It should not be forgotten that Cheney’s Bridge ushers (the Howard Government) have been involved in the downplaying of torture earlier than the reports about Hicks.

The Age, February 14, 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/Iraq/Minister-warned-on-Iraqi-torture/2005/02/13/1108229855434.html reminds us:

"Australians have been involved in interrogating Iraqi prisoners at a Baghdad jail where prisoners were abused, a senior [Australian] intelligence official has claimed.

The allegations, made by Australian weapons inspector Rod Barton, contradict statements Defence Minister Robert Hill made to Parliament.

Mr Barton said he interrogated Iraqi scientists in early 2004 at Camp Cropper, a jail where about 100 "high value" prisoners were held.

"Someone was brought to me in an orange jumpsuit with a guard with a gun standing behind him," Mr Barton has told the ABC's Four Corners for a report that will screen tonight.

"Of course I didn't pull any fingernails out . . . but I think it's misleading to say there were no Australians involved (in interrogation). I was involved."

Mr Barton said he had since learnt other Australians were involved in interrogations.

...Mr Barton said he warned a senior Defence Department official, Myra Rowling, that prisoners were being abused at Camp Cropper, but was ignored.

"No one asked me any more questions about prisoner abuse whatsoever and I gather later that nothing was done about it. Nothing was followed up."

...Mr Barton recommended that Australians no longer be involved in interrogating prisoners at Camp Cropper but says he was ignored.

When he complained to the Defence Department that Senator Hill's statement to Parliament was misleading, he was told his work was considered "interviews", not interrogation.

"I believe it was interrogation. The Iraqis regarded it as interrogation. The Americans I think regarded it as interrogation," he said.

The current OLO article from Dr Macnab about Mr Otterman's book first appeared to be another lefty denunciation of the good ol CIA but there seems to be enough facts and feel for the subject to back up the judgements made.

Naturally the cult of silence in Australian defence and intelligence circles, about American torture (for revenge) practices, largely continues.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

A MATTER OF TENSE

" 'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.'” - article

-- We have not learned our lesson and HAVE repeated history.

Torture should be one of those black and white things that Liberal societies can clearly use to differentiate themselves from their enemies.
Aside from the clear moral grounds, there is the fact that torture doesn't work. It simply gives you what you want to hear, which sadly, seems to be regarded as just as useful in some quarters.

When people express justified disgust at torture practices, they're all too often branded as whacko, civil rights lefties, but come on - this is torture we're talking about here. If we can't at least agree that this isn't acceptable, we must be living in entirely different societies.

It is a terrible indictment on our society, that our chief legal officer, attorney general Phillip Ruddock, is so soft on the torture issue.
He's stated openly that sleep deprivation doesn't count as torture, and he's been pretty damn soft on other heinous interrogation methods.

Even if we are fighting a war, we never stooped this low in the past. We held out against the Japanese, and the Nazi menace without ditching the ideals we hold so close.

How anyone can defend this is beyond me.

I do not believe thumbscrews; racks etc are in use in Cuba where the detainees are held. The detainees are so revved up on their faith and wanting to be martyred that it would not take much sensory deprivation to destabilise them.

Has anyone noticed most plots are intercepted before they get off the ground? The only successful plots are those hatched by small terrorist cells isolated from the main body. (Remember the plot to bring down some nine aircraft over the Atlantic). We are fortunate that our intelligence agencies are able to stay in front of most plots. There will be some groans and recrimination when the next successful plot is pulled off.

Keep up the good work a bit of sleep deprivation, screaming and chanting fellow inmates, cold wet nights interspersed with acts of kindness is not going to hurt anyone. It will certainly do them less harm than cooking themselves with chemical cocktails in their search for martyrdom.

Sille, I take it your nom-de-plume was a conscious and inspired choice?.

You say: "Keep up the good work a bit of sleep deprivation, screaming and chanting fellow inmates, cold wet nights interspersed with acts of kindness is not going to hurt anyone."

