to swallow yet another seemingly infinite amount of phosphate soda – and trust me it does not matter what flavor it has or what liquid you put it into. You are now ready for the ultimate unplugging of the largest dam on the planet.

You still are skeptical? You still think that the terrorist will not reveal all secrets? Well, there is one more opportunity. The next stage the next day is the colonoscopy itself. This is when the physician and staff prepare to insert into your rectum what seems like the equivalent of the entire Alaska oil pipeline. A lot of sophisticated medical tubular technology allowing the doctor to see and cut out stuff, if necessary, must travel very long distances up and through your large and small intestines.

The medical community recognizes our trepidations about having all this endoscopic hardware inserted and manipulated through our bodies. So you will receive intravenous sedation for the procedure. The stated goal is to prevent the patient from having any recall or discomfort during the procedure.

But why should we feel any need to give sedation to a terrorist that is receiving this wonderful cancer prevention and detection procedure for free?

I say we let the terrorist lay on the table looking at all the endoscopic equipment that will be inserted into their body and have awhile to think about experiencing the procedure without any sedation. “If you answer all our questions truthfully we will delay this procedure,” is what they should be told.

And should they still remain silent and uncooperative, then after they receive the entire examination without sedation they are told that to ensure that they do not have colon cancer they will be going through the entire soda phosphate-unsedated colonoscopy experience every few weeks.

I really see this approach to interrogation as much more civilized than all the terrible torture techniques we have heard about. It’s worth trying. And remember even if it is discovered that the terrorist really has colon cancer, they can be given the choice of telling all they know or NOT having their detected colon cancer treated.

No matter what, I still believe in colonoscopies. I’ve had two. Everyone should muster the courage and have one because they really have reduced deaths by colon cancer.
Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 3:57 pm

Vaudree, the CTV link has been updated and changed to this:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071024/arar_rice_071024/20071024/

And here’s the direct link to the video:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate?tf=/ctv/mar/video/new_player.html&cf=ctv/mar/ctv.cfg&hub=TopStories&video_link_high=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/10/24/ctvvideologger2_500kbps_2007_10_24_1193248643.wmv&video_link_low=mms://ctvbroadcast.ctv.ca/video/2007/10/24/ctvvideologger2_218kbps_2007_10_24_1193246561.wmv&clip_start=00:00:26.55&clip_end=00:03:14.66&clip_caption=U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is questioned about Maher Arar before the House Foreign Relations Committee&clip_id=ctvnews.20071024.00219000-00219101-clip1&subhub=video&no_ads=&sortdate=20071024&slug=arar_rice_071024&archive=CTVNews
Wasa-zitayo-on October 24th, 2007 4:00 pm

Torture had been used by this administration before the 2004 election, and was well publisized by the media. Anyone, therefore, who voted for Bush is just as complicit as he is.
gimmesometruth October 24th, 2007 4:07 pm

Joel Hirschorn: I think you are trying to share some humor inspired by an unpleasant, but necessary and useful medical procedure that you underwent voluntarily. In another context it might have been funny. As a response to this article I find it bizarre, inappropriate and offensive.
vaudree October 24th, 2007 4:32 pm

CSIS is accused of sharing information with the CIA and the FBI.

I am glad that colon cancer does not run in my family.

I think that Maher Arar would prefer the colonoscopy to what really did happen to him. This is Maher Arar’s original statement (the Statement he gave to congress was a shortened version of this):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/arar_statement.html

Maher got of easy compared to what happened to Abdullah Almalki. Abdullah Almalki’s young daughter is having a hard time dealing with all this, which means that Almalki’s torture continues:

http://www.amnesty.ca/english/main_article_home/almalkichronology.pdf

Why was the American government interested in Muayyed Nureddin? Muayyed Nureddin doesn’t know and wants to find out. Seems that until this whole thing is settled he can’t visit his elderly parents in Iraq.

Why was the American government interested in Ahmad El Maati? Ahmad El Maati had a tourist map of Ottawa in his possession - that is all he knows.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071012/iacobucci_inquiry_071012/20071012/
GhostRider October 24th, 2007 4:35 pm

Someone should subject Bush, Cheney, and anyone else in the administration who says that “We don’t do Torture” to waterboarding, stress positions or “simulated” hypothermia. After about two hours of the this treatment, ask them the simple question “Is this Torture”. You might find that they answer differently than “whatever the Law says”.
vaudree October 24th, 2007 5:00 pm

Malfoyd, my link has been fixed up - checked it again before the time ran out. Your direct link is not working.

Well, Maher Arar is not going away so the Bush administration better decide who among their number is going to take the fall.
Malfoyd October 24th, 2007 5:53 pm

vaudree - don’t know what’s up, but all the links work for me now…

Anyhow, yeah. Rice seems to be admitting that they made a mistake, but… without really making a mistake. Orwell would be proud.

She’s aware of the three inch thick Gomery report exonerating Arar… but she had claimed that they had their own independent information that showed Arar was still guilty of something… but again she must know that New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler has seen the file only last week and said there was ‘nothing there’ to indicate he was guilty of anything.

