Marty:

Are there any techniques in the Army Interrogation manual or even the techniques approved for police interrogation which are also not included among the techniques used by the communists?
 

Let's make it clear, this is not the "Chinese Water Torture" drip, drip, drip method, of which Lisa's bro provides his variation from the Colorado Blogging Under the Influence manual.
 

I am reluctant to say anything that could be interpreted as a defense of the U.S. interrogation methods, which seem to have been quite abhorrent. But I need to point out that the thrust of Biderman's journal article has been distorted by a selective emphasis on two facts: (1) that the compliance techniques were used by the Chinese during the Korean War, and (2) that the end result in those cases was often elaborate false confessions.

In fact, Biderman emphasizes a distinction between gaining compliance and directing that compliance to a particular end. For example, he reports that the Chinese used "more or less identical methods of gaining compliance for a variety of different ends-for eliciting factual intelligence information... as well as false confessions."

And, while he compiled his now-famous table of compliance-gaining methods from the reports of repatriated US airmen who had been interrogated by the Chinese, he emphasizes repeatedly that the techniques were the same as had been used for centuries by interrogators around the world. So "made in China" is rather stretching the point.

In fact, the truly most interesting point from Biderman's article may be a easily-overlooked modifier in his remark that the techniques were not original to the Chinese. He writes "The methods of gaining compliance they used included nothing which was not common practice to police and intelligence interrogators of other times and nations, where restraints precluding such tactics were not in force." I think those concluding words, "where restraints precluding such tactics were not in force" are the ones we ought to focus on. Implicit in Biderman's use of those words is an assumption that relatively humane, civilized nations would in fact put such restraints in place. Perhaps the U.S. of the 1950s did.
 

The article itself is online. You can find it here.

A few quotes:

Second, one form of torture was experienced by a considerable number of Air Force prisoners of war during efforts to coerce false confessions from them. The prisoners were required to stand, or sit, at attention for exceedingly long periods of tinme-in one extreme case, day and night for a week at a time with only brief respites. In a few cases, the standing was aggravated by extreme cold. This form of torture had several distinct advantages for extorting confessions.

....

Where the individual is told to stand at attention for long periods, an intervening factor is introduced. The immediate source of pain is not the interrogator but the victim himself. The contest becomes, in a way, one of the individual against himself. The motivational strength of the individual is likely to exhaust itself in this internal encounter. Bringing the subject to act "against himself" in this manner has additional advantages for the interrogator. It leads the prisoner to exaggerate the power of the interrogator.

...

For the interrogator, forced standing has still further advanitages. It is consistent with formal adherence to mythical principles of legality and humaneness important to the Communists. These principles are important in the interrogation-particularly in facilitating the adoption of a positive attitude by the prisoner toward the interrogator and the forces he represents. Adherence to these mythical principles also protects the interrogator from potential punishment at some future time for mistreating prisoners. The Communists, furthermore, can gain a considerablc propaganda advantage when victims who are released truthfully state that no one ever laid a hand on them.
 

The substance of this story was known and has been documented extensively on line since at least 2005 (especially by bloggers like Valtin, who has been writing for at least 2 years about the connection between Biderman's studies and the Gitmo techniques).

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/29/torture/index.html

What's most surprising about this NYT story is that the NYT thinks it's news that these are the techniques used in NK against US POWs...and so does Carl Levin. Chiz. The damned chart in question, released at Levin's SASC hearings, has the heading "Biderman's Chart of Coercion". Does anybody at NYT or SASC use the Google?

Where the hell did they think SERE got the torture techniques from?

As for the history of these techniques, again, that's well known and has been widely reported on line for years. The main schools of markless torture came together in the early 20th or late 19th centuries. They reflected the practices of European colonial powers, especially France and England, which did not want to face public outcries when they brought tortured prisoners into court in their colonies. So they developed systems of torture that would leave few external physical marks.

Similar systems were used for generations in the US by corrupt police forces, especially in the south where they were applied to black prisoners.

All of this is spelled out in published histories of torture.
 

I agree that much of the NYT article is not new. The only thing I got that I didn't know is that they posted the chart on the wall, and removed the name from the article.

