TORTUREGATE: background on waterboarding

Published on Friday, February 8, 2008 by The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
Waterboarding and Inquistion
by David M. Gitlitz

Why has the Bush administration been dancing around the question of whether waterboarding is torture?

Waterboarding was one of the most common tortures employed by the Spanish Inquisition for the first half of its 450-year-long history (circa 1480-1834). This has never been a secret. It is attested to by reams of documents - letters, debates, manuals of instruction and copious records of trials that include verbatim accounts of the torture sessions themselves - in the Historical Archives of Spain and Mexico, in which I have worked for the last 30 years. The information about inquisitorial waterboarding has also been available to the English-reading general public since publication of H.C. Lea’s A History of the Inquisition, the last volume of which appeared a hundred years ago this year.

Here is Lea’s description of the inquisitorial waterboarding:

“The patient was placed on an escalera or potro - a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. A bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient gasped and felt he was suffocating, and at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight.”

The Spanish Inquisition, unlike many American lawmakers and members of the executive branch, did not waffle about labeling waterboarding a torture. Waterboarding was not invented in Spain: Since the middle of the 13th Century it had been used by European civil and ecclesiastical courts, particularly the Papal Inquisition, in Rome. In Spain no one voiced doubts, as did Michael Mukasey during his October confirmation hearings for U.S. attorney general, and at a hearing just the other day, about whether waterboarding might not technically be torture.

President Bush, on the other hand, has no doubts at all. Unlike his nominee, he spoke with inquisitor-like certainty when he proclaimed that our physically coercive techniques “are safe, they are lawful and they are necessary.” He apparently sees no contradiction in simultaneously insisting that these “classified interrogation procedures” be conducted offshore so as to remove them from the jurisdiction and safeguards of the American judicial system.

The Spanish Inquisition guaranteed to the accused many of the legal protections that the current administration has worked so hard to sweep under the rug. Within the context of their times the Inquisition’s stance, succinctly laid out in its 1561 Manual of Instruction to Inquisitors, was remarkable. Both the prosecuting and court-appointed defense attorneys had access to the substance of all of the testimonies relating to the accused. The accused could disqualify the testimony of anyone whom he or she could prove had animus against them. Inquisitors had to weigh the full arguments of the defense and the prosecution before ordering a torture session. The order required a unanimous vote of the judges. If the defense attorney didn’t accept the decision, he could appeal the ruling to the Inquisition’s Supreme Council (though in practice they rarely did).

Gathered in the torture chamber itself were the inquisitors, a bishop’s representative, and a recording secretary adept at speedwriting, which was the videotaping of its day. The attending doctor could rule the accused unfit to be tortured, and could order the procedure stopped at any time. Once the accused was brought into the torture chamber, he was offered several chances - the average seems to have been about six- to make full voluntary confession. Fear in the presence of imminent pain was generally enough to loosen the accused person’s tongue. It was only when fear alone did not work that torture was applied, with each step of the procedure, each jar of water and turn of the winch, each question and each choked-out answer, duly noted by the recording secretary. None of the participants ever destroyed those documents out of fear of embarrassment or indictment for their actions. Nor did their bosses. The original recordings were archived, and after 500 years are still available.

I am not praising the Spanish Inquisition. I know enough about the real Inquisition - not the cartoon version of Monty Python nor the sensationalist horrors of the Black Legend - to know that the Inquisition was heinous in almost every way. Though debates raged then and still rage among scholars about the reliability of the information elicited by these procedures, there is no disagreement about one fact: Waterboarding was torture. That was its intent, and that, in conjunction with a variety of other torments, was how the Spanish inquisitors used it. Even today popular imagination condemns them for it. For the United States to adopt even one of the Inquisition’s torture techniques exposes us, rightly, to moral condemnation.

The United States has long been a beacon to the world for its ethical principles (even when sometimes these have been honored in the breach). Equal treatment under the law. Habeas corpus. Free and open discussion informed by access to information and a free press. Checks and balances to ensure that these rights are protected.

That the Bush-Cheney administration has squandered our human and material resources in this so-called war against terror is a calamity that will affect us for decades. But that they have blown away our moral capital, that they have compromised the principles that define us as a nation, that is a tragedy.

David M. Gitlitz is a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of Rhode Island.

© 2008 The Providence Journal Co.

US National Security EMBRACING TORTURE, good links

NATIONAL SECURITY

Embracing Torture

Earlier this week, CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged for the first time publicly that the agency had used the tactic of waterboarding on at least three prisoners nearly five years ago. Waterboarding is an interrogation practice in which, "the victim's lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies." As Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, told Congress, "

Waterboarding is a long-standing form of torture used by history's most brutal governments, including those of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia."

