My increasing support of waterboarding

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

You all know how much I love it when the left hates on me. I giggle like a schoolgirl and the fact that I am unashamed infuriates them even more. The current raison d' hate is my firm support of waterboarding, the Halliburton of coercive interrogation. I don't believe that it constitutes torture and that makes me the purest kind of an evil police statist. Sadly, No.

And speaking of some of my biggest fans, they had the quote below as the reference to me in their post about what a reprehensible reprobate I am.

I especially like the screenshot they took from one of the Freeflys for a picture. The caption read "Uncle Jimbo and his best friend". Funny how they had to crop Kev out of the freakin' picture to make the lame ass insult. Plus I damn sure don't drink Vodka and Coke FFS! My best friend that night was Bacardi Anejo.

I think I need a new tag line and while they are hatin' they do have some entertaining ways to refer to me.
Vote on your favorite or make up lovely new ways to insultingly name me in the comments.

Take famed right-wing milblogger Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive, for example; in his latest post on the virtues of a police state, he has this to say:

Famed eh? Sadly, not very. But I do enjoy being the representative of all that is evil with the neocon, global imperialist agenda. Some retro-commies had a fresh and tasty tag for me. I don't know if they are real or pseudo-lefties, but they definitely have a bone to pick with me.

But none stranger than this from the inimitable Unclue Jimbo at Blackfive:

I wrote a piece this weekend in response to a Wash Post story about "secret" CIA prisons and my support for them and most of the mean things we do to people in them. It was in the style of Grim's magnificent piece "On the virtues of killing children", and this may be a genre we should continue. Malcolm Nance wrote a piece for Small Wars Journal titled "Waterboarding is torture, period" and both went up late Sunday night. I hadn't read his piece until someone linked to it in the comments. Once I read it I added a link to it and stated that it was an excellent piece. I still think so, it was informative, definitive and persuasive. It just didn't and won't persuade me. I disagree on the judgment that the act of waterboarding fits the proper definition of torture or even the more restrictive definitions employed by human rights groups and the left.

Without going into the whys of that, let me pose a simple question.

If waterboarding is torture and torture is illegal, then didn't Congress break the law every year when they passed a military budget that contains funds specifically dedicated to conducting waterboarding as a matter of course?

Mr. Nance conducts waterboardings professionally or did, and yet he believes that the procedure is fine for our troops, but somehow not fit for our enemies? I have a very hard time wrapping my brain around that concept. Congress banned the use of torture in the Detainee Treatment act of 2005. So, if it is torture we shouldn't be doing it to ourselves, but if Congress authorizes the military to do it, then it can't be torture. Congress is not allowed to authorize money for patently illegal activities, therefore their knowing authorization explicitly says that waterboarding is not torture.

I will grant that the procedure is horrifying and repulsive, but that is part of it's effectiveness. The fact that it causes no lasting damage at all is another reason to favor it's use. But the number one reason to use it is because it works. It is the perfect answer to the lie that you cannot coerce useful information from bad guys. KSM broke very quickly and the info we got from him allowed us to scarf up dozens of AQ killers and saved countless lives. While other methods may have eventually procured this intelligence, the time spent doing so made it more likely his info would be out of date and we would miss the chance to capture or kill the terrorists. As awful as that makes me, I think that means we have an obligation to do it and I would consider it's banning a blow to our security.

One last tagline that is in play, from my devoted compadres at Crooks and Liars

Even the wild dude Jimbo, from the right wing site Black Five called the event “lame”

It is entertaining to enjoy this level of disapproval, I will ratchet things up a notch.

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Comments

[scrapiron]

We currently have drills to see how long you can stay on air with a 15 supply (normal) of air in the self contained breathing app. (SCBA) used by all firefighters. Some can last up to 45 minutes using skip breathing. I'll bring up the waterboarding and bet 99% of the firefighters will try it. Anyone that runs in a burning building while everyone else is running out isn't wrapped too tight anyway. The military uses it for training and the dummies in congress think it's torture????WTF.

