Maybe we should hold off on telling Andrew what our interregators do to books.

I once tried to tell Andrew why he liked buggering men's anuses. He dismissed me as a theocrat and told me he was the "true" conservative between the two of us.

Do you know who else was a bore with e-mails but will answer all your emails because apparently nobody emails him?

Michael Wolff. He used to write for the New York Magazine as a media critic/Bush basher. Michael's prose is easy to remember. He over-uses parentheses. Half of his text will be him parenthetically writing. Very annoying and gives the reader the impression the writer is constantly talking out of the side of his mouth.

The truth is the guy doesn't know how to write. He got into the habit of using parenthetical brackets to throw in snide remarks (like Gollum).

Anyway, Wolff is easy to toy with if you ever need to poke fun at a Bush bashing hoity toity metrosexual.

Mock executions are prohibited by international law? What idiot do we have to thank for that idea? We can't even threaten people with death? It reminds me of that now "infamous" picture of the shrouded detainee with his arms outstretched and disconnected wires attached to his hands, thinking he'll be electrocuted if he doesn't talk. So what? If it doesn't hurt, it's not torture. It scares the crap out of you? Good!

My default position is to be opposed to torture (actual torture, not this Haunted House BS) unless someone can convince me that it can actually be relied upon to generate accurate information. If I were convinced of that, I'd have no qualms about inflicting pain or death on a would-be accomplice-to-murder in order to save the lives of innocent civilians or our troops.

But scaring the snot out of them? Have at it.

Sheeeit...

That stuff looks like a scout picnic compared to what the drill seargents at Ft. Dix circa 1976/77 were doing.

I would have volunteered for Gitmo in a heartbeat.

Several years ago, Bart, a friend of mine carried on a long, long hostile email conversation with Ted Rall. Rall wasn't all that notorious yet, but I was still surprised that he would spend so much time arguing with a stranger in a private venue. Doesn't seem like a career enhancing use of time, to me.

If Andrew Sullivan really cared about ending torture he would stop blogging.

I bet after Andrianna Sullington finished reading about waterboarding, he immediately called out to the boyfriend, "Quick, put the beagle in the cage and bring me an inclined board, some cellophane tape, and a bucket of water... oh, and sweetie, could you be a fawn and put on the leather hood... this is gonna be even better than when you hooked up the car battery to my genitals!"

This many comments, and even one from Bart, and yet no one has seen the funny juxtaposition of Sully and the phrase "gag reflex."

The "attention slap" as described occurs nightly in bars across America - American women are enablers of torture!

Oh the humanity!

.

Re: torture - what's striking (heh) about is that EVERY FUCKING STORY ABOUT TORTURE took place about TWO YEARS ago.

Seems the issue of 'torture' has beens resolved.

I'm all for *clarifying* the rules of who gets to torture terrorists and what they can do to in the course of their sessions. But I don't see how Sullivan swooning over these stories is going to help matters.

.

Ummm.... That isn't waterboarding. At least not quite.

I've been waterboarded as a part of SERE training (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) while training as a Naval Aviator. Their first part of the description is correct- you're restrained on an inclined table/board, etc. In my case, no celophane was used - they held a wet towel over my face (which holds your head down as well) and poured water over the towel.

The water goes up your nose and you choke/gasp sputter, and yes - you think you're going to drown. That's the point. That's what makes you talk. It is a mental exercise however since you actually can't drown - the water can't travel uphill to your lungs since they are above your nose/mouth geographically.

It's a terrifying experience.

Anyhow, if we do it in training to our own Navy pilots, why can't we do it to actual real-world terrorists?

Grendel - how far can the instructors at SERE school go? I mean, are we 'torturing' our own pilots more severely than actual terrorists?

I hear that we've moved on to newer techniques since "pink belly." They're getting these hardened terrorists to open up by using the "wedgie" and the "swirly" now. I'm still researching exactly what they are and how horrible their effects are.

Shut the f*ck up already, Andrew. Men are trying to win this war for you, so you can continue to take ecstacy at Madonna concerts without being blown up.

