T1B

As taken from JSC's gay marriage thread:

mvscal wrote:

PSUFAN wrote:Some folks are outraged by torture and a casual disregard of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act...

Neither of which has happened.

I am saddened that mvscal could turn away from the evidence that's been coming out regarding American torture of prisoners on the one hand (with the outrage psufan speaks of regarding whether or not many of those 'prisoners' should have been, on top of how torture was treated top-down), and evidence about the major phone companies assisting Bush's anything but 'Patriot Act' by invading Americans' privacy by monitoring phone calls without a warrant on the other. But then, how many of us didn't believe the British and the Germans regarding the CIA torture camps? How many of us still don't?

Mvscal, why do you disagree with PSUfan?

Why not just raise the question in that thread?

Short leash? Bitch should be on a shock-collar.

mvscal and I agree that you're a dumbfuck. He'd still put aioli in your fish taco, though.

mvscal wrote:

Risa wrote:I am saddened that mvscal could turn away from the evidence that's been coming out regarding American torture of prisoners

There is no evidence of torture as a matter of policy. Waterboarding, sleep dep and other psychological tactics are not torture.

Yes, prisoners have been abused on occasion. It happens. It's part of war. The difference is that we prosecute it. We do not encourage it.

Yea, that's why when Japanese soldiers used waterboarding on our troops, we sentenced one of them to 15 years hard labor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02005.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

mvscal wrote:

Risa wrote:I am saddened that mvscal could turn away from the evidence that's been coming out regarding American torture of prisoners

There is no evidence of torture as a matter of policy. Waterboarding, sleep dep and other psychological tactics are not torture.

Yes, prisoners have been abused on occasion. It happens. It's part of war. The difference is that we prosecute it. We do not encourage it.

Human Rights Watch: 'No Blood, No Foul': Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq

I. Task Force 20/121/6-26/145 Camp Nama, Baghdad

Some of the most serious allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq since 2003 have concerned a special military and CIA task force—known at various times as Task Force 20, Task Force 121, Task Force 6-26, and Task Force 145—charged with capturing or killing high-level combatants.1 Its targets have included Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, but also hundreds of anonymous, and often innocent, detainees. Through most of 2003 and 2004, the task force maintained a detention and interrogation facility within Camp Nama, at the Baghdad International Airport (often called “BIAP”). The camp was off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross,

as well as ordinary military personnel. 2 The task force moved to another location near Balad in the summer of 2004, and also reportedly maintains outposts in or near Fallujah, Ramadi and Kirkuk.[/quote]

When I see 'off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, I think about the Nazi special that was just on PBS, where the Nazi's set up an entire potemkim prison camp of jewish families, not allowing the Red Cross to see what was really going on in Auschwitz -- then after the Red Cross stopped monitoring the families, the Nazis cremated ALL OF THEM.

What were Americans doing in that camp that made it off-limits to the Red Cross?

Sergeant “Jeff Perry” was an interrogator with the special task force at Camp Nama during the first half of 2004. ... Jeff described the interrogation facility at NAMA as “a normal-sized building, maybe even a small building,” with five interrogation rooms: the black room, the blue room, the red room [also known as the wood room], the soft room, and the medical screening room (reportedly the same room used for the initial medical screening of Saddam Hussein immediately after his capture; parts of the video footage of the screening were televised internationally). Jeff said detainees were also taken outside the building for interrogations, into a courtyard between that building and another one.

Jeff described the black room, where the harshest interrogations would take place:

The black room was 12 by 12 [feet]. It was painted black floor to ceiling. The door was black, everything was black. It had speakers in the corners, all four corners, up at the ceiling. It had a small table in one of the corners, and maybe some chairs. But usually in the black room nobody was sitting down. It was standing, stress positions, and so forth. The table would be for the boom box and the computer. We patched it into the speakers and made the noise and stuff.

Most of the harsh interrogations were in that room. . . . Sleep deprivation, environmental controls, hot and cold, water. . . . I never saw anybody who was hot, you know, but it was cold a lot of times or we used cold water, we poured cold water onto them. [Certain times interrogators would] take clothes from the prisoners and so forth. . . loud music, strobe lights—they were used as well.

Jeff said that some interrogators would beat detainees in the black room—hitting and kicking them during interrogations.

The other two rooms used for interrogation were the blue room and the red room (also called the wood room). As Jeff described them:

The blue room is more of a rectangle. It was right next to the wood room so these would look the same, only the blue room was painted blue and the wood is just wood finish on plywood. And so they were the exact same size. They were about 6 by 10. A lot of times they [the interrogators] just sat down and talked to them and there was normal interrogations, you know, like down or up [referring to different legal interrogation techniques], or “love of family,’ or so forth. Whatever. They were just talking to them. Become their friend or whatever, just sitting down. If it’s not a harsh interrogation, you free up the backlog for that type of interrogation. And so you’re just talking to them and so forth, you know? So that’s what that was. Just a table in the middle, you’d sit on each side, and you’d have a chair for your interpreter. . . .

