And refusing to acknowledge torture when it is really torture…

Well, it’s like when you refuse to acknowledge systemic racism within the GOP. You do it because it conflicts with your political ideology.

True statement.

However, Mr. Tea tells only the part of the story he likes. The DNI made other observations that Mr. Tea chooses to ignore.

See, it’s funny, because I don’t really think you’re this obtuse when you make arguments like this. I just think you’re being willfully ignorant to make what you think is a point.

The demonstrations lack the psychological subtext that somebody might actually allow them to drown. There remains a subconscious glimmer of knowledge that tells them this will end and they will be safe.

But you do know this, JT. Which beggars the question; why do you insult the very serious nature of the argument by tossing such fat ones across the plate?

As has been pointed out: the Allies won World War II without having to do any of this.

And I will ask yet again: why do we impose limits, if everything should be on the table to save American lives? Allow rape and dismemberment, Jay. Call for its legalization. It stands to reason, after all, that the more horrific we can be the faster we will get the information we need to stop the ticking time bomb.

Jay Tea, the problem is this: You have no idea what you’re talking about. Here’s how US law defines torture:

1. “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

2. “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from – (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

I’m afraid that it is people like you who are playing semantic games here.

Waterboarding, banging someone’s head against a wall, depriving them of sleep for prolonged periods, confining them in a box and placing an insect in it (specifically because the prisoner is fearful of insects), is not, as you put it, simply “unpleasant.”

All of these things are, rather, “intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” In the case of waterbaording, it is specifically designed to induce in the prisoner “the threat of imminent death.”

Only someone who is playing semantics, or else who is incredibly ignorant, would suggest that being waterboarded is akin to voluntary undergoing a medical procedure, such as a colonoscopy, during which pain medication is administered to reduce discomfort under a doctor’s care.

This is the kind of deceitful argument that the right has pushed since they first became champions of torture. But it’s the left that’s “diluting what real torture is.” Brilliant.

It’s more important to ask what kind of America it is we want when we’ve weathered this crisis. Do we want an America that was so risk averse, so afraid of its enemies that we would be willing to throw away the very things we once claimed made us better than them? If our enemies hate our freedom, of what value is their defeat if that freedom is the cost?

These are not esoteric questions. If this country is the greatest on Earth, it is not because we were the most effective at winning wars. It’s because we decided, as a nation, to concern ourselves more with our liberty than our security. Because the ethical ramifications of our actions were as important as the the efficacy of those actions.

I don’t care if torture works, because the America I believe in is above it.

You know, like banging the prisoner’s head against the wall?

And why wouldn’t the court accept a confession obtained this way? BECAUSE IT WOULDN’T BE RELIABLE.

But as far as you know, torture elicits accurate and timely information, even though the courts have found that a little slapping around or anal rape with a plunger leads to false confessions and the perversion of justice.

How do YOU know that “torture works?”

Here’s another question. Could YOU torture a bound and helpless prisoner? What kind of sick human could do such a thing?

Which allowed us to EXECUTE Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners.

Once again, JT, if waterboarding isn’t torture, why has it been a favorite method of torturers for centuries, when they could use a lot of “techniques?” (Don”t you just love that euphemism?)

I’ll tell you why. Because it doesn’t leave a mark.

First, I – and the Obama Justice Department – would agree that CIA interrogators who were directed to actions under the belief that what they were doing was legal should not be punished. Yes, there are people calling for all the blood they can get, but I think it’s fair if we focus on what our government’s likely position is.

The people we need to focus on are the ones who directed the programs, and who created the legal defenses of them. If illegality is determined, these are the people who should be punished.

All that said, I believe that our laws against torture are clear and do not sanction what we did. My belief is that the Justice Department did not study the law formulate the opinion that it was legal, but worked very hard to find arguments that got them around existing laws. If that’s the case, the people who came up with these programs and the legal defenses to support them broke the law by providing the means of subverting it.

Neither of us are in a position to judge the innocence or guilt of those who directed and defended these programs, but our legal system is. I believe we need to be strong enough as a nation to shine a light at this and determine if our government broke the law. That’s all I want to see happen.

