Emptywheel notes via the Bradbury memo that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month

So, controlled drowning (it isn’t “simulated”-it just never reaches completion) 183 times in a month isn’t torure?

10 Responses to “Question 3: 183 Times”

1. Ratoe Says:
   April 19th, 2024 at 6:49 pm

   I’d be interesting in getting your take on Obama’s contention that those involved in torture shouldn’t be investigated.

   By choosing who is and is not subject to the rule of law, Obama’s statement seemed eerily Bush-like.

   The torture memos offer even more clear evidence that federal laws were likely broken. The fact that there has been no DoJ investigation is troubling.

2. Steven L. Taylor Says:
   April 19th, 2024 at 7:06 pm

   I must confess to not having a well thought out position, but I actually do think that as a general principle, prosecutions are warranted (although I expect none will happen).

3. Andy Vance Says:
   April 19th, 2024 at 11:13 pm

   Marty Lederman, who’s now the #3 at OLC, tackled the legal issues involved last year.

   But as he points out, those are largely academic questions because 1) conviction of those who relied on OLC advice is nigh impossible and 2) prosecution would effectively blow up the OLC as a going concern (as no federal employee would trust its findings) and lead to executive branch chaos.

4. Jack Henderson Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 10:05 am

   Here is the point. I don’t care if they tortured these terrorists. I hope they did. These evil people killed innocent people, and would love to have killed more.

   I promise you if these “$SD$$$” hurt anyone in my family, I would torture (if not kill) every last one of them.

   If they tortured them and got good intel to help save lives, then I say GREAT.

5. jason johnson Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 10:26 am

   You people kill me. Do you know what they do to U.S. troops when they are captured. I’ll give you one example of a navy seal that got captured. First they cut off his gentials and stuffed them in his mouth and they were not done yet. Then they severed his head about half way off. That just one story but of course the media does’nt cover this. Instead they cover waterboarding

6. Greg Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 11:27 am

   Jack and Jason: Oh, I guess my mistake was thinking we were supposed to be better than they are. When fighting a brutal enemy we apparently have license to use any brutal tactic right back at them.

   Let’s put aside the many, many issues there are besides that (it’s far more extensive than just waterboarding, it’s not effective at getting reliable intelligence, not everyone at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib deserved to be there, people have died in our custody because of what’s been done to them, it’s been plainly considered torture and/or war crimes in the past, it’s a huge recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and thus counterproductive, the ticking time bomb scenario never happens in real life, we got reliable intelligence from KSM before using “enhanced” techniques and only wild goose chases afterwards, etc. etc. etc.) Let’s put all that aside for a moment. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN THEY ARE. We don’t just have to clear the incredibly low bar of being better than Al Qaeda, we have to live up to our own standards of justice and morality.

7. John Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 11:31 am

   Jason are you suggesting we follow the example set by the animals? We all know these are bad people and you are clearly very scared of them, that is ok. This is not relevelent in deciding on how we should behave. If you condone these actions then you are offering an excuse for the actions that at they did on 9/11. EIther this behavior is wrong, and always wrong, or you support groups that think it is ok to act like an animal.

8. Max Lybbert Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 2:19 pm

   Any discussion about torture needs to begin with a definition. It can be a loose definition, but without at least some common ground it’s impossible to get anywhere useful. Treatment of prisoners falls on a continuum from “best friends forever” on one side and “torture” on the other:

   BFF ——————-> torture

   In between these two extremes we have stops like “free medical care, full access to continuing education, free cable,” and “abuse.” It’s possible that some behavior is abusive without being torture. It’s possible that some behavior would be illegal in a criminal trial but not torture (failure to provide an attorney is not torture).

   It’s even possible to violate the Geneva Conventions without torturing prisoners. The way I understand it, witholding needed medical treatment is a violation of the Geneva Conventions regardless of whether the subsequent pain amounts to torture.

   My working definition for torture is “if somebody would willingly submit to a particular behavior for $1 million, then that behavior is not torture.” That doesn’t mean the behavior is not abusive, nor does it mean the behavior is necessarily legal or good.

