Holte's corner

Telling on oneself

Robin writes:

"Hi Chris, Are you going to delete this too? I realize that you will call me all kinds of names; but I shall just take that as a test of my patience and compassion. I do confess I am tempted to retaliate; but then I would become what I do not like."

First I didn't name names in that post. I quoted, cited sources that prove the article I was quoting were wrong, said the material was wrong and showed why. I could have been quoting quite a few yahoogroups. But in this case it came from BDG, which used to actually have actual dialogues. Someone is telling on himself!

Second, I think the main reason that Robin doesn't retaliate is that he's already gone after me as much as he dares to out in the open. I've left the Buddhist Dialogue Group. I've left the Buddhist Moderators Group. Both groups I used to think I co-owned. He was moderating most of my posts there, and ones he didn't agree with were just disappearing. He could probably go after me more, he's already tried. I just hope he doesn't try. Such behavior is unseemly.

Robin: "Now, I do not support the use of coercive methods."

But:

"However, I just do not think the coercive methods allowed rose to the level of real torture. To call those methods torture trivializes the word."

Is he kidding? No, and that is why I withdrew from Buddhist_Dialogue_Group and gave up arguing with him there. There is no word to express the contempt I feel for this argument. But listen it continues....

"If I were running things, I would subject the detainees to maitri-waves; to stimulate the empathy centers in their brains. That would, however, likely violate freedom of religion."

But he isn't running things, and I don't really have confidence that if he were he'd do much different. Maybe its bitter experience. Maybe its cynicism. But I've heard too many stories of people who loved Mozart or little children supervising torture and murder to believe this. Besides he follows this with an indirect insult:

"I realize you like to tell people what I really mean, and do not like being corrected."

So I'm going after him? I think this is projection. Yes, I don't like to be wrong. I'll go out of my way to get things right and I've on more than one occasion crawled across the floor in misery after realizing I was wrong on something. I don't mind being corrected when someone is speaking truth or speaking truthfully. But that is not the case here. So telling me this was just another effort to discredit me personally. Does he think this would win me over to his view? Does he think it convinces anybody?

"I just thought I would try to convey my actual thoughts on the topic. You know, equal time?"

He has an entire Yahoogroup, and legions of others sharing the same propaganda. All I have is this little corner here to express the truth. And what is different from what he actually says? As opposed to my quotes from his post of his arguments on BDG? How is this argument going to be different? Well I'll give him the benefit of the doubt:

"I have read through the memos. As I note above; it appears to me that what was allowed simply does not rise to the level of torture. That said, the ICRC reports allege actions that went beyond what was allowed; things that would be torture."

So much for the benefit of the doubt. Bibey's memo specifically authorized water-boarding, stress positions and other means of inflicting excruciating pain. Like all torture, the goal is to cause maximum pain without leaving permanent marks. This is not even a real argument.

Here is Singh's testimony;

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/singh_testimony_20071108.pdf

"There are new charges that false confessions were obtained, that at least one detainee was killed. If true; those things were wrong. I simply do not believe, based in the evidence known to me, that those things happened."

It was more than one detainee. It has been documented since at least 2005. I have posts on the subject dating back to then here at Fraught with Peril. Here is one of them from Singh's testimony:

"Thus, in November 2003, interrogators in Iraq killed Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a fifty-six-year-old Iraqi general, during an interrogation in which they put him into a sleeping bag and tied him up with electrical cord. An Amy officer reprimanded for Mowhoush's death asserted that the "sleeping bag technique" was a "stress position" that he considered to have been authorized by a "September 10 2003 CJTF-7 order," and that "[iln SERE, this position is called close confinement and can be very effective." See id. at 33, A-246-47."

He goes on:

"Numerous autopsy reports attribute the homicide deaths of prisoners in U.S custody to "strangulation," "asphyxia," and "blunt force injuries." See id. at 29-30. One such autopsy report records the homicide death of a 47-year old Iraqi male who was shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth at the time he lost consciousness and became pulseless and died. See id. at 30. Other autopsy reports confirm that in December 2002, U.S. interrogators at Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan killed two prisoners by subjecting them to "blunt force injuries." See id. at 19,20, A-185-86, 187."

"You accurately cite what was allowed. That is a just huge step in the right direction. "A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner As this is done the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of drowning."

The 'perception' is Bibey's words. The reality is that this is a strangulation/drowning reflex. The only reason Waterboarding is stopped after 40 seconds is that the person goes unconscious. 5 time or 185 times it is torture, and it is illegal.

"They even counted the pours of water. Confusion over this led to an erroneous report that KSM was wb'd 183 times; while it was actually only 5. That shows how closely this was monitored. They counted the "pours."

