Hey, you're welcome. And you can call me Carlos or Charlotte if you like, it's all the same to me.
Not quite sure what to make of documents such as this (it's from the National Security Archive at GWU). It looks like a disagreement about what constitutes acceptable coercion - in the form of a field guide where someone has made some revisions. The date on the front is 1983.
I'm wondering if the MCA is more a reflection of the character of that strange edifice - the trans-atlantic security establishment - than anything else. Clearly there are some officials who, in the realist tradition, feel it's their job to discretely torture people. Of course, torture has long been 'controversial', is only likely to get more so: hence there's a official requirement for things to be legally tidy, preferably without a parallel requirement to change the way things are done. And some political enivronments are more receptive to that way of thinking than others.
Someone with more interest than me could probably trace a timeline of western alliance torture doctrine going back to French Vietnam, Korea or Malaysia. I bet waterboarding features heavily, mainly because it's a handy way of making death threat talk come real without actually having to kill someone straight away. And no marks, even.
Here's the question I got. If (as its backers claim) waterboarding is so efficient at extracting the truth, and if it doesn't cause any lasting damage (ditto); and if it's as cheap as it looks, why don't we adopt it as a cornerstone of our law of proof?
So if that's waterboarding "everybody breaks in less than two minutes" is clearly bullshit. That's twenty-four minutes to asking people to please stop.
I expect the rest of the empirical claims the right is making about waterboarding are just as valid.
Here's the question I got. If (as its backers claim) waterboarding is so efficient at extracting the truth, and if it doesn't cause any lasting damage (ditto); and if it's as cheap as it looks, why don't we adopt it as a cornerstone of our law of proof?
Obviously circumstances enter into it. Let's say I'm suspected, and guilty, of a crime. But you, my interrogator, can't prove it, because I am a Criminal Genius (but not Evasive Genius; hence, I've been captured). However, you have a method that is sure to win you the truth! You waterboard me and I, knowing that you regard waterboarding as unbeatably truth-productive, crack, and say: no, it was not I. Oops! Now, maybe you could keep doing it until I confessed, but so long as you're using it to get The Truth (and not some otherwise verifiable detail), either you're susceptible to liars, or you're just doing it to obtain a confession without actually caring about that confession's truth.
Actually, I was thinking more about that utopian world where waterboarding became common enough to be used in divorce court, loan applications, job interviews, and the DMV.
(Since, after all, it is a quick and foolproof technique of determining the truth which causes no lasting damage and is endorsed by men and women of probity with America's best interests at heart.)
But if some are still skeptical, perhaps there's a market solution! Waterboarding "rights" -- not to be confused with real rights, of course -- could be bought and sold against the miniscule chance that this humane and accurate procedure might accidentally cause a false positive.
You know, until this recent round of torture-approving controversy, I thought "waterboarding" was strapping someone to a board and then lowering them (or their head) into some kind of water tank - a situation where you would, in fact, drown if they held you under a bit too long. I'm fascinated, but almost disappointed, to see what the real technique is.
So if that's waterboarding "everybody breaks in less than two minutes" is clearly bullshit. That's twenty-four minutes to asking people to please stop.
Really? My reaction was exactly "oh holy fuck that's horrible."
Part of what makes torture torture is the fact that you don't know whether you'll be killed by your interrogators.
And if you know you're not, it's just simply an unpleasant experience? It seems the whole claim to efficiency rests on the assumption that the enemy doesn't know the technique and doesn't train its combatants.
Part of what makes torture torture is the fact that you don't know whether you'll be killed by your interrogators.
Hm, I don't know about this. Seems like knowing they won't kill you, but will just keep bringing you back day after day for more endless, excruciating pain counts as torture in its own right.
I know a woman who was tortured by (among other things) having her head held under water repeatedly so that she would feel she was drowning. I think the set up is slightly different, but roughly the same idea. This was years ago, in South Korea under the dictatorship. She was an unbelievably tough person (labour organizer, activist), but the one time I spoke with her about it, she just looked so horrified at the memory. I think about this every time I see a reference to waterboarding, and it makes me especially angry.
