Bill Clinton warns against wide torture approval

[Steve Savicki]

http://www.yahoo.com/s/395527

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President
Bill Clinton joined a chorus of critics of Bush administration proposals for treating suspected terrorists, saying it would be unnecessary and wrong to give broad approval to torture.

In an interview with National Public Radio aired on Thursday, Clinton said any decision to use harsh treatment in interrogating suspects should be subject to court review.

"You don't need blanket advance approval for blanket torture," Clinton said.

Clinton was president during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and on the
USS Cole, all linked to al Qaeda. Critics accused him of doing too little to contain a growing threat of terrorism.

Clinton's successor,
President George W. Bush, wants Congress to narrowly define prisoner protections under the Geneva Conventions and allow a program of
CIA interrogations and detentions that critics have said amount to torture.

The White House denies the program involves torture. The
U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down Bush's original plan.

Clinton warned against circumventing international standards on prisoner treatment, citing U.S. abuses at
Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq, criticism of treatment at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists and a secret CIA prison system outside the United States.

"The president says he's just trying to get the rules clear about how far the CIA can go when they're when they whacking these people around in these secret prisons," Clinton said in NPR's "Morning Edition" interview, recorded on Wednesday.

"If you go around passing laws that legitimize a violation of the Geneva Convention and institutionalize what happened at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, we're going to be in real trouble," he said.

Like other critics, he said information obtained with harsh treatment may be unreliable and adopting abusive practices could lead to captured U.S. troops being subjected to the same.

Even if there were circumstances where such treatment is necessary to prevent an imminent attacks, Clinton said: "You don't make laws based on that. You don't sit there and say in general torture's fine if you're a terrorist suspect. For one thing, we know we have erred in who was a real suspect."

How barbaric! Doesn't this go back to the days of dungeons and whips?

[sadaist]

As I have read it, the passage of the Geneva Convention they are speaking of is very grey. I forget the actual wording (someone here must know), but I don't have a problem with the United States clarifying it. The way it is written now, screaming at someone or having a bright light on their face might be considered torture. Hell, even if you give them a drink and refuse to put ice in it could be argued as inhumane. So making the rule a bit more black & white would be good in my opinion.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by sadaist
As I have read it, the passage of the Geneva Convention they are speaking of is very grey. I forget the actual wording (someone here must know), but I don't have a problem with the United States clarifying it. The way it is written now, screaming at someone or having a bright light on their face might be considered torture. Hell, even if you give them a drink and refuse to put ice in it could be argued as inhumane. So making the rule a bit more black & white would be good in my opinion.

Is waterboarding a "gray area?"

We tried Japanese War Criminals for using water tortures after WWII.

There is nothing "gray" about having an official policy that open-endedly rubber stamps torture.

[scamper]

If Clinton wants to stop torture he should put a bag on his wifes head and save us all some pain.

[sadaist]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Is waterboarding a "gray area?"

No. But the Geneva Convention phrase says something to the effect of "any inhumane or demoralizing tactics". That can be open to a lot of different interpretations. Demoralizing or inhumane could include blasting heavy metal towards Manuel Noriegas house.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by sadaist
No. But the Geneva Convention phrase says something to the effect of "any inhumane or demoralizing tactics". That can be open to a lot of different interpretations. Demoralizing or inhumane could include blasting heavy metal towards Manuel Noriegas house.

They're talking about interrogations, not psy-war tactics.

[Nitro Express]

Modern torture is to create a ton of pain without leaving permanent evidence the person was tortured. Electricity is popular. The North Vietmese would make people kneel on a concrete floor for hours on the balls of their knees.

Most people break and talk under torture, it's a small minority who don't. Torture can also be used to get false statements from prisoners.

We are in dangerouse waters. Getting information out of a prisoner could save thousands of lives but using secret prisons and torture reduces us to the same levels of the people who we claim we are trying to rid the world of.

What we are fighting is an idea without borders or flags. Everyone is welcome to join the idea, even Americans. Radicle Islam and it's variouse terrorist groups is like a glob of goo. We cut parts off and it just morphes into something else.

That's why I always felt that trying to fight it overseas was a big mistake. We should have shored up our domestic security at home instead and bidded our time with Al Quaida. When the time was right we could have given Bin Ladden some payback but we should have focused on home security more.

Going into Iraq will only fuel and unwinnable war more.

[sadaist]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
They're talking about interrogations, not psy-war tactics.

Yes, I realize that. I was just using an example of something we know happened. They could handcuff you to a chair and play How Many Say I at full volume for 36 hours in a dark room. Or make you watch Rosie O'Donnell non-stop. Who's to say what's inhumane?

