Ok, for the record, here's my position: I don't think loud music, nudity, or cranking the A/C up too high qualifies as sever pain or suffering. Waterboarding comes closer to torture, but I'm still not convinced it really qualifies. I've heard that we waterboard some of our own people, even.
Waterboarding can cause lung damage, dry drowning, brain damage due to asphyxiation, severe psychological damage or death. Secondary damage of severe bruising and broken bones nearly always occurs due to involuntary struggling or spasms unless medical restraints are used to immobilize the subject. It meets the criteria of § 2340, see below.
James Parker was the Texas Sheriff for San Jacinto County sentenced in 1983 to ten years in prison for using that method on suspects. (744 F.2d 1124; 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 17759) During the Spanish-American War, Major Littleton Waller, USMC was court martialed for, among other things, using waterboarding to interrogate Filipino guerrillas. In White vs. State (129 Miss. 182; 91 So. 903 (1922)), Gerrard White's conviction was overturned as it was coerced by means of waterboarding. Same again for John Fisher (Fisher v. State, 145 Miss. 116; 110 So. 361 (1926)). A soldier from 1st Cav was court martialed during Vietnam for waterboarding a detainee, convicted Feb. 28, 1968.
Torture is defined under Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, § 2340. (
Link). For military personnel, they are subject to the UCMJ (Article 93). There is also the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441), which specifically covers Torture under § 2441 (d)(1)(A) (
Link).
SERE school is one location/occasion, among others, where our servicemen receive training that includes waterboarding.
Waterboarding counts as torture only if it is involuntarily applied, see § 2340. You can waterboard yourself if you wished, or have someone waterboard you all day long if they have your uncoerced consent. You have to specifically volunteer for SERE training. I don't know if the Army does so, but I had two Navy pilots tell me they signed an extensive waiver prior to their SERE training stating that they understood that they'd be submit to physical duress and that they were signing under no coercion. Otherwise, any instructor performing such training would be subject to an Article 93 under the UCMJ.
And yet the diligence and fair-mindedness required to sift through these folk and send them home when nothing is found is somehow not a sign that the same level of diligence and fairness with regard to those still in GB?
The system instituted at GB is only fair & accurate when it exonerates prisoners?
I can see this sort of position as rational when taken by the enemies of this country.
Yea, thanks jfruser. That's right, I am a militant enemy of the country. See, us pagans are just pretending to relatively nonviolent, nonexclusive types. We're really plotting to violently overthrow the US government in order to install a polytheistic regime in power to oppress all monotheistic religions and make you all wear pentacles. Curse you, jfruser, for seeing through our subterfuge!
No, I never said we shouldn't diligently look at all detainees to see which are really a danger and which are just goat herders dimed out by local warlords for reward cash. Of friggin course, we need to do so. I apologize if I didn't spell that out, but I kinda assumed everyone understood that point.