We Don't Torture

[Pete C]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090114/...tanamo_torture

[Monte Smith]

Yeah, "torture."

[Gary Sisco]

Don't run your mouth if it hasn't been done to you. Or better, your loved ones.

It's arrogance like that that makes me scoff when Americans express surprise over the way other people see them. There was a headline today that x former Guantanamo prisoners had "returned to terrorism."

I had to shrug. Can't blame them, really. If I'd been treated by anyone as they have been, that anyone would do very well by always looking very carefully all around himself, all the time, and never even think about sleeping again, because there would be consequences forthcoming. Believe it.

[Gary Sisco]

In fairness and for the sake of accuracy, it should be said that torture isn't new. American spooks have long been known for getting other nationals to do the torturing for them -- including in their presence. Deniability. What was new under the Buscists was not making any bones about it.

I am deeply shamed, however, that torture has become just another addition to the laundry list of "issues" in the US.

There was a reason, after all, that they went to such lengths in the past to be able to deny their actions.

That's all gone, now.

Morality is in people's imaginations, today, if there.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Don't run your mouth if it hasn't been done to you. Or better, your loved ones.

OK.


I'll bite...when were you a victim of torture, Gary?

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Yeah, "torture."

We didn't approve of it when it was done to us by the Japanese.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by sonic1

We didn't approve of it when it was done to us by the Japanese.

Or the Vietnamese.


Point?

[Scott Dolan]

His point is perfectly clear.

But, since you need it explained:

We didn't approve of the Japanese torturing our soldiers by waterboarding, so we shouldn't use the tactic ourselves.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

OK.


I'll bite...when were you a victim of torture, Gary?

Man, must you always undercut yourself with dumbass statements? Sisco did the duty, you didn't...

So.....best to keep the mouth shut, maybe.

[Ron Thorne]

Wow.

There are some absolutely amazingly naive and ignorant posts on this thread, and it's a short one at this point.

[sonic1]

I think goodie is on the drink again. Or I hope at least he has a good excuse like that. Otherwise...

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Man, must you always undercut yourself with dumbass statements? Sisco did the duty, you didn't...

So.....best to keep the mouth shut, maybe.

Agreed.

Gary never said he was tortured. But he certainly understands the concept, as we all should.

And as he said, we shouldn't run our mouths about it or make light of it as my good friend Monte did.

Torture does not need quotation marks around it.

As Master "Aebly" would say, it is what it is.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

As Master "Aebly" would say, it is what it is.

Aebly does not need quotation marks around it either.

Monte should be ashamed of himself.

[Gary Sisco]

Here's a challenge for scoffers: Have your wife duct tape your arms and legs to a wooden chair so you can't change your position. Tape your torso too while you're at it. Tell her in advance that regardless of anything you say, she's not to let you free til the six hours is up.

Hey, it's just sitting in a chair.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Uli

Monte should be ashamed of himself.

Perpetually.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Hey, it's just sitting in a chair.

Yeah, Rummy was able to sit in chairs as well as stand.

[Pete C]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/holder_confirmation

[Gary Sisco]

Here's another simpler one, which was incidentally used in boot camp as punishment: Stand straight facing a wall so that both your nose and your toes are touching it. Stand there for a few hours, no moving, no shifting your weight, nada. Just stand. Let me know how it feels after four hours. No cheating. Scoffers who cheat are cowards.

[rollhead]

Curious: Was there a single person in elected office, Republican, Democrat, Green or Independent, who stood up and said that waterboarding is torture and demanded that this country not torture?

I can't think of anyone.

Nor can I think of anyone in elected office who condemned FISA, which allows illegal warrentless wiretapping, as being an assault on the Bill of Rights.

I know that Constitutional lawyers Jonathan Turley and Glenn Greenwald condemned FISA, but I can't think of anyone in elected office who did. Perhaps Russ Feingold?

[Gary Sisco]

That's why they invent euphimisms. It helps make talking about human torcher a subject for polite society.

None of the scoffers will volunteer for either of the above, never mind for a waterboarding, which is also easy to try at home if our tough guys want to put their bodies where there mouths are.

They don't. Don't worry. Aint a one of them has balls enough to try it.