12: My point wasn't "Oh, that's not so bad" (although I can see that it did sound like that was what I was saying). What I meant was, the 'it would be irresponsible not to waterboard people' crowd are resting their arguments on the premise that it produces infallible answers in two minutes without leaving marks. How bad can two minutes of anything be? So it couldn't possibly be wrong.
If the video is right, you'd have to spend a lot of time drowning someone before they told you what you wanted to hear. Ugly.
I really don't know, LB. You noticed one of the guys was also putting pressure on his chest? Lying there, panic- and gag- reflexes going nuts, which messes with your mind, that shit'd be freaking hard to take. And if you'd be sleep-deprived and cold-celled for a long time before then, I really don't think you could stand it. Especially if the people doing it were hostile.
Several of my relatives were subjected to "the submarine" (the technique described by Chris) and the anecdotes are that sessions could last for hours. Also, it didn't always work; there was a tale about a guy who didn't break who, after being put in it for a good time, asked for a glass of grappa in exchange for one hour more of it.
There goes Al Gore, undermining our national security again.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 1:09 PM
Hey, you're welcome. And you can call me Carlos or Charlotte if you like, it's all the same to me.
Not quite sure what to make of documents such as this (it's from the National Security Archive at GWU). It looks like a disagreement about what constitutes acceptable coercion - in the form of a field guide where someone has made some revisions. The date on the front is 1983.
I'm wondering if the MCA is more a reflection of the character of that strange edifice - the trans-atlantic security establishment - than anything else. Clearly there are some officials who, in the realist tradition, feel it's their job to discretely torture people. Of course, torture has long been 'controversial', is only likely to get more so: hence there's a official requirement for things to be legally tidy, preferably without a parallel requirement to change the way things are done. And some political enivronments are more receptive to that way of thinking than others.
Someone with more interest than me could probably trace a timeline of western alliance torture doctrine going back to French Vietnam, Korea or Malaysia. I bet waterboarding features heavily, mainly because it's a handy way of making death threat talk come real without actually having to kill someone straight away. And no marks, even.
Posted by Charlie Whitaker | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 1:43 PM
Mistaken identity, if anyone missed the import of the first sentence of comment 2.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 3:12 PM
Here's the question I got. If (as its backers claim) waterboarding is so efficient at extracting the truth, and if it doesn't cause any lasting damage (ditto); and if it's as cheap as it looks, why don't we adopt it as a cornerstone of our law of proof?
Posted by Halfway Done | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 3:20 PM
I'm all for a National Institute of Torture myself. And a code of ethics that all interrogators have sworn to uphold.
Seriously, this stuff is only permitted because it's kept in the shadows by its practitioners.
Posted by Charlie Whitaker | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 3:41 PM
Shit, sorry about the mistake, guys. Fixed now.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 7:06 PM
So if that's waterboarding "everybody breaks in less than two minutes" is clearly bullshit. That's twenty-four minutes to asking people to please stop.
I expect the rest of the empirical claims the right is making about waterboarding are just as valid.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 7:12 PM
Here's the question I got. If (as its backers claim) waterboarding is so efficient at extracting the truth, and if it doesn't cause any lasting damage (ditto); and if it's as cheap as it looks, why don't we adopt it as a cornerstone of our law of proof?
Obviously circumstances enter into it. Let's say I'm suspected, and guilty, of a crime. But you, my interrogator, can't prove it, because I am a Criminal Genius (but not Evasive Genius; hence, I've been captured). However, you have a method that is sure to win you the truth! You waterboard me and I, knowing that you regard waterboarding as unbeatably truth-productive, crack, and say: no, it was not I. Oops! Now, maybe you could keep doing it until I confessed, but so long as you're using it to get The Truth (and not some otherwise verifiable detail), either you're susceptible to liars, or you're just doing it to obtain a confession without actually caring about that confession's truth.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 7:17 PM
Actually, I was thinking more about that utopian world where waterboarding became common enough to be used in divorce court, loan applications, job interviews, and the DMV.
