US Senate Passes Waterboarding ban

[Simplicius]

U.S. Senate votes to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods
By David M. Herszenhorn
Thursday, February 14, 2008

WASHINGTON: The Senate voted to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods that have been used by the CIA against high-level terrorism suspects, setting up a confrontation with President George W. Bush, who has threatened to veto the bill.

The prohibition of coercive interrogation methods, part of a broader intelligence authorization bill, would limit all American interrogators to techniques permitted in the Army Field Manual, which bars the use of physical force. The Senate voted 51 to 45, with 5 Republicans joining 45 Democrats and 1 independent in favor of the ban.

The Senate action is the latest chapter in a long-running battle between congressional Democrats and the Bush administration over the treatment of terrorist detainees and the boundaries of executive privilege, two issues that are also certain to be hotly debated in the presidential election.

Senator John McCain, the leading Republican presidential candidate and former prisoner of war who opposes harsh interrogation tactics, voted against the bill. McCain said that the ban would limit the CIA's ability to gather intelligence but that his vote was consistent with his firm stance against torture.

"We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures," McCain said. "I believe waterboarding is illegal and should be banned."

Democratic supporters of the ban hailed its passage and immediately challenged Bush to veto it, saying that to do so would effectively endorse torture.

"If the president vetoes intelligence authorization, he will be voting in favor of waterboarding," Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, declared at a news conference.

The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said: "We are taking an important step toward restoring our moral leadership in the world. It is now up to the president to show his own moral leadership and sign this bill into law."

Two Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, did not vote. They were elsewhere Wednesday campaigning.

Republicans opposing the ban were joined by Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. They insisted that the bill would restrict the CIA and potentially jeopardize U.S. security.

Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the Select Committee on Intelligence, said that Democrats were irresponsibly and baselessly accusing the CIA of torture and that limiting the interrogators to techniques in the Army Field Manual would seriously undermine American intelligence-gathering efforts.

"Unless the measure is stripped out, or the bill is vetoed, which I expect it will be, if it's included it would shut down the most prolific source of information, useful actual information that the CIA receives," Bond said.

Bond said that Senate Republicans, in their handling of the bill, had been mindful of the Democrats' political intentions to accuse Republicans "of saying they favor torture." He said Republican leaders had decided that letting Bush veto the measure was the best course of action.

Earlier Wednesday, Democrats anticipated an effort by Republicans to strip the provision on interrogation methods from the larger intelligence bill.

The provision was inserted during a conference to reconcile the different House and Senate versions of the legislation. It was sponsored by three Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein of California, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and a Republican, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Some Republicans said that Democrats were trying to force McCain into a vote that would highlight his differences with the White House. McCain, asked if there were political motives, said, "I don't know and I don't care."

McCain, explaining why his vote was consistent with opposing torture, cited the Military Commissions Act, which Congress adopted in 2006. It permits Bush to authorize the CIA to use techniques tougher than those in the army manual. The president approved such techniques last July.

"We said in our law," McCain said after casting his vote, "that we would allow the CIA to use additional techniques that were not in violation of the anti-torture convention, that were not in violation of the Geneva Conventions, that were not in violation of the Detainee Treatment Act."

The Detainee Treatment Act, adopted in 2005, restricts the military from using anything beyond the 19 interrogation methods approved by the Army Field Manual. These include strategies like "good cop-bad cop," isolation from other prisoners, and American interrogators posing as representatives of another country.

Human rights groups praised the Senate's vote. And Feinstein said she remained hopeful that Bush would sign the bill, which has already been approved by the House.

"This is a significant achievement," Feinstein said. "The Senate has stood tall and the House has stood tall and change is in the air.

At work, so no time to research for comment.

[K. A. Pital]

Wait, isn't McCain's position a total non-sequitur? When offered a ban to waterboarding he votes against it, then says he's against waterboarding? What a slimehead.

[SirNitram]

That darling maverick, toeing the party line so courageously.

[Teebs]

I'm don't know the contents of the army field manual but according to the article this bill essentially bans the use of physical force in interrogations. Surely saying you're against waterboarding but not the use of physical force is just saying you support torture but not the brand that's been used recently? Or am I missing something?

[Nephtys]

He's a maverick. You see, his position is against Torture, the application of any sort physical pain or discomfort to coerce someone. But it's for waterboarding, a very specific sort of physical pain AND discomfort to coerce someone.

