Again, I say:  Consent, motherfuckers.  This dude could have quit at any time.  Does he think the detainees have any agency?  That they can call mom and say, “I can’t take this anymore.  Come pick me up and take me home”?

What an asshat.

I posted too quickly…

But what kind of fucked-up world do we live in where people think torture, in any circumstance, is okay?  I remember back in the day people used to get upset about that shit.

Do they think we should just remove ourselves from the Geneva Convention?  Should we become a rogue nation?  Or have we already?

holy shit, that was the stupidest thing i have ever read. i feel dumber just knowing that guy exists.

To all hand-wringing Democrats in Washington - claiming that America lost its values in permitting the CIA to carry forward its terrible interrogation techniques with persons responsible for the MURDER of nearly 3,000 Americans - get a life.

I’m sorry, but torturing people is not just payback for the WTC.  I am not so frightened of terrorism that I’m willing to sacrifice my country’s soul in exchange for a pretense of safety.

Again and again facts show that torture does not give any actionable intelligence.  Tortured people say whatever they think will make the torture stop.  KSM gave up the information first and was waterboarded 183 times a month after.

We executed Japanese soldiers, who among other torture, waterboarded Americans.

Waterboarding is not “immersing in water” like a swimmer.

We have killed, maimed, orphaned, widowed, and displaced over 2.5 million Iraqis, though they had no part of 9/11 and had no ability to harm us.  Saddam was contained in two no-fly zones.  Isn’t that enough blood on our hands?

Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda headquartered, has fallen back under the control of the Taliban, which means that the type of men who plotted against us are welcome there again. 

Women’s rights are worse in both countries than before we entered them.

On top of that, we’ve killed more American soldiers than people who died in the WTC, and treated the survivors like shit by cutting services when they need them most and wrangling over a 0.5% raise.

Yes, it is tragic that 3000 people died on 9/11.  But my country’s response?  More offensive.  Murder and torture for nothing.  We are not safer—we are just ineffectively crueller.  Policy made by cowards who were too afraid to deal with reality.

Other ways that being held in prison indefinitely without charges and tortured is not as bad as being on a swim team:

- You don’t have to set your own alarm or do any driving.  Armed attendants will wake you and forcibly escort you to each practice session.

- Guantanamo means never carbo-loading, and all the food is free.  Being placed on a diet of watery gruel that doesn’t satisfy your caloric needs is a great way to stay svelte and watch your budget at the same time.

- No speedos!  You attend the practice sessions (including the team meetings, one-on-one tutoring, dog visitation times and insect intimacy sessions) entirely in the nude.

My god, the commenters over there are asinine. I don’t know what this means:

Boot Camp
1stRichard Friday, April 24th at 10:30PM EDT
I was going to bring up the early P. I. but I will back out over possible controversy. But I will say water boarding is far more preverbal then the rose garden.

“Preverbal”? Say what?

Wow that is really rather stupid. I mean WOW to think there are people that stupid out there is just kind of sad really. Swim teem as torture…. sigh

Well I guess we can all forgive the torture done no matter the laws broken it is nothing compared to swim team practice…

Hiding behind McCain? The stupid it amazingly high in that we are somehow holding up facts and that somehow proves we are wrong for pointing out… FACTS!!!!! I guess it takes a Republican to be this fucking stupid!

It hurts my brain to think that this person may have children.

See, I underwent something far similar to torture in college—see, they made me take this exam, worth fifty percent of my grade, and I’d failed to study for it, and I was completely naked the whole time…

Listen guys, I know things are tough right now and we’re working you hard.  But when we’re up against Bagram in the finals of the Torturelympics, you’ll see how worthwhile it all was.  Plus we’ll have a pizza party when the season’s over!  Oh wait, it’s never over.

Oh noes- I was forced to train for a sport I wanted to compete in.  Oh the torture.  Oh the drama.  Pay attention to me please.  *arms waving wildly, fake tears running down my tortured face*

There is one true thing about what this asshole says. The experience did change him in significant ways.. Odds are he was much less of an asshole before he joined the swim team.

(This is actually significant in some ways, because people who have voluntarily gone through some grueling regimen, be it basic training or medical residency or police academy or technical theatre, often consider themselves set apart from the common rabble, and believe that whatever they endured somehow entitles them to behave in ways that they would not tolerate from others.  I think that in a weird way the disgustingly evil suggestion that torture “helps” detainees by giving them permission to confess is a coded reference to such voluntary regimens and the camaraderie that follows initiation.)

