Abuse Or Torture

[Dr. Shane]

Are the interrigation techniques used by the US abuse or torture?

I am undecided if we should be using such techniques but I am not undecided about what I consider them. I consider them abuse. To me torture is cutting off fingers, cutting out tougues, electricuting, shoving needles up under finger nails, pulling out teeth with pliars, etc. From reports I have heard, some of the abuse has gotten out of hand. But that has been dwealt with.

Now if these prisoners have information like furture plans for attacks, I think we all agree that we would want that. How we get it is what isn't so clear. Abuse does work. We have gotten a lot of information from these detainees. Often times those being abused will say anything for the abuse to stop. That is true. But when 50 different detainees are saying the same thing, the story starts to have some merit to it. That is how they verify information.

Now I have been falsly arrested and imprisoned. It was not fun and cost me over $2K just to defend myself. So I am sympathetic to those in such situations.

[Nicodema]

I think torture and abuse are wrong, period, no matter what the situation. Our nation has a tradition of upholding "innocent until proven guilty" and to detain persons in prison who are not convicted of any crime, let alone abuse and torture them, flies in the face of this noble tradition. It is just plain wrong any way you slice it. It reminds me of the Inquisition, where people confessed to the most ludicrous nonsense about flying with demons on broomsticks (or WHAT EVER) to avoid being burned to death at the stake or just to make the torture stop.

I'm not sure 50 detainees HAVE said the same thing -- where did you read or learn of that?? Was it from an objective source or was it from a source that might try to justify the treatment of these detainees so the administration won't look bad? Or were you just offering a "for instance" there?

[Bravus]

(/me = so glad this topic is in a forum where someone else is moderator)

[bevin]

Historically there are three fundamental reasons why torture is a bad idea:

1: Knowing they will be tortured on capture causes soldiers to fight to the death, significantly increasing BOTH SIDES casualty rates without changing the outcome

2: People do NOT tell the truth under torture. They tell the torturers what they think the torturers want to hear. This results in many false accusations and bad information. Unfortunately, when you have an administration such as the Bush Administration that is simply looking for excuses to do what they want to do regardless of the truth, this just makes the situation even worse - and since the torturers tell them what they are supposed to say, 50 different witnesses does NOT confirm the statement.

3: It creates life-long enemies. Your people tortured me/my relative - I am going to do anything and everything possible to wreck vengeance upon you.

In short, it is well known to be counter-productive.

But the Bush Administration is not known for listening to either logical or history - so they are screwing up the USA's reputation and position by their stupidity and greed...

/Bevin

[Nicodema]

I hope those who support the Bush administration will be able to read the valid points in Bevin's post without being set off by his indictments against the administration itself. Those three points above are true and valid historically regardless of what regime they have been demonstrated under.

[Neil D]

Quote:

---

I am undecided if we should be using such techniques but I am not undecided about what I consider them. I consider them abuse. To me torture is cutting off fingers, cutting out tougues, electricuting, shoving needles up under finger nails, pulling out teeth with pliars, etc. From reports I have heard, some of the abuse has gotten out of hand. But that has been dwealt with.

---

I too agree that these prisoners are more abused than tortured. However, keeping prisoners awake for 36 hours straight, while abusive, tend to lend themselves to torture tacts.

While I agree the US should never use torture, I do believe that abusive techniques should be held in reserve, and used as a last resort and under dire circumstances. There are situations that may warrent those techniqes. But they are few and far between.

Quote:

---

But the Bush Administration is not known for listening to either logical or history - so they are screwing up the USA's reputation and position by their stupidity and greed..

---

From all the things that I am hearing, this is now a given, and we have to wait 3 more stupid years before the country will decide to put in a president that is far smarter than this ... [put in adjective of your choice that describes current president ] 2008 can't come fast enough IMHO.

[Neil D]

[:"blue"] Based upon this report, I am begining to wonder.... [/]

INDEPTH: GUANTANAMO

Guantanamo Bay

CBC News Online | June 13, 2005

The United States outpost at the eastern tip of Cuba is officially known as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, but for the people stationed there it's called "Gitmo."

It is in Gitmo where the "detainees" from what the United States calls the Global War on Terror are being kept.

There are reports that senior members of al-Qaeda and other "high value" suspects are kept elsewhere, including U.S. naval vessels at sea, the U.S. air base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, and Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Afghanistan.

The U.S. has occupied the Guantanamo base since 1898, leasing it from Cuba for some $4,000 per year. Cuban President Fidel Castro refuses to cash the rent cheques, calling the 116-sq.-km base "a dagger pointed at Cuba's heart." []http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/guantanamo/gfx/cuba_guantanamo_bay.jpg[/]

The first batch of 20 "detainees" arrived in January 2002, after a 20-hour flight from Afghanistan.

The prisoners wore orange overalls and some reports said they were sedated, their heads hooded, and they were chained to their seats and to each other. The U.S. calls them "unlawful enemy combatants," rather than "prisoners of war."