You can see his renegade loose-cannon maverick ways. He'll be shackled by no authority! Not even himself, his previous statements, or public positions.

[SirNitram]

The White House will veto this. Their excuse is this:

This is done at the CIA, and it is done by professionals who are given hundreds of hours of training, who are — I think General Hayden said an average age of 40; who are being asked to do very hard work in order to protect Americans.

The Army Field Manual is a perfectly appropriate document that is important for young GIs, some so young that they’re not even able to legally get a drink in the states where they’re from.

[Elfdart]

The whole thing is a farce. Water torture has been illegal for many years:

http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/200 ... tortu.html

November 12, 2007
If It Was Torture in Mississippi, Then It's Definitely Torture, Right?

A final word or two on this "waterboarding as torture" issue.

Waterboarding, known ironically in earlier times as "the water cure", remains -- in the view of this administration and many supporters -- not torture. And if it's not torture, then it's not cruel and unusual punishment or a violation of due process.

But here's the rub.

In 1926, the Mississippi Supreme Court called the water cure torture. No qualifiers. No hedging. Just plain, good ol' fashion torture . . . and therefore a forbidden means for securing a confession. These men were hardly a group I'd call *activist* or *liberal* and certainly not bent on subverting our country in the name of coddling criminals.

In a case called Fisher v. State, 110 So. 361, 362 (Miss. 1926), Mississippi's highest court ordered the retrial of a convicted murderer because his confession was secured by a local sheriff's use of the water cure.

Here's the court:

The state offered . . . testimony of confessions made by the appellant, Fisher. . . [who], after the state had rested, introduced the sheriff, who testified that, he was sent for one night to come and receive a confession of the appellant in the jail; that he went there for that purpose; that when he reached the jail he found a number of parties in the jail; that they had the appellant down upon the floor, tied, and were administering the water cure, a specie of torture well known to the bench and bar of the country.

Fisher relied on a case called White v. State, 182, 91 So. 903, 904 (Miss. 1922), in which the court took -- as I understand history in those parts -- the unusual step of reversing the murder conviction of a young African-American male, charged with killing a white man (it appears), because his confession was secured by *the cure*. The court said:

. . . [T]he hands of appellant were tied behind him, he was laid upon the floor upon his back, and, while some of the men stood upon his feet, Gilbert, a very heavy man, stood with one foot entirely upon appellant's breast, and the other foot entirely upon his neck. While in that position what is described as the “water cure” was administered to him in an effort to extort a confession as to where the money was hidden which was supposed to have been taken from the dead man. The “water cure” appears to have consisted of pouring water from a dipper into the nose of appellant, so as to strangle him, thus causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing a confession. Under these barbarous circumstances the appellant readily confessed . . .


If "the cure" was seen as a barbarous form of torture in Mississippi in the 1920's, I guess I'm at a loss to understand exactly how our attitudes about the process have progressed to see it as an acceptable means of interrogation 80 years later.

I suppose, in light of this administration's position on waterboarding, that both Fisher and White are teetering on irrelevance. Truly amazing.

That's right: the cracker judges of 1920s Mississippi, whose idea of justice usually involved a rope and a tree, gave a black defendant a new trial because water torture was more brutal than they would accept. I remember when some on this board got their panties in a wad when I likened Bush and his crowd to Ku Kluxers. They had a point: the Crawford Caligula and his fanwhore apologists are much worse.

[Flagg]

Doesn't this effectively give them something that they can now point to and say "See? it was legal when we did it! If it hadn't been, they wouldn't have tried to outlaw it!"?

[Elfdart]

Correct answer! For proof that water torture has always been illegal (at least as long as certain acts were designated war crimes) check out this article:

Washington Post

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

and

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.

The Japanese officers who were convicted of water torture were given sentences of 15 years, so not only has the "water cure" been illegal, but the going rate for sentencing has been 10-15 years in prison. The idea (promoted by the Republitards and their flunkies in the media) that there is a dispute over whether forcing water down a prisoner's lungs is torture is as sick and twisted as the idea that there's a dispute over whether sodomizing a grade schooler is in fact child molestation. The Republitards are the party of sadism. That's why almost all of them vote to approve of and defend torture.

[Flagg]

That's why I'm actually glad that it failed. Plus, we have the massive flip-flopping from John McCain who decided that we shouldn't use the Army Field Manual when it comes to torture, despite his comments from last November.