That stupid doesn’t just burn, it incinerates everything in its path.  It’s not just red-hot stupid, that’s atomic-grade white phosphorus stupid with a napalm chaser.

Ouch!

This is just like that email that went around when I was in high school graphically describing the act of brushing your teeth, only they make it sound exactly like a blow job. From a certain point of view brushing your teeth and a blow job can sound identical… but they aren’t. At all. And that’s the (stupid) joke of the email, but this guy wants to do the exact same thing and then use it as proof that they *are* the same after all.

“If I can describe my swim practice in such a way that it is indistinguishable torture, then they *must* be the same!”

I love the arrogance of a group of assholes who think they are so brilliant, sophisticated, and exceptional they can just throw away definitions of torture that have been agreed on for decades, if not centuries, because some terrorists killed fewer Americans here than we sent to their deaths in Iraq in a foolish and misguided act of bravado and revenge.

What makes the entitled dicks at places like Redstate and elsewhere think they know more about torture than the people who wrote and signed the Geneva Conventions?  What makes them think they know more about torture than the people who in the past prosecuted enemy soldiers for doing these things to our soldiers?  What makes them think they know more about torture than the people who prohibited these techniques from being used by our own military (except in controlled training exercises to show soldiers how bad they are)?

I hope there is a special place in Hell where Torquemada’s damned spirit can demonstrate for these pricks what torture is really like, for the next few millenia or so…

***

“And having on Hammer pants, because that’s always part of the dream, too.”

...now you’ve gone way too far.  That’s an egregious violation of human rights no matter how you look at it…

Franz Kafka wrote some very chilling books about swim practice.  And Natan Sharansky still gets the chills when you talk to him about flip-turns.

In his defence, swim practice did totally suck.

I’m still waiting for the iPhone app that lets you punch stupid people in the face when they write shit like that. I’ll even be a beta-tester.

In his defence, swim practice did totally suck.

Yes. In fact, the only thing making it bearable is the ability to walk away at any time.

He kept using the word “forced.” as in “forced to do laps.” He was, in fact, instructed to. But he was able to say no. This might be met with “then you’re off the team” and possibly more yelling, but he still has the power to end it on command.

most activities can be torturous. the phrase “tickle torture” exists for a reason. Eating, watching a movie, even just sitting in a chair can quickly become full out torture when the ability to do anything else is removed.

Paragraph three made me wonder why Jesse linked to the journal of a paranoid schizophrenic. But haha, it’s just a run-of-the-mill wingnut.

Next in the series: How I Nicked My Finger While Slicing Lemons - Lemons!!11!!!! - And It Was All Abu Ghraib Up In My Kitchen.

Fuck that guy.

What’s really creepy about that post is the way the training to which he consented is mixed in with the bullying and hazing to which he did not.

...holy shit jij!  What is wrong with you?

for the record, JumpinJim, no. that’s extortion, not torture.
The differences are a bit subtle, but not particularly relevant, since both torture and extortion are highly illegal.

The most frustrating thing about the whole discussion of torture is the immediate leap defenders make to say that the people being tortured are terrorists.  Well, maybe some of them are.  But a hell of a lot of them _weren’t_.  They’re torturing _suspects_ to determine _if_ they’re terrorists.  And if they’re not, what then?  What was the torture for?  To me it just sounds like the assumption of collective guilt, followed by revenge for that collective guilt, irrespective of, you know, the fucking guilt.

Torturing the guilty is bad enough.  Torturing the innocent…

Speaking as someone who was, once upon a time, a serious competitive swimmer in Ann Arbor, let me just say that we freely used the word “torture” to describe swim practice and, as Angus notes, the attendant hazing.  Of course, it was no such thing, as many of the above comments make clear. 

Paul is onto something here though:

This is actually significant in some ways, because people who have voluntarily gone through some grueling regimen, be it basic training or medical residency or police academy or technical theatre, often consider themselves set apart from the common rabble, and believe that whatever they endured somehow entitles them to behave in ways that they would not tolerate from others.

I don’t think it changes people so much as it brings out existing tendencies.  In my admittedly limited swim experience people who were assholes at lesser levels usually became bigger assholes at higher ones, and people who were nice at lesser levels usually became nicer at higher ones.  This was especially apparent when it came to hazing because there were always two or three guys in the locker room tormenting the shit out of the younger kids while everyone else held back and didn’t do much more than pat you on the back and tell you not to worry because we all went through it.

