Just a Japanese officer frustrated, we all  k-n-o-w!

“Stupid OAFS!  They GOOFED!”  Course we know what he said!

“Crummy farmers, should have LEFT them in BED!”

SURE, I had studied it RIGHT, as out in plain view…

I waved that grenade; SURE, they’d know what to DO!

To deactivate that simplest of booby traps!

But I stayed wide AWAKE, just in case  -  p-e-r-h-a-p-s

When directly under I plainly  t-o-s-s-e-d  ANOTHER!

SURE, a DOUBLE explosion (LOUD?  Oh, Brother!

Sounded like ALL awoke!  Back to sleep again!)

Heard some smart aleck sounded off:  “It’s just Sam!”

SWEET peace!  HOSPITAL  Sendai,  J-a-p-a-n!

Chaplin felt I needed some R & R, sure, I can

Handle that!  Japanese nurses just the  v-e-r-y  BEST!

ALL understood, a  w h o l e  LOT of  r-e-s-t!

Assisting the Chaplin, sure he soon found out…

That I truly believed God’s Word and  w-i-t-h-o-u-t

All that ‘fall-der-all’ of translators’ mistakes!

Started ‘my’ Bible classes with:  “Give me a break…”

Explain  a w a y  MIRACLES, I said, “LOOK at me!

The fiercest of COMBAT!  LOOK!  I’m still  -a-l-i-v-e!”

Proclaimed a few  m-i-r-a-c-l-e-s,  saved to strive!

Against apostate ministers all explaining AWAY

Past called ‘modernists’ sure, STILL today!

Thought they might learn from  m-i-r-a-c-l-e-s  observed!

But ACT as though they had NEVER ever  H-E-A-R-D!

EXPLAINED so OFTEN…MANY times, what MORE TO SAY!

Will they ever  l-e-a-r-n?  OR just walk away?

(Does God EVER  t-i-r-e  of  c-o-n-v-i-c-t-i-n-g?!)

the TIRED Sam  03.29.12

Before we delve deep into waterboarding, it is important to understand what it actually is.  There are two different methods of waterboarding; the first involves pumping water directly into the stomach, Darius Rejali relates the feeling of this type of waterboarding as “creating an intense pain.  It feels like your organs are on fire.”  The second, which is what we will refer to throughout the rest of this article, involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water.” You can think of it like a “slow-motion drowning.”  Oddly enough the two countries known for their brutality, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, did not use waterboarding as a technique to extract information from a subject.  “These regimes, he says, weren’t concerned about public opinion, and so they often used harsher methods that left permanent scars or killed their victims.  If anything, Rejali says, waterboarding has been an interrogation technique preferred by the world’s democracies.”  (Weiner, 2007)

The two most notable cases involving waterboarding involved Major Glenn during the Spanish American War and Japanese Officer Yukio Asano in the aftermath of World War II.  Major Glenn was court-marshaled and fined 50 dollars while Asano was served 15 years of hard labor.  In 2006 Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) made reference to the event, “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II.” (Weiner, 2007)  There are two stark differences between these two examples and modern uses implemented by the US Intelligence Community.  First, in the Major Glenn case, he used waterboarding in his attempt to ascertain a strategic military advantage.  While the CIA is using waterboarding to partially assist in OIF and OEF, however the primary reasoning is to prevent future terrorist attacks, thus saving civilian lives.  Second, in the case of Asano he was convicted of waterboarding American civilians and in the case of the US Intelligence Community, the implementation of waterboarding is against hardened terrorists that have resisted normal interrogation practices and held critical information.

I do have some personal objections to the use of torture to extract information.  The first being it should not be used against every captive, I believe that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard to that.  However, there are times in which sources confirm that a specific individual is withholding life saving information, it is time critical, and that individual is resisting normal interrogation practices.  I also believe that the tactics used should not result in any permanent damage.  With the documents released the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques have only been used on select terrorists.  Also, these techniques leave no permanent damages.  I was intrigued to find out that, according to Weiner, that a doctor was required to use Waterboarding.  If we are to exempt ourselves from using these Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, such as waterboarding, at what point do we justify not using them on a specific individual even though that individual may have information that could possibly save hundreds or thousands of lives?  For example, what if we would have had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed prior to September 11^th, would we justify today that waterboarding him would have been alright?  The ability to successfully extract information prior to the atrocities of that day could have saved thousands of lives.

The most common argument against waterboarding or other Enhance Interrogation Techniques, and the only side presented in the article, is that the subject will say anything, specifically a lie, just to stop to the torture.  That is simply a nature of interrogation; of course the subject will lie to you.  In the modern examples of waterboarding, the subject is being waterboarded because he or she has failed to cooperate during the normal interrogation process.  So you are already dealing with an individual that is accustomed to deceptive behavior during the interrogation process.  That being said, if the subject has already been difficult during previous interrogations the interrogator should be skeptical of information provided immediately at the onset of mental or physical suffering.  There is a quasi simple solution to this issue, and an outright banning of a process to a select few individuals that provides no permanent physical or mental harm is not the answer.  The interrogator needs to ensure that the subject understands that the only way for the “torture” to end is to provide accurate information.  For example, ask the subject questions that the answers are already known, preferably that the subject is unaware that the interrogator knows, and assess if the subject is in a state of deception or is giving factual information.  It is possible that the subject may get one by the interrogator, but you don’t know until you try.

We have to understand that these techniques are not to just provide a deposition in a criminal case.  It is used against hardened terrorists that have been trained to resist normal interrogation practices, and to prevent the slaughter of tens, hundreds and even thousands of American citizens.  My personal opinion is that even if just a single person’s life is saved then it is worth the short term suffering of our enemy combatants, especially if it had no long lasting effects.

I thought that it was imperative that I update the blog and give my reader a comparison to the methods implemented by foreign nations during interrogations.  Only an ignorant fool would argue that we use the harshest interrogations tactics, it a general sense we have a pansy approach to our interrogations.  Our Special Operation teams were constantly search for more and more information that could be analyzed by our Intelligence Community.  One of the documents they uncovered was labeled “Brothers, this is the book about prisoners.”  It was about a sixty page document that labeled American practices during and after capture, essentially it was a book detailing what a member of al Qaeda could expect while being held as a prisoner from the United States as well as other governments.

One of the first thing mentioned was to never give away “another brother’s name and advised them to use cunyas instead.  A cunyas is basically a Muslim nickname what would help avoid governments from identifying operatives.  “The Americans “will not harm you physically,” the manual said, but “they must be tempted in doing so.  And if they do strike a brother, you must complain to authorities immediately.” (Mackey and Miller 2004, 179)  Scary when they already know your playbook and how to use our system against isn’t it?  If you still believe that waterboarding is a method of torturing individuals I would like to take this opportunity to describe what other countries use, first of all I am not condoning these actions, it is just to a reference.  “Gouge out eyes. Cut out tongue.  It talked about filleting people, skinning their arms with knives.  Dropping cement blocks on knees.  Drilling kneecaps.  Ripping fingernails off.  Pouring boiling water on a prisoner’s skin. (Mackey and Miller 2004, 180)  As I mention I do not condone such horrific methods of interrogation.  What I am saying is that a method that does not institute any long-term physical or mental harm is a nowhere near as horrific as what other nations use.

References:

Mackey, C., & Miller, G. (2004). The Interrogators: Task Force 500 and America’s Secret War Against Al Qaeda. New York: Back Bay Books.

Walters, S. B. (2003). Principles of Kinesic Interview and Interrogation. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Weiner, E. (2007, November 03). Waterboarding: A Tortured History. Retrieved March 05, 2010, from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834