Guantanamo Detention Discussion Thread

Consider this content;

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1662218.htm

Broadcast: 13/06/2006

Hicks 'severely damaged', says CIA expert
Reporter: Tony Jones


TONY JONES: Well, Alfred McCoy is Professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. In 1972 he wrote The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,, which is now regarded as a seminal work on the CIA's complicity in Asian drug trafficking. His latest book is A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror, which examines the CIA's development of psychological torture over the past 50 years. And in an article in the latest edition of the Monthly magazine, he turns his attention to the treatment of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay, which he says must be viewed through the lens of CIA torture techniques. Well, he joins us now from Madison Wisconsin. Thanks for being there and can I first get your reaction of the suicide deaths at Guantanamo Bay on the weekend?

PROFESSOR ALFRED MCCOY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: The two statements, one by Admiral Harris and the other by the State Department official that this is an act of asymmetrical warfare, that this is a good PR stunt, is indicative of the Guantanamo mentality. Guantanamo is not a conventional military prison. It's an ad hoc laboratory for the perfection of the CIA psychological torture. Guantanamo is a complete construction. It's a system of total psychological torture, designed to break down every detainee contained therein, designed to produce a state of hopelessness and despair that leads, tragically, sadly in this case to suicide. The statements by those American officials are indicative of the cruel mentality at Guantanamo.

TONY JONES: Those are pretty dramatic statements you are making. I would have to say, though, the Red Cross is about to go and do an urgent inspection of the prison and it does appear that their reports back in 2004 do back up a lot of what you are saying. They also decided that what was happening at Guantanamo Bay amounted to a system of torture.

PROFESSOR ALFRED MCCOY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: They argued that it wasn't just isolated cases. They said that the entire system of treatment of detainees, designed to do one thing, and one thing only - extract information - constituted a system of cruelty, a system of torture. No qualification, not tantamount to torture - a phrase they'd used before - but torture per se. Confinement at Guantanamo constitutes torture. The question is, what kind of torture? It is psychological torture. Not the conventional, physical, brutal torture, but a distinctively American form of torture - psychological torture.

TONY JONES: I'm going to come to the history of how you say that form of torture was evolved by the CIA. Can I first go, though, to some of the most compelling testimony I've read in the account you've given recently in your essay to the Monthly magazine and that comes from FBI officers who visited Guantanamo Bay. Can you tell us, first of all, why they were visiting and why they were writing these reports?

PROFESSOR ALFRED MCCOY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: Sure. The FBI has for the past 60 years, until the start of the war on terror, been in charge of US counter-intelligence and, indeed, the investigation of East African bombings by al-Qaeda in 1998, for example, were handled by the FBI. So the FBI is a partner with the CIA and military intelligence in the war on terror generating intelligence to fight the war on terror. Now, there's a distinct difference between the CIA methods and the FBI methods. The CIA have allowed the Bush White House to use enhanced techniques whose sum is indeed torture. The FBI, reflecting its legal culture, do not torture. The FBI use a form of torture we might call empathetic interrogation. That is to say, you form a bond with the subject - the interrogator and the subject develop a personal relationship and through this relationship you get accurate,

 

Forgive me for saying so, but that is a load of crap. Ultra-fascist? You'd make Goebbels jealous with such rhetoric, E_S.

The fact is that Guantanamo is more of a public relations debacle than anything else. The individuals also aren't theives or subject to Constitutional protections with civil lawyers, as they are enemy combatants captured on the battlefield and not abiding by the rules of war. They do not have the right to US Constitutional protections. They aren't being subjected to gulag-like treatment, either.

Humane treatment with these prisoners is utilized in the vast majority of cases. Psychological torture by imprisonment? LOL Let's get them some jihad TV!

Confinement at Guantanamo constitutes torture

That statement demonstrates the weakness and spineless nature of those arguments.

I wonder how captured American soldiers get treated by our enemies? Do I hear a peep from you or anyone else about that?

Nope.

I prefer the use of military tribunals for these cases. As in other wars with such cases, when the war is over they can be released. Until then, tough ****.

What are we to do with ununiformed combatants, E_S? When we release them and they blow up a subway in London or go back to Afghanistan or Iraq to join the jihad, you'll be the first to complain about our ineptitude.