[The Historian]

How about:

"Lame brained, gun lovin', knuckle dragging UNcleaver Gym-Bow"

Pass the Bacardi.

www.greensrealworld.blogspot.com

[SteveG]

Next time a cop pulls you over give them that photo instead of your license so they don't have to insult you by asking if you've had anything to drink.
How about if you get a mugs lineup of screen shots from all the lefties who vlog and then we can all vote on if any of them look as nice as UJimbo does there.
(If I hadn't seen the whole clip personally I'd think from the screenshot you were about to hurl onto the camera)

[Jim]

UJ,

I agree completely. Waterboarding isn't torture. I believe that it should be a part of our arsenal against Islamofacist terrorists. In fact, I'll go one further. I believe that we should allow methods that truly are torture if it is decided that the person being interrogated has information that could help us prevent an immenant attack. The old "there's a bomb about to explode and take out a US City, and the prisoner knows where it is... do we torture him to get the information" scenario. Well, forgive me, but I say yes. Do whatever is necessary to get the information and stop the attack. Even if it means torturing the prisoner.

Jim C

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Unfortunately, we have a seriously confused population out there.

I predict that it will take a lot more painful experience to get them to vote and conduct their lives like responsible people. The rest of us will suffer through it. Just like Canada, where the Liberal agenda gained full control a couple decades or so ago, it will here also. With the media in 100% propaganda support mode, it cannot be avoided. Grab your butts.

[malclave]

I have to admit, Nance's article is making me rethink my opinion on whether waterboarding as a form of interrogation is torture.

My impression, prior to reading Nance, was that waterboarding makes the subject feel as though he is drowning; Nance describes it almost as controlled drowning of the subject. The former I (a layperson) don't think of as torture; the latter I'm not so sure about.

[Willy]

It's as simple as this:
Ask the author of that piece Nance, or ANY other person who thinks water boarding is torture this simple question:
which would you rather submit to: waterboarding, or have bamboo nailed under your fingernails, or your testicles smashed with a hammer, or your face sliced.... anyway, you get the drift.
We all know what any person would choose. If you've seen REAL torture or even the remains of it, you'd know full well waterboarding is TORMENT, not torture. People walk away from it. Wetter, scared, but none the worse.
Thanks for the good reporting Funkle DimBro.
Willy

[douglas]

"My impression, prior to reading Nance, was that waterboarding makes the subject feel as though he is drowning; Nance describes it almost as controlled drowning of the subject."

All depends on how you do it. A shove and a Mike Tyson hook are both assault, but are quite different. Likewise, waterboarding can be either that you described or anywhere in between, or for that matter, plain old drowning.

"...waterboarding is TORMENT, not torture."

Nutshell. Nice.

[liontooth]

Jimbo, it ain't you, it's just the same ole same ole of compensating for their impotence.
They got their Democratic majorities in both houses, and they thought the world had shifted. Man, it's like the sixties and woodstock again! 1 year later let's measure their progress:
1. Bush is still President and 'impeachment' was NEVER an issue. Bush will be and stay President with NO impeachment! Bwhaa.
2. The troops are STILL in Iraq and ain't comin home, until the Generals decide it. The public was never against the war, they were upset with the progress. Bwhaa.
3. The leftists are STUCK with Hillary Clinton as their candidate and will lose in 2008. Don't think so? What's gonna happen when the public is reminded of Clinton#1's bombing and starving Iraq for 8 years? Why the anthrax vacination of the entire military? Why did Sandy Berger obstruct the 9/11 commission's investigation? And Hillary has 1000Xs the negatives. No Whitehouse in 08. Bwhaa.
4. Despite their cries of the 'unpopular' and 'illegal war' the American public never bought their lie. Whatever happened to the protests against the war? Bwhaa. FYI a freak show in San Francisco and NY city isn't the American public.

So Uncle Jimbo, you're just the latest excuse behind: neocons, Haliburton, global warming, etc. Enjoy the attention while it lasts.

[Mr.Sparkle]

This is a Gitmo judge on giving trials to terrorists, I think it also applies to torture in a roundabout way:

The members of al-Qaeda may or may not 'deserve' trials in a time-tested and jurisprudentially sound forum. However, the world-respected reputation of United States criminal courts has not been built nor maintained for the benefit of any evil person . . . The use of an established court system at this critical time should not be viewed as an action on behalf of accused terrorists, but rather as a representation to needed international partners that the course of our ship of state is steady, and properly charted for the rough waters ahead.

[Rich Casebolt]

Mr. Sparkle

One aspect of the right to trial is the need to protect those within a nation's borders from a government gone bad.

Not protect a government from them.

Trans-national terrorist organizations go beyond the law-enforcement paradigm for response ... by perpetrating violence to foment political change, they are effectively acting as a belligerent government. They are committing more than crimes ... they are acts of war.

