Attorney general nominee's answer on torture frustrates Democrats

[Dos Equis]

Is waterboarding torture? 

Attorney general nominee's answer on torture frustrates Democrats
     
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The refusal of attorney general-nominee Michael Mukasey to directly disavow waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques frustrated Senate Democrats Thursday.


Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

 Under tough questioning on torture policy on the second day of his confirmation hearings, the retired federal judge repeated his view that torture is unconstitutional, but he would not categorically declare any specific techniques to be prohibited.

"I don't think I can discuss techniques," Mukasey told the committee, as skeptical Democrats pressed on.

When asked by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, if waterboarding was constitutional, Mukasey responded "I don't know what's involved in the techniques. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional."

Whitehouse continued, "'If it's torture.' That's a massive hedge, I mean it either is or it isn't. Do you have an opinion whether waterboarding -- which is the practice of putting someone in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting cloth over their faces and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning -- is that constitutional?"

"If that amounts to torture, it is not constitutional," Mukasey said.

"I'm very disappointed in that answer," Whitehouse said.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said they, too, were dissatisfied by the conditional answers.

Although waterboarding was specifically prohibited in a law passed by Congress, the Bush administration has declared that while it does not torture detainees it won't publicly reveal which harsh interrogation techniques may be used.

Mukasey attempted to explain his conditional responses.

"I know the way cross-examinations proceed. You start with an easy step and then you go down the road. I don't want to go down the road on interrogation techniques," he said. "Did the things that were presented to me seem over the line to me as I sit here? Of course they did."

But he added, "I think I need to be very careful about where I go on that subject."

Several Democratic senators also reacted coolly to Mukasey's views on presidential authority under the Constitution to order surveillance without a court-issued warrant.

During the previous day's testimony, Mukasey said he does not believe the president has legal authority to approve torture techniques for use on terror suspects, something former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say.

Mukasey disavowed a memo written by former Justice official Jay Bybee that justified certain harsh techniques. "The Bybee memo, to paraphrase a French diplomat, was worse than a sin. It was a mistake. It was unnecessary," he said.

Although senators gave no signal they would oppose the nomination, which appears solidly on track, Democrats made clear they were less pleased with Mukasey's answers than they had been the previous day.

"I don't know whether you received some criticism from anybody in the administration last night after your testimony, but I sense a difference and a number of people here -- Republican and Democratic alike -- have sensed a difference," Leahy told the nominee.

Mukasey assured Leahy he had not been so criticized and had spent Wednesday night with his family.

On the first day of Mukasey's confirmation hearing Mukasey made it clear to senators he would be independent from the White House and would make legal decisions based "on facts and law, not by interests and motives."

Mukasey also said he would resign from office if faced with a presidential order he believed was unconstitutional.

"I would try to talk him [the president] out of it -- or leave," he said. In his short opening statement, Mukasey said everyone in the Justice Department is "united by shared values and standards."

"I am here in the first instance to tell you, but also to tell the men and women of the Department of Justice, that those are the standards that guided the department when I was privileged to serve 35 years ago, and those are the standards I intend to help them uphold if I am confirmed," Mukasey said.

On Wednesday, Leahy predicted Mukasey, a retired federal judge appointed to the bench by President Reagan, would have no trouble winning Senate confirmation "because we know that we need somebody to clean up the Department of Justice."

Leahy said the hearing would conclude Thursday, after the panel hears from outside legal experts regarding Mukasey's views and legal opinions.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/18/mukasey.hearing/index.html

[Decker]

White House defends Mukasey

The White House on Friday defended Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey's refusal to say whether he considers waterboarding a form of torture, saying it is a difficult issue to discuss in public.

"These are complicated questions," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said. "Judge Mukasey, I think, did the best he could to be responsible in not talking about interrogation techniques which, as you all know, we decline to do."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071019/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_attorney_general&printer=1;_ylt=AstR5FLKqWR9u5ZzwZnnxoUGw_IE

Bush and his administration have received from the Democrats complete insulation from criminal culpability for torture and for spying on americans without a warrant.