Yesterday, "after years of dodging and dissembling, the Bush administration boldly embraced" its record of torture and said it would "definitely want to consider" using it again. "It will depend upon circumstances," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding that future acts of waterboarding would "need the president's approval," and the White House would notify "appropriate members of Congress."

LEGAL PARSING: In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. "Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago." Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said in an interview this month, "There's just no doubt in my mind -- under any set of rules -- waterboarding is torture." But inside the Bush administration, such clarity has succumbed to legal parsing.

"I would feel" waterboarding was torture "if it were done to me,"

Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress recently. But Mukasey, who promised to lead a legal review of the practice before being confirmed, is now refusing to brief Congress on the legality of waterboarding. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the New Yorker in January,

"Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But this week, McConnell said his comments should not be interpreted to reflect an official administration position. When he said waterboarding was "torture," McConnell explained to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), he meant he just personally didn't like water up his nose.

FROM DENIAL TO OPEN ADVOCACY: For years, the White House had done its best to deny the obvious: that it had employed waterboarding against prisoners. When Vice President Dick Cheney told a conservative talk radio host in Oct. 2006 that it would be a "no-brainer" to "dunk" an individual in water if it would save lives, the White House tried to dispel any notion that Cheney was embracing waterboarding. Now the White House strategy has changed -- "the administration has apparently decided that this is a debate they can win out in the open." The switch comes as Congress is considering legislation that "if passed, would require all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to abide by the Army Field Manual's prohibition against waterboarding." The White House said yesterday it wants to retain the option to use waterboarding, even while President Bush has frequently claimed "we do not torture." "Torture is illegal," Fratto said yesterday after McConnell's testimony.

"We don't torture -- we maintain and as we have said many times that the programs have been reviewed, and the Department of Justice has determined them to be legal."

SPOTLIGHT ON THE SENATE: In December, the House passed an amendment that extends the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel. Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Christopher Bond (R-MO) has said he would lead an effort to remove that requirement when the legislation reaches the Senate floor. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who in the past has made a series of statements against the use of waterboarding, has placed a hold on the anti-waterboarding bill. A number of key Republican swing votes -- including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) -- will likely make the difference if the bill comes to a vote. McCain has previously called waterboarding a "horrible, odious" technique that "should never be condoned in the U.S."

* CIA oldie but goodie - RENDITION, more dots and disinfo

[I am getting tired .. this is STILL under construction.
It needs more {{{{flow}}}} but I'm too tired now to provide it.]

So for fun, anyone reading can see the ribs .. of the arguments to come.]

Die Zeit: Can you be sure that there have been no errors and that no one was falsely transferred?

Michael Scheuer: I am sure that errors have been committed. Clausewitz has spoken of the fogs of war and we are right in the middle of that fog. If errors have been committed, the concerned persons have to be indemnified, Die Zeit, Hamburg, 29 December 2005

“It seems to me you are asking a question about an issue that involves the U.S. government,” Neale said. “Jeppesen, as with the rest of the Boeing company, operates in accordance with the laws.”

Asked about Jeppesen’s role in the rendition program, Mark Mansfield, CIA director of communications, said, “We don’t comment on such matters.”

Boeing Subsidiary Sued for Role in Torture Flights IHT,29 May 2007 , found on http://kickboeingtothecurb.wordpress.com/

Tongue lashing below from Professor SNARK:

All about an item linked below -

Now just why would the CIA allow a former Rendition Bloody Master, Michael Scheuer to speak to the press, albeit in Germany ?? The item is making the rounds of the blogosphere today.

Time for snide remarks. The CIA brings that out in people, I've found. I get to feeling like a White Woman of outrage when I read their "remarks", although I am awfully aware they are feeing the public pure crap. Stuff that makes ggggrrrrrrrooooooooowl in outrage.

What is he saying EXACTLY about "have to be indemnified" ...?

Is this what seals Michael Mansfield's lips on bloody KIDNAP and collusion with rogue nations, that new "high tech" solution to how America can assert its presumed ownership of the world- no one's bloody indemnified so Mansfield remains mum?

You cannot be "idemnified" for war crimes!! And we've already posted on here about the bloody legal insurance problems people in the CIA are facing about the torture tapes "accounting".

How can an Agency operative or official pay a high-buck lawyer to defend themselves against WAR CRIMES - when the CIA will not "indemnify" AND the lawyers' cost so bloody much (drug money kept in offshore accounts might help, but eventually the prosecutors would find out about that little stunt.)

Here's a truth, the CIA is badly split. WAR CRIMES are being exposed - and the lawyers who thought up clever legal defenses and "techniques" for subverting Geneva after they took an oath to uphold it, well, they are in a fix.