I has been well known for some time that the United States and Canada jointly engaged in extensive research into the phenomenon of "brainwashing" by the enemy during the Korean War, that would therefore be the Chinese, even though many articles don't mention that. The studies carried out by Donald O. Hebb, Ewen Cameron, and John C. Lilly led to both sensory deprivation techniques and to the much fabled MKULTRA program.

The KUBARK manual is also online, as is its 1983 upgrade, Dick Cheney's memo castigating people for allowing the manual used to train Latin American torturers to be disseminated in the U.S. and many other related documents.

I'm really glad Scott Shane decided to give the issue prominence, I'm stunned that it comes as a surprise in 2008, and I'm still furious that he apes the Bush administration frame of "harsh interrogation". This stuff is torture, plain and simple, and the people who did it are criminals, the people who organized the system are guilty of crimes against humanity. Shane will never say anything like that in a newspaper that thinks that calling someone a liar is inappropriate and vulgar speech.

Furthermore, the fact that it only produces confessions is very well documented by now, in Philippe Sands' book The Torture Team, in the DOJ/OIG report on the FBI participation in interrogations, by accounts of the supposed "intelligence" derived from it by American interrogators. Confessions under duress are as valid as the assertion by the interrogator was, they have no truth value with regards to the person confessing. There is no sense whatsoever that any of this stuff can be justified by the need to know anything. Everyone needs to stop referring to them as "interrogation techniques". They are confession techniques. More to the point, they are torture techniques.
 

"Are there any techniques in the Army Interrogation manual or even the techniques approved for police interrogation which are also not included among the techniques used by the communists?"

Is that supposed to be a question Bart?

OK, I'll play...

The anwwer is NO, and I'm betting the Commies breathed oxygen just like our guys too.

And your point is?
 

charles:

Marty's guilt by association logical fallacy goes like this:

1) The CIA coercive interrogation techniques are also used by the Chicoms.

2) The Chicoms are evil.

3) Thus, the CIA interrogation program is evil.

However, this syllogism falls apart because every single interrogation technique of which Marty approves are also used by the Chicoms and are therefore evil.

This logical fallacy is the inverse of the logical fallacy that the CIA interrogation program must be evil because Good Country X disapproves of one or more of the techniques.

Instead of playing guilt by association games, critics of the CIA program would be better served by simply addressing each technique and making an argument why it should not be used.
 

Instead of playing guilt by association games, critics of the CIA program would be better served by simply addressing each technique and making an argument why it should not be used.

The point is that when the Chinese did these things we condemned them. And no, we did not condemn the Chinese for doing these things to uniformed soldiers but say they were just fine for captured spies. When the Chinese used these techniques, we condemned them as violations of universal human rights.

And now we have done the same.
 

From the text of the release that the military makes you sign before you are waterboarded as part of SERE training:

"'Water Boarding' is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the repiratory and neurological systems of the body."

["Believe Me, It's Torture", written by Iraq War supporter Christopher Hitches in the August 2008 Vanity Fair.]

Notice how the release langugage TRACKS the definition of torture under US law and the torture convention (i.e., severe mental or physical pain or suffering).

In other words, the US military ADMITS this is torture. But, of course, Bart DePalma knows so much more about it than the SERE guys.
 

What were we already?


"Israeli human rights groups have documented the routine torture of Palestinians by Shin Bet agents with "beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation". Amnesty has long reported the widespread use of torture by Israel, whose victims emerge as mere shadows of their former selves. Some never return. Israel is high in an international league table for its murder of journalists, especially Palestinian journalists, who receive barely a fraction of the kind of coverage given to the BBC's Alan Johnston."
 

dilan said...

From the text of the release that the military makes you sign before you are waterboarded as part of SERE training...

Read the the Hitchens article again. Like a handful of reporters before him, Hitchens engaged some "veterans" (ex soldiers) to perform a variation of waterboarding on him. This was not anything close to SERE training and soldiers do not sign releases before SERE or any other kind of training.

As part of the agreement, one of the parties had an attorney draft a broad release. It would be interesting to know whether it was Hitchens' attorney who drafted or demanded the terms of the release as part of the dramatic affect of the article.

As did all other reporters who underwent a variation of waterboarding, Hitchens reported severe panic, but absolutely no pain and no physical injury:

Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.
 