Habeas corpus, the Exclusionary Rule (something, BTW, British courts don't respect even with its citizens) and Miranda warnings do not apply to governments and their agents that are engaged in warfare against us.

Neither do the Geneva Conventions apply to combatants who do not conduct themselves by their rules ... and to misapply them to those combatants makes a mockery of the Conventions themselves.

My concern for the respect of other nations is directly proportional to their respect for my life and liberty .... and treating absolute, totalitarian dictators and checked-and-balanced, rights-respecting democrats with the same deference in the halls of the UN and elsewhere, does not respect my life and liberty.

Neither does trying to tie this checked-and-balanced nation down like Gulliver, with respect to its ability to respond to threats to my life and liberty ... and expect me to accept lying-in-formal-wear as a substitute for the historically-proven methods of "cowboy diplomacy" to secure my life and liberty.

Maybe, instead of America changing its ways to "prove" it's ship of state is steady to those engaged in the "war by other means" of diplomacy, those other nations should take steps to rise to America's level of international morality ... and start giving tyrants and fanatics the (lack of) respect they deserve ...

... and when needed, acting with us in a direct, timely, resolute, and decisive manner to remove said tyrants and fanatics from control of their nations, and help those living under their boots to secure their life and liberty in a sustainable way.

Just like we are doing in Iraq today ... and getting pilloried for it by our so-called "betters", here and abroad.

When you do enough of that, though, the need for coercive interrogation will diminish greatly.

[MajMT]

Having read Mr. Nances article and numerous others in regard I will say this...while waterboarding has the potential to be used as torture just as my Black and Decker drill can also be applied to knees and other joints of the body (as per the AQ Official Handbook) … it is not torture, period. Make no mistake, the technique can be abused, f**ked up or applied incorrectly and the results are not the desired outcome; but that is often the mistake of the untrained or inexperienced. However, under the controlled environment that the proper technique is applied; vice Mr. Nance's controlled drowning or inverted immersion descriptions...which are NOT waterboarding...it is effective. Just like Jimbo and many others, I have been under the hood in training...I understood the situation and the environment...I held out as long as I could but in the end I wanted to cooperate.

One error that waterboard detractors seem to consistently omit is that waterboarding is not used willy-nilly on every reprobate that finds himself under the scrutiny of trained and experienced interrogators. It is used parsimoniously and often as follow up after lengthy screening, questioning , and cross checking. It is not applied in as a common-place technique; no coercive method is. Interrogation is a matter of matching a multi-layered procedure with the particular subject.

And anyone who implies that our use of aggressive or coercive methods to gain useful intel puts us on the same level as our adversaries is a disingenuous simpleton. We do not routinely use power tools on limbs, sever heads with hunting knives, electrocute genitals or cook young boys and serve them to their parents; all for sadistic satisfaction and the sole purpose of causing suffering and pain. That is torture

[Subsunk]

You really irritate the right people don't you?

My kind of guy!

Subsunk

[Chuck Ziegenfuss (TCOverride)]

I am SO having fun with them. So far, I am a "Ignorant, vicious, bigoted coward" as well as an "ignoramus."

Apparently, I want "to act like the nazis, the stasi, the soviets, al quaeda."

Oh, and "a pea brained f**k."

And a personal best, "No, the real threat to America, and everything that makes America an ideal, is people like you"

Good thing I defend their rights to talk this way, because if I were like the things they mentioned, I'd be putting burning bamboo shoots in their soon-to-be electrified testicles.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Rich Casebolt, the key question is whether it is worth it?

Call me cynical but torture is more about domestic politics, "the passion of the people", than effective COIN strategy.

Then again I can get where you're coming from, it's hard to make the case that the propaganda damage is substantial because most everybody nowadays is already disillusioned by the United States. would make a positive dent in the right direction though.

P.S. Aren't there any Catholics here to help me?

[Chuck Ziegenfuss (TCOverride)]

Wow. It jusrt got really personal:

Jim [Not Uncle Jimbo, natch.]said,

October 31, 2007 at 16:56

It’s not specifically outlined in the Constitution because the people who founded this country never dreamed that their heirs would be monsters like you.

Honestly, if you voted for Bush in 2000 and/or 2004 (especially 2004) I’m glad you were wounded.

[JohnG]

The army never had anything very coercive to start with - anything anybody learn post IET was at SERE schools or practicing with allied countries that felt "if its merely uncomfortable and of a relatively short duration - isn't torture." Unfortunately, post Abu Ghraib, the Army (with the help of McCain) banned anything remotely useful and quite a bit of what we had had doctrinally (Good Cop, Bad Cop).

