Unfortunately,

we are left assuming the worst..
(if it indeed can get any worse)
wondering if what survived the
"PURGE" was this bad, shuttering
to think of what did not.

AH! The Good ol'Days under
THE BIG DUBYA! (Daddy WarBucks)
when the paperr shreaders were
going full-tilt grinding up EVIDENCE
of the IRAN/CONTRA DEAL.

*a few papers they missed

I never said they didn't gain some useful information, but did that lead to saving ANY American lives or thwart an attack. There's still no direct evidence of the latter.

His is still speculation... "The Bush-era interrogation techniques that many view as torture may have yielded important information about terrorists...."

keep digging !

No I think Obama is the "Analyzer", the "Thinker", instead of the swaggering, flaunting, biased "gut reactor" we had for 8 years.

From your link



Last line from the 2002 memorandum





Thats exactly what I mean . Read the 2002 memorandum they try to justify waterboarding that it does not cause long lasting mental or physical harm so therefor its not torture <-- ah ha the power of interpretation , even when everyone else calls it torture

fwiw; I went looking in the Geneva Convention for water boarding which there was no mention

He'd appreciate the relationship between the two because the question arises whether the constraints of international conventions are binding in US domestic law. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo happened because advice was given that that interrogation methods could be defined without reference to international treaties when in fact the Convention Against Torture 1984 (CAT) provides an absolute prohibition against torture as therein defined in all circumstances.

A lot of the advice relied uppn is in the public domain and so open to critical analysis. Gonzales for example produced a memo from John Yoo to the effect that since the US was not a party to the Rome Statute it was not bound by its provisions and that US nationals could not be prosecuted at the ICC. The second point which is wrong does not follow from the first point which is right. The ICC exercises jurisdiction over individuals not states and US nationals can be prosecuted if they commit torture in any territory which is a party to the Statute or which otherwise accepts the jurisdiction of the Court.

Yoo went on to assert that CAT was only applicable in US law if both defined torture in exactly the same terms. That was to say that where US law and international law conflict, US law takes precedence. In fact the opposite is true. It's fundamental principle that where international law and domestic law conflict international law prevails because were it otherwise there'd be no point in nations agreeing to the terms of a treaty in the first place.

The error of analysis that national law trumps international law also catches out Jay Baybee whose advice it was that torture in US federal law was limited to actions "of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure". Where the pain is mental, Baybee claimed, torture was limited to actions causing "lasting psychological harm as seen in mental disorders". The President, he said, was free from censure by Congress and was unconstrained by international requirements as to torture because they had not been adopted by the legislature. Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School however said that Baybee's analysis was a load of rubbish <---.

km

Yes you did, go back and read your first or second post I believe it is. (3) Lastly -torture has been proven NOT to work for any purpose but to inflict pain and revenge. For interrogation, it's worthless.

As far as thwarting an attack or saving lives, that's one of those circular arguments I don't care to get into since neither of us has any inside info. I was just referring to what was in the article about useful information being gained, not our armchair speculation on how that info was used.

Yes we all have different interpretations. Generally my interpretation leans towards procedures that physically alter the person. However waterboarding 200+ times on two people in a month is pretty damned ridiculous. Whomever thought that would accomplish anything needs to have the same done to them.

Regardless of people's interpretations, which acts are and aren't allowed by international law should be clear. If not, the language needs to be looked at and re-written to be more clear.

That would have been correct had you done so, of course. To 'gain' information means learning something you wouldn't otherwise have known when if fact establishing a rapport with a person is known to be more effective than torture at getting him to open up.

km

Correct

I went looking in the Geneva Convention which their definition of torture is very broad and non specific , like any harm or humiliation yada yada . Their definitions leaves the door open for all kinds of different interpretations .

So yes they need to close some gaps

Here ya go interrogations worked



I tend to agree like how about carefully crafted Trick Questions ? but I guess the language barrier gets in the way