Evidence Gained Through Using Torture OK, US Officials Say

[xpanda]

Bollocks.

Evidence Gained Through Using Torture OK, US Officials Say

by Michael J. Sniffen

WASHINGTON -- Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government says.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has accused the U.S. military of using tactics 'tantamount to torture' on prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times reported on November 30, 2004. An ICRC inspection team that spent most of June at Guantanamo Bay reported the use of psychological and sometimes physical coercion on the prisoners, the newspaper said.

Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing Thursday.

Some of the prisoners have filed lawsuits challenging their detention without charges for up to three years so far. At the hearing, Boyle urged District Judge Richard J. Leon to throw their cases out.

Attorneys for the prisoners argued that some were held solely on evidence gained by torture, which they said violated fundamental fairness and U.S. due process standards. But Boyle argued in a similar hearing Wednesday that the detainees "have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court."

Leon asked whether a detention based solely on evidence gathered by torture would be illegal, because "torture is illegal. We all know that."

Boyle replied that if the military's combatant status review tribunals "determine that evidence of questionable provenance were reliable, nothing in the due process clause (of the Constitution) prohibits them from relying on it."

Leon asked whether there were any restrictions on using torture-induced evidence.

Boyle replied that the United States never would adopt a policy that would have barred it from acting on evidence that could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks even if the data came from questionable practices like torture by a foreign power.

Several arguments underlie the U.S. court ban on products of torture.

"About 70 years ago, the Supreme Court stopped the use of evidence produced by third-degree tactics largely on the theory that it was totally unreliable," Harvard Law Professor Philip B. Heymann, a former deputy U.S. attorney general, said in an interview. Subsequent high court rulings were based on revulsion at "the unfairness and brutality of it and later on the idea that confessions ought to be free and uncompelled."

Leon asked whether U.S. courts could review detentions based on evidence from torture conducted by U.S. personnel.

Boyle said torture was against U.S. policy and any allegations of it would be "forwarded through command channels for military discipline." He added, "I don't think anything remotely like torture has occurred at Guantanamo" but noted that some U.S. soldiers there had been disciplined for misconduct, including a female interrogator who removed her blouse during questioning.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday it has given the Bush administration a confidential report critical of U.S. treatment of Guantanamo detainees. The New York Times reported the Red Cross described the psychological and physical coercion used at Guantanamo as "tantamount to torture."

The combatant status review tribunals comprise three colonels and lieutenant colonels. They were set up after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the detainees could ask U.S. courts to see to it they had a proceeding in which to challenge their detention. The panels have reviewed 440 of the prisoners so far but have released only one.

The military also set up an annual administrative review which considers whether the detainee still presents a danger to the United States but doesn't review enemy combatant status. Administrative reviews have been completed for 161.

Boyle argued these procedures are sufficient to satisfy the high court.

Noting that detainees cannot have lawyers at the combatant status review proceedings and cannot see any secret evidence against them, detainee attorney Wes Powell argued "there is no meaningful opportunity in the (proceedings) to rebut the government's claims."

Leon suggested that if federal judges start reviewing the military's evidence for holding foreign detainees there could be "practical and collateral consequences ... at a time of war."

And he suggested an earlier Supreme Court ruling might limit judges to checking only on whether detention orders were lawfully issued and review panels were legally established.

Leon and Judge Joyce Hens Green, who held a similar hearing Wednesday, said they would try to rule soon on whether the 59 detainees may proceed with their lawsuits.

 

[bblight]

xpanda - the article mentions torture many times, but I don't see any mention of specifically what kind of torture was used.

Can you please provide a few specifics concerning what kind of torture was used.

 

[Shotgun]

xpanda - the article mentions torture many times, but I don't see any mention of specifically what kind of torture was used.

Can you please provide a few specifics concerning what kind of torture was used.

BB, it is right there in the article:

"Boyle said torture was against U.S. policy and any allegations of it would be "forwarded through command channels for military discipline." He added, "I don't think anything remotely like torture has occurred at Guantanamo" but noted that some U.S. soldiers there had been disciplined for misconduct, including a female interrogator who removed her blouse during questioning."


That must have been one ugly interrogator.

 

[bblight]

Shotgun - that was my point!
I'm still not sure what "tantamount to torture"means, but all of the hacks out there are running with it as though Gitmo should be renamed Auschwitz.

These people are such fools with their false accusations and word games!

 

[xpanda]

I see.