In early 2002, Washington promised to abide by the Geneva Conventions governing POWs – despite the men's status as detainees – but since the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, there have been increasing questions just what the United States policy is.

The first open-air, high-security prison was known as Camp X-ray. The cells had a metal roof, but each was open to the elements. This precaution was taken in order for guards to be able to see prisoners at all times.

Camp X-ray was replaced in April 2002 by a newly-built long-term prison known as Camp Delta. The prison can accommodate up to 2,000 prisoners and features enclosed cells, each with its own flush-toilet and running water.

According to the U.S. State Department, in April 2005 there were about 520 detainees on the base from more than 40 countries. At that point, 232 detainees had left Guantanamo Bay: 149 were released and 83 were transferred to other governments.

In January 2005, the U.S. military revealed that 23 prisoners tried to hang or strangle themselves during a mass protest over several days in August 2003. There were 10 such cases on Aug. 22, 2003, alone. However, the military recorded only two of the 23 incidents as suicide attempts.

The military has reported 34 suicide attempts since January 2002.

In 2003, there were also 350 incidents of self-harm, including 130 "hanging gestures."

Releases from Camp Delta

In late October 2003, a Canadian, Abdurahman Khadr, was released from the prison, but was sent to Bosnia. From there he returned to Canada, where he told CBC News he was recruited by the U.S. as a double agent.

At least one other Canadian, Abdurahman's younger brother, Omar Khadr, 16, is being held in Cuba. Omar is suspected of killing a U.S. serviceman in Afghanistan. In February 2005, his family told reporters the boy was being abused at Guantanamo.

In November 2003, five Pakistani prisoners were released and, days later, another 20 left the prison, although their identities and nationalities were not released.

It was only in February of 2004 that the first of the Guantanamo detainees were charged. Two men – Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi of Sudan – were charged on Feb. 24, 2004, with conspiracy to commit war crimes.

They are expected to be tried by military tribunal, but those tribunals were suspended indefinitely when a U.S. court ruled them unconstitutional in November 2004.

In March 2004, the U.S. military released five British prisoners and sent them back to the U.K. Four of the men were arrested under the Terrorism Act. The other was detained by immigration authorities. All five of the men were released without charges.

Three of the men later said they had been systematically abused while in Camp Delta. Their lawyers prepared a 115-page report based on their allegations that they were beaten, injected with drugs, deprived of sleep, hooded, and subjected to body cavity searches, and sexual and religious humiliations.

In January 2005, the Pentagon said it had built a new, 100-cell prison at Guantanamo Bay. If Congress approves the expenditure, there will be a second 200-bed prison, built at a cost of $25 million US. Both are designed to hold people defined by the Pentagon as terror suspects who no longer have intelligence value but who, for lack of evidence or other reasons, will not face military tribunals. The plans are apparently to hold those suspects indefinitely.

Criticisms

In May 2005, Newsweek magazine ran a story about U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrating the Qur'an to get inmates to talk, including placing the holy book on a toilet and, in one case, flushing it down the toilet. The report sparked anti-American riots in Afghanistan in which 17 people died.

The magazine later retracted the story, saying it was based on a U.S. government source whose story was in doubt. In June 2005, the Pentagon confirmed a list of abuses to the Qur’an, calling them relatively minor.

The abuses include: splashing urine on a prisoner and his Qur'an, stepping on and kicking the Qur'an, throwing water on it, and scratching an obscenity on the inside cover.

The commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre said there were also 15 cases of detainees abusing their own Qur'ans, including "attempting to flush a Qur'an down the toilet and urinating on the Qur'an."

Lawyers in the United States are continuing to challenge the Bush administration policy in Guantanamo. In January 2005, one U.S. district judge ruled that the prisoners should be covered by the U.S. Constitution, noting, "the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law is one of the most fundamental rights of the U.S. Constitution." The administration has appealed the ruling.

Britain's third most senior judge, Judge Johan Steyn, has criticized the U.S. for holding terror suspects in Guantanamo, calling it a "monstrous failure of justice."

"By denying the prisoners the right to raise challenges in a court about their alleged status and treatment, the United States government is in breach of the minimum standards of customary international law," he said.

The International Red Cross has also condemned the prolonged detention of military prisoners at the base.

In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the detainees could challenge their detention in court.

In response, the military set up the Combatant Status Review Tribunals to determine whether the prisoners are being held properly. The tribunals began in late July 2004. Lawyers for the detainees, however, have said the tribunals are a sham and are ''designed to prevent this court and other district courts from conducting the … proceedings envisioned by the Supreme Court.''

By November 2004, there had been 325 hearings. Only two tribunals recommended that detainees be released. Then the review hearings were stopped by another ruling by the U.S. Federal Court, which ruled that the Bush administration was wrong when it declared detainees were not entitled to full prisoner of war status.

[Dr. Shane]

You have failed to identify if you think the abuse which takes place at Gitmo is torchure or simply a form of abuse.