I always get a good chuckle at the hypocrisy of the planet on this matter. We treat these combatants better in an overall fashion than any other historical powerhouse civilization has treated their enemies, and we get nothing but grief.

Yes, mistakes have been made, and they should be openly admitted to and dealt with just as openly. Those who make them should be punished severely (e.g., Abu Ghraib).

With that said, it is probably best for the prison to be closed in a gesture of appeasement.

 

DM, I make no secret of, nor apologies for, my disdain and intellectual repulsion at neoconservatism, and I think 2,500 dead American soldiers and Iraq struggling to get out of the toilet, backs me up.

So, you've no problem with matching the morality of terrorists and other peoples who would torture Americans? Get them before they get you? That's precisely how it sounds.

Furthermore, at this point they remain alleged terrorists and combatants, the lack of any formal judicial proceedings implying heavily that no evidence exists to convict them, hence their limbo.

Of note, DM, in the article you ostensibly skipped:

PROFESSOR ALFRED MCCOY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: Right. People that were short-shackled to the floor for days at a time. One detainee so desperate that overnight he pulled his hair out, hair by hair. Others covered in faeces, their own waste. Many detainees suffering signs of psychological breakdown. Another thing the FBI established very clearly is that these techniques were of course counter-productive. The FBI would often start interviews and after one of their subjects was subjected, for example, to a regime of strobe lights or blasting rock music, that when the FBI tried to conduct their next interview, the detainees were suddenly hostile and non-cooperative.

TONY JONES: There was evidence the FBI officers saw of people being broken psychologically?

PROFESSOR ALFRED MCCOY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: Oh, no doubt about it. Absolutely. They described detainees huddling, quivering, signs of extreme psychological stress. There is also the documented case of the famed detainee Rasul, who was subjected to these techniques of rock music, strobe lights, extreme isolation in a darkened cell for a period much less than David Hicks, by the way, and Rasul was so desperate to end this regime of treatment that shown a video of 40 Jihadists in Afghanistan seated beside Osama bin Laden, he falsely identified himself as one of the jihadists and it wasn't until an agent of MI5 arrived from Guantanamo and established he had been a clerk in an electronics shop in the United Kingdom and not a jihadist in Afghanistan at the time he said he was that the US officers realised he'd given false information in order to end this harsh treatment.

This is not a step forward in the war against terrorism, it's Soviet style gulag torture which has flogged the moral high horse of US supremacy to the point being unfit to knacker! If people are desperate enough to lie to escape the regime inflicted upon them, it points to an abject practical and intelligence-based failure.

You can't keep doing this as a nation, either DM - when someone points out something you do wrong, you, almost to the person, point to something worse to make it OK. I remember dozens of people in here, for example, saying that even though Abu Grahib was bad, what Saddam did there was worse - like we're meant to shrug and go, "Yep, fair call, let's forget the whole thing!"

The entire point of being the morally upstanding international citizens is that we do not sink to their level.

If they torture US soldiers, that's their concern. It does not in any way, shape or form - nor will it ever - excuse the United STates forgoing it's moral leadership in actively and aggressively torturing people who are at best, suspect.

Unless you think America ought employ suicide bombers? That seems the logical next stop of this train of thought... And why not? If America can torture to preempt other states torturing, then doesn't that mean the US could use suicide bombings to prevent others doing it?

The simple fact, DM, is that Guanatamo is a travesty. I think Mr Bush is even realising this, and it's becoming increasingly hard to defend such an indefensible institution. The way to beat terrorists has little to do with years of abject psychological torture - compounded by the US' position on the ICC which would render the men responsible up on war crimes charges, and justly - and more to do with capaci

 

Sorry DM, but I've gotta back Ender on this one. Psychological torture of the type described in the article above actually sounds even crueler than the physical torture used by other cultures. Physical injuries (and sometimes amputations) can be remedied far easier than mental ones. And as E-S points out, a prisoner subjected to those kinds of things will gladly lie and tell his captors whatever they want to hear. Sadly, this kind of atrocity is all one can expect of the CIA, the Section 31 (to use a Star Trek analogy) of our government - unreachable, unaccountable, and used to throwing out all the rules to achieve their objectives. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, if they willingly signed off on this, should be tried in the Hague for war crimes. (Bush, of course, will use the "I didn't know/don't remember" defense. And if he's a big a moron as the Democrats think, he might actually be right.)

