Have We Softened Up On Torture?

I am surprised at how the right forgets the things they say! Let's go back to Aug 08 ???He pals around with terrorist? Pals to me means a friend if I remember correctly so when rush says he's (pals) you???re calling him a (terrorist/sympathizer) if nothing else. But you tricks think that's okay!
Next example!
For 100 years waterboarding has been acknowledged as torture, we've even had people around the world charged and convicted and executed for it. Only when you did it, did it become "enhanced" interrogation techniques"! I fought in a war for this country and know what danger it puts our soldiers in during future battles if they get captured! Because you just said it was okay if you say you got some made up Intel! Everybody will torture and just make that excuse and call it ???Enhanced interrogation" You break the same law and then get mad when people point it out! Then when you campaign for office you say you are for the rule of law! (Only when you???re making the rule)
What are you really? "A bunch of criminal liars who have been caught"! And the problem is you put it in the history books! And now you???re telling others not to accept what's in them. (Torture) You can't and won't change the definition now, simply because it's you who committed the crime.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but after the Abu Ghraib pictures were published and we analyzed them in a class, I didn't think much about torture. That is, until I saw a very brief but very memorable moment in the movie "Iron Man", when the future hero is waterboarded in Afghanistan. Pop culture may desensitize some people against the violence of torture, but "Iron Man" and shows like "24" at least keep the concept in the public consciousness.

Discussing whether torture woks or not misses the point: torture is illegal and always has been in the United States. The US tried and executed Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding American prisoners, American soldiers were tried and imprisoned for waterboarding Viet Namese and American police officers were convicted of torture in the 1980s. Judging by some of the comments to this article, there are many Americans who would bring us down to the same level as the Nazis, the North Koreans and the Chinese during the Korean war. If we give up our American values, then the terrorists have won and brought America down to their level. That there are so many Americans who consider themselves patriotic, yet would do this is scary, to say the least. That some of our former elected leaders allowed this to happen is abominable and should at least be made known publicly.

Dahlia,

Congress has defined the law against water boarding well enough for it to have resulted in the prosecutions of Texas Sheriffs and Deputies for using it to force confessions.

In US v Lee, 744 F.2d 1124 (5th Cir., 1984), the Federal Appellate Court upheld their convictions in the Federal District Court For The Southern District of Texas.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said:

"Lee was indicted along with two other deputies, Floyd Baker and James Glover, and the County Sheriff, James Parker, based on a number of incidents in which prisoners were subjected to a "water torture" in order to prompt confessions to various crimes ... At trial, Baker's defense as developed by his counsel and his testimony rested on two points. The first was that he actively participated in only a single torture episode, and then only because ordered to do so by his superiors -- a "Nuremberg defense." The second was that while he believed the torture of prisoners immoral, he did not at the time think it was illegal."

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/744/744.F2d.1124.83-2675.html

The convictions of all of the law enforcement officers were upheld and affirmed.

This case would be easy for any of those lawyers and law professors to find. The law on water torture is very clear.

In fact the penalty for it is death if it causes the death of the person being tortured:

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/04/el-cid-vs-joe-six-pack.html

That a debate of the value of torture could occur is clear evident of the fact, American is not just financially bankrupt but morally and intellectually bankrupt as well.
The tone and character of the debate on the value of science is a clear indication of the intellectual bankruptcy although there are numerous other examples.

JohnGaltLakeTahoe should be banned for spamming.

I believe that American truly lost more in the "War on Terror" than anyone could have imaged it's soul.

James Anderson
Ballwin, Missouri

I just read your article on "have We softened Up on Torture? I certainly hope that it doesn't reflect a true picture. I am outraged that my country resorted to torture. I think those responsible, that is, those who made it seem okay, those who approved it should be brought to court and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If we don't I fear that it will happen again.
Mary Spaulding
Redding California

It's real simply Dahlia Lithwick, you quirky ignoramus.

Why don't you offer yourself like Hannity, who has since not responded to many calls for him to actually do it, get water boarded yourself. Softened up on torture? We outlawed waterboarding specifically after the Spanish inquisition you freaking idiot!!!!

Newsweek... Dahlia's articles are LAUGHABLE!

Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:

1.Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did ??? all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.

2.Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.

3.Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time ??? even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents' lives ??? wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect, and he can provide information on al-Qaida ??? for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama bin Laden himself were captured ??? could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?

4.If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the government.

5.Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American and other civilians?

6.Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer (Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that lifesaving information was gleaned from high-level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, "We were very certain that the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having." If, then, the intelligence community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?

7.Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?

8.Would you agree to release the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you agree to photos ??? or at least photo re-enactments ??? of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn't context of some significance here?

9.You say that America's treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives, especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America's far more moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan's treatment of American prisoners in World War II have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that evil people care how morally pure America is?
If you don't address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than about vengeance against the Bush administra

PS. Tell your pal Tim Noah , Lithwick,that he was being dishonest in his recent SLATE article that messed up the timing of the LA bomb plot and KSMs later capture, as there was specifically inserted into the memos, a ''second wave'' of attackers that were to strike LA AFTER the capture of KSM ,who revealed the presence of this second group. After it was concretely discovered by Obama s own JD that released GTMO detainees were rejoining al Qaeda in Yemen, Obama must now ponder the release of seven Ugyar -Chinese Islamic detainees into the United States within the next month and how these will either support the ''human rights''crowd in doing nothing, or act as a new al Qaeda cell inside of this nation that will lend support to the Cheneyists.

Seems that Lithwick won't be getting her showtrials after all, and is running a sour grapes screed to explain it. Lithwicks leftwinged blindered viewpoint had always maintained that the Bush Republicans were the Sith masters of these policies until it was helpfully explained that many Democrats were in this thing up to their eyeballs, creating inertia in allowing Durbin and Leahy to go forward as neither of these two want to see Hoyer become the next Speaker of the House,as they can deal with the tractable Pelosi. Then too, the GOP has the Democrats by the short hairs and they know it, with several Democrats caught up in corruption scandal. All the GOP need do is fume through a showtrial and then turn their fury on the crooks [Mollohan, Murtha, Moran,Visclosky, Jackson,Rangel, Dodd], which is not what the Democrat leadership desires. As I have maintained, this deal will die a less-than-quiet death, with a few more instances of grandstanding before the curtain falls. Policy will be quietly changed, and formally entered into the books, CIA will get a few more attaboy backslaps by Obama, and that will be that.

treeman make your point already then shutup

How about considering the case of Timothy McVeigh who was also a terrorist? America???s treatment of him and his family by no means has matched that of Aafia Sidiqqui (the MIT educated neuroscientist) who was disappeared for awhile at the hands of America???s finest in intelligence, and went from a vibrant woman to a shell of a human being. One can only guess the type of treatment that she received while on the lam, and perhaps being held at a black site, while she waited extradition to the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave. What accounts for all this bias that our justice system has demonstrated against people who have values and religious beliefs that run contrary to the accepted dogma of the State. Prejudice, and a pre-determined outcome that is later given whitewash and glossing from the media.

McVeigh was brought to justice swiftly given the trail of solid evidence. If there is similar solid evidence in the case of those suspected of being allied with Al Qaeda, then why not bring them to the same fate as Timothy McVeigh, and just as swift. Why do Americans rationalize so much the cycle of victimization that the entire War on Terror has brought to our shores? Could it be that the intelligence elite are in bed with many of the perpetrators, and do not want to destroy fresh allegiances that they may be pledging to failing regimes in the Middle East.