AMERICAN OUTRAGE

If you know me at all, you know I'm a patriotic person. I support the troops and our efforts in almost every area we're involved as a country. I don't believe everything that is done in the US is worthy of our respect, but I do think we should support the government we have in whatever it does that is right and good. The rest should definitely be analyzed and dealt with (abolished if necessary). Clearly there are things that have been done and used in the past that should be disposed of, so I'm all for re-examining what was once seen as acceptable. (Or hidden from the public and used anyway.)

This morning I read a news article that absolutely floored me. I am beyond outraged, and although I know it's a risky move writing about it, I believe it needs public attention, so I'm willing to take the risks involved. I hope you know that I have done a LOT of reading on the subject, beyond what I'll include here, and before you stand up with an opinion against me (it seems inevitable on every post I write with a strong opinion that someone feels the need to contradict me personally), I hope you will do your research also.

TO THE POINT: First I'll post the article I read this morning. Everything in RED is quoted text I've picked up from other sites and resources. Everything in regular text are my words.

Bush to Veto Legislation Barring Use of Waterboarding

Saturday, March 08, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush is poised to veto legislation that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding — a technique that simulates drowning — and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects.

The president planned to talk about the veto in his Saturday radio address.

Bush has said the bill would harm the government's ability to prevent future attacks. Supporters of the legislation argue that it preserves the United States' right to collect critical intelligence while boosting the country's moral standing abroad.

"The bill would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror, the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives," deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday.

The bill would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual.

The legislation would bar the CIA from using waterboarding, sensory deprivation or other coercive methods to break a prisoner who refuses to answer questions. Those practices were banned by the military in 2006, but the president wants the harsh interrogation methods to be a part of the CIA's toolbox.

Backers of the legislation, which cleared the House in December and won Senate approval last month, say the interrogation methods used by the military are sufficient.

"President Bush's veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his presidency," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement Friday. "Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world."

He noted that the Army field manual contends that harsh interrogation is a "poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the (interrogator) wants to hear."

In order to understand fully what this means, you'll need a better idea of what Waterboarding is. I will include a description here from www.wikipedia.com, but I highly recommend reading the entire description and history of the procedure at this link: WATERBOARDING.

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex. Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,politicians, war veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, human rights organizations. In 2007 waterboarding led to a political scandal in the United States when the press reported that the CIA had waterboarded extrajudicial prisoners and that the Justice Department had authorized this procedure. The CIA has admitted waterboarding Al-Qaida suspects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

According to press accounts, a cloth or plastic wrap is placed over or in the person's mouth, and water is poured on to the person's head. As far as the details of this technique, press accounts differ - one article describes "dripping water into a wet cloth over a suspect's face", another states that "cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him." CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the technique have lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.

Two televised segments, one from Fox News and one from Current TV, demonstrate a waterboarding technique that may be the subject of these press descriptions. In the videos, each correspondent is held against a board by the interrogators. In the Current TV segment, a rag is then forced into the correspondent's mouth, and several pitchers of water are poured onto the rag. The interrogators periodically remove the rag, and the correspondent is seen to gasp for breath. The Fox News segment mentions five "phases" of which the first three are shown. In the first phase, water is simply poured onto the correspondent's face. The second phase is similar to the Current TV episode. In phase three, plastic wrap is placed over the correspondent's face, and a hole is poked into it over his mouth. Water is poured into his mouth through the hole, causing him to gag. He mentions that it really does cause him to gag; that it could lead to asphyxiation; and that he could stand it for only a few seconds.

Dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, the technique has been favored because, unlike most other torture techniques, it produces no marks on the body. Information retrieved from the waterboarding may not be reliable because a person under such duress may admit to anything, as harsh interrogation techniques lead to false confessions. "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer. The Independent reports "legal experts said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared to be exaggerating his role for his own self-aggrandizement and may also have deliberately floated false claims to send US investigators on wild goose chases."

In an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Human Rights Watch claimed that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 USC 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the United Nations Convention Against Torture), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.

I'm going to stop there, although there's way more information (and a picture) that I think is important if you go to the link above and read the entire description. I don't understand some of the things we do to "Protect American Lives"... Why are we only concerned about protecting AMERICAN lives? I understand that we need to do everything we can to keep our own safe. HOWEVER, I believe we need to do everything we can WITHIN THE REALM OF WHAT'S RIGHT to protect our own! It's not JUST about us. Humanity is humanity, whether they're "one of us" or not. They may have information we need, but threatening a person's basic human needs is not an efficient way to ensure good intelligence. If there's a confession that came through this form of torture, WHAT WOULD EVER MAKE YOU BELIEVE IT WAS A TRUTHFUL ONE? I think it's an absolute AMERICAN OUTRAGE for us to allow Bush to veto this bill.