So you're okay with the fact that the US government has set up a camp the likes of Guantanamo, where neither the Constitution nor the Geneva conventions apply. You're also okay with the fact that the US government has systematically worked its way around the moral obligation to adhere to international standards of decency bestowed upon it as the self-titled leader of the free world. You're also okay with the judicial system agreeing that torturing prisoners, though proven ineffective (not to mention immoral and inhumane) at providing reliable information, is within their rights. You're also okay with the fact that this new American mindset has been applied at Abu Ghraib. And you're also okay with the fact that hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners have been released after being held for upwards of two years with no charges being laid or attorneys brought to them.

All of this is okay so long as, at Guantanamo, they don't allow evidence to reach the general public??? Because, unless and until someone at Guantanamo rats, this won't reach the general public. How could it? Lawyers and reporters aren't exactly routine sightings around the grounds.

Are the barbarians who behead their prisoners your new moral compass?

The two of you had best be fashioning yourselves some cast iron underwear. Your mammoth balls may need the protection one day.

 

[Shotgun]

I see.

So you're okay with the fact that the US government has set up a camp the likes of Guantanamo, where neither the Constitution nor the Geneva conventions apply. You're also okay with the fact that the US government has systematically worked its way around the moral obligation to adhere to international standards of decency bestowed upon it as the self-titled leader of the free world. You're also okay with the judicial system agreeing that torturing prisoners, though proven ineffective (not to mention immoral and inhumane) at providing reliable information, is within their rights. You're also okay with the fact that this new American mindset has been applied at Abu Ghraib. And you're also okay with the fact that hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners have been released after being held for upwards of two years with no charges being laid or attorneys brought to them.

All of this is okay so long as, at Guantanamo, they don't allow evidence to reach the general public??? Because, unless and until someone at Guantanamo rats, this won't reach the general public. How could it? Lawyers and reporters aren't exactly routine sightings around the grounds.

I don't see anything in the article that says the US can use torture as a means to get evidence. It sounds like the Red Cross says that simply imprisoning terrorists is torture. Check that...imprisoning illegal combatants is "tantamount to torture"---not torture.

The details are important here. What does the Red Cross define as "tantamount to torture"?

 

[stacilu]

Careful there X, if this fakeo doesn't like the premise
of your argument he will argue over peripheral issues
that have little to do with original idea. He will skirt
the main argument with bs about semantics and other
useless hyperbole. I had a colleague, math professor, who used the
same tactics in any argument he couldn't win. Very
annoying fellow, he died. I have no dog in this fight,
but I know this fakeo's mo.

 

[xpanda]

I don't see anything in the article that says the US can use torture as a means to get evidence.

Umm:

"Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing Thursday.

The article is not trying to prove whether torture is happening or not, but only that it is officially perfectly legal (or has failed to be illegal) by the US gov't. It's a public acknowledge that they can use whatever methods they want. They may not as of yet (though after Abu Ghraib, I wouldn't put money on it) but the fact that the gov't is giving permission to use evidence obtained by torture should give you pause, don't you think?

It's just not becoming for a nation who claims to be the deliverers of all that is moral and good.

 

[eek.]

Its too late for Guantanamo now, its entered the annals of history alongside other suchlike places.

Robben Island
Long Kesh
Devils Island
The Maze
Alcatraz

Etc

Btw, the US is probaly in breach of its Guantanamo lease, since it is being used as a POW camp/prison for Political prisoners.

Restrictions
The only restrictions placed by this document on the United States are:
(a) The area must be used only for a coaling and naval station ("station" here used in the broad sense of the word.)
(b) Vessels engaged in Cuban trade shall have free passage through the waters included in the grant.
http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/gazette/History_98-64/hischp3.htm

I believe that the lease expires in 2034.

 

[eek.]

Guantanamo is an Internationally recognised sick joke.
The Euro dudes had to do a deal with the Cubans to get a UN resolution that would have included Guantanamo, dropped.

-------------------------------------------------------



<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3>Cuba ends Guantanamo inquiry call


</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=416><!-- S BO --><!-- S IIMA --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

Hundreds of suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- E IIMA -->Cuba has withdrawn a resolution calling on the United Nations' Human Rights Commission (UNCHR) to investigate conditions at Guantanamo Bay.

The draft resolution, without naming the US, warned prisoners' rights in the US detention centre were being abused.

A BBC correspondent at the UNCHR meeting in Geneva said the Cubans felt there was too much American lobbying to guarantee passing the resolution.

At least 600 prisoners from the "war on terror" are being held at Guantanamo.

The US government says the suspects are beyond the jurisdiction of American law because they are held on foreign soil.

The American detention centre - known as Camp Delta - is built on territory leased by the US from Cuba.