So they are trotting out the crew involved to indulge in some SERIOUS finger pointing! And truth be told, they are being fed answers to feed to the press. (How's that for a deceptive food chain?) So I hope anyone readng this will consider what the poision being fed on Die Zeit will be taken with a grain of salt. It's not very nourishing. A certain, Mr. Scheuer, paid with US taxdollars, sworn to uphold an oath to the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States of America is being let out of the Langley bag to feed some heavy weight disinfo concerning rendition.

Hey, Mark Mansfield did that in the NYT!! He pointed the finger at THEM. LOL. Somedays this all just too funny!! Only you know some people DIED in this little CIA caper, some people are left damaged for life and they did nothing wrong! Well, whadda ya know about that, folks!! As Helen Thomas says, you can't bring back a life .. The CIA minimizes and rationalizes every reckless death that they do.

They have a new "leave no marks" protocol, but the torture continues. And that stress breaks done the human immune system -- so the people die, just takes looooooooooonger. That's all.

The CIA and other alphabet soup agencies must, at long last, get it straight, imho.

To ensure AMERICA'S safety - if you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime!! You are being tried in the court of public opinion and guess what! I AM the public .. me, little ole me. First Amendment rights and all that other jazz that seem to haunt youse guys.

Can people of conviction -- who just might be aware there ARE acutally terrorists -- be against rendition without being "leftist democrats" in the CIA's mind? Can some of us just want to ensure that the CIA follows Geneva and that the CIA does do it's usual SPIN when caught with it's pants down, with solid evidence waving in our hands -- and a whole cartload of "missing evidence" on their part?

Hmm - in age where CIA torturing, an agency which has taken MACHO to a whole new level of rationalization - do you suppose, just maybe it would be good to show that "kindly face" of a torturing monster to the public once again? First a waterboarding specialist with a very contrived but effective take for us all to "swallow" - now an interview put in Germany that was destined to come into North America to look at, replete with picture of "said" upset CIA officer.

How very sublimely surreal!!

This was the squibb I got with the link:

Extraordinary Renditions: An Interview with Michael Scheuer
'The CIA has the right to break any law' Do the American secret services have the right to abduct presumed terrorists? For the first time, Michael Scheuer, one of the principal persons in charge of the CIA provides answers to the German newspaper Die Zeit.

My radar goes UP!! when I see that one.

I could dissect it line by line for you.

Afterall I know the POINT that they are trying to score and I also have a nice little set of Geneva protocols to read, on the other hand. I've read a fair bit about CIA operations in the Balkans and what happened with Osama bin Laden when he operated there, training troops to help out Uncle Sam run out the Russian bear in Afghanistan.

Here's the deal MARK - if you've guys' eyes on the blog - and you can tell it Dirty Dick at the next Holiday "do" if you guys last that long, you haven't just screwed up, you've screwed up the peace and security of EVERYONE on this planet for about long enough. And no matter which thug you guyz trot out we are going to STAY alarmed until such time as someone thinks it's time to get some oversight and clear lawbreakers are brought to JUSTICE.

You guys need a LEASH - and don't think it's "just" left wing democrats are the problem by being what you consider "hypocrites" and cowardly milquetoast because they have no appetite for war crimes or torture. You guys and Dirty Dick are the problem. Maybe Bill Clinton, too, but that circular firing squad rationale won't do! Not to us, We the People. The people who do the crime, must do the time!! What goes on is NOT legal! You all take the oath but you do not uphold and guess what, no spin can make the Unitary Executive argument stick. Not really: gues you already know that though.

Since a letter I wrote on here to Mark Mansfield was done, I've got Mark in a big pork pie. Mark said in 1998 that The Agency doesn't torture .. yeah, right. It was "renditioning" then. Nice try Mark .. we're keeping a timeline. We're figuring it ALL out!! Yup.

There are other ways to protect America than to go on doing the Same Old, Same old, including raising America's prestige (what's left of it) by simply showing we respect the Rule of Law!! Yup you might not have to resort to the carrot and the stick as a techique as you do now. It's not about being the POWER agency that thinks the US President owns the entire friggin world and goes in and cause havoc wherever it goes! NOPE, it is NOT. Man, what a mess your Agency has made in this world over the past five decades. A band of Ivy league THUGS running around the world playing "spies" - inticing people, bribing them, playing footsies with maimed wretched people who simply want the buck$ and a chance to "come to America" - the last being a little 'privilege' you never assent to in the end anyway.

Magic word, Mark and the rest of you at Mark's coffee clatch: NUREMBERG.

There is no statute of limitations.

There is no escaping history. The war crimes in this administration are simply HORRIFYING beyond belief!

And an esoteric little phrase for all of you to laugh about at lunch:

FUCK Clausewitz.

There are no excuses . The law was broken. The "fog of war" don't cut when the judge rolls round. You guys knew that - you were warned butcha just had to do it anyway.

The dead, those you tortured and died may be buried, but we know .. we won't be forgetting either.

