Malcolm Nance Quotes
Waterboarding should never be used as an interrogation tool. It is beneath our values.
Nance, Malcolm. "Waterboarding is Torture... Period." Small Wars Journal, 31 Oct. 2007.
During that period some terrorists were handed over to Saudi Arabian and Egyptian authorities for interrogation. These countries had no qualms about torture. Goss never answered the question about that practice.
The Senate was debating a law to make torture of foreigners and captives illegal under all circumstances. Vice President Cheney was very strongly opposed wanting an exception made for the CIA.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism. As late as 2006 the American President was reluctant to outlaw torture for terroristsand the Vice President actually argued for its retention as an interrogation technique. Over 300 years earlier the autocrat of Russia argued against it.
He was referring to the police interrogation methods that Turkey had used in the past but was in the process of reforming.
The George W. Bush administration had issued a memorandum to key Federal Agencies stating that certain types of torture were legal—a finding that was quickly repudiated after Bush and VP Cheney—who was a leading force for allowing torture of terrorism suspects—were out of office. But Bush had told the American People and the World that the United States will not torture any prisoners. The dilemma was “solved” when someone came up with this euphemism.
There were however several instances of torture being used. The administration used the term “enhanced interrogation” for waterboarding and other acts that the US has previously punished Americans for using. The George W. Bush administration actually had a team of their lawyers in the Justice Department write a memo to uniquely define torture so as not to include the torture techniques that were used as “enhanced interrogation”.
Critics of CIA methods asked whether Mr. Hayden believes that males who are also opposed to the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” and torture base their judgment on emotion and feeling are those adjectives reserved for female critics?
Malcolm Wrightson Nance (born 1961) is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
