Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/11/2006 10:51:10 PM
From: Ichy Smith	Respond to of 281500

Police in any big city often use, extreme temperatures noise stress - playing very loud and dissonant music and sound effects. Recordings have been reported to include babies wailing inconsolably, cats meowing, and irritating music (including a record by Yoko Ono)[1] sexual embarrassment prolonged cramped or restrictive confinement sleep deprivation starvation mock execution height/water/enclosed spaces physical beating and any homeless person has adapted to overcoming food aversion (eating bugs, roadkill, dumpster diving, urine drinking) Compared to the tortures commonly in use by Saddam and his minions or the Shia today, these particular "tortures" are laughable.

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/11/2006 11:18:27 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Lock them up for years, torture them, strip them of all human rights, and then we can talk. Torture some of them to death and then get back to me. Pick people off the streets, hood them, deny them all human rights, torture them, and then months or years later dump them in some place they have never been and then get back to me. Perhaps we should run an experiment and lock you up and have you tortured for a few years in an offshore American gulag and then see if you still have that smug shitforbrains grin on your face.

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/12/2006 9:41:28 AM
From: Lou Weed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Universal Declaration of Human Rights.... Article 5.... "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." "On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." un.org

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/12/2006 11:30:33 AM
From: Noel de Leon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"The torture that prisoners receive is exactly the same torture that we subject our aircrewmen and special forces to in SERE school, actually they seem to get more:" Where is your source for this statement? Who, from the government, has stated that this is the case? Are there independent sources that confirm the statement?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/12/2006 12:53:27 PM
From: Noel de Leon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is the source to which you refer: "Use of SERE techniques in interrogation In July 2005 an article in The New Yorker magazine alleged that SERE staff have been advising the military at Guantanamo Bay and other sites on interrogation techniques. According to a November 14, 2005, New York Times op-ed column by law professors Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, the Pentagon "flipped SERE's teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went 'up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques' for 'high-profile, high-value' detainees. General Hill had sent this list - which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias - to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002." The SERE program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy although he has emphatically denied that he had advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees. The New Yorker notes that in November, 2001 Banks was detailed to Afghanistan, where he spent four months at Bagram Air Base, "supporting combat operations against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters". In June 2006 an article on Salon.com confirmed finding a document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through the Freedom of Information Act. A March 22, 2005, sworn statement by the former chief of the Interrogation Control Element at Guantánamo said instructors from SERE taught their methods to interrogators of the prisoners in Cuba.[2]. The article also claims that SERE's physical and mental techniques mirror the treatment of some detainees at Abu Ghraib. And the statement of the interrogation chief and the interrogation logs of Mohamed al-Kahtani reveal many striking parallels. According to Human Rights First, the interrogation that lead to the death of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush involved the use of techniques learned in SERE training. According to the organization "Internal FBI memos and press reports have pointed to SERE training as the basis for some of the harshest techniques authorized for use on detainees by the Pentagon in 2002 and 2003." " This is what you wrote: "The torture that prisoners receive is exactly the same torture that we subject our aircrewmen and special forces to in SERE school, actually they seem to get more:" How many trainees died?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (205601)	10/12/2006 1:26:09 PM
From: wonk	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Geoff: What is your opinion on the Jose Padilla case? You can review the substance here: glenngreenwald.blogspot.com Here is his lawyer’s brief discussing his detention and 3.5 years of “torture.” discourse.net There are separate, but inter-related issues here. 1. Padilla was and is an American Citizen. Thus his detention without charge for 3 plus years appears to violate both the Habeas Corpus provision embedded within the Constitution itself (which was essentially born by the Magna Carta in 1200 AD), as well his Rights under the 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to the Constitution. 2. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that he had been charged, is this type of treatment, prior to a conviction ever permissible under our Constitution? I would argue that in addition to being illegal (which many argue but I don’t even see a wsisp of a case), the conduct of our Government officials was immoral. I would submit to you that justification of “torture” is the absolute worst form of “moral relativism.” I would submit to you that the most basic human rights elucidated, in part, in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must apply to all, or the words mean nothing. I would offer for your consideration that Thomas Jefferson was unequivocal in stating that the protections afforded by the writ of Habeas Corpus applied to Citizen and Alien equally. I would submit to you that according to the Constitution, Habeas Corpus can only be suspended during times of Invasion or Rebellion. Neither the Congress nor the President nor the Courts may violate that command. I would submit to you that the following passage could have been written by Orwell, or Kafka. I would submit to you that I could pull similar passages from descriptions of the Soviet or Chinese Gulag, or any number of heinous regimes, and you would not be able to tell one from the other. …His isolation, furthermore, was aggravated by the efforts of his captors to maintain complete sensory deprivation. His tiny cell – nine feet by seven feet – had no view to the outside world. The door to his cell had a window, however, it was covered by a magnetic sticker, depriving Mr. Padilla of even a view into the hallway and adjacent common areas of his unit. He was not given a clock or a watch and for most of the time of his captivity, he was unaware whether it was day or night, or what time of year or day it was…. He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake, and otherwise assault Mr. Padilla….” I would submit to you that our words don’t define who we are. Our actions do. Mr. Padilla may be a very bad man. Nevertheless he was entitled to be timely charged and timely tried so that the Government could prove he was a bad man. ww