I also take it you would be quite happy to undergo that bracing experience - or allow your children to be subject to it - when the revolution comes?

I'm curious on one qestion: does it matter who the torturers are - or is it only OK when it's the 'goodies' inflicting the pain?

Interesting that those who don't normally believe in absolutes are absolutely sure that all torture should be banned. The main problem in the West is that many don't have any confidence in the Court systems. Even though most know that David Hicks trained with terroist some clever lawyer is likely to get him off. I am sure if the Court system was not so stacked in favour of the crims then people would be more inclined to speak out about torture!

OK, bleeding hearts, tell me what you would do in this situation (one we could quite possibly face in the next few years):

A 10 megaton nuclear weapon has been secreted in Sydney and is timed to explode in 30 minutes. The authorities have just learned about the bomb, and have captured a terrorist who knows its location. He is perfectly happy to die in the explosion. There is not enough time to evacuate the inhabitants of Sydney before the explosion, but the authorities are confident they can defuse it if they can find it.

Question: Should the authorities torture the terrorist to discover its location?

I will be interested to read the responses.

The USA has not experienced another mass murder by Allah loving fascists.

Obviously just good ole fashioned luck.

The term torture certainly covers a very wide range of activity. Fine line between pleasure and pain.

The main justification for not torturing military prisoners (which I agree with) is that when a soldier from your own side is captured then it can be reasonably expected that the foe will reciprocate with humane treatment.

Since the xenophopic Koran bashers have inverted the entire concept of waging war with some rules there is no longer the expectation that military personnel will not be tortured. In fact the opposite expectation exists. When Islamists who are not part of a regular army (by UN definition) choose to torture Nuns and humanitarian workers then a large part of the reason to treat prisoners humanely is nullified.

Situational ethics is supposed to be a most acceptable philosophy for western society. Unless of course an opportunity arises to demonise the USA, then only rigid adherance to a loosely articulated international rule can be acceptable.

I saw a TV interview of an officer who worked with the prisoners and he adamantly asserted that large amounts of actionable intelligence was extracted from prisoners using a variety of means. He appeared genuine to me.

I know who I would prefer to protect my well being and future and it is not the arm chair experts.

"I saw a TV interview of an officer who worked with the prisoners and he adamantly asserted that large amounts of actionable intelligence was extracted from prisoners using a variety of means. He appeared genuine to me"

was this where the WMD's in Iraq info came form,...... please, although if torture is a truth serum , how about testing some politicans, what good for the goose.....!!

Plerdsus

Given a 10 megaton weapon would weigh 1,000+kgs it would be difficult to "secrete" anywhere.

Your scenerio of a "ticking" bomb is not how jihadists (eg al Qaeda) operate. The detonation would be done manually ie a suicide bomber.

Suicide bombing - no chance of interrogation or defusing - gives confused young Muslims an edge (unfortunately).

Hence we don't need to adopt Donald Rumsfeld's torture doctrine. A bloke called John Yoo developed it for the US Defence Department after 9/11 when it was already too late. Torture wouldn't have worked during 9/11 or during any other of the major bombing events (Madrid, London) since then.

I wouldn't underestimate how the US hides its yearning for REVENGE for 9/11 (can we blame it?) when it sells the merits of torture doctrine. This torture applies to the torture of 1,000s round the world not to extremely rare events (where the one-off "rules" would be developed on the spot (with quick phone calls)).

Still, we don't need to slavishly copy Yank thinking - even if our PM does.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