My point was that simply calling something “torture” because it’s unpleasant is not only dishonest, but dilutes real torture. It’s hyperbole, it’s crying wolf.

Would I want to undergo these interrogation techniques? Hell, no. (Well, maybe the caterpillar one wouldn’t be so bad.) But I wouldn’t want to undergo a standard police interrogation, either. I’m not also fond of colonoscopies, for that matter. But they do not reach the level of “torture” — except in the eyes of those with a partisan axe to grind.

As I said, kind of like the Plame case — the letter of the law doesn’t matter to the outraged; they need HEADS on PLATTERS! to sate their need for vengeance.

J.

“Turborture,” perhaps?

Well, no, we don’t need a new term. It doesn’t help your case to turn a debate into a contest of extremes, nor is it useful for you to write things that seem so purposefully blind to reality.

“There is worse torture,” does not make what we did not torture. Yet every time this subject comes up, that’s the defense that ultimately gets brought out. “Other people do worse things.” Great, yes, they do. Astute observation. There are people and countries with interrogation programs worse than ours.

Jay, in another thread you tried to make an issue out of Obama’s bow to a Saudi. How can you be so hypersensitive about what that says to the world, yet be so utterly unsympathetic for what our interrogation program says?

At the very least, doesn’t our treatment of prisoners tell the world “You can also do this to our soldiers”? There’s a reason treatment like this was deemed to be illegal by the Geneva Convention. It wasn’t that it never had an effective point, but that even if torture makes our citizens safer, it makes our soldiers less safe. And they’re citizens, too.

It’s not just the waterboarding. Torture isn’t about pain alone. It’s about sleep deprivation, starvation, threats and fear. It’s about breaking down the will and defenses of an individual. Pain is merely a component. You don’t need to light someone’s testicles on fire to break them. That kind of treatment has psychological consequences. In the end, it’s not the scars you can see that were the problem.

Someone being worse than you does not excuse your behavior. A thief should not be able to get out of a charge because other thieves steal a lot more than him, and cause more damage when they’re on the way out.

And frankly, the day we need to start comparing ourselves to guys who light other guys’ testicles on fire to make ourselves feel better is not a good day.

1) What happened to that poor guy in the UAE WAS torture. REAL torture. Not this bullshit that the CIA did.

2) Your recollection is grotesquely flawed. Plame was exposed by Richard Armitage.

But you bring up a good point. No laws were broken in the Plame case, but that didn’t matter. People were furious, so SOMEONE had to pay, whether or not any laws were broken. Kind of like in this case…

J.

Next up on Limbaugh: fun times with Arabic fraternity pranks.

And JayTea, are you sure the CIA officers are leaving because of this President? I seem to recall the last president exposing covert operatives for political purposes.

Hell, some of ‘em probably needed the bath.

jr blathers:

These cons get sexual gratification from torturing Arabic men. Cheeto addicted Dr Mengele’s on the march

jr better not read this article:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=7402099&page=2

So, if what was done to these terrorists was “torture,” we need a new term for what this Arabic man did to another Arabic man.

“Turborture,” perhaps?

By the way, Obama’s DNI says that the enhanced techniques produced solid, critical intelligence. And CIA officers are looking to get out of the counterterrorism business — they are getting the message that their president won’t have their back if they act in good faith and try to find ways to reconcile the demands for actionable intelligence and the limits of the law.

Gee, why does this sound so familiar? Oh, yeah. More 70’s reruns.

J.

And I ask again, why do we limit ourselves, torture apologists? If waterboarding fails to produce the information we want, why shouldn’t we feel free to go further?

And hey, Farris, if faking a drowning is no big deal, I’d love to hear you undergo the experience and tell us how you came out of it all hunky-dory.

Wow.

What a change from a year ago.

What a change from her visit to Tuzla.

Change we can believe in.

Charles Grodin just kicked Hannity’s Soft ***.

JK

I guess they assume no one will double-check their claims.