WI: Let’s Apply The Techniques to Their Authors & See If They Don’t Result in ‘Severe Physical Pain'

[bigtree]

from Washington Independent: http://washingtonindependent.com/39227/lets-apply-these-techniques-to-their-authors-and-see-if-they-dont-result-in-severe-physical-pain


By Spencer Ackerman 4/16/09

Something is very clear from these memos. The Bush administration often liked to say that they needed these memos to remain confidential in order to preserve the principle that the administration should receive the most candid legal advice available. What that secrecy fomented was a culture in which the precise conditions under which a man who had been shot in the leg could be placed inside a cramped box — how many hours? — and subjected to insects crawling on him without it being blatantly illegal.

Lots of things, it turns out, including waterboarding him and putting him in a “confinement box,” into which an insect would be place to exploit his fears. The reasoning employed is that of someone determined to show how techniques that would never, ever be acceptable for themselves or their families to be subjected to can be applied to someone else unproblematically. Consider this explanation of how Abu Zubaydah’s placement in the “confinement box” doesn’t constitute severe mental suffering:

… you have informed us that he would spend at most two hours in this box. You have informed us that your purpose in using these boxes is not to interfere with his senses or his personality, but to cause him physical discomfort that will encourage him to disclose critical information. Moreover, your imposition of time limitations on either of the boxes indicates that the use of the boxes is not designed or calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality. For the larger box, in which he can both stand and sit, he may be placed in this box for up to eighteen hours at a time, while you have informed us that he will never spend more than an hour at a time in the smaller box. These time limits further ensure that no profound disruption of the senses or personality, were it even possible, would result….

You would also like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure you are outside the predicate death requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death.

The subtext is, of course, that it’s OK if you let his imagination wander, horribly, when he’s in a confined space and suddenly feels unseen tiny legs crawling over him out of nowhere. For, say, an hour at a time — to be generous to the OLC writers.

Something is very clear from these memos. The Bush administration often liked to say that they needed these memos to remain confidential in order to preserve the principle that the administration should receive the most candid legal advice available. What that secrecy fomented was a culture in which the precise conditions under which a man who had been shot in the leg could be placed inside a cramped box — how many hours? — and subjected to insects crawling on him without it being blatantly illegal. It wasn’t just Abu Zubaydah’s senses and personality that these memos warped.


memos at DoJ: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-ag-356.html

Original Document (PDF) :http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/nytint/docs/justice-department-memos-on-interrogation-techniques/original.pdf

[supernova]

1. Agree 100%

I think members of the previous administration should be subjected to these techniques for a few months, then see if they still don't think it's not torture.

[riverwalker]

2. Lincoln said it best:

(torture/slavery)

"I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

Statement to an Indiana Regiment passing through Washington (17 March 1865); The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln Volume VIII

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. A box, with insects?

With Winston Smith it was rats.