NEWS: We Never Torture People, Unless You Count All Those Times We Tortured People

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."
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"We stick to U.S. law and international obligations," the president said, without taking questions afterward.
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Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that "highly trained professionals" conduct any questioning. "And by the way," he said, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

He also said that the techniques used by the United States "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress"
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"The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack," Bush said. "And that's exactly what this government is doing. And that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.

Mr. Bradbury appeared to be “fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,” recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official…

While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances.

Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, said he was “very troubled” at the notion of a probationary period.

“If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it,” Mr. Cooper said. “You’re implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job.”

The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.’s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture — the prohibition on “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment.

Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment.

At the administration’s request, Mr. Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department.

At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like waterboarding…

In the end, Mr. Bradbury’s opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the C.I.A.’s practices, according to officials familiar with the memo.

Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that “shocks the conscience” was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said.

USD1 said:
Well there weren't any terrorist attacks on the US since 9/11 so they might be getting information and helping the US populace. However, correlation does not imply causation so I'd take it with a grain of salt.

USD1 said:
Well there weren't any terrorist attacks on the US since 9/11 so they might be getting information and helping the US populace.

Necia said:
Not only is torture wrong, according to my personal ethics and the ethics of a fair number of other folks on earth, it's ineffective. So, no, I don't wonder for a second whether our violating international ethical standards for treatment of detainees and war prisoners and generally acting like an extreme global dick is making the US populace one iota safer. I'm certain that it's not.

Zarth said:
For some reason that's a point that's easily lost among torture's advocates in this country. They take it as a matter of course that it's effective, despite the compelling evidence to the contrary.

I suspect it has to do with a generally authoritarian (and behaviorist) worldview in which punishment reliably provokes compliance. Depite the daily evidence otherwise.

FearTheReaper said:

Maybe you should watch 24, you God damn hippie

Necia said:

Or, they might not be.

Or, also, the kind of person who would FUCKING FLY AN AIRPLANE INTO A BUILDING AND INCINERATE HIMSELF IN THE PROCESS probably isn't likely to give up the hardcore goods when some American slaps him in the head or makes him feel real cold or simulates his drowning or whatever, anyway. I can't really think of much that would be significantly worse than burning alive, personally. If you were willing to burn yourself alive in an attempt to harm the US, would there be anything that the US could do to you in Gitmo or wherever that would make you change your mind? I'm going to doubt it, personally. It's possible, but less likely than the alternative. That's my opinion, anyway--not being someone who would be willing to incinerate herself for all that many causes in the first place, and not being someone who's all stuck in Gitmo and shit. Take that for what it's worth, but that's my uninformed and inexperienced opinion.

Not only is torture wrong, according to my personal ethics and the ethics of a fair number of other folks on earth, it's ineffective. So, no, I don't wonder for a second whether our violating international ethical standards for treatment of detainees and war prisoners and generally acting like an extreme global dick is making the US populace one iota safer. I'm certain that it's not.

"I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country's good, some people will do a lot of it for the country's better," Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future.


"The problem is, once you've got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?" he asked.

emotedcreations said:
Haven't we gone over this already?

Subrosa said:

Not these two memos, no.

Necia said:

A lot of intelligent things

whycantitbemore2 said:
Fuck you people who dont believe that the United States of free people should exist. You will never know the sacrifice some make for you to be able to say what you can. I would like to see someone say something about the soldiers who died for your fucking freedom to my face. Your a fucking faggot if you say anything about the people who gave their life so you could live the one your living so comfortably.

whycantitbemore2 said:
Fuck you people who dont believe that the United States of free people should exist. You will never know the sacrifice some make for you to be able to say what you can. I would like to see someone say something about the soldiers who died for your fucking freedom to my face. Your a fucking faggot if you say anything about the people who gave their life so you could live the one your living so comfortably.

Subrosa said:
What the fuck are you even talking about? I believe in freedom, asshole. I believe in the rule of law (something that you clearly have no concept of). I believe in America and, most importantly, unlike you, I actually know what "America" means.

Yeah, call some more people faggots. That's really encouraged here. Keep doing it, cowboy. You're really going to make friends.

emotedcreations said:

See what I meant in that other thread?

Subrosa said:
Why should I let that slide? It's unacceptable and absurd.

whycantitbemore2 said:
I guess I am talkng out of turn and nobody will ever understand.

whycantitbemore2 said:
Toture is needed. Not saying its condemed but its needed. Think about this. If you were arrested in any country what country would you feel that you had the best rights in? Yep you guessed it... the United States. As a veteran all you people who say that torture is wrong are wrong in them selves. If I was captured I would expect to be tortured. To my death. As for the United States of America who I defend I can expect my killer to go free. I dont expect you people to agree but at least understand. You who live the life of free choice is given by so many. In every war there is a surrender. They accept to what the rest of the world believes in. So ultimatly anyone who believe what the terrriostis belive in wants to see every single free person dead. Dont kid yourself. Every single jihad person wants to kill you. I dont care who you are. I guess I am talkng out of turn and nobody will ever understand. They want us completly gone. They want their own religion as the rule of the world. When you are confined to what you can believe and what you can do then maybe you can finally understand what is going on. But until then good luck to you all...

whycantitbemore2 said:
Every single jihad person wants to kill you. I dont care who you are. I guess I am talkng out of turn and nobody will ever understand. They want us completly gone.

whycantitbemore2 said:
Fuck you people who dont believe that the United States of free people should exist. You will never know the sacrifice some make for you to be able to say what you can.