   For instance, a lot has been made of putting people into constrained boxes. As a child I remember my brothers locking me in a closet once in a while as a consequence of a personality flaw of not biting my tongue. I have a hard time considering that torture. But it is possible that enough added details would make it so (size of the box, duration of confinement, sounds — like a woodchipper — in the background, etc.).

   While I don’t think a single act of waterboarding is torture, I do consider being waterboarded six times a day for a month torture.

9. Steven L. Taylor Says:
   April 20th, 2024 at 2:35 pm

   My working definition for torture is “if somebody would willingly submit to a particular behavior for $1 million, then that behavior is not torture.”

   While the request for a definition is fair, this isn’t a very good one. There is a difference, for example, of enduring something under controlled circumstances, let alone with a reward at the end, than enduring under the power of a foreign government with no guarantees or any certainty about what comes next.

10. Max Lybbert Says:
    April 20th, 2024 at 5:20 pm

    My reasoning is simple: everybody has a price. They may not explicitly take money as a payoff, but they will accept something worth that price to them. So my working definition tries to essentially say “we’re willing to barter discontinuing behavior that causes discomfort worth $1 million or less to you in exchange for information from you.”

    There is a difference, for example, of enduring something under controlled circumstances, let alone with a reward at the end, than enduring under the power of a foreign government with no guarantees or any certainty about what comes next.

    That is definitely true. The recently released memos even mention this. The Bradbury May 10, 2024 memo specifically states the techniques it analyzes came from military training (page 6), but that “trainees know it is part of a training program, not a real-life interrogation regime, they presumably know it will last only a short time, and they presumably have assurances that they will not be significantly harmed by the training.”

    Additionally, comparing the detainees’ point of view with the CIA’s descriptions shows a very different point of view. Detainees made allegations to the Red Cross, and those memos were recently released ( http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf ). One passage says:

    Six of the fourteen alleged that an improvised thick collar or neck roll was placed around their necks and used by their interrogators to slam them against the walls (page 13).

    Sounds pretty bad. Now for the details (at least how the CIA explained them to the OLC):

    Walling. This technique involves the use of a flexible false wall. The individual is placed with his heels touching the flexible wall. The interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall. It is the individual’s shoulder blades that hit the wall. During this motion the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to help prevent whiplash. … You have informed us that the false wall is also constructed to create a loud noise when the individual hits it in order to increase the shock or surprise of the technique. … We understand that this technique is not designed to, and does not, cause severe pain, even when used repeatedly as you have described; rather it is designed to wear down the detainee and alter his expectations about the treatment he will receive. … It is not intended to — and based on experience you have informed us that it does not — inflict any injury or cause severe pain. Medical and psychological personnel are physically present or otherwise observing whenever this technique is applied (Bradbury May 10, 2024 memo, page 8).

    I would note that statements “this does not cause pain” probably came from people who had themselves been walled, as people from special forces — who would have undergone this training — often later join the CIA.

    Would this be allowed in a criminal investigation? No. If not applied according to how the CIA described the technique could it be considered abuse? Yes. But, as described, I can’t put it in the same category as electrocution, beatings to the genitals, pushing hat pins through finger joints, or other things we both agree are torture. In fact, I can’t put it in the same category as spraying someone with pepper spray (which is a routine part of police training in many parts of the US). It simply doesn’t cause physical pain, is not meant to cause physical pain, and while it’s designed to have a psychological effect it does not cause “severe mental or emotional suffering” and it is not meant to.

    Comparing comments to the Red Cross about stress positions (especially how detainees claimed to have been held in stress positions for days on end) with what the CIA asked about (stress positions for hours at a time) are equally interesting.

    Is it possible that the CIA did more than it described to the lawyers? Yes, it is possible, just as it is possible that detainees embellished their stories to the Red Cross.

    If the CIA did go beyond what it described to OLC it may have crossed the line into torture. Of course, as I understand it, the legal opinions that have been released/leaked wouldn’t protect anybody who went beyond that legal advice (”it’s legal to make a single copy of a song to listen to on my car’s tape player? I’ll go ahead and start a mail order business selling pirated music”).