Fleischer On Torture Memos: ‘I Have No Problem With’ Sleep Deprivation
Fleischer On Torture Memos: ‘I Have No Problem With’ Sleep Deprivation
While discussing the recent release of Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel torture memos last night on CNN, host Anderson Cooper asked President Bush’s former press secretary Ari Fleischer if he believes that torture took place. “Waterboarding is pretty close to the line,” Fleischer responded. “Sleep deprivation,” however, “I have no problem with,” he said.
Cooper noted that the torture tactics OLC lawyers authorized were “techniques that the Nazis used,” but Fleischer dismissed this concern. “I think it’s all how it’s conducted and to what extent things go,” he added, justifying the techniques because “medical people” were “present.” Watch it:
Either Fleischer hasn’t read the memos or he thinks hanging detainees from shackles to keep them awake is fine. The May 30, 2005 memo says that “shackling is used only as a passive means of keeping the detainee awake,” and therefore does not constitute torture. However, the International Committee of the Red Cross documented this technique’s true effect:
Although this position prevented most detainees from sleeping, three of the detainees stated that they did fall asleep once or more while shackled in this position. [...] When they did fall asleep held in this position, the whole weight of their bodies was effectively suspended from the shackled wrists, transmitting the strain through the arms to the shoulders.
Despite Fleischer’s relief that doctors were present during the interrogations, some medical professionals overseeing the harsh techniques actually enabled some of them. Moreover, the Bush administration manipulated scientists’ work on sleep deprivation to justify the tactic. One scientist equated the CIA’s use of his study results to the overdosing of medication. “It’s like giving a drug to a patient: if you administer it in small doses for therapeutic reasons, it helps them. If you give it in huge volumes, it becomes toxic — and can even kill them.”
Many conservatives, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have been arguing over the past few days that the torture tactics these memos approved are justified because they “work” (they don’t). However, it doesn’t appear that Fleischer has received the memo. Later in the segment Cooper asked, “If it works, do you think, then, it’s justified?” “No, I don’t,” Fleischer replied.
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I’m sure that if he has any semblance of a conscience, he’s had plenty of sleepless nights, so he would be an expert….
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pmFleischer should be waterboarded a few dozen times in a week, while he spends his nights shackled to the ceiling. Let’s see if he considers it to be torture or not.
Tape it. Sell the show to Cable. Use the money to compensate the innocent people tortured at GITMO.
/For the rightards: I’m not claiming all of the people at GITMO are innocent. I’m claiming some of them are (or were).
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 pmBush Administration authorized use of insects in interrogations
Bush memos parallel claim 9/11 mastermind’s children were tortured with insects
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 pmThe pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have shocked the world. To the Palestinian people however, these photographs of hooded or naked figures come as no surprise. For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons, the pictures only bring back memories of their own torture.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/torture2.html
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 pmIf these republicans love torture so much, the white house should come out and ask them to volunteer for a public torture demonstration. And order that none of them should defend torture if they don’t have the balls to volunteer. This would be awesome.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 pmI would wish that Ari Fleisher’s tongue rots in his mouth and he chokes on the maggots. Ditto for Dick Cheney.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:10 pmComing from a guy who had no problem toadying for Dubbie, that really doesn’t mean much.
Fetch any burgers lately, Ari?
Kind of like a prostitute expressing no preference for what position the job gets done in.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pmJapanese soldiers who waterboarded US POW’s were sentenced in the US to 15 years of hard labor for Torture. Michael Vick sentenced for Torturing animals. US Bush Administration now says Torture might not be illegal. Someone should have said that years ago. Now if no US official is charged and convicted for Torture it will be legal for others to do the same. Yes President Obama has revised it but he can’t change History. Now what’s new is the United States also has torturing children on the record.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pmHey Ari Fleischer!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pmIn case you didn’t know, sleep deprivation, in this case, doesn’t mean hitting the snooze button 3 or 4 times.
Torture apologists rank a close second behind torturers in terms of loathsomeness.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pmAri – you lowlifethugwingnut! This is just disgusting. OK Ari, lets find out if it’s torture by trying these horrendous acts of sleep deprivation on you! He wouldn’t last a night!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pmWell, Torture Fan Fleischer – whether you have a problem with sleep deprivation or not is MOOT – TORTURE IS ILLEGAL.
