Waterboarding: so let me get this straight..

[Virginia Dare]

if in theory we ever were waterboarding, we're no longer doing it? Is that what I'm hearing?

[slowry]

1. If? And what makes you think it has stopped? n/t

[Virginia Dare]

2. Brian Ross reported tonight on ABC..

CIA has said waterboarding is no longer an acceptable form of torture.

[Flabbergasted]

3. They have found the rack and thumb screws more effective?

[Virginia Dare]

6. You know, the CIA has changed...

I have a relative who was a spook back in the day during Vietnam etc. They never stooped to these sorts of tactics, all they had to do was threaten the V.C. with turning them over to the South Vietnamese, and then follow through if they didn't cooperate.

[Flabbergasted]

7. Now they turn them over to Syria and Egypt.

[Virginia Dare]

9. Yep, where do you think they sent this guy?

or Saddam for that matter. Something tells me both of these guys had been on a magical mystery tour before we got wind of them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1805188&mesg_id=1805188

[NNN0LHI]

11. Don't forget Jordan. Those thugs are one of Bush's favorite torturers n/t

[Solly Mack]

4. it's been "banned" as an "interrogation technique"

which is no way means they aren't still doing it

since torture was already banned and water-boarding IS considered torture and the US was engaging in it...

edit:to add the article

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2991594

[Virginia Dare]

8. Right, but that was the story they were trying to sell tonight..

banned = case closed.

[Solly Mack]

10. Yep..that's the implication...that's what they want people to think

Yet another lie

[stillcool]

5. Who needs the CIA?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2...
Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld’s Domain
By Barton Gellman*
Washington Post
January 23, 2005

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places they declined to name. According to an early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to be interviewed.

The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations," according to an internal account of its origin and mission. Human intelligence operations, a term used in counterpoint to technical means such as satellite photography,range from interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed.