Are Navy SEALS subjected to water boarding as part of their training being tortured?
Holder: No, it's not torture in the legal sense because you're not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we're trying to do is train them --
Lungren: So it's the question of intent?
Holder: Intent is a huge part.
Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?
Holder: Well, it... uh... it... one has to look at... ah... it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act -- that is not torture.
Ignoring the fact that Spanish Inquisition, the Chinese, and the Japanese were not subject any torture laws, it seems that what is being tortured here is logic.
If Navy Seals are not being tortured, how is it that detainees are being tortured using the exact same method? I think what Holder is trying to say is that it is a question of intent to harm, but neither the terrorists nor the Navy Seals are harmed by the method. So I can't accept that water boarding is torture. If water boarding is deemed to be torture, then maybe we should just ask the terrorist "Pretty please, just tell us what you know." The terrorist says "No." Interrogator says "Ok. You can go."
7 comments:
One vital consideration is that the Navy Seal knows the end game: he will not die, he is being trained, tested. Others do not know that they will not be drowned. The level of terror (and it is indeed terror) imposed is mitigated by knowledge of the purpose and ultimate cut off points. Torture is indeed physical, but it is also very much mental.
From my point of view, the comparison doesn't work: knowledge of how far the torturer will go is the missing link that Holder was not prepared to address and that Lundgren was eager to exploit.
Tell me, as a young Navy Seal (and the Navy Seals know if they have half a wit), that I will be undergoing a method of torture in order to become stronger, that medical staff are present, and that there will be no permanent damage, that part of my proving myself is my conduct under the torture simulation, and I will mentally gird my mental loins and treat the entire exercise differently.
Tell me none of this, and water board me as a young, uneducated (Madrassas don't count as education) Taliban or even as some Al Qaida operative and I will see the entire exercise differently.
My conclusion: mental preparation/belief for or about water boarding is a defining factor in analyzing if it indeed qualifies as torture. I therefore believe that it is torture.
Holder was ill-prepared: the purpose of torture is to terrorize. And water boarding is terror by design.
Knowing the endgame is exactly why the release of our interrogation techniques is so scandalous. Now the terrorists can steel themselves as well, because they know the the interrogators will not do anything worse (which incidentally demonstrates our humaneness).
Those who are against water boarding fail to offer other methods of gaining information critical to the safety of our citizenry. If we can't subject terrorists to some level of duress, what then are government officials to do?
There is no feel-good answer. There is no nice way to get info, if it is gotten at all, if it is correct when forced out of them.
My point is let's call it what it is, no semantics. If we as a people have decided that we are going to torture at any level, let's not give it a technical name designed to make us feel better about it, let's just say, yes, we torture. I have already said that I am willing to accept it in very limited circumstances that are tightly monitored. Everyone seems to like to talk about slippery slopes, here's one if I've ever seen one!
One suggestion that makes sense to me is that we put more effort ($) into espionage. Prevention through augmented intelligence is better than torture but neither can guarantee success.
Well, if the terrorists didn't know that waterboarding won't harm them before.....they know it now. Our own government has publicized it quite well. It will no longer be an effective way to get CRITICAL information from terrorist. Now what can we use? Like Alan said, a pretty please won't get us an answer. Wimps!
My take...the enemy already know that we will not torture/cause duress or sleep deprive a captive to death. The dude that was waterboarded over 100 times should have figured that out after the 2nd, 3rd or 4th time. Crimany, after the 40th time, he might have been skipping down the hallway saying, "here we go again". I go to the dentist time and time again, not liking it but knowing that I will not die from it. I would presume after 60 times the dude figured it out that this was all just a result of his actions against the US. Punishment if you want to call it that.
Now that the terrorists know very well that ultimately they will not be harmed. It is no different than other military personnel who undergo the water boarding. At any rate, I agree that a precise definition of what torture is is an important topic for politicians to discuss, but I doubt it will happen. Such constructive discussions are foreign to politicians. It always turns into political point making and mud slinging.
Dad and I just discussed the problem of torture of the terrorists. He says that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. If it is to save the life of our people by getting info that way, we should. They didn't have any scrupulous when they flew on the towers in NYC. It can be a way to protect our country.
M & D
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