That said, Ender, the fact that the Iraqis are now actually struggling to get out of the toilet (as opposed to lying at the bottom of the bowl under Saddam) and the fact that we've lost far less soldiers in this war so far than any other (Vietnam included. In fact, if we keep losing soldiers at the current rate - 800 a year - we'll equal the Vietnam body count in US soldiers in, oh, 68 years. But I digress.) tells me our efforts there are neither doomed to failure or the catastrophe the liberals make it out to be.

 

No, but that wasn't my point - Iraq was mismanaged and Wolfy gets my blame for that. However, we should take this to the Iraq thread.

E_S

 

Personally I believe it should be closed. Its been close to four years now. If the CIA cant figure out whose guilty or might know something after three or four years, then either their extremely incompetent or its something much worse. Honestly I dont know how people get political about this, especially with the administrations weak ass excuse of being not on American soil. Ultra facism is a tough term but you know what? If those guys NEVER get released or if you hear some crazy story about having to kill all the inmates because of a revolt or something - in spite of all the evidence of it not being possible, or even if thirty years from now we leave there and its just a bunch a babbling lunatics, then allegations of facism will not be unfounded. ( I never thought they were without any merit with this administration anyways - just look at the purely political move by the GOP in Congress today, revisting the reasons for the Iraq War in way very similar to '04. Putting Democrats in a position of being for the war or with the terrorists and nothing in between. Yeah, the Dems grew some balls since then but I fear its too late )

 

I'm not going to argue for or against Gitmo, but I will say that if loud music and flashing lights constitute torture, then living in the inner city sure is torture...

 

That said, Ender, the fact that the Iraqis are now actually struggling to get out of the toilet (as opposed to lying at the bottom of the bowl under Saddam) and the fact that we've lost far less soldiers in this war so far than any other

That is actually incorrect. The US has lost more soldiers in the Iraq war than in Gulf War I, the Spanish-American War and the war of 1812. It's figures are also very comparable to the Mexican war: there have been more combat deaths in the Iraq war and more wounded, offset by less non-violent casualties (on the whole, casualties in the Iraq war are greater as a single combination of all three).

So that's four wars right there that the casualties in this conflict outrank. And of course this is not including other military operations such as Bosnia, Somolia, Panama and Grenada.

 

I'm not going to argue for or against Gitmo, but I will say that if loud music and flashing lights constitute torture, then living in the inner city sure is torture...

Don't be obtuse. The two are not even comparable and to treat being held captive and assaulted with extreme light and sound in order to psychologically break you as the same thing as some annoying city sounds is revolting.

 

I will ask you a few simple questions, E_S, and ones I'm sure you can answer appropriately if you?re honest.

In what previous wars were illegal combatants fighting (without uniforms, hiding behind civilians, and intentionally using civilians as shields) given legal counsel in civilian courts and guaranteed rights under civil law?

Are those that egregiously violate the rules of war (e.g., by intentionally targeting civilians and using civilians as shields) entitled to the same privileges due honorable soldiers who risk their lives to protect non-combatants and abide by the rules of war?

Detainees at Gitmo who don't make threats are housed in Camp 4 where there are volleyball and basketball courts, a library, televisions with VCRs, and meals prepared in accord with Muslim religious requirements with desserts, as well. They are free to be outside from 7 AM to midnight. They receive exceptional medical care; indeed, much better than they did even back home.

They are also permitted lawyers, something not permissible in previous wars; and they are allowed to communicate with their families.

More hostile and belligerent detainees are detained in Camp 1, a much more rigid structure with three religiously appropriate meals a day (though no desserts), the same medical care, and a Qu'ran. Dreary and boring, but so what?

They sure know how to tug at you guys' heartstrings though to fulfill their propaganda needs in their jihad. It's totally against your supposed principles, but who's counting?

As far as their release is concerned:

No real surprise there.

The fact is that there will be those that utilize any excuse to make us look as bad as possible - tbose pick at a gnat and swallow a camel. At the same time, they couldn't give a rat's ass about the real war crimes happening on a daily basis in these war zones.