Originally posted by Nitro Express
Modern torture is to create a ton of pain without leaving permanent evidence the person was tortured. Electricity is popular. The North Vietmese would make people kneel on a concrete floor for hours on the balls of their knees.

Water Boarding is not painful. More psychological than anything. It makes you feel like you are drowning. While not painful in an "ouch" type of way, I wouldn't want to try it. But what if you don't have any information to give? I suppose you have to make it up.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by sadaist
Yes, I realize that. I was just using an example of something we know happened. They could handcuff you to a chair and play How Many Say I at full volume for 36 hours in a dark room. Or make you watch Rosie O'Donnell non-stop. Who's to say what's inhumane?

Those are both very cruel and inhumane.

The truth is that torture rarely works, and you get more bullshit than any real intelligence. In fact, U.S. intelligence has been sent on paper chases by guys just "making shit up" in order to avoid being tortured. In fact, many believe that some plots are completely imaginary inventions.

Secondly, 99% of the "terrorists" we're holding are small fish captured in Afghanistan with little, if any, distinction made between "Taliban" and "al-Qaida." The only thing they can really tell you is how to shoot an AKM(-47), if they know how to do that correctly.

So they probably can't tell you much anyways.

Water Boarding is not painful. More psychological than anything. It makes you feel like you are drowning. While not painful in an "ouch" type of way, I wouldn't want to try it. But what if you don't have any information to give? I suppose you have to make it up.

Excuse me, I'm "making it up?" Um, when were you waterboarded pookey? The sensation of inhaling water "isn't painful?" Actually, I was taught "off-the-cuff," unofficial, physical pressure techniques in the the military. One way was to asphyxiate people by suffocating them using a particular technique, then reviving the person after they passed out. Repeating this would cause a headache worse than a migraine, I imagine waterboarding could be similar if the person loses consciousness? And BTW, I would have refused to do this under any circumstance, because mostly it's a waste of time...

How's that for "making it up?" Maybe when you serve in the military and receive your actual Geneva Convention training from JAGs, instead of reading selective portions of the GC cherrypicked on some right wing site, then you can accuse me of "making up" stuff, mmm'kay Sadiast?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
...

Most people break and talk under torture, it's a small minority who don't. Torture can also be used to get false statements from prisoners.

...

Most people may "break," but they'll also fill you will reams of happy horseshit you WANT TO hear. U.S. POW-pilots shot down over Vietnam would often tell some classified info on a the plane they were flying, but then they mix in imaginary yarns of super hi-tech equipment that didn't exist, or they'd just plain make shit up.

And BTW, the U.S. having a de facto torture policy also puts U.S. personnel at risk, which is why the guys who've actually served and have seen combat are against it, like McCain and Powell are against this, and it's the cheerleader, super-macho chickenhawks are all for it.

BTW, I have no problem for using torture under the "Dirty Harry" scenario, and giving carpe-blanche protection to anyone trying to stop an imminent attack.

But an overweening policy of torture is just stupid.

[Seshmeister]

This is all very simple.

The US has chosen along with North Korea and Israel not to sign up to the International Criminal Court unlike virtually every other country in the world.

Whilst the US remains in this small 'Axis of Criminality' then the rest of the world can assume the worst when dealing with her. In return US troops and citizens will be treated well by the people from more lawful moral countries because they know that they can be prosecuted for war crimes or torture no matter who they are.

Cheers!

[Ellyllions]

Well, I know I'm going to get reamed for this but what the fuck...I can take it.

This is just another stalling tactic by the US government to keep from handling any real issues. Sorry, but that's how I see it.

We do not have the time or the actual need to revamp our side of the Geneva convention. Period. This "war" is on it's feet and rolling, we can't stop and change. And if we decide there is to be a change on our end, the rest of the world will do the same and that will throw everything off balance (acting as though there's any similance of balance now anyway) for a long damn time.

The only reason this is even being brought up has more to do with cultural differences than actual torture tactics. If we specify what is considered torture and what isn't we'll all be in a whole world of shit. The argument that specifying might cause people who take American troops captive to behave differently is bullshit. How would putting female panties on a US soldier's head (unless he/she is Muslim) be torturous or even defamatory. And if we decide that beheading is torture does anyone really believe that won't be done to anyone anymore? C'mon people....

Wars are fought and won with the use of real torture. We can't blindly believe that the US is going to define it and then stand by that definition anymore than another country or idealist will respect our definition.