Controversial issue

Cuba tabled the resolution in mid-April, a day after the US sponsored a motion at the UNHCR criticising Cuba's human rights record.

The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Geneva says the Cuban motion eschewed typical rhetorical flourishes in favour of simple, skilfully worded language.

Its terms reminded countries of statements they had made in the past expressing concern over the detention centre.

This would have put many European states in a very difficult position.

They would have had to choose between the diplomatic embarrassment of backing Cuba against the US, or they would have had to contradict earlier statements by opposing the Cuban resolution.

The German representative on the UNCHR thanked the Cubans for dropping the resolution. The BBC's Geneva correspondent says criticism of the US treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay is thought to have contributed to outspoken Irish politician Mary Robinson losing her job as UN High Commissioner for human rights. The subject has been largely kept off the agenda at this year's commission session.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3649965.stm
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[xpanda]

Seymour Hirsch recently remarked that when what's happening at Guantanamo finally gets out, all Americans will hang their head in shame.

What I don't understand, is why enough people aren't demanding to know what's happening there. Pretending that everything is hunky-dory without a stitch of proof is reckless.

 

[Shotgun]

Umm:

The article is not trying to prove whether torture is happening or not, but only that it is officially perfectly legal (or has failed to be illegal) by the US gov't. It's a public acknowledge that they can use whatever methods they want. They may not as of yet (though after Abu Ghraib, I wouldn't put money on it) but the fact that the gov't is giving permission to use evidence obtained by torture should give you pause, don't you think?

If they encourage the torture, sure I'm concerned. But I've seen no evidence that they are doing so. Should the US release admitted terrorists from Guantanomo because the information supplied by the terrorist was obtained under pressure? That sounds awfully sweet in theory, but there are lives on the line....both Afghan and Americans. If we need to use that testimony under duress to keep a terrorist in the camp, by all means do it.

It's just not becoming for a nation who claims to be the deliverers of all that is moral and good.

What was that Macheveilli quote you used earlier... "Better to be feared than loved"? Fear is a nice tool in coercive diplomacy. We don't claim to be "deliverers of all that is moral and good" to our enemies...to those guys we brought shock and awe.

 

[Shotgun]

Seymour Hirsch recently remarked that when what's happening at Guantanamo finally gets out, all Americans will hang their head in shame.

Most understand where Hirsch is coming from, and can subsequently dismiss much of what he says. Of course he is going to say that...Hirsch has been making up similar stuff like that his entire career. His credibility has been shot for a while now.

What I don't understand, is why enough people aren't demanding to know what's happening there. Pretending that everything is hunky-dory without a stitch of proof is reckless.

Maybe what is happening down there isn't too bad. Here's a nice article in the Guardian about some Afghans who loved it in Guantanamo:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1163435,00.html

Asadullah strives to make his point, switching to English lest there be any mistaking him. "I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great," said the 14-year-old, knotting his brow in the effort to make sure he is understood.
...
He spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing football. He was fascinated to learn about the solar system, and now enjoys reciting the names of the planets, starting with Earth. Less diverting were the twice-monthly interrogations about his knowledge of al-Qaida and the Taliban. But, as Asadullah's answer was always the same - "I don't know anything about these people" - these sessions were merely a bore: an inevitably tedious consequence, Asadullah suggests with a shrug, of being held captive in Guantanamo Bay.
...
Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah's. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family's mud-fortress home.

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," he said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America."

 

[xpanda]

Well, that's where we're different then. I would be fuming that my government was even discussing the use of torture on prisoners, never mind advocating it ... so why should the people responsible for Abu Ghraib be given the benefit of the doubt in Guantanamo?? It defies logic, Shotgun.

 

[bblight]

Btw, the US is probaly in breach of its Guantanamo lease, since it is being used as a POW camp/prison for Political prisoners.
QUOTE]

Political prisoners?

These guys were un-uniformed combatants - terrorists.

These people believe that women are chatel and nothing more. Cows to be used and disposed of at any mans whim!

These people believe that any deviants from their norm - that's all homosexuals, all liberal thinkers, everyone in Hollywood, and everyone else who isn't a "true believer" - should be killed like you'd kill a bug.

These people believe that any other men who aren't Muslim, are infidels and are to be retrained in proper Muslim ways, or gotten rid of by any means necessary.

And eek calls them political prisoners.

eek - you are such a Neville Chamberlain!

 

[xpanda]

Geez, blight, I had to re-read that post .. at first I thought you were talking about Gameface.

Apparently the fact that hundreds of Gitmo prisoners have been released without ever having been charged is completely lost on you? Like Abu Ghraib, what percentage of the prison population deserves to be there and what percentage are wrongfully imprisoned?