Selective outrage is cute, ain't it? It's obviously politically motivated in nature, but who's looking? (What is also not surprising is that this is brought up in the immediate aftermath of the social thread discussion on America in general.)

Part of me wishes that illegal combatants on the battlefield should simply be shot on sight, as is permissible in the rules of war as they are not entitled to POW protection.

I also love how you guys wish to grant equitable status to illegal combatants that totally disregard your much beloved rules of treatment. Doesn't really matter though, because 'teh US is teh big bad bully!' and 'is teh fascist!'. //goosesteps

Totally hypocritical and undermining of the entire Geneva concept, but it?s not surprising....

The US makes mistakes and at least tries to rectify them, but this inequity in making these equivocations is patently absurd and totally hypocritical.

Gitmo will eventually be closed, but the prisoners will be housed elsewhere. You guys will then find something else to ***** at us about, but I?m sure you won?t make too much of a fuss when the market bomb goes off or the next civilian gets beheaded or when there are kidnappings and television displays of victims or worry about the other nations sponsoring that type of thing?..

Hypocrites.

 

If the CIA cant figure out whose guilty or might know something after three or four years

You do know that's not the main purpose of Camp Delta, right?(the detainment center)

As E_S has aleady established, the Geneva Convention (I use the collective here for simplicity) allows for the detainment of enemy soldiers who are captured on the battlefield for the entire duration of hostilities. This is why the detainment center was established- to hold those people who would resume hositilities if released.

A Nazi soldier who was captured by the British in 1940 would have been (and was) held until 1945, when the hositilities concluded. This would hold true for a British soldier captured by the Germans, or a Australian soldier captured by the Japanese, and all variations in between.

The detainment of these fighters shouldn't even be an issue-it's universally recognized. There is no concept, requirement, or description for any kind of trial under Geneva.

What is an issue is that since the enemy combatants in this case violated the requirements of Geneva, they fall under an unprotected category all their own. Again, if this was any other conflict, the fighters would simply be shot on sight, and not be given another thought.

The fact that these enemy combatants fall under an unprotected category doesn't mean that the US has free reign to torture them. Quite the opposite. Again, as has been supplied, the UN Convention Against Torture applies.

However, what everyone also has to realize is that there are internationally adopted practices that do not qualify as torture. Loud Noises, Flashing lights, temperature manipulation, all are examples that are internationally allowed. Such a reality is neither a defense or a condemnation of such practices, but they have been debated and approved by the international community.

 

I wonder if maybe the problem with Guantanamo Bay isn't its existence, but the lack of transparency. I think it is very possible that, in reality, Gitmo is comparable to most civilian prisons in its treatment of detainees. I have read articles similar to the one posted by E_S and have read others where inmates who were released spoke of how they would rather go back, because the conditions were better there than in Afghanistan. None of us knows though, because of the high level of secrecy surrounding the facility. If Guantanamo Bay isn't something that would embarass the United States, we should prove it by letting everyone see its true nature. If it is, it probably shouldn't exist.

 

However, what everyone also has to realize is that there are internationally adopted practices that do not qualify as torture. Loud Noises, Flashing lights, temperature manipulation, all are examples that are internationally allowed. Such a reality is neither a defense or a condemnation of such practices, but they have been debated and approved by the international community.

Links?

 

Well said, Mr44.

 

It won't come as any surprise, especially to E_S, that I'm all for the closure of Guantanamo. The UDHR is probably the piece of legislation I quote more than any other. Putting away my disbelief that anyone can believe we should subject any person to torture for the moment, I'd be interested to know what sort of successes the US has had in terms of extracting accurate and useful information from Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Certainly the Lateline report that E_S quoted paints a fairly bleak picture on that front, but that's only one source. At any rate, if the CIA can't extract the information they need after three or four years, they're either incompetent or unnecessarily cruel. Possibly both.