Again, we're all being led to believe that the US Government (including this piss ass Congress and House) are trying to do something productive with their time.

...unless of course somebody in the Government has gotten wind of some real trouble on the horizon for them......lawsuit?, war crimes?

[sadaist]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh

Excuse me, I'm "making it up?" Um, when were you waterboarded pookey? The sensation of inhaling water "isn't painful?" Actually, I was taught "off-the-cuff," unofficial, physical pressure techniques in the the military. One way was to asphyxiate people by suffocating them using a particular technique, then reviving the person after they passed out. Repeating this would cause a headache worse than a migraine, I imagine waterboarding could be similar if the person loses consciousness? And BTW, I would have refused to do this under any circumstance, because mostly it's a waste of time...

How's that for "making it up?" Maybe when you serve in the military and receive your actual Geneva Convention training from JAGs, instead of reading selective portions of the GC cherrypicked on some right wing site, then you can accuse me of "making up" stuff, mmm'kay Sadiast?

Hold on just a minute there. You misunderstood my post. By "makng it up", I meant people who are captured then tortured. If they don't have info to give yet are still being tortured for info, they would most likely make it up. I didn't accuse you of making anything up. I know most posts in the FL are strictly mud slinging, but in this case I wasn't. (I wasn't even quoting you or responding to you when I made the statement).

And from my understanding, with waterboarding, you don't pass out. I haven't read about any headaches involved. Here is a quote I read this week explaining the technique.


Journalists Brian Ross and Richard Esposito described the CIA's waterboarding technique as follows:

"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess"

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by sadaist
Hold on just a minute there. You misunderstood my post. By "makng it up", I meant people who are captured then tortured. If they don't have info to give yet are still being tortured for info, they would most likely make it up. I didn't accuse you of making anything up. I know most posts in the FL are strictly mud slinging, but in this case I wasn't. (I wasn't even quoting you or responding to you when I made the statement).

Okay, understood.

But in the case of terror suspects, the fabrications can actually lead to off-track investigations and a waste of resources.

And from my understanding, with waterboarding, you don't pass out. I haven't read about any headaches involved. Here is a quote I read this week explaining the technique.

It depends on who you believe, and which technique is actually employed.

source: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/20...s_waterbo.html 24dec2005

What is Waterboarding? (Part II) By BRENDAN HYHAN / Blog 13feb2005

About a month ago, I pointed out that the Washington Post and other publications have published contradicting definitions of the interrogation tactic known as "waterboarding," which is either strapping someone to a board and submerging them under water until they think they are about to drown, or placing a wet towel over their face and dripping water into their nose until they think they are about to drown. While both tactics are brutal, the first seems especially horrific, at least to me.

So what is the right answer? When I contacted Post reporter R. Jeffrey Smith, he claimed that he was sure that the towel definition was correct based on his reporting. But New Yorker writer Jane Mayer uses the submerging definition in an article in the latest issue of the magazine:

According to the [New York] Times, a secret memo issued by Administration lawyers authorized the C.I.A. to use novel interrogation methods—including "water-boarding," in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, told me that he had treated a number of people who had been subjected to such forms of near-asphyxiation, and he argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. "The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience," he said.

The New Yorker is a carefully fact-checked magazine. It's possible Mayer is depending on the Times reporting, which uses the submersion definition, but it's hard to believe that wouldn't have been independently verified. Once again, what's the right definition? The mainstream media is continuing to fail to precisely define a key term in the debate over US interrogation practices.

Journalists Brian Ross and Richard Esposito described the CIA's waterboarding technique as follows:

"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last over two minutes before begging to confess..."

But:

"...The person believes they [sic] are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,' said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.' [1]

Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated 'a number of people' who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including 'water-boarding,'

in which a suspect is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns. An interview for the New Yorker states:

He argued that it was indeed torture. Some victims were still traumatized years later, he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience,' he said."

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Waterboarding-Definition-Wikipedia24dec05.htm#2

And here is the whole article:

CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described
Sources Say Agency's Tactics Lead to Questionable Confessions, Sometimes to Death

By BRIAN ROSS and RICHARD ESPOSITO / ABC News 18Nov2005

(The) interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.

They say they are revealing specific details of the techniques, and their impact on confessions, because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen. All gave their accounts on the condition that their names and identities not be revealed. Portions of their accounts are corroborated by public statements of former CIA officers and by reports recently published that cite a classified CIA Inspector General's report.

Other portions of their accounts echo the accounts of escaped prisoners from one CIA prison in Afghanistan.