With that one line I just realized the true beauty of the internet and blogs. A columnist or TV pundit could never get away with (or wouldn't try anyway) a perfect line like that. Yet it so clearly needs to be said.

People NEED to read that, understand it. Heck, Sullivan sure as hell needs to read it.

I too went through SERE school in 1975 and as the SRO, was subjected to the water board three times. Even though I understood that this was training, I don't believe I've ever experienced a more terrible ordeal. As Grendel said, you really feel as if you're drowning. I was also executed (gun held to my head and the trigger pulled on an empty chamber, of course). That was a surprize!
My point? What torture? What has been described sounds just like the SERE training I went through and, though it sounds 'extreme' it just doesn't describe torture as I understand it. Where's the bamboo shoots under the fingernails? The rod beating at the souls of ones feet? That's torture.

Holy cow, Grendel. Thus confirming for me that the biggest contribution I ever made to the defense of my country was staying the hell out of the military. That which does not kill me makes me a gibbering pussy.

So, you're okay with torture, as long as it doesn't leave any permanent damage or anything. Good to know, I suppose.

Slub,

I honestly don’t know.

SERE is a bizarre experience while you’re in it. It’s immersive and very realistic. They starve you and beat you down for days in order to give you the smallest taste of what it would be like if you were really captured. I can’t go into all of the details, but suffice it to say that it is very convincing – you’re really glad to leave.

As far as how far the instructors are allowed to go – I have no idea. You don’t get opportunities to engage them on a real world level (i.e. when they aren’t acting the part of bad guy guards/interrogators) until the very end and by then you’re too worn out to care. I don’t know what guidance they are given, but I do know that they are monitored very carefully.

These people are amazing professionals at what they do to train aviators. As I understand it, they rotate in and out of the camp regularly to get them away from it: the fear is that they will get a little too “into” their role – the whole environment is very intense and despite the fact that you know academically that it isn’t real, it begins to seem VERY real after a while. I can see where that is even more true for the folks who do it day in and day out for several years.

Anyhow, the training was invaluable, but I’d never want to do it again in a million years.

Sorry if that doesn’t answer your question.

Grendel - answers my question pretty well, actually. Thanks for the info.

Sort of, SparcVark. I guess if it doesn't do actual damage, I don't regard it as torture. If you think all discomfort applied to a human being to coerce behavior is torture, and therefore out of bounds, you've got a lot of work to do.

Every gotten a snootful of teargas? It feels like you've been kicked in the face by a horse; it's incredibly intense pain if you get a good dose. Nothing can convince you you aren't being horribly injured. Yet, we routinely apply this sadistic torture to induce crowds to disperse. In preference to, say, shooting into them. We've already made the decision as a society that pain without damage is acceptable in times of crisis.

Why would you insist on a higher standard of treatment for terrorist caught in the field?

so, are wet willies pretty much out now?

I suppose Human Rights Watch would also take a dim view of purple nurples and a couple of vigorous rounds of compulsory dodgeball.

That would get 'em to talk, I guar-aun-tee.

I went through SERE and had plenty of time on the waterboard. There is no cellophane over your face. Seems like the CIA is trying to sound like it isn't so bad, it is. In SERE, as they do it, one guy has his hand around your throat as they drown you, he is either a doctor or a corpsman monitoring your pulse. The only thing I had going for me is the knowledge that these guys were not trying to kill me. Absent that, it would be terrifying. Anyway, fuck these terrorists.

I spent part of the weekend following SERE with my father-in-law, a highly decorated combat veteran. He was apalled at my black, blue and yellowed bruises and more, because of the fact that they were administered by 'our own'. I agree with Grendel- Invaluable training but ONLY ONCE. Please.

I didn't know that waterboarding was a part of SERE training. So this would have been something that, say, a Vietnam era National Guard pilot would have experienced first hand?

Just askin'.

I could understand Andy's alarm if there weren't rules for this sort of stuff. "Rough treatment" can get away from you pretty quickly if it isn't well defined ahead of time and if it isn't limited in it's application. We've detained some 83,000 people over the last four years. Most we let go cause they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. (i.e. standing on an empty street just outside of an IED blast zone) I'd hate to think we were doing this kind of stuff to everybody, but clearly we're not.