Should we even pretend that there's an issue here re torture?

[Dos Equis]

I'm really up in the air about this.  Apparently doesn't cause any physical pain or permanent injury.  It has been around for quite a while:

Waterboarding Historically Controversial
In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 5, 2006; Page A17

Key senators say Congress has outlawed one of the most notorious detainee interrogation techniques -- "waterboarding," in which a prisoner feels near drowning. But the White House will not go that far, saying it would be wrong to tell terrorists which practices they might face.

Inside the CIA, waterboarding is cited as the technique that got Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the prime plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to begin to talk and provide information -- though "not all of it reliable," a former senior intelligence official said.
 
Waterboarding is variously characterized as a powerful tool and a symbol of excess in the nation's fight against terrorists. But just what is waterboarding, and where does it fit in the arsenal of coercive interrogation techniques?

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk."

The article said the practice was "fairly common" in part because "those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury."

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. "Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role," the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of "touchless torture" until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented "basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation." When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that "the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain."

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, "they stopped using it because it hurt morale."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the interrogation world changed. Low-level Taliban and Arab fighters captured in Afghanistan provided little information, the former intelligence official said. When higher-level al-Qaeda operatives were captured, CIA interrogators sought authority to use more coercive methods.

These were cleared not only at the White House but also by the Justice Department and briefed to senior congressional officials, according to a statement released last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Waterboarding was one of the approved techniques.

When questions began to be raised last year about the handling of high-level detainees and Congress passed legislation barring torture, the handful of CIA interrogators and senior officials who authorized their actions became concerned that they might lose government support.

Passage last month of military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html

[Decker]

I'm really up in the air about this.  Apparently doesn't cause any physical pain or permanent injury.  It has been around for quite a while:

...

The way I look at it is that torture is torture--whether psychological or physical.  Aside from the point that it is a horrible interrogation technique as far as extracting good info is concerned, it is a tool of the bad guys:

The nazis, red chinese, communists, and mafia. 

[Dos Equis]

The way I look at it is that torture is torture--whether psychological or physical.  Aside from the point that it is a horrible interrogation technique as far as extracting good info is concerned, it is a tool of the bad guys:

The nazis, red chinese, communists, and mafia. 

Depends on how you define torture.  Didn't some of the Guantanamo detainees claim being forced to sleep in a cold room with no blanket with the lights on was torture? 

[Decker]

Depends on how you define torture.  Didn't some of the Guantanamo detainees claim being forced to sleep in a cold room with no blanket with the lights on was torture? 

Is confinement torture?

No.

Here's the first sentence of this post: Is waterboarding torture?  

Prisoners are prisoners.  We don't torture either in the US.  Until Bush and Co. came along.

[Dos Equis]

Is confinement torture?

No.

Here's the first sentence of this post: Is waterboarding torture?  

Prisoners are prisoners.  We don't torture either in the US.  Until Bush and Co. came along.

What about confinement in a cold cell with no blanket?  Here is what some apparently consider torture:

Prisoners are held in small mesh-sided cells, and lights are kept on day and night. Detainees have rations similar to those of US forces, with consideration for Muslim dietary needs. Detainees are kept in isolation most of the day, are blindfolded when moving within the camp, and forbidden to talk in groups of more than three. United States doctrine in dealing with prisoners of war states that isolation and silence are effective means in breaking down the will to resist interrogation. Red Cross inspectors, and released detainees have alleged acts of torture, including sleep deprivation, the use of so-called truth drugs[citation needed], beatings and locking in confined and cold cells. Human rights groups argue that indefinite detention constitutes torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

You said "torture is torture."  I agree, but how do you define torture? 