"They would not let you rest, day or night. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Don't sleep. Don't lie on the floor," one prisoner said through a translator. The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album. The music was so foreign to them it made them frantic, sources said.

Contacted after the completion of the ABC News investigation, CIA officials would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment.

The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.

It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets."

One argument in favor of their use: time. In the early days of al Qaeda captures, it was hoped that speeding confessions would result in the development of important operational knowledge in a timely fashion.

However, ABC News was told that at least three CIA officers declined to be trained in the techniques before a cadre of 14 were selected to use them on a dozen top al Qaeda suspects in order to obtain critical information. In at least one instance, ABC News was told that the techniques led to questionable information aimed at pleasing the interrogators and that this information had a significant impact on U.S. actions in Iraq.

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

"This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," one source said.

However, sources said, al Libbi does not appear to have sought to intentionally misinform investigators, as at least one account has stated. The distinction in this murky world is nonetheless an important one. Al Libbi sought to please his investigators, not lead them down a false path, two sources with firsthand knowledge of the statements said.

When properly used, the techniques appear to be closely monitored and are signed off on in writing on a case-by-case, technique-by-technique basis, according to highly placed current and former intelligence officers involved in the program. In this way, they say, enhanced interrogations have been authorized for about a dozen high value al Qaeda targets — Khalid Sheik Mohammed among them. According to the sources, all of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated.

While some media accounts have described the locations where these detainees are located as a string of secret CIA prisons — a gulag, as it were — in fact, sources say, there are a very limited number of these locations in use at any time, and most often they consist of a secure building on an existing or former military base. In addition, they say, the prisoners usually are not scattered but travel together to these locations, so that information can be extracted from one and compared with others. Currently, it is believed that one or more former Soviet bloc air bases and military installations are the Eastern European location of the top suspects. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is among the suspects detained there, sources said.

The sources told ABC that the techniques, while progressively aggressive, are not deemed torture, and the debate among intelligence officers as to whether they are effective should not be underestimated. There are many who feel these techniques, properly supervised, are both valid and necessary, the sources said. While harsh, they say, they are not torture and are reserved only for the most important and most difficult prisoners.

According to the sources, when an interrogator wishes to use a particular technique on a prisoner, the policy at the CIA is that each step of the interrogation process must be signed off at the highest level — by the deputy director for operations for the CIA. A cable must be sent and a reply received each time a progressively harsher technique is used. The described oversight appears tough but critics say it could be tougher. In reality, sources said, there are few known instances when an approval has not been granted. Still, even the toughest critics of the techniques say they are relatively well monitored and limited in use.

Two sources also told ABC that the techniques — authorized for use by only a handful of trained CIA officers — have been misapplied in at least one instance.

The sources said that in that case a young, untrained junior officer caused the death of one detainee at a mud fort dubbed the "salt pit" that is used as a prison. They say the death occurred when the prisoner was left to stand naked throughout the harsh Afghanistan night after being doused with cold water. He died, they say, of hypothermia.

According to the sources, a second CIA detainee died in Iraq and a third detainee died following harsh interrogation by Department of Defense personnel and contractors in Iraq. CIA sources said that in the DOD case, the interrogation was harsh, but did not involve the CIA.

The Kabul fort has also been the subject of confusion. Several intelligence sources involved in both the enhanced interrogation program and the program to ship detainees back to their own country for interrogation — a process described as rendition, say that the number of detainees in each program has been added together to suggest as many as 100 detainees are moved around the world from one secret CIA facility to another. In the rendition program, foreign nationals captured in the conflict zones are shipped back to their own countries on occasion for interrogation and prosecution.

There have been several dozen instances of rendition. There have been a little over a dozen authorized enhanced interrogations. As a result, the enhanced interrogation program has been described as one encompassing 100 or more prisoners. Multiple CIA sources told ABC that it is not. The renditions have also been described as illegal. They are not, our sources said, although they acknowledge the procedures are in an ethical gray area and are at times used for the convenience of extracting information under harsher conditions that the U.S. would allow.

ABC was told that several dozen renditions of this kind have occurred. Jordan is one country recently cited as an "emerging" center for renditions, according to published reports. The ABC sources said that rendition of this sort are legal and should not be confused with illegal "snatches" of targets off the streets of a home country by officers of yet another country. The United States is currently charged with such an illegal rendition in Italy. Israel and at least one European nation have also been accused of such renditions.

source: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigat...ory?id=1322866 23nov2005

[Nickdfresh]

And then there's this little dity:

Operation Copper Green