Lisa's bro may have had his DUI skills in mind, treating Christopher Hitchens' experience as mere "Martiniboarding" with perhaps Hitchens giving up so early because there was too much vermouth (how uncouth) and no Charles Dickens (olive'r twist).
 

Isn't associating an interrogation technique with the communist chinese to strengthen their demonization an association fallacy?
 

Marty:

This is off topic, but I thought you might be interested.

The N.D. Cal. just issued an opinion dismissing the Al Haramain suit which, if it survives appeal, should shut down the civil suits alleging the TSP violated FISA.

In sum, the opinion held that FISA preempts the State Secrets Doctrine, but itself provides no practical means of providing the discovery necessary to support a civil suit.
 

Bart:

You miss the point. In order to go through waterboarding, the SERE guys made Hitchens sign a release that was drafted by their military lawyers, which tracked the definition of torture.

Look, in the end, you don't really have an opinion that it isn't "torture"; rather, you have an opinion that the Republican Party is worth supporting and therefore you mouth whatever talking points are handed down. That's fine, but in the real world, this is clearly torure.
 

dilan:

"Veterans" mean "former soldiers." These SF vets are no longer in the military.

The military almost never permits its active duty soldiers to work second jobs and most certainly not as freelance waterboarders.

Moreover, JAGs do not draft business documents for service members.
 

Bart,

"Marty's guilt by association logical fallacy goes like this:

"1) The CIA coercive interrogation techniques are also used by the Chicoms.

"2) The Chicoms are evil.

"3) Thus, the CIA interrogation program is evil."

Ha --Marty isn't responsible for you fabricating a strawman argument.

The techniques aren't evil becasue the Chinese use them, they are are mala in se.

The Nazis, Soviets, and Chinese have used such techniqes for the same reasons the Bush administration uses them, and the US always condemened them for it. The hypocrisy, dishonesty, and malicious contempt for the law exhibited by the Bush administration is where the similarity is strongest, and their policies are identical in the most fundamental respect:

All them regard human beings as things to be used and discarded as needed without the least regard for the facts or the law -- and that's as evil as evil gets.
 

The techniques aren't evil becasue the Chinese use them, they are are mala in se.

Indeed. In fact, it would be accurate to say that the Chinese communists were evil, in part, because they used these techniques. The syllogism goes like this:

1. Anyone who tortures is evil.

2. The Chinese communists tortured people.

3. Therefore the Chinese communists were evil.
 

Folks:

If Marty thought that most others agreed with him that the CIA interrogation program was mala in se, then he would not have felt the need to offer the guilt by association fallacy.

The fact is that even the Dem press does not call these techniques "torture."
 

Bart,

Just in case you haven't noticed, Marty has been denouncing CIA interrogation techniques as mala in se for quite some time. (See any of his posts on the subject, just for instance). We condemned these techniques as mala in se when the Chinese first used them and have continued to do so since. The CIA has now adopted techniques that we long condemned as mala in se. How hard is that to understand?
 

Joseph Margulies made essentially this same argument in his book "Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power." The point that he drives home (and that really hasn't been emphasized enough) is that the goal of the North Korean tactics was to produce confessions that could be used for propaganda purposes, and the goal of SERE was to train resistance in those tactics.

But apparently we psychologized the techniques and thought we could use them, essentially, to destroy the personality of prisoners and unlock their brains to provide little bits of undistorted, unmediated information that we could then put into a larger "mosaic" of intelligence.

In other words, it's a story of bureaucratic translation gone awry.
 

Bart,

Oh BS: you're just lying, as usual.

It is torture, period. It's also a war crime for which there is no form of immunity or statutory limitation. It can be charged under something like 4 or 5 separate statutes, only one of which has the completely fraudulent problem of being (according to you neo-fascists) "unclear".

But there's nothing unclear about any of it, least of all you.
 

(PS - Here and above, I'm a different Brett from the who usually posts here, obviously.)
 

Brett #2, you may want to modify your posting name to avoid confusion.
 

Nah - I was Brett before the other Brett was.
 

enlightened layperson said...

Just in case you haven't noticed, Marty has been denouncing CIA interrogation techniques as mala in se for quite some time.

I never said otherwise. I posted that Marty is acknowledging that most others do not agree with him, thus the guilt by association arguments.
 

The fact is that even the Dem press does not call these techniques "torture."

