torture

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Waterboarding Isn't Easier 2nd Time, or 183rd
Waterboarding Isn't Easier 2nd Time, or 183rd
ANALYSIS
Apr 24, 2009 2:39 PM CDT

Waterboarding Isn't Easier 2nd Time, or 183rd

Turns out the body never gets used to simulated drowning

(Newser) - Like many other forms of torture, waterboarding doesn’t get any easier with repeated exposure. After multiple sessions of the simulated drowning technique, accused al-Qaeda plotters Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah would at best have been able to slightly modify their response, explains Brian Palmer in Slate. The experience...

Leave Torture to Historians: Noonan
 Leave Torture 
 to Historians: 
 Noonan 
OPINION
Apr 24, 2009 10:02 AM CDT

Leave Torture to Historians: Noonan

(Newser) - On foreign policy, it’s “so far, so good” for President Obama’s first 100 days, writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal. (Domestically, “there are only so many ways to say ‘Oy.’”) But the torture debate appeared to catch the White House...

A Grand for Every Second He's Tortured

Olbermann ready to shell out to see Hannity waterboarded

(Newser) - It may have been an attention-seeking stunt when Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded. If so, it worked, at least to get the attention of Keith Olbermann, who kept the long-running MSNBC/Fox pundit-smackdown going last night by putting money on the table. Olbermann offered to give $1,000 to military...

Reid Resists Torture Commission
Reid Resists Torture Commission
Apr 24, 2009 2:57 AM CDT

Reid Resists Torture Commission

Senate leader rejects Pelosi, joins Obama in opposing panel

(Newser) - Harry Reid will back President Obama in resisting calls to immediately create an independent commission to probe the CIA's harsh interrogation program, the New York Times reports. The majority leader, backed by other top Senate Democrats, said it would be "very unwise" to start establishing commissions or tribunals before...

Liz Cheney Defends Dad: 'We Did Not Torture'

(Newser) - Dick Cheney's daughter stuck up for her dad today, insisting in an MSNBC interview that the CIA's interrogation techniques did not constitute torture, reports ThinkProgress. Liz Cheney, a former State Department official in her own right, also echoed her father's sentiment that the interrogations yielded valuable information. Two detainees "...

Torture Memos Bear Me Out: Abu Ghraib Boss

She long held that interrogation techniques were under orders

(Newser) - A retired colonel who helped run Abu Ghraib prison long asserted that she and her troops were just following orders in the prisoner interrogations that sparked a global outcry. Now, Janis Karpinski tells CNN, the release of torture memos has finally proven her case. “When they were first released...

Fox News' Smith Loses Cool Over Torture

Rogue anchor pounds table, drops F-bomb in angry tirade

(Newser) - Shep Smith has had it with fellow Fox News anchors justifying torture. When Trace Gallagher suggested that the harsh interrogation techniques may have helped on The Strategy Room last night, the increasingly disgruntled Smith lost it. “We are America!” he bellowed, slapping the desk. “I don’t...

Did Brutal Questioning Pay Off? The Battle Heats Up

(Newser) - President Obama says the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA both compromised American values and provided unreliable information. “Those are a convenient pair of opinions,” notes Scott Shane of the New York Times. But it's not going to be that easy for the new administration to defend...

Hannity: Waterboard Me! Lefties: Sure!

He'd undergo grueling 'enhanced interrogation' technique for charity

(Newser) - Right-wing Fox mouth Sean Hannity said he supports "enhanced interrogation" techniques like waterboarding, and has offered to undergo the grueling procedure for charity. "Are you busy on Sunday?" guest Charles Grodin asked yesterday. Hannity responded: "I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it. I'll do...

Arab Royal Filmed Torturing Man

Smuggled tape shows sheikh beating, whipping man before running him over

(Newser) - A tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates and obtained by ABC News shows a member of the country's royal family viciously torturing a man. Uniformed police assist as the sheikh—the brother of the country's crown prince—tortures the man with whips and cattle prods, pours salt in...

Obama Rejected Idea of Interrogation Inquiry

(Newser) - More details are emerging from the Obama camp's debate on how to handle the Bush interrogation memos. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz writes that President Obama rejected the idea of setting up an investigation panel along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Obama wanted to move on rather than...

Obama Pandered to Lefties With Memo Release: Cheney

Ex-VP slams Obama terror policies

(Newser) - Dick Cheney said President Obama’s release of Bush administration torture memos was meant “essentially to appease a certain element of the Democratic Party or because of campaign commitments,” Politico reports. Speaking on Fox News, Cheney did a mocking impression of al-Qaeda’s reaction: “Gee whiz, isn't...

US Readied Waterboarding as Early as 2001

Harsh tactics were readied even before suspects captured

(Newser) - The Bush administration prepared to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics widely considered to be torture 8 months before the Justice Department approved them, and even before capturing a high-level terrorist suspect, the Washington Post reports. A Senate investigation reveals these brutal interrogation methods were approved despite warnings that they...

Obama's Intel Chief: Interrogations Yielded 'High Value Information'

(Newser) - President Obama's own intelligence chief said harsh interrogations of terror suspects yielded "high value information" that "provided a deeper understanding" of al-Qaeda, the New York Times reports. Dennis Blair made the statement in a memo to his staff last week, the same day the Obama administration released the...

Obama Open to Interrogations Probe

(Newser) - President Obama today said he’d be open to the idea of creating a panel to investigate the Bush administration’s interrogation methods in the war on terror. Obama and his aides have been dismissing the idea for weeks, but today in a press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan,...

If CIA Gets Pass on Torture, Why Not Lynndie?

Abu Ghraib convict's team cries foul over double standard

(Newser) - Among those infuriated at President Obama's decision to "turn the page" rather than prosecute officials who sanctioned torture at CIA prisons, and agents who conducted it, are supporters of Lynndie England, the jailed “face of the Abu Ghraib scandal.” They agree that her abuse of prisoners was...

Cheney Seeks Release of More CIA Memos

Former VP says they show how techniques worked to save lives

(Newser) - It’s no surprise that Dick Cheney thinks President Obama is wrong on torture. The surprise is that the infamously secretive former VP is suddenly in favor of public disclosure of classified memos that he thinks will prove his point. For his memoirs, Cheney has asked the CIA to declassify...

Obama Visits CIA to Defend Memo Release

(Newser) - Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA's use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Obama went to the spy agency's Virginia headquarters today to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees. "I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these...

CIA Tactics Can Cause Mental Harm: Doctors

Bush-era interrogation memos understated long-term effects

(Newser) - Experts disagree with Bush-era rulings, made public in memos released last week, that interrogation techniques the CIA used on terror suspects don’t cause lasting psychological damage, the Los Angeles Times reports. “There’s absolutely no question they are going to lead to permanent mental harm,” one psychology...

CIA Waterboarded Gitmo Detainee 183 Times in a Month

That's twice CIA's max, challenges efficacy

(Newser) - A Department of Justice memo that detailed interrogation techniques used on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay notes that in August 2002, suspected al-Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 82 times, while the following March, 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. But as the blog Emptywheel points out, there's...

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