DM, you seem to chronically miss the points that E_S tries to make. Nobody is arguing for release of "Gitmo" prisoners, only the closure of the facility. Move the prisoners to another facility if necessary, one on US soil where they can be subject to human rights audits. Not being US citizens, you are correct in saying that they aren't protected by the US Constitution, but they're still protected by numerous pieces of internationally recognised leglisation (such as my beloved Universal Declaration of Human Rights). To take away those rights simply because our enemies do the same is petty revenge, which I'm sure you're above as a mature adult.

 

If Guantanamo Bay isn't something that would embarass the United States, we should prove it by letting everyone see its true nature.

INFO HERE

TOUR 1

TOUR 2

TOUR 3

TOUR 4

TOUR 5

TOUR 6

Lack of transparency? If the center was any more transparent, it would become invisible.

 

As my compartiot noted, you missed my point DM.

I don't want them released, I want the subjected to legal procedings as are their inalienable rights.

You asked in which wars were illegals afforded such rights, and yet I'm hard pressed to think of a war in which similar circumstances existed. Only the Soviet-Afghan war springs to mind, but you'll likely get touchy at any comparisons to soviet Russia...

Your inferences that this is hypocrisy and whatnot reveal two fatal weaknesses; in terms of conceptual knowledge, you're horribly out of your weight class; and you're using red herrings to try and distract others from the fact that you're not actually responding to comments tendered.

I also noticed you've barely read what I wrote, and instead created assumptions to which you're capable of replying. Good to see a return to form for you...

I'm also utterly unsurprised that the whole "they get 5-star treatment" thing flies with you. Firstly, if even one American was subjected to the same conditions as Gitmo content, we'd be floored by a barrage of nationalist outrage and over-sentimental news reports. I guess the guy who pulled his hair did so in response to a shocking twist on the OC? Or perhaps because he lost a game of basketball, that old-school Arab sport.



DM, it's really very simple. The US is a party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's imprisoning people arbitrarily, in a war with no possible end date, in direct contravention of said Declaration. It claims a moral authority. The outcomes are:

1) Abdicate that moral authority;
2) Charge them formally under US law,
3) Continue with pseudo-gulag prison and piss away the US' reputation.

The continued existing of Gitmo as a legal blackhole represents a failure of the US to maintain a moral authority and leadership role in both the developed world, and the war against terrorism. There is no other nation that has done comparable acts in this war on terror, and when the US' great ally, Great Britain, finds it's attorney general calling for Gitmo to be closed, it becomes incredibly difficult to present this as an opposition comprised of fringe group whiny lefties.



E_S

EDIT: I'll ask you Mr44 since DM won't get this far anyway before replying ( ); if the FBI is claiming the torture used there is ineffective, and that they're appalled at what they see in Gitmo, how are you defending this? I mean, the President's thinking about closing it, the FBI's not happy, the British said it must go - aside from making sure we're all legally correct in our posts, where do you stand on this?

 

JF- Links?

Sorry, JF, I forgot to add this in my last post:

HERE

The actual text that supports this is one page 5 or 6...


Those are good questions, E_S.

First of all, one has to understand where the rationale behind each of these bodies are coming from.

No law enforcement agency in the US would ever be allowed to use things like putting a suspect into a standing chair position, or waking them up with loud music. But then again, those techniques are used every day on recruits during basic training for the military. Since the FBI, as a domestic law enforcement agency, is bound by Constitutional provisions, they would have a duty to distance themselves from such practices.

Again, that doesn't mean that such practices are automatically "bad" or "good," (again, practices that the FBI are forbidden from are used by Drill Sgts everywhere.) it just that each practice has to be conducted under the proper authority.

The European Court on Human Rights was the body that ruled on the specific techniques being discussed here, (placing hoods over their heads, using loud music, temperature changes, etc...)and it ruled, and established under international law, that such methods are not considered to be torture under UN treaty. It was the British who created such precedent.

You also have to consider the relationship between perception and actually what is contained in the law.

Again, the death penalty in the US would technically be in violation of the standards for the Committee for Human Rights, but it's an accepted practice under US law, protected by precedent. Just because someone may be personally against the death penalty, doesn't automatically make it a violation.

It's the same thing here. Using loud music, etc..etc.. (everything we have been discussing) may not sit well with the personal perception of some people, but such methods are internationally recognized.

It's the same quirk of international law that forbids the use of hollow point bullets to soldiers, but every police department in the world are allowed to use them.