Idiot.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:17 pmthese pro-torture advocates should be led away in handcuffs after thier segment.
they, like thier position, is ridiculoussly criminal.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:18 pmPrescott bush is laughing his a$$ off right now. Looks like his german business dealings have paid off handsomely…
USA…USA….
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm“…justifying the techniques because “medical people” were “present.”"
Yeah, and Josef Mengele was a doctor too, Ari — that doesn’t justify his 3rd Reich eugenics experiments…unless, Ari, we’ve been right about your underlying motivations all along…
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 pmI’m sure Ari won’t mind then when the authorities use a little sleep deprivation on him to get him to confess how many weeks in advance he knew that 9/11 was in the works, or how he watched it live on closed circuit TV in the limo with Bush enroute to the elementary school that morning.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pmThis whole torture thing is just not that shocking. We torture people, what a suprise. The geneva convention is a joke, do any other countries behind closed doors observe the statutes? Doubtful.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:23 pmIt just seems like a case of righteous indignation. “We don’t torture” newsflash, yeah we do or at the very least support a helluva lot of people who do. Ask someone from Central America in the 1980s about U.S. support for torture.
Ask Ari Fleischer if he was in the back seat of the limo with GW enroute to the elementary school on 9/11 when Bush “saw the first plane hit the tower”
Hey Ari…Got foreknowledge and planning?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vZOuNEoAWeY
Is killing 3,000 people with airplanes torture?
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 pmThe only problem I have had with sleep deprivation was one time an intern doctor at a hospital in Oregon was in his 50th hr. with out sleep. He was attempting to remove a pesky hemorrhoid, cut to deep and popped it out on the floor and to my horror my little hemi was still alive and trying to swim so I reached down to pick it up and put in a glass of water and the bastid stomped on it and aborted it right if front of my eyes……..I have never been the same since!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 pmIt is repulsive that all the ReichWinger Mafia Types are spending these couple of weeks defending an illegal, immoral, unethical, un-American act of torture.
Fcuk the Republicans
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:26 pm.
SEVEN and a HALF DAYS!
.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:27 pmBesides, its not like anyone is gonna be prosecuted for ANY crime they committed. Elected officials don’t hold other elected officials responsible for jackshit anymore. The Washington club protects its own, even the blatantly criminal Bush co.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pmoohhh impeach Bybee. Small fish.
Ari:
Explain This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm73wOuPL60&feature=related
You were with him.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pmSleep deprivation isn’t so bad! They had an 11-day limit on that! Who hasn’t gone 11 days without sleep and held up just fine?
(torture apologist thinking)
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pmWhat a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that….THOSE THAT WE TORTURED WERE NOT CONVICTED OF ANYTHING.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:34 pmKid Charlemagne – torture apologists don’t care whether or not they were CONVICTED of anything! All that legal mumbo jumbo just wastes valuable time. As long as there is the slightest chance they might have any information that may or may not save any American lives, torturing them to find out is just fine with them.
(torture apologist thinking)
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 pmI would personally like to backhand slap some sense into this toady sob who told so many lies while the white house spoksliar that he cannot recognize the truth if it is placed before him. The republican party is irrelevant and Ari is even more insignificant.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 pmARI FLEISCHER?
The PRESS secretary?
Why on EARTH are they asking the ex-PR flack about ANYTHING?
He has no expertise, and had no function in the Bush administration excepto get out and lie to the press.
I can grudgingly envision having Wolfowitzm Feith or Andrew Card on–but FLEISCHER?
Did the media have Ron Ziegler on repeatedly to explain about Watergate?
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:41 pmNow I remember, dick is going to defend himself by showing us all how torturing prisoners gets the essential information needed to protect us all from another pearl harbor event occurring in our own town.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:43 pmGawd knows dick is all about protecting us, and thank the universe too, what would we ever do without him.
t here are new souls and older souls on this planet earth and some of these folks are newer souls. most repubs are newer souls.
we confuse intellect with intelligence.
cheney is a newer soul and has much to learn.
karma demands that we learn.
it is called the law of progress.
few will understand my words very few.
neither the atheists or the religious will understand this law of progress.
besides capitalism by its very nature creates such a society as we have in america. ie selfishness even to the point of torture.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pmWhy do we care what a former press secretary thinks about interrogation techniques?