The headline of this article - 'US culture of torture'- is absurdly geared to elicit emotion rather than any rational debate. The entire piece makes allusions to horrendous practices that are usually the domain of Islamic and third world countries as being practiced by the US as a matter of course. It fails to differentiate between its use against everyday citizens and spies and enemies, and the entire heap of steaming excrement the author has dumped on our plate consists of third hand accounts gleaned from a book that mysteriously uses secret documents to which the author of it was somehow privy to, as well as implying they are somehow responsible for what happens to someone they handed over to some other country that happens to be less enlightened- but gets off having a book written about it because we don't really expect any better from them, and goes on to say the US is guilty of inhumanity and injustice without any empirical evidence to back these claims, reducing them to mere opinion rather than facts of any real substance. The real shock factor probably lies in the fact that Americans are human, and humans are capable of such things, and errs by omitting the reality that western countries are far less likely to use real torture than dictatorships, socialist and Islamic ones - locking someone up without cigarettes for a day probably counts as torture to this ignorant oaf who's telling us " I read it in a book!". Failure to note there is no nation on earth that has not used the big stick at one time or another is not only shows a lack of understanding of the subject as a whole, but shows how biased he is against the US in his American bashing. But I suppose in his cocoon of academe, he can bash them with impunity.

Plerdsus asks:
“Tell me what you would do in this situation …10 megaton nuclear weapon has been secreted in Sydney and is timed to explode in 30 minutes…
Question: Should the authorities torture the terrorist to discover its location?”

( Touch-down!)

Plantagenet responds:
“Your scenerio of a "ticking" bomb is not how jihadists (eg al Qaeda) operate. The detonation would be done manually ie a suicide bomber.”

GREAT SIDE-STEP !

NOW LET'S HEAR YOU (& OTHERS) ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Jihadists (others) will use whatever means are at their disposal.
Do you seriously doubt they wouldn't use nuclear weapons, if they became available?

Frank Gol:

I do not know a lot about you either Frank but I am sure if a Jihadist is ever able to immolate you or any of your family (I sincerely hope they are never successful) you may have second thoughts about throwing a bit of cold water over them and making their miserable lives as uncomfortable as possible. The terrorists are going to turn up the volume and it is only a matter of time before they are able to add things such as plutonium to their chemical concoctions.

Unless our security services get our support and not our criticism, which can only weaken their resolve, there will be successful terrorist attacks. There are a lot of Jihadists out there hell bent on doing us as much harm as possible.

Horus

"Question: Should the authorities torture the terrorist to discover its location?”

You're really twisting me arm matey. OK it would be YES in the ticking bomb scenerio painted. This is unrelated to the US' post 9/11 worlwide torture program which obtains vast amounts of old background intelligence from suspects long "renditioned" off the street.

Lets dwell on the tried and trusted British traditions of torture and revenge. On talking to former SAS officers who have undergone torture resistence training in Australia:

1. We probably have the necessary torturers.

2. It can take more than half an hour (may be days/weeks) to get the tortured to talk.

3. Death can precede talking :)

The US made the mistake of turning what everyone else calls torture into official, WRITTEN, PUBLIC, policy - to justify its mass campaign (in Guantanamo etc). Many Americans quietly agreed then (and agree now) with the spinoff of causing Muslims pain - in revenge for 9/11.

More "refined" countries (UK etc) removed torture from the statutes long ago. Torture policies or doctrine in these countries would no longer be written down. Oral briefing from someone of Colonel/Superintendent rank (varying from operation to operation) would probably be the go because it would be deniable for political and tactical reasons.

Summary execution of terrorist (shoot em before you need to capture em) is another unwritten policy in the UK - see planta's comment in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3791

Pete

Horus and others.

It is interesting to see how posters are keen to sidestep my scenario, but are unable to respond to it. Being a patient man, I an still waiting for someone to have the guts to respond.

I do believe that there are many people who seem unable to accept that there is no way that you will appease these terrorists, and that this is a war of extermination, as has applied untold number of times in human history.

It also seems to be difficult for many people to accept, as George Bernard Shaw remarked, that there has been no discernable moral progress in human affairs throughout history, and we are not about to see one now.

Contrary to what many may think, I am not in despair, but simply observing the usual working out of darwinian evolution, where the weakest goes to the wall, and the devil takes the hindmost.

With the failure of the world community to even recognise the underlying problem, overpopulation, I am looking to the four horsemen to provide the usual solution.

Plerdsus

Speaking as one "man" to another man I've responded man.

Can't you read or accept my words above?

Pete