I agree torture is wrong. That is one of the reasons we removed Saddam and the Taliban. Cutting out toungues with razor blades, shoving ice picks into eye balls, electricuting genitals, pulling teeth with pliars, etc is clearly wrong.

Is making a man shiver and sleep in his own urine the same thing? Is that torchure or mental abuse?

[Nicodema]

(Tagging on)

My opinions about "the war on terrorism":

The catchphrase is meant to function as yet another tiresome buzzword that can be applied to anything/anyone we dislike -- just like "commie" was in the McCarthy era. It has no intrinsic merit nor use other than this new witch hunt.

We are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with other people whom we define as terrorists because they wage war back.

Hence, the "war on terrorism" is like the "war on drugs". It simply cannot be won. There will always be new "terrorists" just like there will always be new drug suppliers and users. It is an excuse for waging a potentially endless campaign, or justifying any war.

Moreover, it is the one "war" in which we are becoming that which we hate and war against in the process of presumably rooting it out.

The only real enemy is enmity itself.

Seeing all these things, I do confess I have no solution for making them practical. The propaganda is so universally accepted nowadays it is difficult to make headway in breaking its stranglehold.

I would vote for anyone who could, though.

============================

Those are my opinions. They do not constitute any deliberate indictment of anyone holding different or opposite positions, so I would appreciate it if such would refrain from making indictments toward me over having shared them. Thank you all for your anticipated cooperation.

[CyberGuy]

I have read the kind of interrogation that goes on there.

1. Sleep deprivation. (Loud music is played and the lights are turned up high to prevent sleep) This was used against David Koresh and his followers at Waco by the FBI and ATF.

2. Prison cell is heated up to 100 degrees then down to 40 degrees without blankets. Plenty of water is provided though.

Is this torture? Possibly, but this is only done when the person has info that is needed such as Al Qaida operations. If the person had info that was needed fast then I have no doubt drugs such as truth serum would be used as well. Most of these detainees have cracked within a few days of these kinds of interrogation tactics.

[Nicodema]

Quote:

---

CoAspen said:

However, I have an addittional question! You make the statement "wage war back", how does that apply to the perpetrator's of 9/11?

---

That's a sticky question to pose to someone who views 9/11 in a very different way from most people and who has judiciously chosen to keep such views to herself rather than take flak for them.

A short but simple answer: given that supposition that appearances are reality in this case, I would have no other choice but to class 9/11 as a terrorist action. However, this makes neither Iraq nor Iran terrorist "states". It is WE who are the invaders and occupiers in Iraq, yet when Iraqis fight back it is termed "insurgency" rather than defending of their own land.

I'm keenly aware of how the media slants war and ongoing conflicts to paint one side the villian with terms like terrorist and insurgent. For example in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. You won't hear an Israeli action (in our media) referred to as terrorism. Only the Palestinian actions are called terrorism while the Israeli actions are called "defending". YET in reality it is Israel who is occupying the land and the Palestinians are defending it. It is Palestinian land, Palestinian territory. Any time there are Israeli deaths they refer to terrorism and/or insurgency, but when only Palestinians are dying the media refers to "a time of calm" in the Middle East.

Well I'm sure this has opened a can of worms and I'm going to be slammed for it by those who accept the media slant and wartime propaganda.

Oh well. You asked.

[Dr. Shane]

If we want to communicate effectively we need to use the termanology that is being used in the arena of ideas. I have known some conservatives that refuse to call homosexuals "gays" because they claim there is nothing gay about it. Well, it doesn't matter to me if they call themselves blue popsicle sticks. If that is what they want to call themselves, I will use the same termanology.

The Bush Administrations has labeled our present conflict the "war on terrorism". That is fine. I use that termanology so everyone knows what I am talking about. The Administration is fighting terrorism with no holds barred. They have restructured the FBI, Border Patrol, CIA and created the Department of Homeland Secruity and Transportation Security Agency. They passed the Patriot Act which gives them the same ability to go after terrorists which they have for organized crime. They have sent the military into two countries which harbored and trained terrorists. They have worked with several countries to cut off the money supply to various terrorist groups.

If previous Administrations had fought the war on drugs with as much zeal as this Administration has been fighting the War on Terrorism it would have been much more successful. Like the Vietnaum War, the war on drugs has not been an all-out war. The government knows what it needs to do to win the war on drugs. It simply doesn't want to do it. The biggest step would be to build a 30' concrete wall along the border, except in tourist areas that are heavily patrolled.

Terrorist hate us because we support Israel. It is that simple. We support Israel because after the Holocaust we were committed never to let something like that to happen again. The Palastinian problem could have been resolved years ago if the surrounding nations (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) would have granted Palastinians asylum in their respective countries. The Arab world has contrbuted as much to that problem as the Jews themselves have. If it were not for the US support, the Arabs in the area would have completed the job Hitler started. The radical Islamics understand that and hate America for preventing their "divine" cause. If we want peace with them we must abandon Israel.