[Decker]

What about confinement in a cold cell with no blanket?  Here is what some apparently consider torture:

Prisoners are held in small mesh-sided cells, and lights are kept on day and night. Detainees have rations similar to those of US forces, with consideration for Muslim dietary needs. Detainees are kept in isolation most of the day, are blindfolded when moving within the camp, and forbidden to talk in groups of more than three. United States doctrine in dealing with prisoners of war states that isolation and silence are effective means in breaking down the will to resist interrogation. Red Cross inspectors, and released detainees have alleged acts of torture, including sleep deprivation, the use of so-called truth drugs[citation needed], beatings and locking in confined and cold cells. Human rights groups argue that indefinite detention constitutes torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

You said "torture is torture."  I agree, but how do you define torture? 

…Professor Kermit Roosevelt’s fine op-ed piece entitled Why Guantanamo, published in JURIST on October 5, 2006, noted that “the U.S. deliberately selected Guantanamo as a prison site to evade U.S. law itself. . . and this clear intent needs to be kept in mind at all times.” This is an insightful way to view the issue. Ironically, instead of using time-tested processes that have worked in the past, there was a compelling need to rush into creating a new system that seemed designed solely for the purpose of offering apparent justice, but in reality has to date offered nothing more than a bare minimum of process.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/12/military-commissions-act-of-2006-play.php

Why do I list that?  B/c from the beginning, the Bush administration knew that it was violating the law with its treatment of prisoners.

We know that b/c it follows from the actions of the Bush people.  Mens Reas or wrongful mind—the guilty mind; Actus Reas—the guilty act.  That and they sought and received retroactive immunity from prosecution for such crimes. 

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was not necessary.  All it did was remove the culpability for Bush re war crimes by torture.  Military legal infrastructure for trying prisoners was already in place…a military commissions act is a whole new unnecessary creature.

What is torture?  A question that for much of our history was not on the table for real Americans.  Then came the Bush administration.

Now we have to define torture so that Bush et al. could ‘define’ away its crimes against humanity.


Torture:  Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is as follows:

1.   "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

2.   "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

Bush and his Military Commissions Act are a disgrace.  Both are inherently un-american.  It’s nice to see that, thanks to Bush and the Republicans, the US resides in the same criminal sewer as Russia, Red China, Nicaragua, and the Nazis.

No waterboarding!

[Dos Equis]

…Professor Kermit Roosevelt’s fine op-ed piece entitled Why Guantanamo, published in JURIST on October 5, 2006, noted that “the U.S. deliberately selected Guantanamo as a prison site to evade U.S. law itself. . . and this clear intent needs to be kept in mind at all times.” This is an insightful way to view the issue. Ironically, instead of using time-tested processes that have worked in the past, there was a compelling need to rush into creating a new system that seemed designed solely for the purpose of offering apparent justice, but in reality has to date offered nothing more than a bare minimum of process.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/12/military-commissions-act-of-2006-play.php

Why do I list that?  B/c from the beginning, the Bush administration knew that it was violating the law with its treatment of prisoners.

We know that b/c it follows from the actions of the Bush people.  Mens Reas or wrongful mind—the guilty mind; Actus Reas—the guilty act.  That and they sought and received retroactive immunity from prosecution for such crimes. 

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was not necessary.  All it did was remove the culpability for Bush re war crimes by torture.  Military legal infrastructure for trying prisoners was already in place…a military commissions act is a whole new unnecessary creature.

What is torture?  A question that for much of our history was not on the table for real Americans.  Then came the Bush administration.

Now we have to define torture so that Bush et al. could ‘define’ away its crimes against humanity.


Torture:  Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is as follows:

1.   "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

2.   "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

Bush and his Military Commissions Act are a disgrace.  Both are inherently un-american.  It’s nice to see that, thanks to Bush and the Republicans, the US resides in the same criminal sewer as Russia, Red China, Nicaragua, and the Nazis.

No waterboarding!

Why are you calling Bush and Republicans a disgrace over the Military Commissions Act when the House passed it with 32 Democrats voting in favor and the Senate passed it with 12 Democrats voting in favor? 

I guess waterboarding could arguably be considered a "threat of imminent death." 

[Decker]

Why are you calling Bush and Republicans a disgrace over the Military Commissions Act when the House passed it with 32 Democrats voting in favor and the Senate passed it with 12 Democrats voting in favor? 

I guess waterboarding could arguably be considered a "threat of imminent death." 

That's like asking 'why are you calling the slave owners a disgrace b/c there are 32 Uncle Toms supporting them?".  No legislation gets passed in much of 2006 without republican consent b/c they owned both houses of Congress.  32/12 democrats is disgusting but irrelevant to the passage of the bill into law.

And how do democrats excuse Bush from setting up the Guantanamo torture chambers in the first place?  He didn't seek congressional approval for that gem.

[Dos Equis]

That's like asking 'why are you calling the slave owners a disgrace b/c there are 32 Uncle Toms supporting them?".  No legislation gets passed in much of 2006 without republican consent b/c they owned both houses of Congress.  32/12 democrats is disgusting but irrelevant to the passage of the bill into law.

And how do democrats excuse Bush from setting up the Guantanamo torture chambers in the first place?  He didn't seek congressional approval for that gem.

No it isn't.  Thirty-two and twelve are significant numbers.  Democrats helped give us the Military Commissions Act.  I don't know why people are so worked up over the Act anyway.  It doesn't apply to us (citizens) and probably doesn't affect 99 percent of the population. 

Torture chambers??  Okay. 

[Dos Equis]

So after all the hullabaloo over waterboarding, they pass the guy out.   

Nov 6, 2:29 PM EST
Judiciary panel approves Mukasey

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press Writer
 
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Judiciary Committee advanced Attorney General designate Michael Mukasey's nomination to the Senate floor Tuesday, virtually ensuring confirmation for a former judge ensnarled in bitter controversy over terrorism-era prisoner interrogations.

The 11-8 vote came only after two key Democrats accepted his assurance to enforce any law Congress might enact against waterboarding.

The White House and Senate Republicans called for a swift confirmation vote, which is expected by the end of next week.

"We appreciate the vote of senators on the Judiciary Committee to forward the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to the full Senate," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "Judge Mukasey has clearly demonstrated that he will be an exceptional attorney general at this critical time."

Though Mukasey is expected to easily win confirmation by the full Senate, Democrats and some Republicans were far from satisfied with his answers on torture, presidential signing statements and executive power.

Mukasey's assurances on torture that won over Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer was disingenuous, according to Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

"Unsaid, of course, is the fact that any such prohibition would have to be enacted over the veto of this president," said Leahy.

But Schumer, who suggested Mukasey to the White House in the first place, countered that the nominee's statements against waterboarding and for purging politics from the Justice Department amount to the best deal Democrats could get from the Bush administration.

"If we block Judge Mukasey's nomination and then learn in six months that waterboarding has continued unabated, that victory will seem much less valuable," he wrote in an op-ed in Tuesday's editions of The New York Times.

Feinstein, D-Calif., said her vote for Muksaey's confirmation came down in part to practicality. If Mukasey's nomination were killed, she said, Bush would install an acting attorney general not subject to Senate confirmation and make recess appointments to fill nearly a dozen other empty jobs at the top of Justice.

"I don't believe a leaderless department is in the best interests of the American people or of the department itself," Feinstein said. Bush, she added, "appointed this man because he believes he is mainstream."

Support for Mukasey from Schumer and Feinstein virtually assured the former federal judge the majority vote he needed to be favorably recommended by the 19-member committee. He was expected to win confirmation handily, and the vote is likely before Thanksgiving.

Many Democrats came out in opposition to Mukasey after he refused to say unequivocably that so-called waterboarding - an interrogation technique that makes the victim believe he is drowning - is tantamount to torture and thus illegal under domestic and international law.