You're right, we can often some information out of some people with lengthy ruses and a lot of psychological ploys - but for the tactical commander, it takes too long, so he's going to lose troops.

You heard that the turds at GTMO can refuse to talk to interrogators now (for the last couple years) didn't you?

I talked to a few law professors and presented basic training situations to them without saying "basic training" - they generally considered everything - mandantory pushups, situps, long days no sleep, riding in the back of trucks without pads, forced marches, etc - to be torture.

Some grown up somewhere needs to take a look at what real torture is, and compare that to our "former" mild mannered techniques (including waterboarding) and then make a decision an decide what constitutes real torture. I was pretty certain that Geneva defined it well, but that doesn't seem to be good enough for politicians who probably consider working a 5-day week to be torture.

[Rich Casebolt]

Rich Casebolt, the key question is whether it is worth it?

No ... the key question is ... is it ever worth it?

And, do we reflexively, excessively tie our hands before we know the complete answer to that question ... if we ever do?

The above question doesn't only apply to coercive interrogation; it applies in every area concerning how we deal with captured enemy combatants ... combatants who are trained to use the civil-liberties protections that are embedded in our civil/criminal jurisprudence system to advance their cause: war upon Western civilization.

Call me cynical but torture is more about domestic politics, "the passion of the people", than effective COIN strategy.

No ... coercive interrogation and isolation from the criminal justice system is intended to deny this enemy the ability to twist our liberties and use them against us. It is about denying them the intelligence that they would glean from trying one of their colleagues in open court ... and it is about spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of an enemy who has built their strategy around certain assumptions regarding our reaction to their presence in our midst.

Then again I can get where you're coming from, it's hard to make the case that the propaganda damage is substantial because most everybody nowadays is already disillusioned by the United States.

Feeling's mutual, bub ... I'm very disillusioned by nations that not only share our freedoms, but do so because of copious amounts of blood and treasure expended by America in the last century, suffer from the moral astigmatism that allows them to engage in realpolitik while condemning virtually every action America takes to secure our -- and often, their -- liberty.

IMO, moving in the direction these other nations want would be a rhetorical positive, but a real negative, in terms of achieving that objective.

Mr. Sparkle, the idealism of the last half of the 20th Century ... in part, derived from the horror of WWII ... led us to believe that if the powerful choose not to fight, then war would not occur ... that we had "progressed" beyond the need to apply violent action to secure our lives and liberty.

Based on this viewpoint, we developed the policies for treating terrorists as mere criminals ... granting them the access to open trials and protecting them from nearly all forms of coercive interrogation.

Not only was that idealism woefully wrong, it instead maintained a status quo of death and misery
(as Subsunk described today in North Korea) that has only been broken whenever our leaders ignored the idealists, ignored the "realists", and scared the living daylights out of both -- and our enemies -- by presenting a CREDIBLE threat of violent action to be used against those who commit acts of war against our nations.

We are not breaking new ground. Our endeavor in these matters, is to swing the pendulum back from where Woodstock Nation wanted to keep it, while not letting it go back to the days of 18th century prison ships ... back to a position more in line with 21st century reality ... a reality where "mice" can leverage technology to "roar" like nations ... a reality in which our responses ... no better friend, no worse enemy ... must be precisely applied.

To move too far ... either way ... threatens us.

[ST333]

God I love the p*ssy's on the left and their rhetoric. Amusing. Waterboarding isn't torture, it's a great mind trick. Have the Defeatocrats ever seen BUDs training? Watch Class 234 once and tell me what's closer to torture. Stacking naked insurgents in a human triangle? Pouring water over their face so they THINK they are going to drown? That's nothing compared to the "weeding out" process SEALs go through at BUDs. It's astonishing to me we live among suck whiny little b!tches and people actually pay attention to them. The left is flat out embarrassing when they attempt to talk about military/defense related issues. They aren't blue states, they are yellow states. Democowards need to remember the great Dwight Eisenhower quote: "History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid".....you could add Stupid right after timid to that quote as well

[Mr.Sparkle]

"war upon Western civilization."

WW2 took 6 years, killed over 60 million people.

The GWoT has taken about 6 years and is not at 1 million. Post-Sept 11th, outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not even 2,000.

