Waterboarding Too Dangerous, Internal DoD Memo Reveals

[kpete]

Source: Truthout

Waterboarding Too Dangerous, Internal DoD Memo Reveals

Thursday 04 March 2010

by: Jeffrey Kaye, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis



In recent weeks, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen has been on a public relations campaign defending the efficacy of waterboarding, going so far as to say that the torture technique sanctioned by the Bush administration is not only safe, but is in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

......................

In his defense of the practice, Yoo cited the thousands of US servicemen who have undergone SERE training and said, "we don't think it amounts to torture because we would not be doing it to our own soldiers otherwise."

However, a previously unreleased internal Department of Defense (DoD) memo, summarizing a review of the Navy SERE program in late February - early March 2007, reveals that there was fierce criticism within the DoD of the Navy SERE school in North Island, San Diego, for being the only SERE facility to still use waterboarding in its training program.

The memo, obtained by Truthout, stated that the use of waterboarding left students "psychologically defeated" and impaired in the ability to develop "psychological hardiness."

Read more: http://www.truthout.org/waterboarding-too-dangerous-internal-dod-memo-reveals57372

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The Clare memo stated, in part:

3. Area of Concern: The JPRA official stance is that the water board should not be used as a physical pressure during Level C SERE training. This position is based on factors that have the potential to affect not only students but also the whole DoD SERE program. The way the water board is most often employed, it leaves students psychologically defeated with no ability to resist under pressure. Once a student is taught that they can be beaten, and there is no way to resist, it is difficult to develop psychological hardiness. None of the other schools use the water board that leaves the San Diego school as a standout.

[Soylent Brice]

1. K&R

[naaman fletcher]

2. K+R /nt

[Geoff R. Casavant]

3. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around

Yoo's logic.

In essence, "when we train our soldiers to resist torture, we waterboard them, therefore it can't be torture."

[atreides1]

4. "in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church."

So was burning people alive at one time.

[No Elephants]

8. So, the Catholic Church is now the standard for how the U.S. runs government?

Jefferson's ghost just committed suicide.

[rocktivity]

16. From that wonderful religion that brought you the Crusades

not the mention the Spanish Inquisition!



:rofl:
rocktivity

[JDPriestly]

5. Obama's failure to prosecute torturers and those who authorized

torture will have unimaginably horrible repercussions. Failure to respect the universal human right of the right to remain silent will come back to haunt many of the very people, the Tea-Baggers and others like them, who are advocating for torture.

Obama's biggest mistake thus far is his failure to prosecute these terrible crimes against humanity.

He is abstaining from these prosecutions for political reasons -- but the price that we as a nation will pay in the future for his failure to act will be enormous.

Political expediency is understandable in some situations, but not when it comes to a violation of a basic human right. The right to remain silent is a fundamental right. We claim it for ourselves and for Americans overseas. When we deny it to others, we condone the denial of it to ourselves.

Shame on Obama for failing to enforce this fundamental human right.

[aquart]

6. Yes, indeed, the Inquisition certainly supported torture.

How good of him to mention it.

[No Elephants]

7. Waterboarding is torture, period. And organ failure was Yoo's standard for going a tad too far.

[Jefferson23]

9. K&R

[Solly Mack]

10. ...

...

[SpiralHawk]

11. Republicon chickenhawks did not give a shit about brutality or evil doing on their own part

They just wanted to try and prove their 'manhood' by making other people suffer.

Ptoooey.

[lovuian]

12. We TORTURE our own soldiers

I met a guy who was waterboarded

he was in one of these schools

the psychological trauma comes through later on in life


it is why some soldiers down the road commit suicide

It is soo wrong

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

13. We have waterboarded our troops in SERE school for decades.

[madokie]

14. I spent a tour of duty at the SERE camp in warner springs california

which is an arm of the north island SERE school. The waterboarding done there was in a much more controlled situation than what the bushboys were doing in the war on terror, we were teaching, they were being sadistic in trying to extract info that in many cases weren't even there. No comparisons to the Waterboarding done in the SERE camps to what bushco was doing in gitmo and the other black sites.

Theres not a lot I can divulge about what goes on in SERE training so I'll stop here. (deleted)

I was there when a couple of nixon's goons paid a visit to observe. At the time we all wondered why the newly elected president was sending his two top men
Ehrlichman and Haldeman here. Now I wonder what their plans for us really were had it not been for the Watergate break in stopping them.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Waterboarding for dummies

Tuesday, Mar 9, 2010 07:01 EST
Waterboarding for dummies
Internal CIA documents reveal a meticulous protocol that was far more brutal than Dick Cheney's "dunk in the water"
By Mark Benjamin

Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a "a dunk in the water." But recently released internal documents reveal the controversial "enhanced interrogation" practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney's description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney "specially designed" to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding "session." Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to "dam the runoff" and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee's mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second "applications" of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee's nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

"This is revolting and it is deeply disturbing," said Dr. Scott Allen, co-director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at Brown University who has reviewed all of the documents for Physicians for Human Rights. "The so-called science here is a total departure from any ethics or any legitimate purpose. They are saying, ‘This is how risky and harmful the procedure is, but we are still going to do it.' It just sounds like lunacy," he said. "This fine-tuning of torture is unethical, incompetent and a disgrace to medicine."

More:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/03/09/waterboarding_for_dummies