Mukasey rankled Democrats during his confirmation hearing by saying he was not familiar with the waterboarding technique and could not say whether it was torture.

Even Sen. Arlen Specter, the panel's ranking Republican, called that explanation "a flimsy excuse" and suggested instead that Muksaey declined to call waterboarding illegal torture because he wanted to avoid putting at legal risk U.S. officials who may have engaged in the practice.

But Specter, of Pennsylvania, said that outlawing waterboarding rests with Congress. He revealed that he had talked with Mukasey a day earlier and received an assurance that the nominee would back up any such legislation and quit if Bush ignores his opinion.

Thus, Specter said, Mukasey had won his support.

Legal experts cautioned that if Mukasey called it torture, that effectively could have constituted an admission that the United States engaged in war crimes. It could also commit him to prosecuting U.S. officials even before he takes office.
 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SENATE_MUKASEY?SITE=HIHAD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Decker]

Political expediency.  That blows.

[Dos Equis]

Political expediency.  That blows.

That's one way to look at it.  Another is they really didn't have any legitimate reason to hold back a federal judge who had previously gone through Senate confirmation and served 18 years as a federal judge. 

[sync pulse]

Depends on how you define torture.  Didn't some of the Guantanamo detainees claim being forced to sleep in a cold room with no blanket with the lights on was torture? 

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, yes it is.
To the ranks of Protagoras, Cratylus, and Callicles: we now add......Beach Bum.


also Michael Mukasey.

[Dos Equis]

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, yes it is.
To the ranks of Protagoras, Cratylus, and Callicles: we now add......Beach Bum.


also Michael Mukasey.

What is?  Sleeping in a cold cell with no blanket, or waterboarding . . . or both? 

[sync pulse]

I was refering to the cold cell, but really, both are.

[Dos Equis]

If that's the case then our military training camps are in deep kimchee.    You can make an argument that waterboarding is torture, but cold rooms with no blankets?  That really waters down the definition of torture IMO.  I remember being forced to basically sleep in a swamp in basic training.  Sleep deprivation.  Very little food. 

Contrast what they put our men and women through in basic training (Army) and boot camp (Marines) with the fatties at Guantanamo Bay: 

A Growing Threat at Guantanamo? Detainees Fatten Up

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Fueled by a high-calorie diet, detainees at Guantanamo Bay are becoming fat.

Most of the prisoners arrived at the military prison in southeast Cuba slightly underweight but have since gained an average of 20 pounds (9 kilograms), and most are now "normal to mildly overweight or mildly obese," Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for the detention facilities, said Monday.

 Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)  United States  International Committee of the Red Cross  Al Qaeda
One detainee's weight has almost doubled to 410 pounds (186 kilograms), Durand said.

U.S. officials assess whether detainees are overweight by calculating their body-mass index, a measurement of weight in relation to height.

Human rights groups attribute the weight gain to lack of mobility in the detainees' small cells. They also cited accounts of released detainees who said they were at times allowed to exercise fewer than three times a week.

The detainees' meals total a whopping 4,200 calories per day. U.S. government dietary guidelines for weight maintenance recommend 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day.

. . . .

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2521953&page=1

[sync pulse]

Despite your citing ABC News, Yes sleep deprivation, compelling sleep at too cold temperatures, and water boarding are indeed torture.  Yes, basic military training is a form of torture in that it is designed to hurt.  I am not saying that basic military training in the context that it is administered is bad, but it is torture...

Suddenly I have the craving for cole slaw...

[Dos Equis]

Despite your citing ABC News, Yes sleep deprivation, compelling sleep at too cold temperatures, and water boarding are indeed torture.  Yes, basic military training is a form of torture in that it is designed to hurt.  I am not saying that basic military training in the context that it is administered is bad, but it is torture...

Suddenly I have the craving for cole slaw...

lol.    

At least you're consistent. 