There isn't any "Dem" press, except the one in your imagination, Bart.
 

"Marty:

"This is off topic, but I thought you might be interested.

"The N.D. Cal. just issued an opinion dismissing the Al Haramain suit which, if it survives appeal, should shut down the civil suits alleging the TSP violated FISA.

"In sum, the opinion held that FISA preempts the State Secrets Doctrine, but itself provides no practical means of providing the discovery necessary to support a civil suit.

"# posted by Bart DePalma"

False. In fact, the case was not dismissed, and the court held OPPOSITE your assertion.

Do you ever stop lying in behalf of Republican-controlled gov't, Bart?
 

The order in question is here:

IN RE: NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY TELECOMMUNICATIONS RECORDS LITIGATION, No. 06-1791 (N.D. Calif.)
 

Charles:

You are linking to an unrelated previous order of the Court. I linked to the ruling in question on my post concerning the Al Haramain suit.

jnagarya:

Read page 2 of the order:

Plaintiffs’ other causes of action are for alleged violations of the “separation of powers” principle in the Constitution, the First, Fourth and Sixth amendments and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But it is to plaintiffs’ FISA claims that the parties have directed their arguments and the court of appeals its attention. All of plaintiffs’ claims would appear to depend on FISA. This order, therefore, devotes itself exclusively to FISA and the question posed by the court of appeals remand.

For the reasons stated herein, the court has determined that: (1) FISA preempts the state secrets privilege in connection with electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes and would appear to displace the state secrets privilege for purposes of plaintiffs’ claims; and (2) FISA nonetheless does not appear to provide plaintiffs a viable remedy unless they can show that they are “aggrieved persons” within the meaning of FISA. The lack of precedents interpreting the remedial provisions of FISA, the failure of the parties to consider the import of FISA preemption and the undeveloped factual record in this case warrant allowing plaintiffs to attempt to make that showing and, therefore, support dismissal of the FISA claim with leave to amend.
 

Again some context
 

Previous?

That order is from the court's website where it's listed as:

07/02/2008, CV 06-01791, In Re: Nat'l Security Agency Telecommunications Records Litigation, [Judge] Walker
 

In the current issue of Time, Mark Twain is celebrated in essays including one by Roy Blount. Blount notes that Twain's writing, seen by many as old and stuffy, couldn't be more relevant:

"Waterboarding? In 1902, American soldiers were involved in a war to suppress rebels in the Philippines, which the U.S. had taken from Spain in the Spanish-American War, then decided to keep for itself instead of granting the Filipinos the independence they thought they had been promised. That outcome enraged Twain. So did "the torturing of Filipinos by the awful 'water-cure.'"

"To make them confess -- what?" Twain asked. "Truth? Or lies? How can one know which it is they are telling? For under unendurable pain a man confesses anything that is required of him, true or false, and his evidence is worthless."

I'd say Blount's point is well taken: some things haven't changed.

You thought they did when we signed Geneva. Turns out not.

Turns out we're prepared to be just as savage and stupid in this century as they were then. And all the law we put on the books since then, means nothing. Nothing.
 

jpk,

The law means exactly what we make it mean, and there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. If the United States really is a democracy and "a nation of laws, not men," then it's up to us to enforce the law.

I have no illusions that it will be easy, but it isn't optional -- and it's also an opportunity to make significant progress on some of the worst problems of human affairs.
 

Then we are in agreement: our Nation at present is not notably devoted to the rule of law, but we have the power to make it so, and one way we'll know that has been accomplished will be when the architects of torture are sentenced for their war crimes.
 

"jpk" --

In the current issue of Time, Mark Twain is celebrated in essays including one by Roy Blount. Blount notes that Twain's writing, seen by many as old and stuffy, couldn't be more relevant:

"Waterboarding? In 1902, American soldiers were involved in a war to suppress rebels in the Philippines, which the U.S. had taken from Spain in the Spanish-American War, then decided to keep for itself instead of granting the Filipinos the independence they thought they had been promised. That outcome enraged Twain. So did "the torturing of Filipinos by the awful 'water-cure.'"

"To make them confess -- what?" Twain asked. "Truth? Or lies? How can one know which it is they are telling? For under unendurable pain a man confesses anything that is required of him, true or false, and his evidence is worthless."

