1115.org

(1)

How’s this for a working definition of the word “overkill”:

According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

Given that water-boarding is universally believed to create a state of pure terror, it is mindboggling that anyone could have been water-boarded 183 times in one month. This would seem to be a clear case of torturers gone wild.

More interestingly, the torturers of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the hands-on torturers, the torture observers, the torture supervisors — do not seem to have followed the OLC’s Authorized Torture Handbook in good faith. (Which, by the great and good Obama’s currently enunciated rules and principles for holding torturers to account, makes them liable to prosecution. Which may only mean that it’s time for the currently enunciated r and p to be revised.)

Our official torture rules in place at the time specify the following water-boarding regulations:

…where authorized, it may be used for two “sessions” per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water application. See id. at 42. Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

Presuming that the Bradbury memo means 183 applications-of-water (and not 183 sessions), 183 clearly exceeds the carefully calibrated OLC-authorized maximum. There can be a maximum of two 30 day approval periods in a calendar month. So the OLC decreed (by the powers vested in them, etc.) that the limit for applications-of-water per calendar month is 10 waterboarding days times 2 sessions per day times 6 applications per session, which equals 120.

(For the record, Marcy Wheeler, whose post is cited above, does not seem to realize that:
a) there can be two 30 day approval periods in a calendar month
b) if you permit two sessions per day, there can be up to four sessions in any 24-hour period; e.g., 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. one day, and 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. the next day)

The OLC’s inspired legal reasoning certifies that if you limit water-boarding to 120 applications per month, being scrupulous at all times not to exceed any of the scientifically derived sub-limits (6 applications per session, 2 sessions per day, 5 waterboarding days per 30-day approval period), then you are not guilty of torture.

But cross those limits, and all bets are off.

So can we now look forward to the the great and good Obama holding these torturers to account?

(2)

Just think about one more thing for a second. Even after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been water-boarded 180 times, it wasn’t enough to just threaten him with water-boarding to get him to talk? They actually had to keep on water-boarding him to keep him talking? If so — that is to say, if this wasn’t just a case of uncontrolled institutional sadism — it’s a truly frightening testimonial to the man’s fanatical devotion to his cause.

Water-boarding is universally regarded as an all-too-effective torture technique for good reason. And this man was willing to suffer it again and again and again.

By all accounts (except those of he who used to be the Torturer-in-Chief), the “information” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave up under torture was pure distilled hogwash. And he was willing to suffer water-boarding again and again and again just to lend credibility to the nonsense he was feeding his torturers.

(3)

So was the 183rd time was the charm? Or did they find it necessary to continue the mega-water-boarding program into April 2003 (and beyond)?

(4)

And now the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Manfred Nowak, has gone on record as saying that Obama’s pledge not to prosecute “those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice” is a clear violation of international law.

The United States has, like all other Contracting Parties to the UN Convention Against Torture, committed itself to investigate instances of torture and to prosecute all cases in which credible evidence of torture is found.

By refusing to investigate and prosecute, Obama is essentially covering up a war crime.

I would very much like to know if covering up a war crime is itself regarded as a war crime. If so, Obama better pack away his traveling shoes, before a judge in whose jurisdiction he’s traveling creates an international incident by slapping an arrest warrant on him.