[Decker]

If that's the case then our military training camps are in deep kimchee.    You can make an argument that waterboarding is torture, but cold rooms with no blankets?  That really waters down the definition of torture IMO.  I remember being forced to basically sleep in a swamp in basic training.  Sleep deprivation.  Very little food. 

Contrast what they put our men and women through in basic training (Army) and boot camp (Marines) with the fatties at Guantanamo Bay: 

A Growing Threat at Guantanamo? Detainees Fatten Up

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Fueled by a high-calorie diet, detainees at Guantanamo Bay are becoming fat.

Most of the prisoners arrived at the military prison in southeast Cuba slightly underweight but have since gained an average of 20 pounds (9 kilograms), and most are now "normal to mildly overweight or mildly obese," Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for the detention facilities, said Monday.

 Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)  United States  International Committee of the Red Cross  Al Qaeda
One detainee's weight has almost doubled to 410 pounds (186 kilograms), Durand said.

U.S. officials assess whether detainees are overweight by calculating their body-mass index, a measurement of weight in relation to height.

Human rights groups attribute the weight gain to lack of mobility in the detainees' small cells. They also cited accounts of released detainees who said they were at times allowed to exercise fewer than three times a week.

The detainees' meals total a whopping 4,200 calories per day. U.S. government dietary guidelines for weight maintenance recommend 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day.

. . . .

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2521953&page=1

I wonder how many calories torture burns?  I mean, do you lose weight when a car battery is hooked up to your nipples and nards?  Or when you are tortured with simulated drowning?

[Dos Equis]

I wonder how many calories torture burns?  I mean, do you lose weight when a car battery is hooked up to your nipples and nards?  Or when you are tortured with simulated drowning?

I'm not sure, but I bet shivering burns more calories.  That cold AC can be a bear. 

[Decker]

I'm not sure, but I bet shivering burns more calories.  That cold AC can be a bear. 

Yeah, but weight gain is not conclusive to the validity of torture when you are throwing your humanity out of the window to torture another human being for giggles...it sure isn't b/c of the efficacy of extracting valid information.

I can't convince someone that torture is evil.  If it is in one's moral code to approve of the torture of another human being, I am at a loss.

On the other hand, if waterboarding is so benign, why don't we have Sean, Rush, Bill and all the other 'men' that approve of torture undergo a thorough regimen of waterboarding on national tv?  Then we'll see what these 'men' are made of.

I put the word 'men' in quotes b/c I believe that torture is the interrogation methodology of sadistic cowards....not men.

[headhuntersix]

What u guys fail to understand is that these guys, in Gitmo, in the other prisons...are bad bad guys. Really bad. There are some that are being detained in those prisons who might be better off in another facility, but those aren't the guys who get "water boarded". We had two very good friends in Afghanistan who were Army interrogators. After hearing their stories about who they have in the prison on Bagram, and what goes on, on a daily basis, I don't really care what they do to these guys. These are horrible people, who have committed atrocities all across the Muslim world, into Europe and against US citizens and soldiers. This isn't speculation on my part, this was from stories I was told. One of the guys we were friends with was killed some months into our tour. 

[Decker]

What u guys fail to understand is that these guys, in Gitmo, in the other prisons...are bad bad guys. Really bad. There are some that are being detained in those prisons who might be better off in another facility, but those aren't the guys who get "water boarded". We had two very good friends in Afghanistan who were Army interrogators. After hearing their stories about who they have in the prison on Bagram, and what goes on, on a daily basis, I don't really care what they do to these guys. These are horrible people, who have committed atrocities all across the Muslim world, into Europe and against US citizens and soldiers. This isn't speculation on my part, this was from stories I was told. One of the guys we were friends with was killed some months into our tour. 

They are bad guys just like the scum that populates our prisons--child molesters, murderers, torturers and rotarians. 

We don't torture them b/c our Founding Fathers saw the wisdom in avoiding cruel and unusual punishment.

Torture speaks to what type of people we are and not to the people we do it to.