Though I would like to see one further restriction. You must have a specific question you suspect the prisoner has the answer to, not just general info trawling, otherwise how do you confirm quickly enough to know if you're being lied to and need to ratchet up or down or change tactics altogether. But I suspect this is probably already in place.

How we treat prisoners isn't just about human rights. It's also about all the good PR we generate when we presume innocence and treat with fairness those who have been detained mistakenly. It's an excellent opportunity to win favor.

Don't get me wrong. Andy is a disingenuous psychotic and a deeply stupid man. But Bush has made a serious error in not creating a legal designation for terrorists. They aren't covered by Geneva Con. obviously and they shouldn't have access to Federal courts under our Constitution either, but rule of law is absolutely paramount in the exercise of power. We need some kind of formal framework so that we can identify and end abuse quickly when it occurs. And simply as a matter of principle conservatives should, I think, be deeply suspicious of the exercise of power outside written regulations and well defined parameters. We need something even if the actual details aren't known. Bush has fallen down here and I think he wouldn't have HRW, ICRC, or The Assclown making the kind of PR headway they have made if he had just submitted his Executive authority to conduct warfare to more detailed restraint. Or if he had better defined who the enemy is legally.

Nothing on that list even begins to resemble torture except for waterboarding. That said, I think waterboarding does constitute torture. Torture, as understood under both international law and U.S. domestic law (google "18 USC 2340") defines torture as severe physical or mental harm. In the case of mental harm, that injury must be prolonged. The prolonged harm might be as insignificant as recurring nightmares or flashbacks (this is even what the so-called "torture memos" from Justice and DoD state, so don't think this is just some bleeding-heart talking).

The experience of waterboarding is traumatic enough for people who've gone through SERE; and in that case, the waterboarder and waterboardee are on the same side. Imagine what it must be like if the guy doing the waterboarding is your sworn enemy.

I'm NOT saying that we shouldn't ever waterboard terrorist suspects, but let's not pretend like it's not something at least close to "torture."

Sorry Mike, i have to disagree.

I've had no "permanent damage" from my experience.

No nightmares, no therapy, nada... It was a terrible experience sure, but no damage was done AT ALL.

I don't know you, and I mean you no offense, but people like you, with opinions that are bases on intellectual exercises rather that direct experience are part of the problem here.

Don't presume to be able to make an opinion about something that you know nothing about.

Mike,

If it's part of SERE training, doing it to terrorists is OK with me. Period. We are not engaged in systematically torturing our own servicemen. Any argument that it qualifies as "torture" is an argument to redefine the word.

If George Bush could take it, so can a Loonistani terrorist.

At least we don't use an Oldsmobile for waterboarding like a drunken senator.

I don't know you, and I mean you no offense, but people like you, with opinions that are bases on intellectual exercises rather that direct experience are part of the problem here.

Don't presume to be able to make an opinion about something that you know nothing about.

If we apply this logic to every discussion about policy or law wouldn't we be having some pretty small conversations? I personally have never been water boarded but if it helps get the required information from people who saw the heads off innocent civilians then I am all for it. In fact, I am all for whatever process works. These are not soldiers we are fighting. These are madmen who are trying to win through terror.

A little return of serve from the Great Satan might make some of them rethink their positions.

I wish I could go back and edit my first post, because it suggests something I didn't intend.

Grendel, I don't think your SERE training constituted torture or that you may have suffered permanent mental harm as a result. My apologies for conveying this impression.

But I think waterboarding during interrogation occurs in a different context than waterboarding during training, and this alters the nature of the experience, just as getting punched by a hoodlum in an alley is different than getting punched during a boxing match. SERE training is traumatic enough, and I think it would be far worse experience when done by the enemy's interrogators, even if they employed the same waterboarding methods.