The new policy is "leave no marks" .. but guess what - kidnap is still criminal. Get some new bloody lawyers you guyz. Ask for some immunity and save yourselves.

All the CRAP must come to light - it's time!!

And as for this;

Die Zeit: What will become of the “extraordinary renditions²?

Michael Scheuer: The program is probably dead because of the leaks, the publications and the criticisms. The result is disillusioning for those in charge within the secret services: Not one of those who had given us the orders to act as we did admits today to have done so.

Um hmmm. Probably? You KNOW, Michael Scheuer. And the best thing YOU can do is turn in those who gave you ORDERS, it's your duty as a citizen.

impeachment toolkit - TORTURE, the CIA, the New York Times and WAR CRIMES, part 1

It's been called to my attention that the "Director of Public Affairs" (????) of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mark Mansfield, has written the following letter to the New York Times -- and in just a few words has exposed The Agency (The Company, as some refer to it, who are in the know ...) and its policy towards WAR CRIMES .. Here is the letter:

To the Editor [of the New York Times]:

Your Dec. 31 editorial “Looking at America” does a great disservice to the men and women of the C.I.A. You describe the lawful questioning of hardened terrorists as “sickening behavior.” The interrogation methods the C.I.A. has employed over the years have been closely reviewed by lawyers and others in the executive branch, and they have been briefed to our oversight committees in Congress. That is a fact.

It is absurd to suggest that the C.I.A. has an interest in any process that would produce bad intelligence. To dismiss as “barbaric acts” a small, carefully run effort that has disrupted terrorist plots and saved innocent lives — and done so in accord with the law — is wrong and unfair.

The officers of the C.I.A. who put their lives on the line to gather intelligence on the terrorist threat — and are as committed as anyone to protecting American ideals — deserve better.

Mark Mansfield

Director of Public Affairs

Central Intelligence Agency

McLean, Va., Jan. 3, 2008

Mr first reaction upon reading it was this - it reminded me of a Big Nixonian type of WHINE.

Then I noticed that the PROJECTION in it is almost laughable. They are the ones being mistreated? I hardly think so!! But this is a repetitious pattern with Bushistas and Straussites (MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!!) But when I contemplate this letter, and confer with my "legal adviser" certain things about it deserve some right good "nitpicking" - and the legal charade it attempts to present as "gospel" and "edict" should be exposed, word after bloody word, thought after sickening thought. I don't pretend my observations are all mine - I had plenty of help here. But perhaps the reader will stick this through and see the inconsistentancies and legal hole they put themselves in with this "letter to the editor". It was obviously meant for MASS CONSUMPTION.

I could wallpaper all my walls with pictures I have seen of all the torture of living things I have seen the BuZh administration. The imperial presidency, commandeered by a lot of power crazied zealots, has gotten itself up to many unsavory things during the past seven years. But I don't need to do place posters and etching on the walls; the images stay permanently etched in my mind's eye .. you know, that place we all inhabit that isn't material, but is the picture gallery our souls create. When I read what a person writes I am always looking for a visual clue to see if they "get" the mental picture of what they are writing about, or are they just into rationalization or mind games ...

The Department of Justice, the State Department, the Department of Defense, certainly the White House .. and that indefinable Fourth Branch of government that is comprised of Dick Cheney and his two gigantic walk-in Mosler safes whihc employees a staff of science fiction writers have all been totally devoid of real substantive humanity is seeing the soulless world they would like us to "inhabit".

Now it's the CIA ..

This obviously is the intent of the letter - to drag us all into the "land of the dead" or the land of the "willful" and above the law.

We are to inhabit the Land of the Legally Unaccountable with them. Only I'm not going there. I happen to know that assaults and torture on other individuals is illegal.

With a bit of deconstruction, their craziness CAN be done, if we pick apart the serious lack of depth in their ridiculous mental posturings and constructs.

So, thanks to my EXPERT LEGAL HELP I am going to deconstruct this letter line by line - in hopes that you'll stick it out and come to the same conclusion I have: These bloody fools must be restored to .. ready for it? ... the RULE OF LAW, the law that they are sworn to uphold because they are too mentally, emotionally and spiritually deficient to see TRUTH themselves.

There are first certain basic assumptions one gets knowing that the CIA has gone to the New York Times to file a COMPLAINT.

One is, that believe people might care to hear them, and

Two, that somehow or other they can SHAME the rest of us into believing their story AFTER they have clearly clearly committed TORTURE in our name, that is the name of We The People .. and created a "most hated nation on earth" reputation for the citizens of America. They seem to forget that We The People pay their salaries. But in unique BuZhista form, they seem to assume that we are here to serve their imperial directives. Well, excuse me, but I am not brain dead YET. I can smell out a motivation and recognize "projection" and a rationalization when I see it.