I'd love to answer that, but, well, there's that whole secrecy thing ...

 

[JDeuce]

The Geneva Convention does not include terrorists, because it only contemplates uniformed soldiers. 'Terrorists' can not be a signatory to the GC because they don't officially represent a country. Therefore...even if the US is using the most gruesome and barbaric torture methods possible, our actions do not contravene the GC in any way.

Now then, I really couldn't care less what the US military feels is necessary to do in order to gain intelligence from these bastards. The imprisoned are there for a reason...its not as if we were randomly grabbing citizens off of streets in Baghdad and dragging them off to Gitmo for the hell of it. If some chick taking her blouse off is going to scare a guy into talking, then we better start sending plenty of silicon implanted strippers down there. If a little bit of ass kicking will do the trick, then roll your sleeves up, colonel, wind up, and deck the guy in his grille as hard as you can. WTF do you suggest is a better method...threaten them with an early bed time, or try to bribe them with lollipops and popsicles? You have to make prisoners terrified of going down there, not give them a mindset of "oh well...the worst that could happen to me is a stern talking to."

Newsflash: we are at WAR, people. Gitmo is NOT a country club where you go for a little getaway. The prisoners down there already live better than most of the ****ing residents of Cuba do; they have their own room, a Koran, and three square meals a day. If it were up to me...after we got all the info from them we could, I wouldn't lose a second's sleep over putting a bullet into the back of their heads and dumping their then worthless carcasses into the ocean. How anxious would they be to visit if they knew that was waiting for them...?

 

[PatPatriot]

The average weight of a prisoner released from Gitmo was 20lbs. more a man,than when he was taken in.

One prisoner was said he will never be allowed back to his family because he can no longer fit into his suicide belt.Susan Sarandon is said to be looking into this hideous atrocity.

 

[xpanda]

The Geneva Convention does not include terrorists, because it only contemplates uniformed soldiers. 'Terrorists' can not be a signatory to the GC because they don't officially represent a country. Therefore...even if the US is using the most gruesome and barbaric torture methods possible, our actions do not contravene the GC in any way.

Right. Nor is the Constitution applicable because they are not being detained on US soil. These are people who have been picked up in the field.

Now, since Afghanistan had no real army to speak of when it was attacked, exactly how do you propose to find yourselves uniformed soldiers?

The Geneva conventions or some form of international law will be re-written eventually to cover this very thing. Congrats on being the nation to set the precedent.

Now then, I really couldn't care less what the US military feels is necessary to do in order to gain intelligence from these bastards. The imprisoned are there for a reason...its not as if we were randomly grabbing citizens off of streets in Baghdad and dragging them off to Gitmo for the hell of it.

No? Then how come so many were released when a big stink was made? What evidence do you have that these prisoners are being held with just cause? Are you aware that Afghanis are turning people in for a fifty and a song these days? Without any form of due process, you have no idea if all of these people are justifiably incarcerated.

If a little bit of ass kicking will do the trick, then roll your sleeves up, colonel, wind up, and deck the guy in his grille as hard as you can. WTF do you suggest is a better method...threaten them with an early bed time, or try to bribe them with lollipops and popsicles? You have to make prisoners terrified of going down there, not give them a mindset of "oh well...the worst that could happen to me is a stern talking to."

Do you even understand why the Geneva conventions were signed by countries like ours? Hint: it's not because we're softheads. It's because we need a recourse should our own soldiers be mistreated while in custody. Violation of the spirit of Geneva (since the letter of the law does not apply) will no doubt put your own at risk in the future. Be sure to cut and paste your comments here and forward them on to future POW camps. Your boys will be so proud.

Newsflash: we are at WAR, people. Gitmo is NOT a country club where you go for a little getaway. The prisoners down there already live better than most of the ****ing residents of Cuba do; they have their own room, a Koran, and three square meals a day.

Yeah? You got a link with pictures and stuff? Funny how you know so much about Gitmo given the widespread media blackout on the place ...

You guys really don't get it, do you? How do you propose to remake the world in your image when this is the image being put forth to the world??? Your moral self-righteousness is decidedly unbecoming when it spews hate like this and backs up activities that violate the spirit not only of international law, but of your own bloody Constitution.

Your vast arrogance is positively unbelievable.

 

[PatPatriot]

Yeah? You got a link with pictures and stuff? Funny how you know so much about Gitmo given the widespread media blackout on the place ...

The media was allowed in there to film I saw it myself.

spews hate like this and backs up activities that violate the spirit not only of international law,

I just spewed my coffee.