He’s a mouthpiece, not a policy-maker.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pmUnder the W administration the terrorists won. Our leaders abandon some of the most important American virtues.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:49 pmLiberty and Justice for All… that ring a bell anyone?
SlappyBastinado (#19)Says:
The only problem I have had with sleep deprivation…
Slappy, that was a really disgusting story. And hate to admit that I LOL reading it.
You won’t like this part, but that reminds me of Rush Limbaugh and how he tolerated the one on his ass to keep himself from being drafted during the Vietnam War.
After the draft ended he had it removed, with about the same results as you had. Because it had taken on a life of its own, he put his up for adoption. A family named Fleischer adopted it and called it Ari. The rest is history.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:51 pmYeah, medical personnel were present for the Nazis too – paging Dr. Mengele. It is still torture even if a doctor is present when you do it!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:54 pmresearcher says: karma demands that we learn.
it is called the law of progress.
few will understand my words very few.
You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual, you can be spiritual without believing in the “traditional” description of “God”.
More people understand your statements than you could ever imagine! I – for one – totally get it!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:56 pm.
Dear Ari,
… Because it’s not torture when America does it, YES?
.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pmslippery Says:
A classic example of why this site is tagged as a ‘hate site.’
I’m with you, slip. Its only one step up from the Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity shows.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm.
Dear Ari,
… Because America owes Japan a big apology for prosecuting and executing members of their military for doing what America is now guilty of doing, YES?
.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:59 pmWaterboard this zionist facist, Ari Fleisher! As he does not have a problem with ’sleep depravation’… well, shackle the bastard for a week!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:59 pm.
Dear Ari,
Lynndie says hi!
.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:02 pmOh, there was medical personnel… but for what? To awaken people to torture them a bit more? To certify the death of the torturees? For laughs?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:02 pmJackie Says:
Japanese soldiers who waterboarded US POW’s were sentenced in the US to 15 years of hard labor for Torture. Michael Vick sentenced for Torturing animals. US Bush Administration now says Torture might not be illegal. Someone should have said that years ago. Now if no US official is charged and convicted for Torture it will be legal for others to do the same. Yes President Obama has revised it but he can’t change History. Now what’s new is the United States also has torturing children on the record.
Jackie, in Latin America, we got to know that the USA DOES TORTURE and that the USA hates DEMOCRACY. But we didn’t get to know that last week… we have known that from the late 50′ onwards…
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:07 pmWe also know that the CIA imports cocaine and smuggle weapons for and from right-winged paramilitary and terrorists militias…
The medical personnel were there to ensure that when the subject was delivered to that brink of death, they could revive the subject and allow him to regain enough strength to tolerate being shoved to that brink of death, AGAIN!
These medical “professionals” that participated in these torture sessions should be stripped of any and all credentials.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:07 pmThe KGB did some pretty interesting work in the 70’s with sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation as well. We were outraged or something at the time… Man, I miss way back when we were the good guys.
.
slippery Says:
A classic example of why this site is tagged as a ‘hate site.’
Tagged? By who? Where?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pmTo: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Mr. Attorney General Holder;
By his own hand in the 08-01-2002 OLC torture memo, in considerable damning detail, Mr. Bybee appears explicitly complicit in subornation of war crimes. You don’t get to parse away and define torture down. This is not even a close call. We imprisoned and even executed people for participation in the very same types of acts. The history could not be more clear.
The fact that Mr. Bybee now sits comfortably on the federal bench owes ENTIRELY to the suppression of this torture memo during the time of his judicial confirmation hearing. Had it come publicly to light, he would never have been confirmed. He should not have been confirmed. He, and his fellow torture conspirators should be fully and openly investigated for having put this odious moral stain on our nation. They have put the nation and its defenders at significantly greater risk while sullying our reputation in the world.
The Israeli High Court once had to slap down its own intel service over torture — and, you cannot accuse the Israelis of being “soft, liberal, terrorist coddlers” either. Their conclusion:
See “Educing Information,” the 372 page report issued by our own National Defense Intelligence College. That’s where I found the quote.
Do the right thing. Minimally, appoint a neutral and respectable independent prosecutor to investigate these matters. There must be accountability. Absent that, we are really no better than our enemies, for the incentive and opportunities to behave as do they will remain.
Thank you.