For one thing, waterboarding during SERE training is done by fellow soldiers and superior officers; people whom you trust don't want you to die or suffer permanent damage. That isn't the case for a detainee who is waterboarded by his enemy. Additionally, there is some degree of voluntariness to waterboarding during military training (even if doing so might have reprecussions on a soldier's career). Can a person being interrogated refuse to be waterboarded? I doubt it. These factors make the experience more stressful and also more likely to cause lasting mental harm.

To stress this once again, I don't think waterboarded should be prohibited in all circumstances. But believing that isn't the same as believing that it doesn't ever constitute torture.

We need something even if the actual details aren't known.

And of course how do you know that this something DOESN'T exist then?
I believe that the official classification of those in GITMO et all is "enemy combantants"
While I agree with the basic principal that I would not W to have powers that Hillary! could wind up with, you seem to presume to much evil coming from the White House without any evidence to back it up.

But then again I would like to see these people GET their full Geneva rights:
"So your fighting the US military, but you're not wearing a uniform or carrying Military ID?"
"Yes we shall bring death to the Infidels"
"Alright, another spy. Time for the Black Jack Pershing Special caliber treatment"
BLAM
"Next"

Mike, don't you think worrying about the quality of terrorists' sleep is a little over the top? What data do you have to show that waterboarding cripples people psychologically? Or that the reaction to it is less pronounced when someone from your own side is doing it to you? We are talking about involuntary reactions, right? Your position strikes me as long on theory, short on facts and a little oversensitive.

Mike & Grendel-

The point that Mike makes concerning the context when applying the 'Waterboard' is accurate. The training environment and the subject's condition is surely much different than in a real world scenario. (BTW: At the time I went through, the 'student could refuse to participate in any scenario but the consequence was removal from the school and removal from overseas deployment-a career killer for a Naval aviator.) That being said I found the board an extremely effective way of extracting information to the point that the threat of repetition could be as effective as the application itself (personally speaking). I do not consider it 'torture', though.

...But I think waterboarding during interrogation occurs in a different context than waterboarding during training, and this alters the nature of the experience, just as getting punched by a hoodlum in an alley is different than getting punched during a boxing match. SERE training is traumatic enough, and I think it would be far worse experience when done by the enemy's interrogators, even if they employed the same waterboarding methods....These factors make the experience more stressful and also more likely to cause lasting mental harm.

That's the whole F'n point, isn't it? I, for one, have no problem with our guys water boarding a known terrorist. Hang em upside down, dump a little water down their nose, let them think they may drown. No problemo.

Are the details of SERE training declassified now? I remember it being alluded to but not specified during the original "torture!" flap.

Re: VRWC Agent

"Mike, don't you think worrying about the quality of terrorists' sleep is a little over the top? What data do you have to show that waterboarding cripples people psychologically?"

1.) Don't confuse me for a bleeding-heart. Personally I have no moral problem with torturing certain people, though I think for practical reasons its usage should be very limited. I just don't think it's intellectually honest to say that waterboarding doesn't at least come close to torture, as I have no doubt we'd be labelling it as such if an enemy did it to either a U.S. civilian or soldier by an enemy (And please don't say that I equating terrorists to U.S. soldiers, as I'm not. Wondering whether an act is torture is quite different than wondering whether its okay to torture some people (e.g., terrorists)).

2.) I'm not talking out of my a__ when I suggest that waterboarding in the interrogation context might cause prolonged mental harm. My job has required me to read a lot of jurisprudence on what constitutes "torture" under both domestic and international law. I can't recall a case dealing with waterboarding, but I do recall reading of several instances when treatment less traumatic IMHO than waterboarding was considered torture (e.g., certain "mock executions," threats to a subject's family and friends, repeatedly shaking the person).

Men are trying to win this war for you, so you can continue to take ecstacy at Madonna concerts without being blown up.

funny that this somewhat addresses the test I would give Sully to see if it is just BDS or whether he really stands behind his position. Drugs are the way we need to go to get information out of these terrorists. If Sully believes that is also wrong, than he is just a poseur.

Mike, I'll go back to my earlier position: If waterboarding, threats and shaking a person constitute "torture," you have redefined the word. That a judge may have actually said this reflects on the judge, not the techniques.