Her State Department classifies Syria as a ‘horrific torture state’, but she had no idea Arar would be tortured when her government sent him there there against his will… Her memory has ‘faded’ about what assurances they had that he wouldn’t be tortured.

She is just certain there wasn’t any torture, she says

Arar still can’t fly in the US.

So, I guess that answers all our questions.

These are supposed to be the ‘leaders’ of the free world.
canuckchuck October 24th, 2007 6:12 pm

The USA does not practice torture, period.

(They dont need to practice, they perfected the evil art years ago)
frank1569 October 24th, 2007 8:25 pm

I know!

When it’s Tickle Torture!

What? It works, especially on evil doers. They hate laughing.
militantliberal October 24th, 2007 8:53 pm

In a just world Bush and Cheney would have been impeached and removed even before the 2004 election, and they would now be in jail. The Constitution used to be the law of the land. Now it’s just a naive suggestion. I wish that someday the system would make them pay for their crimes.
citizen1 October 24th, 2007 9:46 pm

It’s not torture when USA does it.
dinmusicjf October 24th, 2007 10:29 pm

No Torture Left Behind
d19jordan57 October 24th, 2007 10:48 pm

“This (U.S.) government doesn’t torture.” This statement taken literally is pretty shakey, and neatly avoids the reality that this government has other countries do it’s torture for it. Deniability, don’t you know.
vaudree October 24th, 2007 10:51 pm

Malfoyd, your Canadian aren’t you? Gomery was the Sponsorship
scandal - O’Conner did Arar. Know it is a slip but most
Americans have never heard of Gomery. :evil

Not only is Arar still on the no fly list, but Baraa and Houd
still have their names on America’s terrorist watch list. Who
are Baraa and Hood? By my calculations, Baraa would be about 10
and Houd would be 5 - the are Maher and Monia’s children.

As rude as Condi Rice has been in the past concerning Arar,
she has always been much nicer than David Wilkins on the topic
of Maher Arar:

David Wilkins: “It’s a little presumptuous for him to say who the
United States can and cannot allow into our country,”

David Wilkins: “We’re committed to making sure our borders are
secure and our country is safe. Will there be other deportations
in the future? I’d be surprised if there’s not!”

David Wilkins: “You’re talking about regrets by the United States?
We made the decision [to deport Arar to Syria] based on the facts
we had and in the best interest of the people of the United States.”

David Wilkins is the American Ambassador to Canada.
AlexLawyer October 25th, 2007 4:40 am

Can you imagine that I tell the jury that my client, who was shown on the bank’s security cameras holding a gun to the tellers and running out the door with sacks of money, “My client does not rob. This is expedited loan procedure with flexible, optional repayment. Therefore my client is not a robber and you must acquit him.” The judge would immediately disallow such a statement because individuals are not free to apply their own, personal, idiosyncratic, non-mainstream interpretations of the law as a defense. Torture is and has been well defined, and the techniques in question absolutely constitute torture and would be so classified in any competent court. The torturers, and those who ordered or authorized their acts, are guilty of serious crimes and should be held to account, and if Congress had any courage, any moral decency, any respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, it would hold hearings, ratify the International Criminal Court statute, and turn the offenders over to the ICC since clearly the federal judiciary is so biased in favor of the neocons that a fair trial would be impossible. Justice must be done, and must be seen to be done.
vaudree October 25th, 2007 4:51 am

You do know that the US had, for a while, negotiated themselves an
exemption from the International Criminal Court?
greatbear215 October 25th, 2007 9:21 am

People walking around wearing dog collars, on the ends of leashes; performing “dog tricks,” and wearing women’s underwear on their heads. How is this gathering intelligence for the prosecution of terrorists? How is this uncovering information regarding terrorist plots? This is nothing but the degradation of human beings. I hear rumsfeld oversaw these methods personally. I’ll just bet he did! This is nothing but the degradation of people with brown skin. The republican party has not changed in the least. What they used to do nationally, they are now doing internationally. That’s all. People being forced to masturbate in front of members of the opposite sex. How is this gathering information regarding terrorist activity? Sickening. Absolutely sickening.
pdf October 25th, 2007 9:21 am

I’m not going to argue the international perspective. On a personal level; if my son or daughter had be kidnapped and were being held in an undisclosed location under unknown conditions ~ and I had the perpetrator of this crime in my control, I”m trying to mentally define my own limits as to what I’d do to get information from this person. Am I going to use harsh language? Am I going to offer sympathy to their cause? Am I going to withhold food/water? What am I going to do that will influance them to reveal the location of my child?

On a personal level in the above scenario; I’d hate to admit it, but I’m not actually seeing a level that would be too harsh in my mind.

Question: Am I evil for thinking this way?
tlcs_3 October 25th, 2007 9:54 am

Bush et. al. are criminals. They should be tried for treason for using their positions to start war to enrich themselves and their cronies. It is the fall of America they seek, the destruction of democracy to enrich themselves and be in power to control people for their own nefarious gain. Parsing laws, sowing terror, redefining words, stealing elections…

Torture is just one of the biggest symptoms of this evil. It makes people afraid to stand up to them, who knows what might happen to you, your family, your money (informational mining), your job, your security. I really know people who won’t sign any petition for fear that “something” might happen to them!

