ABC News Reporter Tweets That Iranian Detainees Are Being Waterboarded [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Days after writing this, it's hardly surprising to wake up and find that the New York Times has suddenly found a use for the word "torture," when previously, "enhanced interrogation techniques were the norm. Via Glenn Greenwald:

Time for a letter to Clark Hoyt, New York Times public editor!

Mr. Hoyt--

I wonder if you'd be good enough to explain something to me. Mere months ago, you said:

"Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn't been resolved by a court. This president and this attorney general say waterboarding is torture, but the previous president and attorney general said it is not. On what basis should a newspaper render its own verdict, short of charges being filed or a legal judgment rendered?" Jehl argued for precision and caution. I agree. "

Yet, today, you have a piece by Michael Slackman, summarized on your site as follows: "The Iranian government has made it a practice to publicize confessions from political prisoners, often subject to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, rights groups say." The article somehow manages to avoid classifying these techniques with the commonplace and widely accepted term "enhanced interrogation techniques."

According to recent precedents, established by the United States, a government has the leeway to subject people to "intense questioning" as a part of a response to their national security interests. I wonder if you could explain how the word "torture" came to be used in this instance. Has a "legal judgement" been rendered that I've not heard of? Under what distinction is the word "torture" used here?

I'd very much like an explanation.

We'll see what he says about this!

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[h/t; The Daily Dish] From ABC News' Lara Setrakian, comes this tweet:

Tehrani source close to those detained says some have been beaten heavily and waterboarded with hot water #iranelection

In my younger years, I would simply expect this news to be greeted with universal outrage, knowing that the techniques being described had long been deemed to be well across the Bridge Too Far. Now that I've lived through the Bush administration, however, I am forced to contemplate the possibility that Iran is merely taking legitimate steps to obtain critical information in their nations' vital national security interests. One mustn't preclude the possibility that many of those being waterboarded are privy to information about "time bombs" that may, at this moment, be "ticking."

The whole matter could be investigated, I suppose, but I'm also forced to consider that once Iran is through this rough patch, it would be better if everyone involved just looked forward, not backward.

Anyway, I guess everyone's really playing follow-the-leader on this nation's innovations in the area of what our press calls "enhanced interrogation techniques." Pop champagne.

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Comments

[livesimply]

Yes. Follow the leader in stealing elections too.

[TJCole]

Monkey see monkey do...!

[Upperleftcoast]

Once again, the US leads by example! Now that Iran has its own Bush (beady-eyed, willfully ignorant and belligerent), no one should be surprised that waterboarding is now on the menu in Tehran.

[anthead]

when they do it it's called torture, didn't you know that???

[ptarantino]

Iran usess hot water & we use cold. Is that the main difference?

[LeeCalif]

Dear CIA-
Shut the f *** up.

[lazercat2008]

Iran is acting more like the U.S. all the time.

[RTIII]

Too bad US citizens don't act more like Iranian citizens...

(_We_ need protests, people!)
.

[MajorKong]

That's pretty mild by Iranian standards - compared to what the Savak used to do when the Shah was in power.

[apolloguide]

I remember cattle prods here in the late great state of Alabama; and the "Tucker Telephone" as well as water drenched hoods and beatings to death. No fancy names like "Savak" but just as brutal. We have our own atrocious behavior to correct before we start telling others how to act civilized.

And then, without scrutiny; we do anything we want in over 800 military bases throughout the world as we keep watch on the many garrison states we control.

[apolloguide]

...and.... Kent State

[doneflyin]

Yikes! I just looked up what a Tucker Telephone was. I found out more about the old Arkansas prison system then I wanted to know. Up until the 70's they were still using this device among other tortures of choice.
Wonder what they called these techniques. Behavioral modification perhaps?

[TigersEye]

Torture is done here, it's done all over the world. I'd like to round all these blackhearted people up and put them on a one way trip to Pluto but I think the Earth would at that point be severely underpopulated. There's a lot of bad stuff happening all over the world, including here in the U.S. Too few people anymore have empathy for their fellow man.

[Montgriz]

Hey, I went to a Catholic all boys high school...what's the big deal? we got worse than that for refusing to go home with the priest.

[PKatherine]

hahaha...

[lazercat2008]

It's ok, because it's not torture.

[scooperss]

Nice snark.

[bluemike]

Correction - it's the water cure (U.S. term used in the Philippine Insurrection of the early 1900,s) or water torture (when referring to Japanese use of that torture).

[apolloguide]

Tweets are completely createable, controllable, alterable, and manipulatible. They are not confirmed information they are just something created on computers. They are the perfect tool for propaganda and are being used for that purpose in this case, -I do believe. ABC is the perfect vehicle for introducing this kind of agitprop being William Casey's old company and thoroughly entrenched within the intelligence community. And there is the Disney association with the Southern California right wingers who got Arnold elected... A perfect culture to grow the slime of right wing generated uncertainty and misinformation to further the cause of he who should not be named.

This story needs confirmation and authentication before being posted here as breaking news.

[wereeverywhere]

Hey I know. If you don't like the veracity of tweets, maybe you could condemn the total clamp down on communications of IRI. Their unfree press is on a short leash on a good day. Now there's a blackout. Iranians are trying get the word out as best they can.

[apolloguide]

Dream on there fellow. As long as I have you on the hook you will condemn Iran incessantly without documentation or all important considerations of scale. You just hate Iran. That is your choice. Mine is somewhat broader and includes the ability to condemn the practices of the US too.

This is nothing more than trying to reverse a landslide victory in an election which was much more scruitinized than any of our own. It is very sad to note that you abandoned your concern over the treatment of gays so swiftly. Could you be a swift-boating troll? on CIA payroll?

[wereeverywhere]

IRI is repressive theocracy where everyday repression plagues their people. It's cute to accuse those who point out your absurdities as CIA- like the protesters are CIA (or Mossad). Do you look under yopur bed at night for spooks before sleep? Go to Amnesty International or other human rights website for the record of IRI. Here's a small example of what they do: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3070895.stm

"Iran has acknowledged that a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist was beaten to death after her arrest outside a prison in Tehran.

Vice President Ali Abtahi said Zahra Kazemi died "of a brain haemorrhage resulting from beatings".

[Patrick Garies]

Considering that the Iranian government has clamped down on foreign reporting as well as independent reporting by Iranian citizens, there isn't really much choice but to rely on unverified information.

Also, considering the Iranian government's past treatment of its own citizens, this situation seems plausible. I seem to recall a relatively recent story where they were breaking protester's fingers one by one just for being protesters and this was reported by one of the victims. They were killing and beating people engaging in *peaceful* protests. They arrested an American journalist on, apparently, trumped up charges; or, at least, it's hard to conclude otherwise considering that the court proceedings were entirely closed. And they execute people merely for being homosexual. Executing someone for a victim-less crime is pretty heinous IMO. Torture seems to be a step *down* from execution although not by much. Again, this situation seems quite plausible.

[MajorKong]

Well played sir. Well played.

[thehonestpolitician]

Pop champagne...nice...Linkins...nice..

[floridafun]

loved this jason!