Or that mustard gas is prohibited under Geneva, but Napalm is compeletly authorized... the list goes on.

 

Thanks, Mr44, even though that PDF hurts my eyes.


However, what everyone also has to realize is that there are internationally adopted practices that do not qualify as torture. Loud Noises, Flashing lights, temperature manipulation, all are examples that are internationally allowed. Such a reality is neither a defense or a condemnation of such practices, but they have been debated and approved by the international community.

Actually, what that memo said was that they did not qualify as torture, but as cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which was outlawed by the Convention against torture, so it is not internationally allowed. The memo claimed the U.S. was exempted from that part of the treaty, which is why we would be fine practicing such cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.

I hardly think that is the case you want to make.

 

I don't even mean the occasional press tour or visits by the Red Cross. I think think the military should release tape of the day to day life in Gitmo. It isn't enough that Bill O'Reilly can go on the air and talk about what he's seen. The American people should get to see what is exactly going on.

 

Mamdouh Habib was an Australian citizen and was not an illegal combatant nor was he 'captured' on a battlefield.

He was taken from a bus in Pakistan. He is now back living in Sydney without having ever been charged with any crime.

Can somebody explain why this man was detained in Guantanamo Bay and suffered rendition to another country where he was tortured?

 

Exactly.

And it strikes me that hairs are being split Mr44; you're not saying you think it's right or wrong, but rather that certain legal terms need be accurately applied.

E_S

 

No, it's not that easy.

Such methods don't qualify under the universal definition of torture. That's the broadest standard, if you will, because it applies to everyone.

If those methods did fall under torture, then no one who is a party to the declaration could use them.

Next, and more specific on the spectrum, are the Geneva protections. Those apply to a specific subsection of personnnel. (lawful combatants who meet the Geneva requirements.)

So, going back to WWII, the allies could not subject a captured Nazi soldier to those methods, even though he could be detained for years. The allies would be able to use those methods against a Swiss saboteur, because such a person is not subject to Geneva.

The only method that the US used that might have been borderline was the technique of waterboarding. I'm not sure if that actual method was ever decided by an international body. Again, that doesn't make it any more better or worse than any other method, it just hasn't been determined either way.

 

Thanks for reinforcing what was stated earlier about your exaggerated hubris...

I freely admit that I don?t share your knowledge base, but that has no bearing on what the obvious discrepancy of level judgment that is present here on your behalf on a frequent basis in relation to the United States.

You utilized your famous dodge and then go on to relate us to the Soviets, and then you call my posts 'red herrings'? LOL

I knew you couldn't answer the question. Obviously, it is irrelevant where similar circumstances existed, the enemy combatants should still follow the rules of war. They can?t, because they know they will be soundly crushed out in the open.

So, they utilize illegal methods, for which you and others have little to say about.

The fact is that you know these illegal combatants can (and basically should be) shot on sight on the battlefield, and it would be the case in any other war. It would also save us the trouble of the incessant whining from your quarters about giving illegal combatants powder puff treatment.

How little do I hear you complaining about the atrocities of our enemies, but in the same hypocritical breath strain out a needle in a haystack to try to poke out our eyes?

The fact that you point out a wrong on our behalf isn?t in of itself bad, but it is the lack of sensible equity involved here and lack of a balance that is glaringly apparent.

You're also misrepresenting the fact that I don't disagree with the basic premise that the US should uphold certain standards, but my opinion is summed up quite well by what Mr44 posted previously:

The last paragraph there is especially relevant.

The fact is that you are a hypocrite in relation to this matter because you hold the US to a different standard thereby not even upholding your supposed standards on a global holistic scale.... The little critique you offer on war crimes of even these detainees is quite lacking.

A sincere individual would have much more to say about the war criminals themselves and distribute the blame on an even basis: the US makes mistakes and should rectify them, but such are not global in scale. The enemy is committing atrocious acts totally against the standards for armed conflict, and they are basically given more concern than the American hostages who have had their heads removed.

Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

It's simply political in nature more than anything else.

Just as Mr44 posted, there is a great deal of tra

 

Mr44, the memo stated that those methods fell under the Convention on Torture, but basically stated the U.S. did an "except this" when it ratified the document.