"If Sully believes that (drugs) is also wrong"

he doesn't have searchable archives, so it's hard to say, but I'm pretty sure I've seen him say that psychotropic drugs are also gob-smacking vile.

Which leaves us with, you guessed it, harsh language. Maybe not even that, as he is also filled with heart-ache over the prospect of guards denigrating Islam to their captives.

Sullivan has not been a serious writer for quite some time. His ideology is incomprehensible unless viewed through the prism of his acute case of BDS.

Sullivan is once again doing what he's best at - trying to take a position against something without actually coming out and saying he's against it. Before the election, it was clear to everyone that he had no intention of voting for Bush. On his blog, however, he pretended he was undecided right up until he wrote a preposterous essay saying he'd vote for Kerry, because the Democrat was the "true conservative" in the race.

Again, it's obvious to anyone who dares read Sully that the man does not approve of torture, but that he's too friggin' spineless to just come out and say it. I don't think he's seen how ridiculous he looks by saying he supports some forms of coersion while at the same time ruling out any form of coersion.

So Water Boarding isn't Surfing?

That's right no wet willies, no purple nurples and absolutely under no circumstances can you use titty twisters.

As an alum of Fort Dix - January '78 I know of what Purple Avenger speaks. The worst/best experience of my life.

Would it be "torture" to dig a pit near the prison, throw in half a dozen pig carcasses and let them rot there for a few days, mix in a few fake arm-and-leg props off the set of CSI to make it look like there are dead Muslims in the pit with the pigs, and march the detainees by the pit once a day and remind them that's where they'll end up if they don't tell us what we need to know?

Really, their insane fear of all things pig seems like a weak spot to me. Like Kryptonite to Stupid, so to speak.

The titty-twisters we can use for back-up.

Deliberately causing severe psychological stress (like making someone who did not volunteer to be a Navy Seal think, and instinctively feel, that they are drowning, gag, sputter, *is* torture according to treaties against torture. This should not be so difficult. Pointing a gun at a prisoner, spinning the chamber, and telling them you will pull the trigger unless they give information would also be torture, even if there were no bullets.

Deliberately causing severe psychological stress (like making someone who did not volunteer to be a Navy Seal think, and instinctively feel, that they are drowning, gag, sputter, *is* torture according to treaties against torture. This should not be so difficult. Pointing a gun at a prisoner, spinning the chamber, and telling them you will pull the trigger unless they give information would also be torture, even if there were no bullets.

Okay, then.

So what?

Do you think we should not engage in such activities if it will help save the lives of soldiers and civilians? Should we put the psychological well-being of mass murderers ahead of the lives of those they seek to kill?

Paul, I would appreciate a citation for the section of the treaty that says waterboarding is "severe" psychological stress and therefore banned. We may want to withdraw from that one.

Give your money to anyone but Andrew Sullivan, man.

Waterboarding is torture under U.S. law, brainiacs.

Congress has defined torture.

As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality

I guess real men don't believe in following standards of morality and law.

That definition seems to cover compulsory dodgeball, too. Talk about your severe mental pain or suffering!

And that's before we even get to the tittie-twisters ...

...the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering...

Huh. So threatening to hurt somebody and then not doing it is torture? Makes it kind of hard to define what you call it when somebody pulls out fingernails with pliars or unspools intestines through a hole in the abdomen. Really, really torture, I guess.

I suggest your Congressperson and register your outrage at Congress's lack of sadism.

And anyone who would seriously compare waterboarding to dodgeball is a knuckle-dragging baboon.

"I suggest you contact your contact person" should be how that begins.

If Congress is too civilized for folks, they can always move to countries where this kind of stuff is legal. I hear Syria is beautiful this time of year.

I suppose in a world where mass deportations are "genocide" and every unpopular leader is Hitler, threatening to hurt somebody might be torture. I have a bad feeling we're going to need those words to mean something real again someday, and we'll have broken them.

Oh, well. I guess we can make new ones.

“severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm ...