Angus Johnston:

What’s really creepy about that post is the way the training to which he consented is mixed in with the bullying and hazing to which he did not.

Purpose of the rhetoric right there - the writer is bringing up Steve King’s ‘torture::fraternity hazing’ moment in the media from 2004.  This is their talking point to the kool-aid drinking 30%‘ers.

I’m dying for someone to do the same comparison with other high school activities like, 5am marching band practices, drama productions (forced labor building Potemkin villages after midnight in the cover of darkness . .), football practices . .

Karpad - I would call it torture, on the same level as raping, torturing or killing a loved one in front of the torturee, but I reiterate: holy shit, where did that sick fantasy even come from?

Wow. I survived being on swim team for longer than John McCain was in captivity, so I can mock him for claiming to be a war hero, right?

And as a side note, this from the comments was very special, too:

But, if they could pass a law to ban anyone seeing any 9/11 pictures or Americans being beheaded, they would.

It’s a perfect illustration of the conservative mental disorder “we’re certain liberals believe the exact opposite of what we do, and therefore we can criticize them for it, even if we have no evidence.”

OMG! I think my brains just leaked out my ears.

And yeah, “forced” to be underwater in an “immersion tank” with his legs bound? Um, no. You were told to go underwater, you were told to hold the foam training devices between your legs. You were not strapped down and held there. How many 15 year-old swimmers dropped the foam thingy and came up early? Only to be yelled at by their coach!!!!

The TORTURE!!

I would call it torture, on the same level as raping, torturing or killing a loved one

Just so there’s no confusion, the loved one I’m referring to is the wife: “We have your husband.  You’re never going to see him again.  Incidentally, we understand that you’re in serious need of money.  Here, please accept this small donation…but in exchange, we want you to abort your current pregnancy.  Those are our conditions, take them or leave them - and we strongly suggest you take them.  It would be just terrible if your other children were to end up homeless and starving.  Why, who knows what kind of accidents could happen to them once they’re out on the street?”

Yeah.  I think the comparison to raping a loved one in front of the “terrorist” is pretty apt.

Can we has banned sociopath now?

Seraph: Yeah, rilly.

These “it isn’t torture” arguments are really just extraordinarily insane. Um, isn’t the fact that the people doing it think it causes sufficient suffering to break a person’s will such that they’ll say whatever said people want him to say kind of, at any point, a giveaway?

This is kind of cool. I can now claim that I was “tortured” by “the Russians”.

Oddly though, when Olga and Schved were through with me I weighed 192 Lbs (on a 6’ 2” frame) and looked like a fucking Greek god (and could backstroke 100m in under a minute… and felt great!). Who the hell at six one wastes away to 144 Lbs during a swimming regimen? Must have had bones like a bird.

And I still have the total Stockholm Syndrome hots for Olga.

The best* part of this is how Jumpin Psycho doesn’t even bother to hide his raging misogyny.

*IE, worst.

Yes, Jim, that would be true ... if he were an obviously sick and broken fuck like you.

The one guy near the top is saying that we would “ban photos of 9-11 if we could”.  What the ever living fuck is he smoking?  Why would anyone on the right think anyone on the left would want to do that?

I think b/c they believe the media is 100% loony liberal and the MSM refused to show people leaping to their deaths out of a sense of human decency, they imagine that we actually want to ban the photos instead of letting sick fucks like him watch snuff films.

Human decency.  It’s what’s missing from the torture-philes.

JumpingPsycho needs bunnification now.  Anyone who thinks a baby’s head can slide out doesn’t have the brains of a stick.  Love the bit about the ‘terrorist’ not caring about his wife being in pain during an abortion.  B/c the woman isn’t a human being and her suffering is meaningless.

In his twisted woman-hating sadistic way, the troll is actually pointing out that one of the definitions of torture commonly ridiculed by wingnuts and their favorite criminal administration is spot on: treatment that causes prolonged mental anguish, including but not limited to threats of death or particular physical tortures or reprisals against family members, is torture even if the physical acts aren’t carried out.

I don’t understand why the right-wingers are so upset about Sept. 11th.  I mean, they knocked down a skyscraper here a few years ago to put up a bigger one, and nobody got upset.  That’s the same thing, right?

I vote we keep the troll around for awhile. He’s the best one I’ve seen in weeks.

Conservatives think America is the place between Canada and Mexico.