You pass a law banning it now and it's automatically implied that it wasn't banned before. At least as far as the retard brigade (75% of the US) is concerned.

[Metatwaddle]

I guess "maverick" is another word for "his positions and words make no fucking sense". And the Straight Talk Express is about as straight as Ted Haggard.

[Flagg]

I guess "maverick" is another word for "his positions and words make no fucking sense". And the Straight Talk Express is about as straight as Ted Haggard.

"Maverick" means "doesn't chug the kool-aid like it's a dick, just sips it like a beer, and "Straight Talk Express" means "What he has painted on his bus, so it must be true".

[Vampiress_Miyu]

You can find the article here

Steven Bradbury: CIA Waterboarding Not Torture

Steven Bradbury, the controversial head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, endured a 1 1/2 hour congressional hearing with some heated exchanges with House Democrats this afternoon.

Waterboarding and torture memos dominated the session, which was billed as an oversight hearing of the office that provides legal opinions to the attorney general and other executive branch offices.

Bradbury, who has been its acting chief since June 2005, has failed to be confirmed by skeptical Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last month, the White House resubmitted his name for assistant attorney general, angering Democrats.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, did not waste any time.

After describing federal law that defines torture as "an act specifically designed to inflict severe physical, mental pain or suffering," Nadler began his interrogation: "In your legal opinion, is waterboarding a violation of the federal torture statutes?"

Bradbury: Mr. Chairman, as (CIA chief) Gen. (Michael) Hayden has disclosed...

Nadler: I’m not interested in your opinions before…never mind former OLC opinions. I’m asking you the question now. Is waterboarding a violation of the federal torture statues?

Bradbury: I was about to answer the question, Mr. Chairman, this way... Our office has advised the CIA when they were proposing to use waterboarding that the use of the procedure, subject to strict limitations and safeguards applicable to the program, was not torture, did not violate the antitorture statute. I think that conclusion was reasonable. I agree with that conclusion.

Nadler: Given the definition I just read, how can you possibly justify that?

Bradbury: Well, first of all, I’m limited in what I can say about the technique itself because...

Nadler: You know what the technique is, it’s been around for hundreds of years.

Bradbury: With respect, Mr. Chairman, your description is not an accurate description of the procedure that’s used by the CIA. [Bradbury went on to say that water torture, as practiced in the Spanish inquisition and World War II, differed from methods used by the CIA.]

I heard this interview on NPR on the way to school this morning. It's absolutely absurd that they would say it isn't torture.

[Stravo]

Bill O'Reilly was such a vile piece of shit last night on his show - When isn't he you ask? I know. I know. But usually it's a contemptible kind of sleaziness, the kind where you chuckle and shake your head "There you go again Bill, being a dishonest prick." but here he was passionately defending the use of torture using the language of the right whenever they want to get anything done - fear. "What if we need to find out about an imminent attack? We need all the tools we can use to fight this war." Fuck you Bill. Fuck you hard. Fucking torture. This is what we've come to as a country that we're actually debating fucking torture. Sometimes I don't know where I live anymore.

[Flagg]

Bill O'Reilly was such a vile piece of shit last night on his show - When isn't he you ask? I know. I know. But usually it's a contemptible kind of sleaziness, the kind where you chuckle and shake your head "There you go again Bill, being a dishonest prick." but here he was passionately defending the use of torture using the language of the right whenever they want to get anything done - fear. "What if we need to find out about an imminent attack? We need all the tools we can use to fight this war." Fuck you Bill. Fuck you hard. Fucking torture. This is what we've come to as a country that we're actually debating fucking torture. Sometimes I don't know where I live anymore.

You still watch that cunt?

I figure if he says anything retarded enough for me to give a fuck about, Olbermann will be on top of it.

[Stravo]

Bill O'Reilly was such a vile piece of shit last night on his show - When isn't he you ask? I know. I know. But usually it's a contemptible kind of sleaziness, the kind where you chuckle and shake your head "There you go again Bill, being a dishonest prick." but here he was passionately defending the use of torture using the language of the right whenever they want to get anything done - fear. "What if we need to find out about an imminent attack? We need all the tools we can use to fight this war." Fuck you Bill. Fuck you hard. Fucking torture. This is what we've come to as a country that we're actually debating fucking torture. Sometimes I don't know where I live anymore.