I'd say Blount's point is well taken: some things haven't changed.
_____

What a great find! Twain is the person whom I credit as crystalizing my pacifism. And he did so mostly with his anti-imperialist writings concerning the Spanish-American War, and especially the conduct of the US in the Philippines.

So I guess we can count on Barfin' Bart ceasing his mischaracterization of waterboarding as not being torture.
 

Charles Gittings --

"jpk,

"The law means exactly what we make it mean, and there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. If the United States really is a democracy and "a nation of laws, not men," then it's up to us to enforce the law.

"I have no illusions that it will be easy, but it isn't optional --"

No, it is not optional. The spineless mealy-mouthed equivocators such as Bart, who doesn't yet know the difference between, on one hand, political party, and on the other, country and rule of law, notwithstanding.

It is typical of outlaws to claim to be exceptions to the rules. And for those who hide behind the obscenity "patriotism" to pound their chests and bellow while making that claim.
 

I guess we can count on Barfin' Bart ceasing his mischaracterization of waterboarding as not being torture.

All it takes to convert any skeptic is a little personal experience.

You liked Twain, you'll like Lincoln: "Whenever I hear anyone defending slavery, I feel a powerful impulse to see it tried on him personally".

I was so sad Mukasey was somehow unable to say, yes or no, is waterboarding torture. I had an idea on how we could help the boy get to yes or no on this question. I had a Lincolnian idea.
 

"Bart" DeDicta:

The N.D. Cal. just issued an opinion dismissing the Al Haramain suit which, if it survives appeal, should shut down the civil suits alleging the TSP violated FISA.

A cursory reading of the opinion shows that Judge Walker not only handed the gummint's "state secrets" assertions a slapin the face, but severely blistered "Bart"'s big rosy a$$ WRT "Bart" (repeated ad nauseam) claims about preznitential spying powers not being subject to Congressional regulation.

Why "Bart" cited this is beyond me, unless he simply failed to read the opinion.....

Cheers,
 

Yes, indeed, Arne. Interesting that Barfin' Bart ignores my comments until he finds I made an error -- but not so much. This is a "Salon" article by one of the plaintiff attys. in the instant case --

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/09/alharamain_lawsuit/index.html?source=newsletter

Dunno how ta tell you this, Barfin' -- don't want to hurt your feelings and all, and won't praise your consistency because of the nature of it -- you're

WRONG.

The case survives, and is being pursued. Meanwhile, the court ruled that Bushit's illegal wiretapping, which violates both Fourth Amendment and FISA, is I-L-L-E-G-A-L.

The real focus of the case? Refuting, in law, the clearly anti-American and Hitlerian-extremist right-wing reactionary "Unitary Executive" "theory".

I wonder if Barfin' would approve of having to write a secret brief, under the oversight of opposing counsel, in response to a secret brief he were not allowed to read.

Or would he call that: CLEARLY UNAMERICAN!

That is the Bushit criminal enterprise's conduct of the DOJ -- v. Constitution and rule of law.

These Barfin' Batshit-crazy idjits who hate the world because Nixon and his criminal enterprise got -- properly -- caught are more than the sane can mostly stomach. How can defending criminality not verge on being itself criminality?

And then we learn that the person in charge at Arlington National Cemetary was fired because -- from "higher up": "She REFUSED to act INappropriately."
 

"Max Hailperin said...

"I am reluctant to say anything that could be interpreted as a defense of the U.S. interrogation methods, which seem to have been quite abhorrent. But I need to point out that the thrust of Biderman's journal article has been distorted by a selective emphasis on two facts: (1) that the compliance techniques were used by the Chinese during the Korean War, and (2) that the end result in those cases was often elaborate false confessions.

"[Etc.]"

Apparently you miss the irony:

NO ONE so hates the Red Chinese Commies MORE than the extremist right-wing members in the Bushit criminal enterprise that ADOPTED these techniques FROM a report about their use BY the Red Chinese Commies.

After all, they HATE the Red Chinese Commies because NOTHING done by the Red Chinese Commies is correct or defensible.

We see equivalent irony, as a consistent theme, from Barfin' Bart:

"Because torture is wrong, we oppose torture, so we torture alleged torturers in order to reduce the incidence of torture."