Posted by D. Cupples | Yesterday, ABC News reported:
"A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.
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"Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques....
"Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use."
In 2004, Levin wrote a memo setting forth legal starndards for federal statutes that outlaw torture. The White House and Alberto Gonzales forced Levin to include a footnote stating that the memo did not declare the administration's previous opinions illegal. When Gonzales became Attorney General, Levin was reportedly forced out of his job.
Incidentally, studies have found torture ineffective, because victims may say whatever torturers want to hear (even if it's false) simply to stop the pain. Isn't extracting false intelligence counter-productive?
In 2005, Sen. John McCain cited the U.S. Army Field Manual as acknowledging that torture was ineffective. The U.S. Code defines torture as follows (18 U.S. C. 2340):
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and....
Many people would consider waterboarding (simulated drowning) a "threat of immenent death," but whether an act legally qualifies as torture depends, to some extent, on what the courts have said.
Malcom Nance, a former Naval instructor who has experienced, witnessed and supervised waterboarding concludes that it is, in fact, torture. (BN-Politics)
No one is sure why The Bush Administration is so reulctant to give up waterboarding or why Attorney Gerneral nominee Micahel Mukasey is so reluctant to call it illegal "torture."
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