(Since, after all, it is a quick and foolproof technique of determining the truth which causes no lasting damage and is endorsed by men and women of probity with America's best interests at heart.)
But if some are still skeptical, perhaps there's a market solution! Waterboarding "rights" -- not to be confused with real rights, of course -- could be bought and sold against the miniscule chance that this humane and accurate procedure might accidentally cause a false positive.
So what's the worry?
Posted by Halfway Done | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 7:38 PM
You know, until this recent round of torture-approving controversy, I thought "waterboarding" was strapping someone to a board and then lowering them (or their head) into some kind of water tank - a situation where you would, in fact, drown if they held you under a bit too long. I'm fascinated, but almost disappointed, to see what the real technique is.
Posted by Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 8:09 PM
10: My understanding is that some older, cruder variants do in fact take this form.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 9:50 PM
So if that's waterboarding "everybody breaks in less than two minutes" is clearly bullshit. That's twenty-four minutes to asking people to please stop.
Really? My reaction was exactly "oh holy fuck that's horrible."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 9:51 PM
Let's say I'm suspected, and guilty, of a crime. But you, my interrogator, can't prove it, because I am a Criminal Genius
This isn't really a hypothetical, is it?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 9:53 PM
Only one way to find out...
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 9:55 PM
Part of what makes torture torture is the fact that you don't know whether you'll be killed by your interrogators.
And if you know you're not, it's just simply an unpleasant experience? It seems the whole claim to efficiency rests on the assumption that the enemy doesn't know the technique and doesn't train its combatants.
Posted by trialsanderrors | Link to this comment | 10- 1-06 11:56 PM
Part of what makes torture torture is the fact that you don't know whether you'll be killed by your interrogators.
Hm, I don't know about this. Seems like knowing they won't kill you, but will just keep bringing you back day after day for more endless, excruciating pain counts as torture in its own right.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 12:04 AM
I know a woman who was tortured by (among other things) having her head held under water repeatedly so that she would feel she was drowning. I think the set up is slightly different, but roughly the same idea. This was years ago, in South Korea under the dictatorship. She was an unbelievably tough person (labour organizer, activist), but the one time I spoke with her about it, she just looked so horrified at the memory. I think about this every time I see a reference to waterboarding, and it makes me especially angry.
Posted by Chris | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 6:08 AM
bringing you back day after day for more endless, excruciating pain counts as torture in its own right
You're right. I should have said "not knowing how and if it will end."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 7:20 AM
12: My point wasn't "Oh, that's not so bad" (although I can see that it did sound like that was what I was saying). What I meant was, the 'it would be irresponsible not to waterboard people' crowd are resting their arguments on the premise that it produces infallible answers in two minutes without leaving marks. How bad can two minutes of anything be? So it couldn't possibly be wrong.
If the video is right, you'd have to spend a lot of time drowning someone before they told you what you wanted to hear. Ugly.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 7:51 AM
I really don't know, LB. You noticed one of the guys was also putting pressure on his chest? Lying there, panic- and gag- reflexes going nuts, which messes with your mind, that shit'd be freaking hard to take. And if you'd be sleep-deprived and cold-celled for a long time before then, I really don't think you could stand it. Especially if the people doing it were hostile.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 11:07 AM
Exactly -- it's awful, but not infailably mercifully brief. The RW spin is bullshit; this is real torture.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 11:55 AM
Several of my relatives were subjected to "the submarine" (the technique described by Chris) and the anecdotes are that sessions could last for hours. Also, it didn't always work; there was a tale about a guy who didn't break who, after being put in it for a good time, asked for a glass of grappa in exchange for one hour more of it.
Posted by Carlos | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 12:23 PM
Cue baa speculating that in that situation the grappa is the worse form of torture.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 10- 2-06 12:25 PM