canning worms

[Hepzibah Pyncheon]

Now that the Bybee memo is public it should be read closely. You will find if you look carefully that each waterboarding "session" was understood to last 20 minutes; and that the victim would be drowned for 20-40 seconds, permitted to draw three or four full breaths and then drowned again, et cetera. Doing the arithmetic will tell you that this cycle could repeat 20 times or more per "session."

I think it is fair to assume that --- or, at least, to ask *if* --- when They are counting "waterboardings" they are actually counting "sessions", not the individual acts of controlled drowning. When they say that AQ subject A was waterboarded 183 times, and AQ subject B was waterboarded 183 times, for a total of 266, they may very well be trying to avoid admitting that they drowned these two people some 5,320 times. (If AQ subject A was put through three sessions a day then his torture might have lasted 61 days, AQ subject B for 28.)

It seems clear that this was never an interogation program, it was simple vengeance.

The kicker is that Bybee's acceptance of waterboarding hinged on the assurance (he is careful to record) that he received that  there wouldn't be "sustantial repetition" of waterboarding. Repetition would, even in Bybee's view, make the "controlled acute episode" of interrogative waterboarding an impermissible act of torture. Bybee provides a roadmap to prosecution, rather than legal cover. The only ass the memo really covered, in fact, was Bybee's own, which may be why Gonzales et al eventually rescinded it.

Ever yours,

Hepzie



"It still lacked half-an-hour of sunrise when Miss Hepzibah ... arose from her solitary pillow and began what it would be mockery to term the adornment of her person."

Hawthorne

--- On Mon, 20/4/09, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Waterboarding
To: "Paul Mackin" <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Date: Monday, 20 April, 2009, 2:25 PM

i mean wtf

if it was so damn successful why so many attempts
plain sadism (or to the republican clowns "national security")





On 4/20/09, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 10:25 AM
> Subject: Waterboarding
>
>
>> 266 Times?
>>
>> new name:  the george w bush center for incompetent assholes
>
> Wonder what new information turned up on the 266th time.
>
> P
>



      
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