Torturegate

[Xunzian]

But what if we know that they know, but don't know exactly what they know. I ask because I assume we don't just take people off the street and ask them where Osama is. We probably take people we know have had personal contact with Osama during a meeting or some such. And if they do have the info, then I doubt they're hard shit enough to withhold the info or distort it in any great way after a couple sessions of waterboarding.

Two things regarding that: 1) I think you overestimate the degree of certainty we employ when arresting suspected terrorists. Shit like this has not been uncommon. 2) There is no evidence that torture will gain information that traditional methods will not. Indeed, Robert Mueller (the FBI director) has said that the torture we have used has not resulted in any useful information. But we don't have to look at this case in isolation, look at how effective torture [/i]wasn't[/i] in Algiers.

[Liteninbolt]

It would seem if there is going to be an investigation about methods of obtaining information from suspects to protect the US, then it would be fair for those representatives who went to witness how those actions were carried out during those times should be held accountable too. It is my understanding that those who did see how interrogations were carried out, approved them.

[felix dakat]

On the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique I submit the following:

April 23, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
My Tortured Decision
By ALI SOUFAN

FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence. We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.

It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.

The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).

My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)

As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.

Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.

[Impenitent]

oops... comrade pelosi knew about waterboarding and didn't object in 2007?!? she was COMPLICIT?!?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01664.html

bring forth the witch trials... first target comrade pelosi...

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pelosi_de ... _0423.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first10 ... rogations/

LMAO...

-Imp

[Liteninbolt]

oops... comrade pelosi knew about waterboarding and didn't object in 2007?!? she was COMPLICIT?!?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01664.html

bring forth the witch trials... first target comrade pelosi...

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pelosi_de ... _0423.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first10 ... rogations/




LMAO...

-Imp

Yes, this what I was speaking of. If one is held guilty, then all should be.

[Xunzian]

It would seem if there is going to be an investigation about methods of obtaining information from suspects to protect the US, then it would be fair for those representatives who went to witness how those actions were carried out during those times should be held accountable too. It is my understanding that those who did see how interrogations were carried out, approved them.

Sure, I hope they do it. Fuck Pelosi, she is a rightist snake.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Impenitent: oops... comrade pelosi knew about waterboarding and didn't object in 2007?!? she was COMPLICIT?!?

K: Another red herring by IMP. Pelosi didn't create the policy, didn't implement the policy, didn't authorize the
policy. Now the point about her knowing means nothing because if she revels it, she is in VIOLATION of
national security laws. So she wasn't complicit in anything. Had she said anything, IMP would have called her
a traitor for disclosing government secrets. So this whole issue is the usual IMP nonsense.

Kropotkin

[d0rkyd00d]

If the evidence suggests that torture doesn't produce information any better than traditional interrogation techniques, then I don't support it.

Evidence changes minds. Take note theists.

[felix dakat]

Touche! Watch this thread.

[felix dakat]

Dear Mr. Attorney General,

I am really, really upset that we tortured people. Please prosecute those responsible for this heinous act.

Oh, and the hundreds of thousands of people who died and were maimed, left homeless or fatherless or motherless because we invaded Iraq, the americans dead, crippled and wasted, and the money we spent on it? The children we killed? The country we laid to waste? That's okay.

I'm really more upset about a couple of dozen people who were tortured.

Thank you for you time, Mr General.

Maybe this quote from a NYT editorial by Frank Rich will help you see that there is connection between torture and the invasion of Iraq worthy of investigation and quite probably criminal prosecution.

"Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality."

[Faust]

It doesn't.

[felix dakat]

It doesn't.

You have stated that my position on this issue as naive. When asked you declined to offer any support for your criticism. Without a rationale from you supporting your position, I cannot rule out the possibility that you may simply be too obtuse to appreciate what is at stake in this issue.

[Faust]

Firstly, "obtuse" crosses a line, here. No matter how passively-aggressively expressed.

Secondly, I did support my view.

I don't think there's much at stake at all. Americans were duped from the start, yes, but only because they wanted to be. And just because Frank Rich says it, doesn't make it true.

We don't know that Bush lied to us about Iraq's threat. We do know that he at least attacked on the flimsiest of evidence of a threat. For that, he should not be forgiven, and won't be, by history, at least. He certainly won't be by me.

Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

Explain exactly how this is so. I agree that the mission had little to do with Al Qaeda. But how was the torture itself supposed to buttress support for that mission?

My dim mind awaits enlightenment.

[felix dakat]

Firstly, "obtuse" crosses a line, here. No matter how passively-aggressively expressed.

Secondly, I did support my view.

I don't think there's much at stake at all. Americans were duped from the start, yes, but only because they wanted to be. And just because Frank Rich says it, doesn't make it true.

We don't know that Bush lied to us about Iraq's threat. We do know that he at least attacked on the flimsiest of evidence of a threat. For that, he should not be forgiven, and won't be, by history, at least. He certainly won't be by me.

Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

Explain exactly how this is so. I agree that the mission had little to do with Al Qaeda. But how was the torture itself supposed to buttress support for that mission?

My dim mind awaits enlightenment.

To me you don't seem dim at all when you summon yourself to make a thoughtful response instead of a dismissive one. What is at stake is the question of whether the U.S. honors basic human rights. Are we a nation of barbarians or one under the rule of law? Our standing in the international community is at stake. Our understanding of ourselves as a nation is in question. Are we any better than the terrorists who we oppose?

We do know that the fundamental premise of the Bush/Cheney Administration, that Iraq posed an immanent threat because they possessed WMD, was baseless. The more we learn about what they knew and how far they were willing to go to have their war in terms of breaking laws, skewing intelligence reports, bringing down anyone who disagreed with them the more culpable they appear. Unless you think that a president and his vice are above the law, there is enough evidence to warrent an investigation.