You still watch that cunt?

I figure if he says anything retarded enough for me to give a fuck about, Olbermann will be on top of it.

I don't watch Bill but I do surf through the channels and when he's on, particularly his talking points I stop to see because its like watching a car wreck. What will Bill lie about, distort, obfuscate this time? Plus listening to Bill usually clues you in on the talking point of the moment amongst the right because as I've discovered, right wingers are zombies and they pick up on talking points and repeat them ad nauseum. If you know what they're going to say you can disarm them a little bit quicker.

Just watch the Sunday morning talk show circuit because that's where the talking points are inserted. Then watch FOX during the week and remarkably those talking points are repeated, sometimes verbatim.

[Glocksman]

Similarly, I disagree with Randi Rhodes more than I agree with her. However there are times she says the simple truth.
That's why I listen to Air America (via my XM Radio) than I do Rush, Sean, etc.
If nothing else, Randi has me screaming 'bullshit, bitch!' and thinking about what she said, instead of mindlessly parroting the latest (McCain is a *true* conservative) GOP line.

[Spyder]

Senator John McCain, the leading Republican presidential candidate and former prisoner of war who opposes harsh interrogation tactics, voted against the bill. McCain said that the ban would limit the CIA's ability to gather intelligence but that his vote was consistent with his firm stance against torture.

"We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures," McCain said. "I believe waterboarding is illegal and should be banned."

This is either a bizzare case of Orwellian doublespeak or senility. I'm thinking both.

[Flagg]

Senator John McCain, the leading Republican presidential candidate and former prisoner of war who opposes harsh interrogation tactics, voted against the bill. McCain said that the ban would limit the CIA's ability to gather intelligence but that his vote was consistent with his firm stance against torture.

"We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures," McCain said. "I believe waterboarding is illegal and should be banned."

This is either a bizzare case of Orwellian doublespeak or senility. I'm thinking both.

It's a total flip-flop from his position in November of last year, when he stated that the Army Field Manual was a perfect guide for what we should and should not do. This bill was going to do exactly that: Base the law on the prohibitions against tactics in the Army Field Manual.

John McCain: flip-flopping, lumpy faced, spineless cunt.

I'm Barack Obama and I support this message.

[Guardsman Bass]

McCain's basically saying that you shouldn't ban "waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques" directly because you've already passed a bill that says that while the CIA can go above and beyond, they can't do anything that violates anti-torture conventions.

Of course, in spite of the fact that, if the above is the case, then the current ban simply complements the 2006 Bill and stops nothing that shouldn't already be stopped (at least according to McCain when he's in Anti-Torture Mode, a subset of Maverick-Face-Make-Independents-Smile!), he's also ignoring the fact that trying to legally weasel their way around even slightly vague definitions in law is a hallmark of the Bush Administration.

[Flagg]

McCain's basically saying that you shouldn't ban "waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques" directly because you've already passed a bill that says that while the CIA can go above and beyond, they can't do anything that violates anti-torture conventions.

Of course, in spite of the fact that, if the above is the case, then the current ban simply complements the 2006 Bill and stops nothing that shouldn't already be stopped (at least according to McCain when he's in Anti-Torture Mode, a subset of Maverick-Face-Make-Independents-Smile!), he's also ignoring the fact that trying to legally weasel their way around even slightly vague definitions in law is a hallmark of the Bush Administration.

I think it's very telling that the Republican leadership in the Senate (or was it the House, or both?) endorsed McCain the very day he voted against that bill, when the day before they said that they weren't going to endorse anyone. He also got an endorsement from Romney right after the vote. He just cannot afford to look weak on the sociopathy front when the Republican base is already against him.

[K. A. Pital]

The Republican Party: United! Vote Torture 2008!

[Coyote]

Interesting-- in order to suck up to the hard-core Christians, McCain had to embrace legalizing torture.

How... telling.

[Imperial Overlord]

Interesting-- in order to suck up to the hard-core Christians, McCain had to embrace legalizing torture.

How... telling.

If its good for God to sentence evil doers to an eternity of torture, its good for God's chosen people to torture suspected evil doers for as long as they feel like it. It's a totally consistent stance. What would Jesus do and all that. Get with the program Coyote.

[Guardsman Bass]

It is more than a little disturbing that whether or not torture is legal has actually become a serious political football.