I have nothing to be ashamed of, and in this particular case, neither does the New York Times. The editors are up to some pretty good questions about the CIA and TORTURE these days .. and the DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE. And for that I rejoice; I've been reading that paper for over 40 years!! and they should be an impeccable guide to lawful behaviour.

First, let's take a look at Mr. Mansfield before I start addressing him directly.

Does anyone reading this remember the STAGED FEMA briefings, particularly as they related to FEMA failures to control the California wildfires - where a publically paid employee got up and read out "pre-planned" questions of a FEMA official, while POSING as a legitimate journalist?? Do you remember the public outcry?

This was such an indication of the low standard of public accountability that federal agencies have fallen into since BuZh took office. You know, that idea that whatever it takes to politicize federal bureaucracies, whatever it takes to justify their actions is perfectly ACCEPTABLE?

At least to their minds, until we "call" them on it.

Now, we see the CIA up to it.

Who'd a thought it would come to THIS, after the CIA itself wrote an outraged letter about the outting of Valerie Plame? I read that myself, and have a mental picture of it, and the signatories I read stored in that memory bank of my SOUL. I looked very carefully at each name (trying, sorry, to figure out how many were Anglo white guys, the truth be told ... )

Yet, NOW, after knowing that the CIA has committed WATERBOARDING, we are to accept the "truth" of the CIA in which they put forward their vantage point, without facing the public and being asked the hard (Helen Thomas-style, thank God for Helen!) questions, we're just to lap up their Geneva accord dodge without a refutation. Now, to that I say ... FOR SHAME!

So, here is rhetorical question No. 1,

Mr. Mansfield,

just how far down have ETHICAL considerations/standards slipped at the CIA??

Or is it just YOU?? Are you a registered member of a public relations association? Do you follow the GUIDELINES?? Or do you serve your political masters, ONLY??

Also, you say in your re: that you are speaking for the entire CIA --

I sincerely doubt THAT. The CIA is no more monolithic (it's not the BORG!!) than any other federal agency. Plenty of CIA employees are HORRIFIED by the torture that was committed in the name of AMERICA, who after all is the legal entity accountable for the CIA's actions. More about that later ...

While you SAY we are looking at interrogation methods, I suggest, Mr. Mansfield, that what you are ACTUALLY doing -- since you never divulge anything about torture methods merely referring to how well run and "small" they are -- is avoiding some very GRAVE LEGAL ISSUES, instead. Grave by the severity of the crimes committed, and grave because of the circumstances in which we all now find ourselves.

While it is not a criminal, per se -- right from the off you are creating an insincerely articulated as well as an incorrect perception you want planted in people's minds ..

This is known as "spin" .. or worse, as PSYOPS, of which you may have done a class or two or a hundred during your time at the CIA.

The perception you are attempting to create is that we are to unquestionably accept YOUR version of events and a massive coverup attempt by the CIA. Perhaps you have come to feel that if you bat these ideas around enough times, we will come to accept the premise of your argument. But some of us know that there is law involved and are far from forgetting about it.

Unlike me, you have access to a vast army of lawyers and legal opinions; that would be in the nature of your executive job at the CIA .. to act as sincere, competant officer but your letter right from the off indicates you don't know where your directives are coming from. I'll make it simple for you:

The US Constitution - public affairs officers working for the CIA have a duty to upold 5 USC 3331 oath of office requirement to the US Constitution; and are not allowed to disclose false information designed to mislead criminal investigators, in this case war crimes prosecutors.

But Mr. Mansfield, you already know that charges of war crimes have been filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights about WAR CRIMES committed by the United States government. You are definitely trying to mislead the public by your publication of this letter. Your oath of office includes a promise to enforce Geneva. So my second question to you, Sir is:

to what extent have you failed to provide all the facts to show
you are fully doing your job per the Geneva requirements.

I am going to PRESUME that you are not an attorney. This may or may not be the case. But YOUR employment in the CIA does mean that you are bound by LAW.

While you don't "legally" have a "legal duty under the legal profession" to do something this does not mean that you can fail to do what you should as a public affairs person, so I ask you, Mr. Mansfield,

What assurances can you give me that your public statements are not designed for "merely" for public consuption and are not designed to mislead the court, investigators, or public.

While you refer to talking about "lawyers", you seem to avoid the real issue as regards We the PEOPLE, to whom you are ultimately accountable and you commit a more deceitful breach, one that is "self-serving" to the CIA law breakers -- you are avoiding a discussion of the correct issue which is -- what legal standard are we talking about? The fictions created by John Yoo & Co, or the actual law, the legal standard, or the Courts?

Just because an Agency lawyer or some Federalist Society or Bushista lawyer has told you something does not make it TRUE.

So my next questions, Mr. Mansfield, are these:

Have you consulted the history books and looked at the Nuremberg Trials in any detail?