I met a woman online, recently. We decided to meet up and have dinner. I paid for the two of us and left a generous tip for the waiter—halibut for her and a steak for me. Our hunger sated, I escorted her back to her apartment. She was a little hesitant to have sex with me, but I placed my penis inside her and pleasured myself.

Finishing up, I said thank you as she rolled over and curled up towards the opposite wall. I’ll probably call her again…. Now, why is she calling it rape? This was just an average date. </sarcasm>

Thirding the request to ban JJ. Fucking sociopath.

They’re torturing _suspects_ to determine _if_ they’re terrorists.  And if they’re not, what then?  What was the torture for?  To me it just sounds like the assumption of collective guilt, followed by revenge for that collective guilt, irrespective of, you know, the fucking guilt.

Torturing the guilty is bad enough.  Torturing the innocent…
FlipYrWhig on 04/25 at 12:34 PM

Yeah, the pro “enhanced interrogation” folks always assume the prisoner is guilty.  That’s always bugged me, too.

Torture of even the guilty is bad policy and inhumane.  Some respectable military people say it’s unreliable and our doing it encourages enemies to do it to our guys. 

If I can threadjack just a little, let me ask you guys about the prospect of prosecuting Bush administration employees for giving the OK to it.  The recent Washington Post articles don’t lay out why it’s illegal under treaties such as Geneva Convention for prisoners who are not part of an organization or state.  Has someone hear read the applicable laws and treaties to verify they apply to the guys held outside the U.S.?  I heard recently a 2004 SCOTUS decision applied U.S. anti-torture laws to prisoners held by U.S. military overseas.  That’s fine with me but can we reasonably prosecute people for developing an unwise or even gross policy in 2002 if it wasn’t clearly illegal?

When we torture, it means the terrorists have won.  They have succeeded in destroying what the US stands for and has stood for since our founders, many of whom had been tortured themselves, penned some pretty clear law on the subject.

Ms. Kate wins the thread for concisely stating the truth.

Always takes me an extra 500 words or so to get there.

Raping a loved one? That’s a fanciful stretch. How about murdering a loved one? The fetus.

You think the hypothetical “terrorist” would give a hoot about his wife feeling any discomfort during the abortion procedure? His “pain” would be from knowing his unborn child is going to be terminated.

Ah.  So you actually agree with us, that eliminating the woman from the equation and acting as if the fetus is the thing that actually matters is wrong?  After all, if you’re identifying that as the position of a terrorist, then you can’t agree with it yourself.

It seems I’ve misjudged you.

Also, what Ms. Kate said.

When we torture, it means the terrorists have won.  They have succeeded in destroying what the US stands for and has stood for since our founders, many of whom had been tortured themselves, penned some pretty clear law on the subject.
Ms Kate on 04/25 at 05:49 PM

I agree with your first sentence.  The last one is a nice sentiment, but who are you talking about?  I missed the torture scenes in Adams’  biography and Franklin’s biography I read in the last two years, and I’m missing the anti-torture language in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  Is there something in the Federalist Papers I’ve forgotten?

The Revolutionary War was no different from any other war - there were POWs, and American POWs were tortured and starved until death by their British captors.  More Americans died in British prison ships in New York harbor than in battle.  Both the survivors of that torture and their leaders were well aware of the treatment. 

And if you’re “missing” the anti-torture language in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, you should probably reread them.

What laws have been broken? Abortion is legal.

You have no idea what the abortion laws are in this country, do you?

Hint:  try actually reading Roe v Wade—the actual decision, not what your pastor told you it says—and then look up what a “trimester” is.  Then try to puzzle out what the Supreme Court was talking about when they talked about how “trimesters” apply to abortion laws.  Then let us know in which of the 16 US states where late-term abortion is legal that your scenario is taking place in, because it’s not legal in the rest of the US without a medical reason verified by at least one medical doctor.

Seriously, dude, if you’re going to cook up fantasies about abortion for something other than your own personal masturbatory material, at least come up with something halfway plausible.

Is there something in the Federalist Papers I’ve forgotten?

Are the words of George Washington good enough for you?  I realize they’re not in the Federalist Papers, but I’m hoping the fact that the father of our country and our first president expected war crimes by his men to be severely punished might have some small meaning for you.