[Gary Sisco]

Here's another one easy to do at home. Sit, not pace, sit outside on your porch, no sweater or any kind of winter gear. Just sit in the cold for a few hours, no cheating.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by rollhead

Curious: Was there a single person in elected office, Republican, Democrat, Green or Independent, who stood up and said that waterboarding is torture and demanded that this country not torture?

I can't think of anyone.

Nor can I think of anyone in elected office who condemned FISA, which allows illegal warrentless wiretapping, as being an assault on the Bill of Rights.

I know that Constitutional lawyers Jonathan Turley and Glenn Greenwald condemned FISA, but I can't think of anyone in elected office who did. Perhaps Russ Feingold?

Feingold and Dodd were both very outspoken about FISA. IIRC, Feingold was the only one to filibuster the immunity bill.

Of course, he was also the only one to filibuster the renewal of the PATRIOT Act.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

I'll bite...when were you a victim of torture, Gary?

High school English

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Here's a challenge for scoffers: Have your wife duct tape your arms and legs to a wooden chair so you can't change your position. Tape your torso too while you're at it. Tell her in advance that regardless of anything you say, she's not to let you free til the six hours is up.

Hey, it's just sitting in a chair.

Sounds kind of kinky! Can I have a go?








I am of course kidding. I think the torture is abominable and like I said, we would not want these things to happen to our soldiers, and if done to our soldiers, the right would be displaying a very different rhetoric.

[Gary Sisco]

If our English teacher could read he'd have noted that one of the most common torture practices was used as punishment when I was in basic training. I know what it feels like and I have seen young American men collapse while doing it. I have seen them collapse as well by being forced to remain at attention for long periods of time, and for the same reasons.

Go on and try it. Stand at attention against a wall. Remember that no shifting around or moving is permitted. You must remain entirely still. I think you'll find it amazing how much it hurts after a time.

I also have seen the results of torture on other people in both Nicaragua and more especially in El Salvador during the 1980s (the latter is a classic example of places where the CIA watched foreign nationals do their torturing for them).

In any case, I was unaware that a human's opposition to torture rested on experience of torture. Opposition to torture until the Bush years was a common moral stance taken by nearly everyone, everywhere.

I am more ashamed of these practices and other violations of Geneva than I am of anything else done by the Bush admin or anyone else in my lifetime. It makes me physically ill.

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Here's a challenge for scoffers: Have your wife duct tape your arms and legs to a wooden chair so you can't change your position. Tape your torso too while you're at it. Tell her in advance that regardless of anything you say, she's not to let you free til the six hours is up.

Hey, it's just sitting in a chair.

I've seen it done as a prank and the look an the guys face was enough for a few of us to step in before it became a hazing issue.

[Gary Sisco]

It causes real pain after awhile. Because of Bronwyn's quadriplegia, I've seen some real suffering from her being forced to spend large amounts of time in what amounts to one position. I adjust her position to some extent, of course, but I'm not always around. It creates a savage pain requiring regular doses of opiates to deal with it. And it can, and often does, lead to skin breakdown and open wounds. It's no joke.

Torture doesn't have to be, and in truth rarely is, the bamboo shoots under the fingernails routine. The most common form of torture of all is sleep deprivation, which eventually leads to real psychosis and fear. It's what makes meth monsters dangerous, actually. Sleep-deprivation psychosis. Take it over a long period and it becomes insufferable.

I had a friend who did twenty years in the American prison system's "control units." His cell and everything in it were painted white. Electric lights on 24/7. Constant surveillance both human and camera. No cellmate. No interaction with other prisoners. 23.5 hours/day in the cell. He went for more than 10 years without seeing himself in a mirror or eating at a table with another human. No music. Heavily regulated mail and reading. It would break most men, long before they hit double-digit years.

[Gary Sisco]

Somewhere online there is footage of Hitchens volunteering to be waterboarded because he was a scoffer. They gave him metal cylinders to hold in each fist. All he had to do to get them to stop was drop the cylinders. It's probably on You Tube. He lasted only a few seconds before dropping the cylinders and he made it clear afterwards that, yes, it is terrifying and it is torture. It forces the body into the same involuntary physical actions that drowning produces.

Again, hey. It's not that difficult to do. If you think it's not torture, try it. Let me know how it comes out.

[Gary Sisco]

Here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58

[Gary Sisco]

"I'd do anything" to get them to stop, he says.

Yes, and he'd also *say* anything.

So would you.