Are you aware that a precedent for prosecuting lawyers who failed to enforce the laws of war exists??

Have you heard of "Justice Trials"??

At this point in time - the time at which you write this arrogant letter, US lawyers have already been alleged to have Made (key word) "frivolous" legal arguments to justify violations of the laws of war; this is important because that alleged frivolous legal argument would attach legal counsel to the underlying war crime. Surely in a serious position such as yours, this would be a prime consideration in your work.

I am more than a bit curious as to WHO you, as a Public Affairs OFFICER, in what is the world's largest intelligence operation, has access to for legal opinion.

Who do you deal with LEGALLY in the Department of Justice and in Congress?

I know of the roles of liaision officers - I dealt with that during my refugee case. (In my case, it was Sheila Foster Anthony - the liason from the DoJ to Congress under Reno in 1994, or so it is PRESUMED .. I got some rather different information about that this past year when doing some snooping.) In my case, this became necessary as the DoJ denied me the right to legal remedies of any kind, and thus the case was brought there. A court of law RULED, fairly, in 1997, that indeed the Solicitor General could not be relied on to whom I could make appeal, and the Europa World Book stated that distinctly. Therefore, the legal opinion of the Congressional Liasion was relied on. I would assume you are able to make these types of distinctions yourself/yourselves .. and go for the best legal counsel.

One would PRESUME that with techniques like waterboarding, clearly outside the rules of war, some would bring this from the CIA to the attention of the major legal authorities on Geneva, as the United States is a signatory and bound to follow the rule of LAW, no matter what the CIA may or may not like about the provisions until such time as Congress invalidates the treaties.

So, I ask you Mr. Mansfield,

who were these "legal authorities"?

from which branch of government did they hail??

and were they the APPROPRIATE legal authority for the
oversight of the CIA??

You see, Mr. Mansfield, with the upshot of the WATERBOARDING - which is CLEARLY an impermissable act -- it seems to me IMPERATIVE that you would bend over backwards to protect the members of the CIA from being subject to legal action being taken against them. It might have made your letter to the New York Times at this late date totally unnecessary.

The CIA wasn't concerned whether their conduct did or did not met the Geneva requirements and you, perhaps -- and the officials and torturers involved -- brought discredit upon your service. The public shouldn't care whether the NYT is "perceived" to do or not do any "service" to the CIA. You've dug yourselves in a hole with your conduct. The New York Times editorial isn't the issue, but the CIA conduct most certainly is. This is precisely what I mean about PROJECTION: rather than face the fact your conduct is shameful and cowardly, you point fingers at everyone else.

You take umbrage that the media has described the (un)lawful questioning of hardened terrorists as “sickening behavior.”

Why do you misconstrue the NYT concerns?

Whether the questioning was "lawful" is spurious; the New York Times is concerned about something more troubling - since the torture is a violation of Geneva, CIA personnel, while required to follow the law, acted ILLEGALLY. It is NOT the sickening behavior they are concerned about at all - but I suspect you know that.

While you are appearing as the public "face" of the Central Intelligence Agency, I hope I can make clear to YOU this: Geneva isn't about protecting prisoners.

No, it is a legitimate LEASH on United States (and other nations') INTERROGATORS. It is a leash and it is legally binding, whether it suits the Agency's fancy or not. It is illegal because waterboarding (and other practices as yet not determined - certain emails and tapes disappeared) is indeed torture and is a violation of Geneva. CIA personnel are REQUIRED TO FOLLOW the RULES. It does not matter one whit whether the US or other nations enforce them; the CIA must enforce them as necessary.

As you are aware, being so intune with the law, as you state, there is an Italian court finding that the rendition-kidnapping in Italy was -- determined to be illegal.

The CIA fails to discuss rendition, how the prisoners were captured, or whether the prisoners were or were not lawfully moved prior to their torture. They were not.

Have you read the Italian court findings?

Did you understand them?

If you did, why are you writing this FRIVOLOUS, and misleading letter to the New York Times??

You state:

"The interrogation methods the C.I.A. has employed over the years have been closely reviewed by lawyers and others in the executive branch, and they have been briefed to our oversight committees in Congress. That is a fact."

This is the most curious allegation of the lot. You, Mr. Mansfield, show your true colors. You are not stating that these actions were lawful, rather you report that "someone else" said it was lawful. Your pretense that saying "this is a fact" is meant for us to be suckers for the thought that "it is lawful what was going on."

But thinking something is lawful does not MAKE it lawful.

What a lawyer says doesn't make it legal.

To be operating within the LAW, you must ensure that the law is met and the CIA had those standards. If there was any doubt, the clear alternative would have been to open up these troubling issues to a comprehensive legal review!

WATERBOARDING, in particular, is outside GENEVA.

Why not get the broadest possible legal understanding to ensure safety not just for "terrorists" but in the interests of the agency, the interrogators, and the United States public.

