Guiliani: Sleep deprivation not torture

[TOVisitor]

Your Republican party is action.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/25/giuliani_torture/index.html

In his book, former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described his experience being tortured by sleep deprivation at the hands of the KGB:

In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep ... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.

I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them.

He did not promise them their liberty; he did not promise them food to sate themselves. He promised them -- if they signed -- uninterrupted sleep! And, having signed, there was nothing in the world that could move them to risk again such nights and such days.

Here's U.S. presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, speaking at a town hall event in Iowa yesterday:

And I see, when the Democrats are talking about torture, they're not just talking about even this definition of waterboarding, which again, if you look at the liberal media and you look at the way they describe it, you could say it was torture and you shouldn't do it. But they talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly. That's silly.

Apparently, this is what it's like on the campaign trail:

Mr. Bashmilah was subjected to severe sleep deprivation and shackling in painful positions. Excruciatingly loud music was played twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. Guards deprived him of sleep, routinely waking him every half hour. Initially, the cell was pitch black, his hands were cuffed together, and his legs were shackled together, severely restricting his movement and causing him pain. Later, he was chained to a wall and the light in his cell was left on at all times, except for brief moments when the guards came to his cell ... Mr. Bashmilah's psychological torment was such that he used a piece of metal to slash his wrists in an attempt to bleed to death. He used his own blood to write "I am innocent" and "this is unjust" on the walls of his cell.

I wonder what Giuliani writes on the walls of his $4,000-a-night hotel rooms.

And given his outspoken belligerence regarding Iran, he must also find this pretty "silly" (from the State Department's official 2006 country report on Iran):

In recent years (Iranian) authorities have severely abused and tortured prisoners in a series of "unofficial" secret prisons and detention centers outside the national prison system. Common methods included prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation ... long confinement in contorted positions ... threats of execution if individuals refused to confess ... sleep deprivation.

But these things can't be torture! We have memos saying they're just "enhanced interrogation techniques" fully consistent with U.S. and international law. Silly State Department.

Here's what Giuliani told the Iowa crowd about our preferred form of mock execution, waterboarding:

Questioner: "He [AG nominee Mukasey] said he didn't know if waterboarding is torture."

Giuliani: "Well, I'm not sure it is either. I'm not sure it is either. It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it's been defined in the media, it shouldn't be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that's the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn't be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is. Because I've learned something being in public life as long as I have. And I hate to shock anybody with this, but the newspapers don't always describe it accurately."

You know we've come a long way as a country when the leading presidential candidate for the incumbent party suggests that perhaps one of the oldest, most iconic forms of torture known to man isn't torture at all, and we only think it is because we've been misled by our "liberal media." History no doubt also has a well-known liberal bias:

The first level of torture employed by the Spanish Inquisition was the "water cure." Water was poured into the accused's open mouth. The linen cloth was washed into the opening of the throat, preventing the accused from spitting the water back out. The overwhelming sensation of drowning forced the accused to swallow the water. The rules of torture as written by Torquemada, a man whom historians have compared to Hitler, stipulated that no more than eight liters of water could be used in a single session.

Perhaps the most revealing part of Giuliani's response was his comment that whether waterboarding is torture "depends on who does it." That pretty much sums up the prevailing right-wing view on this issue: It's not torture when we do it. It's American exceptionalism taken to an absurd and frightening extreme. It doesn't matter that we draft detailed reports every year chastising all other countries in the world who are known to engage in this activity. It doesn't matter that we've prosecuted people in the past for war crimes for engaging in this same activity. Somehow acts that we would all agree are torture when committed by other countries cease to be torture when they are authorized by the U.S. government (but only for us; it's still torture if others do it). If anyone thinks that the United States' standing in the world will improve if Giuliani becomes president, they're sadly mistaken.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Bet lange will change his vote from Colbert to Rudy after seeing that.
Reading that probably brings a tear to lange's eye as he longs for them 'good ole days' back in Deutschland..........

 

[lookingforitallthetime]

Real torture is listening to Guiliani schpeeches.

 

[Aardvark154]

Real torture is listening to Guiliani schpeeches.

And which Democratic Party Candidate for President was it who said on the floor of the Senate that if "torture" of a terrorist would prevent the death of thousands of Americans that only a fool wouldn't use torture?

 

[Don]

Global warming and political slight-of-hand gamesmanship
is causing me to wonder if I shouldn't become an illegal
immigrant in Canada. Beware, Canada. A migration is a'comin.

Thought you detested Bush. And you want to come to a country whose leader is dubbed "Bush, Jr." by liberals?

 

[Don]

If you think you have problems, come on down.

Not me. I am happy being up here. I tend to think people who compare Harper to Bush are morons who have no idea (or using scare psychology). Glad to see you are not one of them.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Dubya's AmeriKKKa

Here's an example of how bad it IS getting down here.

This happened in Boston this past Veteran's Day.
Police arrest US War Veteran's for daring to exercise their right to 'free speech and assembly.'

I'm speechless - this picture speaks volumes

Edited on Mon Nov-12-07 03:47 PM by shance

I guess the rich, privileged, draft dodging Yale and Harvard boys have had enough of all the "free speech garbage" , I guess because people are beginning to wake up to who the real enemies are.

Look at the men being arrested - men who fought and sacrificed in a war, unlike the Yale/Harvard boys who did everything they could to avoid active duty. Ironically now the ones who were used by the good ole rich boys are now the ones being arrested for protesting what we all should be protesting.

Oh and Happy Veteran's Day.....


The article:


More than a dozen members of an antiwar veterans group were arrested yesterday as they protested the exclusion of their message from Boston’s Veterans Day parade.Members of Veterans for Peace lined up in front of a podium at City Hall Plaza holding antiwar placards, as color guards from Massachusetts military units and JROTC bands from across the state filed into Government Center for a ceremony, sponsored by the American Legion, to honor veterans after the parade. Some protesters wore gags, which they later said symbolized the fact that, while they were permitted to march in the parade, they were prevented from carrying signs opposing the war in Iraq.

“We were exercising our First Amendment rights,” said Winston Warfield of Dorchester, a member of the group. “The First Amendment protects free speech, even when you don’t agree with what’s being said.”

When Boston police asked the demonstrators to move from the front of the podium so that the Veterans Day services could continue, they refused. As the Boston Firemen’s Band played The Marine Hymn, several protesters were placed in plastic handcuffs and led away.

“Our free speech and civil rights are being abridged here,” said Nate Goldschlag, a Vietnam-era veteran who was among those standing in front of the podium. “We are veterans, too, and we should be allowed to express our opposition to this war.”

© 2007 Boston Globe​

WelKome to my AmeriKKKa!!!