"Not only was that idealism woefully wrong, it instead maintained a status quo of death and misery
(as Subsunk described today in North Korea) that has only been broken whenever our leaders ignored the idealists, ignored the "realists", and scared the living daylights out of both -- and our enemies -- by presenting a CREDIBLE threat of violent action to be used against those who commit acts of war against our nations.

You're jumbled up. That is realism, that a response of credible threat is formed against a threat to you. NOT that you should disregard diplomacy and 'conventional' ideas like strategy and thorough planning in order to intervene in a contained state like NK, or it could be argued pre-invasion Iraq.

How many US soldiers would you have sacrificed during the Korean war in order to 'save' NK? Would you have had a nuclear war with China in order to save the children?

[jordan]

Sparkle, it wasn't for North Korea that we sacrificed 50,000 men, it was for the U.S. The operative strategy at the time was to prevent U.S. allies from falling under Soviet spheres of influence, to ensure against the domino effect.

There was a sound basis for the requirement to have a foothold on the Asian continent in Korea. Communism at that time was something to be fought, not emulated.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Jordan that's the point my friend! The reason the US isn't removing enemy regimes (aka Somali warlords) is not because of Leftists stopping them, but because there is no public stomach to suffer 10+ years between regime changes and the huge unilateral cost (Iraq will cost in the trillions of dollars). Look at the GOP during the Somalia and Kosovo interventions, they couldn't stop trashing the president at every opportunity over his foolish idealism, putting US soldiers at risk for johnny foreigner.

Likewise when China came into the Korean war we were happy to stop our bloodshed.

It is rich now folks coming along pointing at Iraq going "look how humanitarian we are"

[Darrell]

I would lose no sleep at night if I knew terrorists were being tortured, whether via waterboarding or electrodes, or some combination of both, and giving up information that would save lives.

However, me, being somewhat gutless, would probably say whatever I thought would get the person to stop torturing me. Perhaps a hardnosed jihadist would last longer than I, but surely a point would be reached where they too would give up information whether it was genuine or not.

My only issue with the torment/torture of al-Quaeda animals is, does it result in quality intelligence?

[Cincinnati_Bob]

ST333.

FnA.

Ignorance will gain critical mass eventually.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

My only issue with the torment/torture of al-Quaeda animals is, does it result in quality intelligence?

Darrell. If it didn't they wouldn't be wasting their time using it. They have better things to do.

Does this not ring true? Put yourself in their place.

[Casey]

I have a serious reservation with respect to former Chief Nance's article. In it he states quite specifically that waterboarding involves introducing water into the lung, in one way or another.

On the other hand, Uncle Jimbo's version (canvas [or other material] on face, water poured over canvas to introduce gagging reflex) pretty much establishes a scenario wherein it is nearly physically impossible for water to actually enter the air passages. Recollections similar to UJ's version seem to be far more common amongst SERE participants than the more invasive method outlined by Nance.

On the other hand, UJ went through the Army "version," while Nance was Navy. Perhaps there is a difference?

My question is: what is/was the standard method of applying waterboarding during US armed forces SERE training, and what is the contemporary standard method of applying waterboarding to prisoners today?

Surely that can't be so hard to determine?

[Mr.Sparkle]

Surely that can't be so hard to determine?

Nobody will tell you because nobody wants to know.

My only issue with the torment/torture of al-Qaeda animals is, does it result in quality intelligence?

General D.H. Petraeus said Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone "talk;" however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

It results in making them say what you want. Part of the reason we invaded Iraq was because of poor Intel through torture.

[JohnG]

As to whether stressful interrogation is effective or not, just ask SERE graduates or McCain. Works just fine - the only people who say it doesn't are ignorant or pacifists, and the rest are moral high grounders who claim a nuke in a major city is less of a price to pay then the immorality of subjecting another human to that kind of treatment.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Part of the reason we invaded Iraq was because of poor Intel through torture.

Sparkle. Mental Disease. For your consideration...

I'd say Saddammo kicking the inspectors out in 98 had 99.999% to do with it. Ya know, from a Reality point of view. Just to give you a little different read on things than you're used to. Glad to help.

[Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Sparkle, for introducing specific facts relevant to the question at hand in this discussion.

Myself, I had no idea that tortured prisoners were the source of bad intel regarding Iraq's WMD programs. I had the silly idea that fiasco was due to over-reliance on SIGINT along with a near-complete absence of human agents in the region.

...And as yet no one has explained why -if waterboarding is torture- no one in Congress has introduced a bill outlawing the practice for SERE students...