CIA Memo Reveals Flaws in Waterboarding's Legal Justification

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One has to wonder whether the methods that were used on detainees were indeed extreme interrogation methods, or torture, or more likely, mind control or behavior control experiments. Extreme sleep deprivation, white noise, nakedness, diapering, extreme hot and cold, etc. seem like methods that are used to break a person of their identity. Much like communist countries used(s) on people who have religious faiths or political differences different from the standard communist doctrinaire. The CIA has conducted mind control experiments on people in the past, and these so called 'enemy combatants' might be a convenient pool of unwilling recruits for their experimentation. Does one have to waterboard an individual more than a hundred times to illicit information? I think not. These individuals minds were mush afterwords.

thomas of MN 1:19AM August 28, 2009

Hey DB, because torture doesn't work. Perhaps if you weren't so thick in the head you could remove it from your backside. Try to do some reading and actual thinking rather than spouting off the usual right wing garbage. I suggest some Thomas Paine to begin with:
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
But look at me, not heeding his advice:
"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead."

Mark of OH 6:30PM August 27, 2009

Dear DB
People like you are sniveling cowards who would likely pimp out their own mothers for an illusion of safety. When I saw the twin towers fall I wanted more than anything to get on an airliner and fly all over the country to show that Americans could not be intimidated by medieval trolls in some backwards shithole. Instead Americans cowered for days afraid to take to the air and defend the honor (When it still had some) of our country. When the skies were cleared (Except for the plane the Bushs' good buddies, the Bin Ladens used to escape without even being questioned.) Americans lost the war right then. People who constantly take the counsel of fear make me sick when their cravenness extends to harming others and destroying what scrap of integrity the U.S. had!
BL

Beth Lyles of AL 6:27PM August 27, 2009

I can't understand why any American citizen would rather allow more terrorist attacks than to use any means possible to prevent further attacks. I don't think the information could have been obtained by giving them Country Club memberships, feeding them well and asking them to share what they knew. Perhaps the people who are trying to destroy our CIA and perhaps our government should be investigated. We seem to have some people in our government now who would like to see our system fail.
DB

DB of FL 5:45PM August 27, 2009

I am ashamed. The SS stopped torture because prisoners will say anything.

Micheael 5:24PM August 27, 2009

Prove it was just for a few seconds at a time.

WBYoo of MT 4:53PM August 27, 2009

I repeatedly see "eye for an eye" justifications for pretty horrible acts, as if it were a Biblical requirement that we take these reprisals. My understand is that the rule was a reform meant to LIMIT acts of revenge by some sort of rough proportionality, NOT encourage them. There is no requirement that revenge of any sort be taken. If so, it makes little sense to cite "eye for an eye" in these cases. But I am sure there are many out there who know their Bible better than I do and will waste no time in correcting me.

Rob Houck of NY 1:56PM August 27, 2009

George Washington did not waterboard. Nor did Abraham Lincoln. For that matter no President until George W. Bush use such techniques. President Ronald Reagan was deeply appauled by any form of torture, and went so far as to state that anyone who committed such acts should be put on trial. We convicted former Japanese military personal for waterboarding our prisoners of war. German troops during the battle of the bulge massacred our prisoners of war at Malmandy. We did not do the same to them. We have always managed to remain head above water when it came to the fair and ethical treatment of enemy combatants. We are dealing with a new type of opposing force that will take different measures to tame, but resorting to torture will not accomplish anything. Torture does not and will not produce reliable intel. On September 11th, 2001 terrorist boarded commercial aircraft and rammed them into the Pentagon, the World trade center and a farm field outside of Pittsburg. This nation would be appaulled had one our citizens did this.The fight before us is tough enough without giving our enemy the reasons to prolong or expand this conflict. When Japan attacked us on December 7th, 1941 Admiral Yamamoto said that he feared "We have awaken a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve". Shouldwe do the same?

JDZ57 of WI 9:58AM August 27, 2009

The job of an interrogator is to gain useful information to save lives. If this were by using unconventional techniques, then that is what we have to do. The terrorist did not attack a military unit or base. They went after the general population without regard to human life. You want to call for those doing the interrogations to be prosecuted. I submit to you that if it was your son, daughter, mother, or farther that was jumping to their death or burning to death, or even crushed in the collapse of the trade centers of pentagon you may not feel this way. These terrorists have killed and maimed thousand of innocent men, women, and children to achieve their goal. If water boarding works, USE IT!

Steve 2:27AM August 27, 2009

To investigate front-line interrogators without investigating those who committed the “original sin” — authorizing the CIA to use cruel, brutal, and torturous tactics in the first place — is to substitute scapegoating for true accountability.
The “torture memo” lawyers at OLC weren’t giving advice about how to interpret and implement the law, they were giving advice about how to circumvent it, and they should, at a minimum, be disbarred.
It also seems that Ashcroft, Rice, Gonzalez, Cheney, and perhaps even George W have a lot to answer for.
This is not witch-hunting. This is about America living up to its ideals and its laws. Painful, perhaps, but necessary.

Bob of OK 4:30PM August 26, 2009