Anyone who thinks it can’t happen here is fooling themselves. Thieves go where the money is, megalomaniacs go where the power is, sadists go where the torture is. They really aren’t well-meaning misguided people. And I am losing patience with our Congress and primary races and media.

How do we do this????????
Voting is a sham.
Marching is ineffective.
Writing letters is inconsequential.
What do we do?

Peace, Justice, small hope
pdf October 25th, 2007 10:24 am

AlexLawyer ~ I present to you my above scenario. What level of influence or physical force would be too tough, too cruel, too heinous for you to learn the location of your children?

I’m not playing a silly game here, I’m trying to put myself into a scenario where personal, meaningful decisions would have to be made and trying to decide under what circumstances would I personally torture someone, and if admitting that I actually would is reason enough for me to be considered evil.
hedology October 25th, 2007 10:40 am

No statement by the President of the United States of Israel, or his Cronies, puppet masters,
Dick Cheney or anyone involved with that criminal administration, has any worth whatsoever in the realm
of truth or justice, save that it marks their intention to stuff up, kill or rob, or slander the grammatical objects
of their sentences, or cover up their previous crimes of doing the same. Their word is worth much less than only one US dollar,
if its worth is only capture in words, who or what has been designated as next victim.

Only the possession of the illusions of power, by pointing the bone
at one victim nation or another, do they hope to distract the rest of the rabid collection of human nations into petty enmity, to pick
on some nation defenceless enough, to round on it till it is weakened, then, like starving cannibals who have found
their next victim amoungst themselves, with lusts and promises of satiety. All that has to be done to rob the USI of power, is for each and every other nation,
to say, “no thanks, not this time”. To the USI government, keep your blood-thirsty terror wars, weapons and sanctions to yourself.
Go stuff up your own country, leave the rest of us to solve our collective problems together.
jlocke123 October 25th, 2007 1:12 pm

From some of the above posts I see that there is still some confusion regarding the efficacy of torture.

Take the case of Mr. Maher Arar. In 2002, Kidnapers working for the US government broke international laws, their own laws and their own regulations when they held him incommunicado for days, forced him onto a private jet, and sent him to Syria for months of torture. The US judges, to this day, have accepted their leaders’ argument that if Maher Arar was to have his day in court, it would reveal to the world the most closely guarded secrets of the US secret police, namely that they kidnap, hold incommunicado and torture innocent people.

Note:
1) The US police were not looking for their own children.
2) The US police were not looking for someone else’s child.

The US government was seeking information from Maher Arar. Why? They erroneously believed that he had information regarding Afghan groups. Result, An innocent person is tortured.

If you think that an innocent person being tortured is a good thing, then you need more help than this website can provide.

Now if you want to play games with the word “evil”, let’s imagine the scenario where a father is beating up on someone because he (the father) thinks that the victim knows where his children are. Notice that I say that the father “thinks” and not “knows”. Why? Because, in the real world as opposed to fictional “24” scenarios, we don’t have perfect knowledge. If the father in the scenario had perfect knowledge, he would know the whereabouts of his kids. So he is assuming that the person that he is assaulting knows where they are.

Is this effective? Even the US government officially states that the use of torture is counterproductive.

Is it evil? How many innocent people would you have to remove fingernails from before you found the one that actually took your children? And then what? Is it evil for your victims and their families to seek revenge on you?

Instead of playing these moronic hypothetical ticking bomb games, let’s stick to reality for a while ok?
pdf October 25th, 2007 2:34 pm

j locke ~ pardon me, I was confused there for a moment. I was living in a world where reasonable people discussed substantive issues in a rational and reasoned debate. I’m sorry.
Malfoyd October 25th, 2007 11:10 pm

pdf,

Yours is the same kind of argument that is used to justify capital punishment.

If you saw a person blah blah blah blah blah blah to your child/mother/wife, wouldn’t you want to kill them.

Simply an appeal to emotions, which has no place in the legal system.

OK. How about if your child/mother/wife was falsely accused of being a
terrorist/murderer and was sentenced to be tortured/killed/incarcerated in some foreign secret jail.
Would you still believe in capital punishment/torture?

The state gets these things wrong very often, and the innocent need to be protected from these errors.
Malfoyd October 25th, 2007 11:17 pm

vaudree, thanks for the correction on Gommery/O’Connor

Yeah, I’m a Canadian… and I’m guessing you are too.

As a Canadian, I’m glad our government can deal with a situation like Arar’s,
recognizing their errors, and giving compensation as well as having the RCMP
take responsibility at the highest levels.

America knew about these values, but no longer practices them.
pdf October 26th, 2007 12:46 pm

Malfoyd ~

I don’t advocate torture. I’m just examining if there isn’t a situation where I PERSONALLY would use it to save the life of a loved one.

From my perspective, our societial laws should be representative of our personal beliefs ~ the problem being we don’t all have the same beliefs.

Peace and thoughtful discourse ~

PDF

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