Robert E. Gladd
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 pmTorture will not make any friends overseas, and today, international cooperation is really necessary to solve some of the most pressing issues in the world such as malaria, measles, and malnutrition. The Borgen Project has good info on the estimated cost of ending global poverty:
$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pmI bet slippery is parroting Papa Pervert O’Reilly.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pmI am not very educated on what constitutes as torture, but here’s what is wedged in my mind when I consider all of this.
The problem I have with authorities dismissing what we did as torture is that it leaves a door wide open for other countries to practice the same on us. If we are to say that what we did was not torture, then we have no right to bring other countries to justice if Americans are subjected to the same practices.
It has to be one or the other. If all the world is meant to be a competition, like many of the conservatives in America might witness it as, rules cannot be circumvented for those who have more talent or a higher payroll. We all have to play by the same rules, or else you get dissent between countries.
We need to get to the bottom of these practices and make sure that they never happen again. We must set a good example to other countries.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pmThese soundbites are going to be used on a loop starting in 2010. The GOP is going to own torture.
http://www.pufferfishblog.com/
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pmAir Fleischer probbaly should shut the fcku up, since under the Nuremburg protocols, he’s probably culpable for the crimes he lied about the regime committing…
Is it just me, or are there some others who’d take pleasure in seeing Air Fleischer swinging–either a shovel in the hot sun for 15 years of hard labor, or at the end of a rope?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
If we ended world hunger, there’d be all those folks who would otherwise have died out there procreating like rabbits.
Read Malthus…
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pmThere you are. Doctor recommended torture. Sort of like mini Dr. Mengle’s. Doctor sanctioned, can it be wrong?
FIRST DO NO HARM. I wonder where I heard that? Hippocratic oath. Or should it now be called the hypocritical oath? Selective oath? Only where your watching oath?
Can you see it? These doctors standing around watching torture. “We’ll just watch.” “Not that we like it you understand”. “We just want to see it done for medical reasons.” “You know if you pull harder there or lift more on this side, it will be more effective. More stress on the joints.” “Christ, I had no idea anyone could scream that loud or that long.” “Well I’m shot, lets have lunch.”
I hope we get names of these practitioners of the healing arts. This is our new reality. The new America.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 pmOther deprivations Fleisher has no problem with:
Common sense deprivation
Moral deprivation
International Law deprivation
Others?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 pmI hope when the general public finally learns all about what these lunatics have done that talking heads like Ari that have defended these actions will no longer be allowed on television to spew their ruinous propaganda.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pmAri who?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pmGood for you Ari. Now where did you get your degrees in psychology or any of the analytical sciences that give you the background to make your assertions? (Mine came from the University of Wisconsin). And if you have no problem with sleep depravation lets attach electrical probes to your scrotum and make you stay awake for 5 days and then see how much useful information we can get from you on all of the illegalities that the Bushies committed.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:32 pmCramming for an exam, or pulling all-niters on the campaign trail, are in no way comparable to the sleep deprivation in question here. Unless Ari Fleischer was chained to his hot plate in his Middlebury dorm room, while his roommate blasted Molly Hatchet.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pmWhy should we care what he does or does not “have a problem with?” He’s not saying anything about sleep deprivation; all he’s saying here is how poor his morals are. Like, “I don’t have a problem with rape…”
.
By the way, who are these doctors and why do they still have medical licenses?
.
Danny Noonan Says:
These soundbites are going to be used on a loop starting in 2010. The GOP is going to own torture.
Torture and buttsecks are all they have left for their campaign platform. They’re going to need some leather chaps.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 pmThe sad thing is if you deprived Ari of sleep for a week he would sound just the same…nuts.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:55 pmAri & Anderson Cooper could put me to sleep in minutes.
Depraved? Absolutely
Ari, why is a Zionist who just observed the Holocaust supporting the same, and even worse, tactics used by Nazis?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pmCurlew Says:
Good for you Ari. Now where did you get your degrees in psychology or any of the analytical sciences that give you the background to make your assertions? (Mine came from the University of Wisconsin). And if you have no problem with sleep depravation lets attach electrical probes to your scrotum and make you stay awake for 5 days and then see how much useful information we can get from you on all of the illegalities that the Bushies committed.
My bad but do we even have to ask questions?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pmOff the topic, but so much ‘off’ because it regards the Facist Pig and War Criminal Chenney:
If they LIED about everything reagarding ‘Iraq & Al-Queida’ connection, about ‘WMD’, about ‘TORTURE’, ‘Vallery Plame leak’,etc,
How can I TRUST their version of what happened on 9/11?!