I'll say it plainly, unlawyerly - violations of Geneva set up the citizenry for attack, reprisals and revenge. Chalmers Johnson refers to it as "blowback". I refer to it as "normal behavior" given the circumstances. Better safe than sorry. The United States "sets itself up" for attack by violating the rules of war. Is it now the "policy" of the Central Intelligence Agency to make the United States population terrified of a nuclear war day after day? Has politicization gone this far?

The Agency has avoided a legal review and does not permit court review. Surely, if the CIA through this treatment was "lawful" they would demand judicial review, not destroy the tapes needed for that review.

Mr. Mansfield,
can your mind fully conceive the untenable position
the CIA has placed America in,
a nation subscribed to standards of behavior
written into an international instrument(s)
written to protect those who signed it
and the future generations which followed ??

Can you see that by avoiding "documentation"
of the violations, you have set in motion
a series of potentially disastrous events??

We have no tape - and those tapes are the PUBLIC'S property. There is no basis to conclude the CIA lawyers were making credible legal assertions. What you ALLEGE is of no concern at all.

Also, just because something is "reviewed" by Congress doesn't mean Congress was fully informed; or that the CIA briefing met the statutory requirement; or that the CIA conduct was meeting the legal requirements under Geneva.

Telling Congress something is going on is not the same as proving to court that the prisoners were or were not treated per the Geneva requirements. They were not, as evidenced by Addington's concern about moving prisoners -- if we moved them, it would implicitly mean the original treatment was not lawful. Perhaps, Mr. Mansfield, in your job capacity, you don't understand Congressional oversight, nor checks and balances .. but your CIA manual surely points out that following Geneva is absolutely right and necessary.

Further, it is non-sense to believe that the "legal review" means anything; or that the lawyers are willing to stand by those legal arguments. The recent Office of Vice President destruction of e-mails hardly meets that standard. The public is watching. The public is alarmed, Mr. Mansfield ..

Do you understand why the public is ALARMED??

You state:

"It is absurd to suggest that the C.I.A. has an interest in any process that would produce bad intelligence."

You do not explicitly deny that there was torture you merely refer to an irrelevant issue.

This is a sleight of hand: by shifting attention from Geneva standards, and focusing on the "accuracy" of the information you were divert us from noticing what is happening.

Torture, including exposing people to cold temperatures, means that the information is not reliable: interrogators cannot tell whether the prisoner is shaking because they are cold; or because they are lying. Let's TRY, shall we, Mr. Mansfield, to get involved in the imaginative process here. What can be obtained when it is impossible, literally, impossible to understand the person undergoing torture, especially when MULTIPLE forms of torture are going on.

Do you understand the limitations of the human body at all??

The human body is quite delicate - macho myths notwithstanding. The fact is this: when a person is STRESSED, they merely go back to primal behaviours, instinctual behaviors, those which are IMPRINTED. We come into this life with only two fears: fear of falling from heights and fear of loud noises. The rest is IMPRINTED and LEARNED.

Fears produce stress states, not always possible to understand. If one thinks they are going to DIE, in which case, the human being will choose to fight or to flee. The only other alternative to those is to communicate IF one thinks he can be understood. But torture practices precludes any such possibility! There one is master and the other slave - slave to the whims of the torturers. The tortured person is an unwilling participant in a status degradation ritual which he will react to with total fear, terror, horror and dread. To find coping strategies to survive while facing down the CIA torturers, while trying to stay alive - will not produce ANYTHING approaching reliable information!!

How do I know? I was locked in a room with DoJ employees for four and one half hours one day back in 1994 .. an experience never to be forgotten (in fact, I have ALL 17 symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder as a result .. permanently). And I can tell you, if you have imagination failure that, unequivocably, to protect my children by staying alive, I would have said or done just about anything someone told me to do until I felt SAFE. Nothing I did was the least bit reliable since my mind just could not process the terror. There was no one watching, no one following the LAW - I had already been assaulted when I realized I could be killed and it would all be covered up. It simply could not deal with the moment and my body betrayed me totally at the time (and still does with the right stimulous, like looking at torture photographs!)

I note in your letter that you want to shift the issue from "Geneva" to whether the "process" was or wasn't bad. Just for your information: it's all bad - that's why we have Geneva to rely on in an international arena for clear and lawful guidance.

There is NO WAY that CIA interrogation techniques (TORTURE) is going to produce a good result - I am a pro on this. I KNOW. And I'll also say this; torturers, those that would torture, are a special breed who do NOT inspire respect, honesty or cooperation from ANYONE, sane or otherwise - sickening or not. And what's worse, they represent a subculture that breeds upon itself, as torture scholars are showing. The practice of torture always becomes a thing unto itself; a form of collective insanity. It should never be "justified" - legal, small or socially accepted by a small class of government cronies inside the Beltway or anywhere else.