This isn't even an accurate defense. It is a confession.

"That is also not what was traditionally called water boarding. With the real thing, water was either pumped into the stomach, causing severe bloating; or poured into the mouth and throat. The latter was not simulated drowning; it was drowning. Water actually entered the lungs."

Excuse me I've been studying the inquisition Robin, and dude you are either severely misinformed or deluding yourself. This is exactly how they do it. If they pour water into the lungs, the odds are the patient/subject won't survive long enough to give up and spill his beans.

"From what I understand, the methods used were simulations of torture; which are used on our own personnel, as training exercises, to prepare them for the real thing."

You have that totally backwards. You are confusing SERE training where we torture our own soldiers to prepare them for battling bad-guys, with the reality of what we were doing. Again, either you are confused, lying, or severely deluded. And since I've presented these facts to you over and over again over the past few years, my conclusion is not charitable. This was the real thing. People died.

"Again, sticking to what was allowed, this was only permitted in very limited conditions. {1}. the detainee was known to have information about impending terrorist attacks. {2}. Other methods, such as rapport building, had been tried and failed. That is what I gather from reading objective reports and the memos."

Well, KSM had already given a load of information to an FBI interrogator, who protested the stupidity of the CIA's methods. To go back to the ACLU testimony:

"Not only are these tactics at odds with legally
permissible interviewing techniques used by U.S.
law enforcement agencies in the United States, but
they are being employed by personnel in GTMO
who have little, if any, experience eliciting
information for judicial purposes. The continued
use of these techniques has the potential of
negatively impacting future interviews by FBI
agents as they attempt to gather intelligence and
prepare cases for prosecution."

"The memos also reveal that some ICRC allegations involved methods that were not allowed. For example, there were allegations a collar was used to slam detainees against concrete walls. Actually, the detainees were allowed to be pushed against false, flexible walls. Protective collars had to be used; to prevent whiplash."

Not allowed? That is part of the reason they are illegal. As the ACLU noted:

"While much of the widespread abuse described in government
documents reflects direct applications of authorized interrogation methods, some
of this abuse is also attributable to "force drift," a phenomenon described by
former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora as the tendency for the "escalation"
of force used to extract information "once [an] initial barrier against the use of
improper force [has] been breached." See id. at 30-3 1. By issuing directives
that violated laws requiring humane prisoner treatment and declaring that the
"gloves were off," the chain of command in effect gave interrogators license to
apply still more abusive variations of authorized interrogation methods. See id.
at 31."

"Another proposed "torture" was scaring a detainee with bugs. However, they could not use a stinging insect. They could use a caterpillar; but had to tell the detainee it was not a stinging insect."

Where do you get this? Bibey didn't tie their hands in his memos. On the contrary the memo says that

"One more thing. I think Gitmo was a bad idea. It was just better than any other idea. We do not know what to do with them now. Our European allies do not want them. We can not try them, the evidence against them would not be allowed in a US court."

So its a bad idea but its a good idea because the other ideas were worse? Give me a break. We are afraid to release these people because a: they'd sue us, and be; at least one might strap a bomb on himself in vengeance.

Well you got it half right.

"We can not return them to their home countries. Why? Because they would be arrested, charged with terrorism, and subjected to real torture."

We'll find places for them. The fact is we subjected them to 'real torture.' You can say what you want, but the facts speak for themselves, and hopefully eventually at least a few of the real culprits will go to jail.

"One more thing. If you really think I am such a horrid person, maybe you should pray for me? I mean instead of doing this smear campaign? The acorn evidently did not fall far from the Soka Spirit tree?"

To be a smear campaign;
a) I have to be aiming at you. This is not about you. It is about what you are putting out on the internet. You've got to stop personalizing this and look at the evidence afresh. Now, I'd prefer if you'd stop championing torture, apologizing for the folks who used it, and diminishing its reality. But even if you did I'd still continue blogging about the subject until the real culprits are brought to justice.
b) I don't see how you can complain about me smearing you while saying that somehow protesting torture is akin to Soka Spirit. If Soka Spirit were actually creating any value I'd still be involved with them. However, like "enhanced interrogations" the term is a misnomer. All I care about is truthfulness and in the case of abuse of power, and wholesale violation of law, justice. As long as Soka Spirit were truthful I'd defend their right of free speech. They aren't always truthful so I stay away from them.

Further reading:

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/111th/IPres090316.pdf
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/111th/IPres090316.pdf

Robin: gassho

Chris: Gesunheit, and see you get a whole blog entry.