If interrogators wanted to show respect to a detainee who was cooperating, or needed to interview a cooperating intelligence source brought on base, they would use the “soft room.” The soft room was a little nicer. It was smaller than the other rooms, but they had some nice rugs, a back row of couches, prayer rugs hanging on the wall. Sometimes we had tea in there, teacups and so forth and you’d offer them soda or water. A nice little table in the middle. Three or four black leather chairs. We would bring people in there who we wanted to show respect to or show deference, maybe an ex-colonel or general in the Iraqi Army, somebody important or somebody who we thought we’d get more information by being nice to him.

Jeff said detainees would be taken from one room into another, depending on the level of their cooperation:

So according to Jeff, the higher up you were, the nicer you were probably treated? Does that sound backwards to you? or not? What's the point of screwing with the 'little guys' heads when it's the big guys who have all the information? That sounds like 'tension release' to me -- so you beat up on the 'little guys' because you're not allowed to do it to the big guys.

So a man like Canadian Maher Arar would get like razor blades against his dick.... but Saddam would get tea. Does that sound right to you?


Are these pictures from abu ghraib unphotoshopped (because I saw a photoshopped one of the guy on the ground with the blood) http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; if they are not unphotoshopped, this men have been tortured... while Saddam would have gotten tea. And for what?

mvscal wrote:

Risa wrote:So a man like Canadian Maher Arar would get like razor blades against his dick.... but Saddam would get tea.

You will have to take that up with the Syrians and, the last time I saw him, Saddam was dangling from the end of a rope. That doesn't sound like much of a tea party to me.

The incidents at Abu Ghraib were criminal actions not policy. Those were prosecuted and the perpetrators were convicted.

The perpetrators were sacrificial lambs, and that shit was done for the Americans. Outsourcing: it's not just for IT. From everything I've read, American soldiers were given the haziest of instructions in an effort to divorce the realities of their job with the desires of people at the top who were demanding them to do that job. Political plausible deniability is a sham, and only the lower peons enlisted to carry the shit out --- JUST LIKE THE LOWER PEONS WHO BORE THE TORTURE -- bore the worst of it. The CIA rolls through Abu Ghraib and doesn't say anything. No one says anything until a peon whistlerblower says this is enough.

The only reason why the patsy perpetrators were sacrificed is because public opinion was against what the peon whistlerblower revealed. This was not an internal investigation from the beginning to make sure things were done right. That's the difference.

Yeah, Saddam dangled from a rope, mvscal. Saddam was not hobbled butt-nekkid while a makeshift dildo was forced up his ass. Saddam did not die while being beaten in order to make him 'give up information'. Saddam was not forced to wear women's panties over his head. And yet Saddam held the most sensitive information of all. Please explain that shit. If torture is about getting information to save lives........... then why are those who don't hold any information most likely to be tortured, while those who hold real information are most likely to be treated with deference? What the fuck?

Besides, what were you yourself trying to do when you fed Iraqis pork MREs? There are different kinds of torture, you freelanced a 'softer' kind. Waterboarding is 'hard' torture. Would you have done it? Would you have wanted it done to you?

And Sudden Sam, have you not ever been handcuffed? maybe you haven't, but I have (boring story). Can you imagine what it's like to be handcuffed while people are beating on you at the same time, and you can't do a damned thing? maybe you can, but I can't. They want you to give up information you don't have? And when the beatings do stop, your torturers are pulling the softer psychological crap of making a mockery of your cultural sense of dignity, decorum and 'places a civilized person just don't go'? And this is to go on with no end in sight? That's hell, Sam, particularly if you're innocent.

Sleep deprivation is a very ancient form of torture, Sam. When the body doesn't get the sleep it needs, it starts to fuck up, you begin to hallucinate, your ability to react slows way the fuck down. I remember one time when I worked for 30 hours straight, went from one job to the other, and by near the end of it I was fucked up. I could not concentrate. I could not 'hear'. I could not 'see'. Time did weird shit. The only time I got alert was after having vomited red all over myself, my steering wheel, my seat and the parking lot. I was shaking, because just before that I thought I was homefree I could go home and rest. I had to call someone to make sure I was well enough to make it home ok (I was very aware after that, and didn't want to wait in my own vomit for someone to come pick me up. I just wanted to go home). That was by choice.

I absolutely cannot imagine being forced to stay awake in an all black room, not knowing where I am, not knowing if anyone is going to rescue me, not knowing what my torturers want me to say or do, not knowing anything except that I can't rest and this is painful. That is torture, Sam. That is physical and psychological torture.