I charge you, therefore, and the Officers and Soldiers, under your Command, as you value your own Safety and Honour and the Favour and Esteem of your Country, that you consider yourselves, as marching, not through an Enemy’s Country; but that of our Friends and Brethren, for such the Inhabitants of Canada, and the Indian Nations have approved themselves in this unhappy Contest between Great Britain and America. That you check by every Motive of Duty and Fear of Punishment, every Attempt to plunder or insult any of the Inhabitants of Canada. Should any American Soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any Canadian or Indian, in his Person or Property, I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary Punishment as the Enormity of the Crime may require.

You can read a short history of the American government’s attitude towards war crimes committed by its troops at NPR.  Of course, Abraham Lincoln was not a Founding Father, so I guess his orders can be safely ignored.

Here are the John Adams comments against torture, along with a few additional George Washington references.  James Madison specifically referred to torture and other war crimes by the British and their allies as an “outrage against the law of honorable war and against the feelings sacred to humanity” in his annual address (aka State of the Union) of Nov. 4, 1812.

But, then, he didn’t put it into the Federalist Papers, so Madison must not have felt very strongly about it.

Now I’m reminded of the arguments Bill O’Reilly had with General Wesley Clark about a WWII atrocity.

The fact was that around the time of, or during, the Battle of the Bulge, a German unit (SS, either regular or one of their combat units (Waffen-SS) IIRC) captured an American unit, and when it seemed likely they would not be able to convey the captured Americans to a German POW camp, massacred them instead.

Bill-O was under the impression that it was Americans who took the surrender of and then massacred Germans. And that somehow this slander, if it were true, would have been a good thing. The context of course was justifying the Bush admin’s then-current policies.

The thing is, while I heard of it a couple years ago, the “error” doesn’t exactly date to then, because actually Clark had to try and correct the incorrigible Bill-O at least twice; they’d had the exact same argument some years before.

I myself can mention some things that were misguided, mistaken, or even deliberately vicious about American actions in WWII, but it is amazing as well as appalling that O’Reilly’s mind seems stuck on his mixed-up-and-backwards Bizarro World history. After all, in the context, setting aside moral differences between the Allies and the Nazis, the latter were losing at that point and it is much more plausible that they would be in a situation where their prisoners would be liberated by the other side. Many a smart German at that point was thinking hard about how to ingratiate themselves with the obvious winning side, but there were plenty of dead-enders, presumably well represented in the SS, who would merely fight the more desperately. Whereas Americans faced with a choice of either murdering Germans they had captured, letting them go, or getting caught by counterattacking Germans, could reasonably choose either of the latter two options rather than rack up the body count, knowing that their own survival and evasion of capture would more than compensate for the setback of freeing a handful of Ermans to fight a few months more, and even if captured they would probably be liberated soon. Unless of course they were simply killed out of hand—which is what in fact happened to this American unit.

So why does Bill O’Reilly want to believe the opposite, which casts us as the bad guys—unless he actually doesn’t think that the sort of thing we executed thousands of German and Japanese officers for were really “war crimes” or “atrocities” at all, just stuff both sides would naturally do. And the only crime is to lose.

But I guess I’m just a totally UnAmerican pinhead. And so is Wesley Clark, with his fancy-pants fact-based reality and actually won war…

What laws have been broken? Abortion is legal.

Lern 2 Legal System: Extortion does not require criminal activity. It is the threat of action designed to coerce behavior.

“I’ve learned your music shop sell ABBA records. Give me 5000 dollars, or I’ll inform everyone you sell ABBA Records and lead an Anti ABBA protest that will blockade your store.”

His action? Not criminal. My threatened action? not criminal, though highly inconvenient for him. My action of “pay up or suffer massive inconvenience?” Extortion.

Same as Blackmail. It’s not illegal to keep a secret (provided it wasn’t proof of a crime). It’s not illegal to gossip and blab a secret. But Blackmail is extortion, and is illegal. For much the same reason as a tontine being illegal: it encourages violence and murder simply by existing, and has no real other purpose.

Jumpinjim just accepts whatever Billo says. Fact is, he’s been corrected on this a bunch of times and he still refuses to budge. Typical.

I’m not a parent, so take this for what it’s worth, but if I found out my child was forced to do pull ups until they puked, I’d have someone’s teaching certificate and my child would no longer be in that program.

Mnemosyne, I stand corrected on the founding fathers (Washington, Adams and Madison anyway) and thanks for those references.  The NPR piece was particularly helpful in telling what the applicable current laws and treaties are and the hair-splitting the Bush Administration did to get around them.