Not seeing it yet, Sparky. But please don't interrupt your paroxyms over the gobsmacking vileness of it all. You can just blow me when you're done.

Shut the f*ck up already, Andrew. Men are trying to win this war for you, so you can continue to take ecstacy at Madonna concerts without being blown up.

Perfect putdowns like this are what make Ace the king.

And anyone who would seriously compare waterboarding to dodgeball is a knuckle-dragging baboon.

I'm pretty sure baboons don't actually drag their knuckles.

In any event, no, I wasn't being "serious." I was being facetious. Sarcastic, even.

But since you seem to be humor-impaired, counselor, I'll help you out: when you see that sort of comment aimed at your precious, overwrought, grandiose, self-important pronouncements, it's a safe bet that I am making fun of you.

While we're at it, just think of how many more crimes we could solve if only we'd drop those silly rules against cops torturing criminals.

And anyone who would seriously compare waterboarding to dodgeball is a knuckle-dragging baboon.

And anyone who makes comments like this is an asshole. We're having a conversation here, junior, so fuck off and let the adults talk.

Well, when you have to stifle your basic human instict to be outraged at ACTUAL genocide, torture and oppression for so long, you've got to let it out somewhere. This is one of their few politically correct targets since it, luckily, lets them fufil the more important requirement of Hating George W Bush.

He must have lost a few marbles

Hmmm, I think we should take a step back and put this into perspective.

Im from the UK (Scotland) first off, never been in the army, dunno any army dudes. Torture etc has been banned here for 100s of years, we banned torture before America was America and when you could still get 5 pigs for a horse!

We are up against a rutheless enemy that has no morals and really, lets face it, nothing to lose except a life of poverty and hardship but with everything to gain and worst of all ... theyre using religion. Religion has been at the forefront of all our earliest histories and is one of the worst driving forces you can fight because when an enemy has nothing but beliefs they will go all out to please their maker and join him.

These people class us (anyone not on their side and China included) as the enemy and if they were to march tomorrow and kill us all what would they do? They would start fighting each other, its as simple as that. They battle over land, then they battle of countries and they would never have peace until only one of them was in control and then theres everything that goes with that. Its a world war we're in right now because if we dont win this our fundamentals are threatened, you know, freedom, lineage and stuff and on that note I would use torture and execution, yes execution. But you would have to be 100% correct in saying 'they are a bad guy'.

Why?

Its pretty simple in my logic, they are armed, they're trying to kill our soldiers but we let them live because they are fewer in number, they're crap shots and run outta bullets so surrender? Umm no, if you have a good reason lemme know.

They should be detained and evaluated. We need any info they have and at the same time why should we give them the luxury of life and hope when they would not afford that to us? However if they co-operate and have some intel we could extend them some leniancy, theyre worthless and they die there and then though. I dont care what country they are from, I wouldnt have let the 3 terrorists that were detained and had Brittish passports etc live either, screw them. By leniency I mean we dont use the bacon at their execution, its done private and they get a full ceremony -otherwise kermits gf is gonna be attending the ceremony, gotta give them some motivation to give up info.

The problem with this planet, apart from the nutters, is there are too many do-gooders helping the wrong people, all this anti war crap and people going to be human shields, should be supporting your own country and the decisions its made in this matter. All those that went as shields for Saddam I wouldnt let back in the country except on penalty of death. Its the same people that took capital punishment away and then bleated like stuck pigs that crime has gone up. Its the same people that say dont smack your kids then wonder why their car got stolen by a gang of 10 year olds. Its the same frickin people that right now are saying 'dont torure bad guys and stop terrorism'.

Waterboarding would be renamed to 'bacon drip' if it was up to me. All the greatness of waterboarding but in addition you show them a few nice choice rashers of bacon, Id probably go for smoked for effect as well, anywho, you put it on their chest, waterboard as normal once and then ask 'so what happens when you die with pig on you?'. Id probably execute the other ones with a high powered, high calibre gun with hanging pig in front of them and in full view of any new detaines and all the cell blocks.

These people signed their own personal destiny when someone talked them into going to another country and coming at our people.