How come Bush and Chenney’s testemony was behind close doors?
What are they hidding?
Nothing that ever came out of these two WAR CRIMINALS’ mouth turn up to be TRUE… so did 9/11!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 pmBobbyG @ 50:
Thank you for that most excellent post. I copied it and sent it to the address you posted and added the following sentences:
I would like to further strongly encourage you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration for their participation in the torture of detainees.
America will not rid itself of the filthy stain of torture until JUSTICE IS DONE.
I urge all of you to take the time to email Atty Gen Holder, President Obama, your senators and your congressional representatives – we absolutely cannot let this be swept under the rug. Justice MUST be done.
~A
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:30 pmThe Nazis and Soviets made sure doctors were present during their torture programs too. It helped in so many ways, with recording data and refining effectiveness, with keeping the subjects alive so they could be pushed beyond normal limits of suffering. All the serious torture regimes use medical experts.
Watching supposedly moral people, many of them religious, defend torture is truly breathtaking. Sadists cloaked in the flimsiest excuses for reason.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 pmOnly the press gives a shit about what a Press Secretary thinks.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:51 pmAhhh yes, Ari Fleischer one of many Bush Regime Brownshirts who left the regime to “spend more time with the family”, you know, because they weren’t being tortured, they didn’t feel a thing, so therefore, life was good. Spit.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pmThe doctors who stood in the room and witnessed torture under the Bush Regime should also be tried, investigated, and sent to prison too!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:26 pm911 was an inside job.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:30 pmtokin librul Says:
If we ended world hunger, there’d be all those folks who would otherwise have died out there procreating like rabbits.
Read Malthus…
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
_____________
That’s thoroughly untrue. Fertility rates generally decline as food security increases. The reason fertility rates in developing countries are so high is because the chances of children surviving to adulthood are low. When you reduce hunger and instability, the rate of population growth will follow.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pmYawn.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 pmIt is shameful and disgusting to watch people split hairs on what constitutes torture and what doesn’t when the parameters have been established for decades.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pmI expect these defenders would also defend the church for the Inquisition.
I find Ari Fleischer to be more physically repulsive than ever — in tandem, I suspect, with the degree to which he is a moral degenerate. He wasn’t GWB’s press secretary, he was the Josef Goebbels of the Republikkkan Reich, which was ruled between January 20, 2001 and January 20, 2009 by George W. Bush, Diktatur. Truly, a propaganda spinmeister if ever there was one.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:36 pmAn increase of 50% above the MAXIMUM peer-reviewed scientifically-reached number of hours of sleep deprivation at which your body begins to experience seriously damage? Are they %$#&ing serious? 180 hours is the MAXIMUM amount, and they went for 264 hours? People must have been receiving serious brain damage, and going more than a little insane. What’s more, when I was studying psychology, the understanding was that the negative effects of sleep deprivation of such magnitudes was very often PERMANENT. Permanent brain damage, and permanent psychoses, in much the same manner that long bouts of sensory deprivation can lead to.
This is a subtle, yet no less vile form of torture. Say it with me, “torture, Torture, TORTURE!” Don’t stop repeating it, and shoving it in the faces of those who have the gall to downplay this serious crime against humanity.
What was done in all of our names…
These people need to be brought to justice. Not retribution, not partisan anything, justice. Republican, Democrat, Independent, third party, it doesn’t matter whom. They all need to face the music. They all need to permanently leave the world stage, and NEVER be allowed to hold power again.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 pmYes, sleep deprivation is torture. Sensory deprivation is torture. I hope that we don’t lose sight of this. Waterboarding is dramatic, but sleep and sensory deprivation is damaging as well.
I would go so far as to say that it is wrong to mistreat prisoners in any way.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:13 pmThe end-all, be-all definition of torture:
If you are doing something to someone for the purpose of getting them to capitulate to your will in the hopes of getting you to stop doing it, then you are torturing them.
Problem solved.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 pmLet’s apply these techniques to Ari…take that smug fuc$ing look off his face…
I’m counting on karma…everyone else lets you down.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:58 pmSpeaking of having doctors present, wasn’t Dr. Joseph Mengle present at one of the Nazi concentration camps? How did that work out for the people sent there?
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 am