http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
Waterboarding is a form of torture[1][2] that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. By forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences drowning and is caused to believe they are about to die.[3] It is considered a form of torture by legal experts,[4][5] politicians, war veterans,[6][7],medical experts in the treatment of torture victims[8][9] , intelligence officials,[10] military judges,[11] and human rights organizations.[12][13] As early as the Spanish Inquisition it was used for interrogation purposes, to punish and intimidate, and to force confessions.[14]
In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates a gag reflex almost immediately.[15] The technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event; psychological effects can last for years.[8]
Torture is defined as stated on;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions."[1]
The following is Article 2 from the United Nations Convention Against torture;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture#cite_note-untc-0
Article 2 of the convention prohibits torture, and requires parties to take effective measures to prevent it in any territory under its jurisdiction. This prohibition is absolute and non-derogable. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever"[5] may be invoked to justify torture, including war, threat of war, internal political instability, public emergency, terrorist acts, violent crime, or any form of armed conflict.[6] Torture cannot be justified as a means to protect public safety or prevent emergencies.[6] Neither can it be justified by orders from superior officers or public officials.[7] The prohibition on torture applies to all territories under a party's effective jurisdiction, and protects all people under its effective control, regardless of citizenship or how that control is exercised.[6] Since the Conventions entry into force, this absolute prohibition has become accepted as a principle of customary international law.[6]
Because it is often difficult to distinguish between cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and torture, the Committee regards Article 16's prohibition of such treatment as similarly absolute and non-derogable.[6]
The other articles of part I lay out specific obligations intended to implement this absolute prohibition by preventing, investigating and punishing acts of torture.[
Signed Ratified
United States of America
18 Apr 1988
21 Oct 1994
The following is a posting by Malcolm Nance October 31, 2007 on the Small Wars Journal;
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/
In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.
In the past week, former Vice President Dick Cheney along with his daughter Elizabeth, have hit the airwaves. Ms. Cheney is trying to convince Americans that President Barack Obama is catering to terrorists while Mr. Cheney is doing everything he can to justify the Torture Technique of Water Boarding that he and other high Bush Administration Officials authorized during the previous administration. Mr. Cheney contends that the Water Boarding Technique was reviewed and critiqued to be lawful by the Justice Department under, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
The Office of Legal Council lawyer John Yoo, assisted by David Addington, Legal Council to then Vice President Dick Cheney, authored the now infamous Bybee Memo. This document was used by the Justice Department as their written opinion on the Water Boarding matter. This document, used for the justification and authorization of Water Boarding, came from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee dated August 1, 2002.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/cheney/torture_memo_aug2002.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions."[1]
The following is Article 2 from the United Nations Convention Against torture;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture#cite_note-untc-0
Article 2 of the convention prohibits torture, and requires parties to take effective measures to prevent it in any territory under its jurisdiction. This prohibition is absolute and non-derogable. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever"[5] may be invoked to justify torture, including war, threat of war, internal political instability, public emergency, terrorist acts, violent crime, or any form of armed conflict.[6] Torture cannot be justified as a means to protect public safety or prevent emergencies.[6] Neither can it be justified by orders from superior officers or public officials.[7] The prohibition on torture applies to all territories under a party's effective jurisdiction, and protects all people under its effective control, regardless of citizenship or how that control is exercised.[6] Since the Conventions entry into force, this absolute prohibition has become accepted as a principle of customary international law.[6]
Because it is often difficult to distinguish between cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and torture, the Committee regards Article 16's prohibition of such treatment as similarly absolute and non-derogable.[6]
The other articles of part I lay out specific obligations intended to implement this absolute prohibition by preventing, investigating and punishing acts of torture.[
Signed Ratified
United States of America
18 Apr 1988
21 Oct 1994
The following is a posting by Malcolm Nance October 31, 2007 on the Small Wars Journal;
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/
In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.
In the past week, former Vice President Dick Cheney along with his daughter Elizabeth, have hit the airwaves. Ms. Cheney is trying to convince Americans that President Barack Obama is catering to terrorists while Mr. Cheney is doing everything he can to justify the Torture Technique of Water Boarding that he and other high Bush Administration Officials authorized during the previous administration. Mr. Cheney contends that the Water Boarding Technique was reviewed and critiqued to be lawful by the Justice Department under, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
The Office of Legal Council lawyer John Yoo, assisted by David Addington, Legal Council to then Vice President Dick Cheney, authored the now infamous Bybee Memo. This document was used by the Justice Department as their written opinion on the Water Boarding matter. This document, used for the justification and authorization of Water Boarding, came from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee dated August 1, 2002.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/cheney/torture_memo_aug2002.pdf
What I fail to understand is how any of these lawyers, by using the case examples they used, come to the conclusion they did authorizing the use of Water Boarding to be legal. I researched the cases they were using in this memo. I realize I am not formally educated in constitutional law but, to me, the cases referred to in this memo is an exaggerated distortion and a deliberate interpretation to manipulate the meaning of torture and the effects of Water Boarding in definition to torture. To read this memo, one can only conclude that either the authors were totally ignorant of Constitutional and International Law or were coerced or persuaded for their future recognition, to provide an avenue to circumvent the legality of the written law. My belief has always been that either factual case example or personal documented knowledge, of the intent of a created law, could be the only basis for interpretation of said law. Neither of these criteria appears to have been met in my opinion.