Extreme temperature fluctuations, hot and cold water torture, that shit IS torture! Why aren't the Jews speaking out more against this shit? What's the point of remembering the holocaust if the shit that happened in it is just repeated, even if it's repeated on one's enemies? Or does it have to get to 'zyklon b and gas ovens' before people are allowed to say 'this is real torture'.

Look at some of the photos at that human rights site; or the salon gallery, Sam.

What could Manadel al-Jamadi ever do to justify THAT photo, while a Saddam who held real information is treated to soft rooms, deferential treatment, and tea? al-Jamadi is DEAD, Sam. What information did he hold, that helped the war on Terror? the same information Mahar Arar held? will we ever know?

Meanwhile, John McCain, who should know better than anyone that torture is bullshit, and who still obviously bears the psychological scars of what happened to him those first nights he was tortured before he BROKE DOWN and gave the Viet Cong everything it asked for, doing it while he could only engage in token gestures against his captors to prove there was still some spirit to him yet -- McCain backflips and suddenly says that torture is fine. For whom? Who got to him?

You can't tell me, Sam, that if this shit were happening to an American, or to one of your own family members, that you would still roll your eyes and smirk. I don't believe it, Sam. What's been happening in the name of 'The War on Terror' is an abomination. And that's why the US cannot really cry foul when assholes chop off the fingers of US soldiers and contractors to make a point, or chop off people's heads. It's the nastier version of the US not being able to say a damn thing when Myanmar says 'leave us alone fuck you' after a devastating cyclone.

PSUFan, I set up a different thread because torture doesn't belong in a gay marriage thread. That's a thread jacking that needed to be separated from an already enlightening thread that didn't need to go out of control. What I did was a form of true moderating. Mvscal was WRONG, and you were right. If you don't like me telling you that you were right, PSUFan, then fuck you.

^^^^^^ crickets

You read that?

mvscal wrote:

Risa wrote:The perpetrators were sacrificial lambs, .

No, they were bad actors who were able to get away with what they were doing because they were working in a completely dysfuntional command climate. The Taguba Report is definitive.

As far as your angst over sleep dep...too fucking bad. Pardon me if don't shed any tears for these buckets of shit. They deserve everything they get and then some.

Bullshit. They were good soldiers who did what their country wanted them to do. Doing what you're told -- isn't that the definition of a soldier? Nobody punished them until public opinion reared its head. And because the higher ups made it their business to be as hazy as possible when given parameters of conduct, the good soldiers doing bestial things got the short end of the stick while the higher ups who allowed their conduct in full awareness of what was going on got off scot-free.

I don't know what the Taguba Report is. Is it real, or is it a latter day Warren Commission Report?

As for my angst over sleep dep -- I'm saying it's torture, you said it wasn't. It doesn't matter whether either of us believe that the people who get it deserve it or not. What matters is, is it torture. I say yes. You say no. I say you're wrong.

mvscal wrote:

What could Manadel al-Jamadi ever do to justify THAT photo

Bombing a Red Cross office murdering 12 people in the process will do for a start.

One, link. Two, why was there no record of his having been at that prison? Three, if he did all that, why was he not given a trial so that those 12 people's families could get a sense of justice publically? Or do trials now get in the way?

No, they do not deserve everything they get and then some. That's like saying McCain deserved everything he got (before him and his daddy made a deal for hookers and softer treatment -- allegedly) while he was in Vietnam. Or like saying that the peon soldiers Jane Fonda fucked over deserved everything they got in Vietnam. There's getting information, and there's being an asshole.

Which brings us to FISA, which PSUFan brought up and which you deny has any importance. Is US telephone companies assisting the government in spying on American citizens without warrants -- and not telling those citizens they're being spied upon -- 'all good' for the sake of getting information? Do you really believe that kind of shit is constitutional, Mvscal? Do you really believe that kind of shit is acceptable in a free country?

Risa wrote:

mvscal wrote:

Risa wrote:So a man like Canadian Maher Arar would get like razor blades against his dick.... but Saddam would get tea.

You will have to take that up with the Syrians and, the last time I saw him, Saddam was dangling from the end of a rope. That doesn't sound like much of a tea party to me.

The incidents at Abu Ghraib were criminal actions not policy. Those were prosecuted and the perpetrators were convicted.

The perpetrators were sacrificial lambs, and that shit was done for the Americans. Outsourcing: it's not just for IT. From everything I've read, American soldiers were given the haziest of instructions in an effort to divorce the realities of their job with the desires of people at the top who were demanding them to do that job. Political plausible deniability is a sham, and only the lower peons enlisted to carry the shit out --- JUST LIKE THE LOWER PEONS WHO BORE THE TORTURE -- bore the worst of it. The CIA rolls through Abu Ghraib and doesn't say anything. No one says anything until a peon whistlerblower says this is enough.