Next, in your imitable way, you state:

To dismiss as “barbaric acts” a small, carefully run effort that has disrupted terrorist plots and saved innocent lives — and done so in accord with the law -- that is both wrong and unfair.

You miss the point of Geneva. Let's me be redundant -- it is a leash on the CIA and US.

Asserting that something is "small" or "carefully run" defies reality and borders on the delusional, at best.

There have been many interrogations which are alleged to breach Geneva; and the program is not effectively overseen relative to Geneva. The evidenced is in the tape destruction, OVP email destruction, and hiding prisoners in Eastern Europe/Afghanistan away from the ICRC. Think about it, Mr. Mansfield.

Neither I, nor any thinking person can PROVE that torture "has" disrupted plots; or "saved" innocent lives as you so strategically contend.

Strange, torturing an innocent person is hardly saving them, but abusing them in violation of the laws of war. How the CIA justified the torture of Jose Padillo, a United States citizen is way beyond my ken. How torturing TEENAGERS (Omar Khadr springs to mind) saves lives is way beyond my ability to understand. It is to ask too much for those of us that know, to assume any good whatsoever has come of torturing people who were turned in to the CIA so that some hoodlum/opportunist could collect a $5,000 reward. It was asking for serious trouble and concern to set up such a program. Yet the CIA did just that. Petty grievances between people (and greed), became the impetus to committing the crime of rendition/kidnap against innocent people - human beings who were subsequently TORTURED.

Your statement would ask that we believe torturing "someone else of color" is more acceptable than having someone of Caucasian background because "we all know" "those people" are subhuman. Your implicit assertion is racist but hardly comes as a surprise. We've seen the composition of the population the CIA has chose to TORTURE, kidnap and abuse over a period of years now. Perhaps because The Agency has chosen to deal with a self serving and opportunistic batch of thugs over the years, it has forgotten that saving human lives is its mission??

You assert that this was done according to the law, which is the question -- not a premise -- behind the DoJ investigation into the CIA tape destruction. It is wrong and unfair for the US to pretend it is for freedom while engaging in war crimes!! Your letter engages in a non-sense public relations efforts to change the focus from Geneva to whether or not it "felt good" to torture people. It is illegal.

What part of WAR CRIMES do you not GET?

Only the part that it did not happen to YOU?

WHO was going to ensure it was
"small and well run" ..
another torturer??

The officers of the C.I.A. who put their lives on the line to gather intelligence on the terrorist threat — and are as committed as anyone to protecting American ideals — deserve better.

You seem to be asking that we forgive the CIA for their war crimes -- without a trial, without examining the alleged Geneva violations -- because they are "putting" their lives on the line; never mind those lives The Agency has taken across the line and back with the abuse.

Again, it doesn't matter that the "intelligence gathering process" was occurring; the issue is whether the POWs were or were not treated per Geneva. They were not.

"Committed to protecting American ideals" is pure, unadulterated claptrap, again under the circumstances of your Agency irresponsiblity, hardly surprising.

Can you conceive, for one moment, in your mind,
exactly what an idealistic person who LOVES America would do
if they were to uphold the Constitution --
what living by IDEALS would involve??

"Ideals" includes a legal requirement to abide by all treaties, including Geneva.

It is utterly meaningless to talk about "POWs do not have Constitutional rights" when the US Constitution compels the CIA and US government to fully enforce Geneva.

"Terrorist threat" is non-sense, propaganda devised solely by the BuZh administration to shift attention from the alleged war criminals working for the CIA and its' contractors; and is designed to shift attention from Geneva's leashes to the "images of 9-11", which are not justification for violating the laws of war.

No bombing of buildings, not even an attack on the (sanctified?) Pentagon can "justify" breaking the restraints of Geneva. Not even the deaths of over 3,000 people in a single act of terror can justify the breaking of the rule of law. In fact, viewed properly it is a very strong argument for absolutely ensuring that such violations do not in fact occur; otherwise, barbarism rules. The LAWS and regulations are for The Agency's protection as well - lest you forget.

You seem to be asking us to believe that the CIA agents "deserve better" -- why?

The torturers and breakers of the rule of law
didn't bring credit upon the CIA or the US, did they??

why should the US public, lawyers, or war crimes prosecutors
-- much less the media --
give the CIA officers what the CIA refused to give to the POWs:

Respect.

No, Mr. Mansfield, they are alleged war criminals; and shall be treated according to the law. It's a historical IMPERATIVE, one with precedent at Nuremberg; a destined fate for those who would trifle with and ignore international law.

Let us both but HOPE that no nation attacks the United States during this period while we wait for real justice. It is the CIA's job to ensure that we do not. A good thorough acceptance of legal responsibility is a necessary step.