Condoleeza Rice found herself having to defend her position and those of the previous administration during an appearance at Stanford University;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/04/30/rice_defends_enhanced_interrog.html
"In terms of the enhanced interrogation and so forth, anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer, the president wanted to do," Rice said. "Nothing that was illegal. And nothing that was going to make the country less safe." She also urged the student to remember the context of the decision-making in 2002, shortly after the sept. 11 attacks. "Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," she said, adding "you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."Rice became riled when the student noted that the United States did not torture during World War II."With all due respect, Nazi Germany never attacked the homeland of the United States," Rice shot back.
Japan, Germany's ally, however, attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing 2,350 military personnel and civilians.
The student persists, and says that the United States tortured detainees at Guantanamo Bay."No, no dear, you're wrong," Rice said. "You're wrong. We did not torture anyone. And Guantanamo Bay, by the way, was considered a model quote-'medium security prison' by representatives of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe who went there to see it. Did you know that?"
(Alain Grignard, an expert for the OSCE, said in 2006 that Guantanamo was a "model prison" where inmates are treated better than in Belgian jails, though he added that holding people for many years without telling them what would happen to them is a form of "mental torture.")
At one point, Rice puts on her best professorial voice and jabs, "Do your homework first."Rice insisted she did not authorize the CIA to use the interrogation techniques, as was widely reported last week: "I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department's clearance. That's what I did."Asked whether waterboarding is torture, Rice replied emphatically: "We were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/04/30/rice_defends_enhanced_interrog.html
"In terms of the enhanced interrogation and so forth, anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer, the president wanted to do," Rice said. "Nothing that was illegal. And nothing that was going to make the country less safe." She also urged the student to remember the context of the decision-making in 2002, shortly after the sept. 11 attacks. "Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," she said, adding "you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."Rice became riled when the student noted that the United States did not torture during World War II."With all due respect, Nazi Germany never attacked the homeland of the United States," Rice shot back.
Japan, Germany's ally, however, attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing 2,350 military personnel and civilians.
The student persists, and says that the United States tortured detainees at Guantanamo Bay."No, no dear, you're wrong," Rice said. "You're wrong. We did not torture anyone. And Guantanamo Bay, by the way, was considered a model quote-'medium security prison' by representatives of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe who went there to see it. Did you know that?"
(Alain Grignard, an expert for the OSCE, said in 2006 that Guantanamo was a "model prison" where inmates are treated better than in Belgian jails, though he added that holding people for many years without telling them what would happen to them is a form of "mental torture.")
At one point, Rice puts on her best professorial voice and jabs, "Do your homework first."Rice insisted she did not authorize the CIA to use the interrogation techniques, as was widely reported last week: "I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department's clearance. That's what I did."Asked whether waterboarding is torture, Rice replied emphatically: "We were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture."
So, are we to presume that once President Bush had the unlawful authorization from the Justice Department, he authorized the use of Water Boarding? Are we to also presume that since the President says it is ok, that means it is lawful? Didn’t, then President Richard Nixon, claim the same point to Talk Show Host David Frost in the 70’s? (See the Movie Frost/Nixon)
The amount of evidence and the people involved could go on and on. However, for the sake of this article we will conclude.
I believe, based on the facts provided here, Water Boarding is a Technique of Torture. Torture is against Domestic and International laws. Our previous Administration knew this. They attempted to write interpretations to circumvent these laws. I believe these writings will not only be found illegal but, criminal. I would expect that every level, in which the use of Water Boarding was conducted, will find themselves within the long arms of the law.
Shepard Smith, of Fox News, made a theatrical performance, while banging his fist on the desk in front of him, a week or so ago on his television show;
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/the_bad_man_scares_me/index.html
"We are America," he reminded them, his voice rising as he prepared to hit those two with an obscenity-laced dose of truth. "I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! WE ARE AMERICA! We do NOT f---ing torture!"
You know what Shep, you’re right. WE DO NOT TORTURE! That is why we need to bring this era to a conclusion. Punish those who violated the laws and ensure no one from this Nation ever does it again.
That’s how I see it.
The amount of evidence and the people involved could go on and on. However, for the sake of this article we will conclude.
I believe, based on the facts provided here, Water Boarding is a Technique of Torture. Torture is against Domestic and International laws. Our previous Administration knew this. They attempted to write interpretations to circumvent these laws. I believe these writings will not only be found illegal but, criminal. I would expect that every level, in which the use of Water Boarding was conducted, will find themselves within the long arms of the law.
Shepard Smith, of Fox News, made a theatrical performance, while banging his fist on the desk in front of him, a week or so ago on his television show;
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/the_bad_man_scares_me/index.html
"We are America," he reminded them, his voice rising as he prepared to hit those two with an obscenity-laced dose of truth. "I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! WE ARE AMERICA! We do NOT f---ing torture!"
You know what Shep, you’re right. WE DO NOT TORTURE! That is why we need to bring this era to a conclusion. Punish those who violated the laws and ensure no one from this Nation ever does it again.
That’s how I see it.
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