The only reason why the patsy perpetrators were sacrificed is because public opinion was against what the peon whistlerblower revealed. This was not an internal investigation from the beginning to make sure things were done right. That's the difference.

Yeah, Saddam dangled from a rope, mvscal. Saddam was not hobbled butt-nekkid while a makeshift dildo was forced up his ass. Saddam did not die while being beaten in order to make him 'give up information'. Saddam was not forced to wear women's panties over his head. And yet Saddam held the most sensitive information of all. Please explain that shit. If torture is about getting information to save lives........... then why are those who don't hold any information most likely to be tortured, while those who hold real information are most likely to be treated with deference? What the fuck?

Besides, what were you yourself trying to do when you fed Iraqis pork MREs? There are different kinds of torture, you freelanced a 'softer' kind. Waterboarding is 'hard' torture. Would you have done it? Would you have wanted it done to you?

And Sudden Sam, have you not ever been handcuffed? maybe you haven't, but I have (boring story). Can you imagine what it's like to be handcuffed while people are beating on you at the same time, and you can't do a damned thing? maybe you can, but I can't. They want you to give up information you don't have? And when the beatings do stop, your torturers are pulling the softer psychological crap of making a mockery of your cultural sense of dignity, decorum and 'places a civilized person just don't go'? And this is to go on with no end in sight? That's hell, Sam, particularly if you're innocent.

Sleep deprivation is a very ancient form of torture, Sam. When the body doesn't get the sleep it needs, it starts to fuck up, you begin to hallucinate, your ability to react slows way the fuck down. I remember one time when I worked for 30 hours straight, went from one job to the other, and by near the end of it I was fucked up. I could not concentrate. I could not 'hear'. I could not 'see'. Time did weird shit. The only time I got alert was after having vomited red all over myself, my steering wheel, my seat and the parking lot. I was shaking, because just before that I thought I was homefree I could go home and rest. I had to call someone to make sure I was well enough to make it home ok (I was very aware after that, and didn't want to wait in my own vomit for someone to come pick me up. I just wanted to go home). That was by choice.

I absolutely cannot imagine being forced to stay awake in an all black room, not knowing where I am, not knowing if anyone is going to rescue me, not knowing what my torturers want me to say or do, not knowing anything except that I can't rest and this is painful. That is torture, Sam. That is physical and psychological torture.

Extreme temperature fluctuations, hot and cold water torture, that shit IS torture! Why aren't the Jews speaking out more against this shit? What's the point of remembering the holocaust if the shit that happened in it is just repeated, even if it's repeated on one's enemies? Or does it have to get to 'zyklon b and gas ovens' before people are allowed to say 'this is real torture'.

Look at some of the photos at that human rights site; or the salon gallery, Sam.

What could Manadel al-Jamadi ever do to justify THAT photo, while a Saddam who held real information is treated to soft rooms, deferential treatment, and tea? al-Jamadi is DEAD, Sam. What information did he hold, that helped the war on Terror? the same information Mahar Arar held? will we ever know?

Meanwhile, John McCain, who should know better than anyone that torture is bullshit, and who still obviously bears the psychological scars of what happened to him those first nights he was tortured before he BROKE DOWN and gave the Viet Cong everything it asked for, doing it while he could only engage in token gestures against his captors to prove there was still some spirit to him yet -- McCain backflips and suddenly says that torture is fine. For whom? Who got to him?

You can't tell me, Sam, that if this shit were happening to an American, or to one of your own family members, that you would still roll your eyes and smirk. I don't believe it, Sam. What's been happening in the name of 'The War on Terror' is an abomination. And that's why the US cannot really cry foul when assholes chop off the fingers of US soldiers and contractors to make a point, or chop off people's heads. It's the nastier version of the US not being able to say a damn thing when Myanmar says 'leave us alone fuck you' after a devastating cyclone.

PSUFan, I set up a different thread because torture doesn't belong in a gay marriage thread. That's a thread jacking that needed to be separated from an already enlightening thread that didn't need to go out of control. What I did was a form of true moderating. Mvscal was WRONG, and you were right. If you don't like me telling you that you were right, PSUFan, then fuck you.

arrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhh! charliehorse!!!

sin,

smackaholic's scroll wheel finger.

RACK the troops fucking with teh terrorists, I have more respect for cockroachs
Non uniformed combatants have no fucking rights in my opinion
Fuck them, good bitework training for teh dogs, I am glad to see they are being used to further teh training of our K9 units
Diaperhead shitskins

risa, exactly what kind of a tree-hugging rainbow sticker-sporting cunt are you anyway?

Swallow the business end of a sawed-off and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD pull the trigger.

TIA, the human race