Torture is suspect for producing reliable information, but most people if tortured enough will confess to anything. Cheney et al wanted evidence that linked Ql Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. They had no such substantive evidence during the run up to the Iraq invasion. Evidence including the 124 memos now available to us shows that at precisely that time the Bush people sought legal cover for using extreme interrogation techniques. When CIA interrogators reported back that they were getting nowhere, the Bush people directed them to "push harder."

The techniques used were considered torture up until the Bushites solicted legal cover. The U.S. executed Japanses offcers for using the same techniques on Americans after WWII. There is undoubtedly more that we don't know, about what the Bush people knew, what they did, and how they tried to cover it up. That gets back to the petition which wasn't about knowing all the facts, but calling for an investigation.

[Faust]

To me you don't seem dim at all when you summon yourself to make a thoughtful response instead of a dismissive one. What is at stake is the question of whether the U.S. honors basic human rights.

That was not Rich's point, so I stand by my "It doesn't". Further, I would have to agree that there are such things as basic human rights, which I don't, to be concerned about torture, at least by your reasoning.

Our standing in the international community is at stake.

Our standing with eurotrash students, perhaps. Our standing in the international community is determined the way it has been since at least WWI. Guns, boats and planes determine that. Are we afraid the french won't sell us their wine? That the chinese will no longer export their goods to us?

Are we any better than the terrorists who we oppose?

Are we supposed to be? We aren't.

We do know that the fundamental premise of the Bush/Cheney Administration, that Iraq posed an immanent threat because they possessed WMD, was baseless. The more we learn about what they knew and how far they were willing to go to have their war in terms of breaking laws, skewing intelligence reports, bringing down anyone who disagreed with them the more culpable they appear. Unless you think that a president and his vice are above the law, there is enough evidence to warrent an investigation.

I think Bush is a fool and Cheney is Satan, but it's not against the law to start a war. Even the skewing of the intelligence reports didn't add up to a good reason to go to war with Iraq - that was plain at the time. Most americans wanted to.

Torture is suspect for producing reliable information, but most people if tortured enough will confess to anything. Cheney et al wanted evidence that linked Ql Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. They had no such substantive evidence during the run up to the Iraq invasion. Evidence including the 124 memos now available to us shows that at precisely that time the Bush people sought legal cover for using extreme interrogation techniques. When CIA interrogators reported back that they were getting nowhere, the Bush people directed them to "push harder."

It doesn't matter. Firstly, please support your claim that

Cheney et al wanted evidence that linked Ql Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.

You seem to be the only one who knows this as fact. More importantly, even this link doesn't support the invasion of Iraq. We know of many Quaeda groups in many parts of the world. We don't send the troops after all of them. The public, if it cared to read the newspaper, has this information. The invasion was supported by the majority of the population as blind vengeance. Bloodlust. Their support waned because it was difficult. It took too long. It wasn't videogame-like enough. Terrorist confessions wouldn't change that.

The techniques used were considered torture up until the Bushites solicted legal cover. The U.S. executed Japanses offcers for using the same techniques on Americans after WWII. There is undoubtedly more that we don't know, about what the Bush people knew, what they did, and how they tried to cover it up. That gets back to the petition which wasn't about knowing all the facts, but calling for an investigation.

We already know. You sure seem to know. The AG is not going to launch an investigation because of a petition. It's just political rhetoric.

[felix dakat]

Firstly, please support your claim that


Quote:
Cheney et al wanted evidence that linked Ql Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.


You seem to be the only one who knows this as fact.

From McClatchy Newspapers:

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

[Faust]

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11).

[felix dakat]

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11).

That doesn't negate or explain the remainder of facts that he and Charles Burney testified to.

[Faust]

Ah, I long for the days when wars were neat and clean. When everyone made all the right decisions.

Because war really is easy.

[Impenitent]

you mean the redcoats don't get in line and shoot all together anymore?

-Imp

[felix dakat]

Attitudes of indifference such as expressed in the last two posts reinforce the lack of accountability of the ruling elite. The ruling elite themselves want to retain the freedom of to do "whatever it takes." Parroting mantras of macho realism enables the ruling elite to maintain themselves and their cronies and their class in a position of dominance, wealth and privilege. They are above the law. The law is for peons and losers like most of "the governed". But unless you guys are members of the ruling elite yourselves, you are granting legal immunity to them that you yourselves don't enjoy. Are you granting them special priviledge because you wish to be like them or has their fear mongering been effective in cowing you into submission?

[Peter Kropotkin]

felix dakat: Attitudes of indifference such as expressed in the last two posts reinforce the lack of accountability of the ruling elite. The ruling elite themselves want to retain the freedom of to do "whatever it takes." Parroting mantras of macho realism enables the ruling elite to maintain themselves and their cronies and their class in a position of dominance, wealth and privilege. They are above the law. The law is for peons and losers like most of "the governed". But unless you guys are members of the ruling elite yourselves, you are granting legal immunity to them that you yourselves don't enjoy. Are you granting them special priviledge because you wish to be like them or has their fear mongering been effective in cowing you into submission?"

K: felix, more questions to ponder. It not the torture that I find infuriating, but the indifference to it that ticks me off. People
offering many different reasons as to why allowing torture is not big deal,

hay torture, not a big deal, happens all the time

we are no better than the next guy

presidents have allowed torture before, nothing to get worked up about

better them than us

and all the other excuses people offer up that enabled torture to be conducted by this country.
It is a lack of empathy for other human beings I find disturbing. A what does it matter that
hundreds of my fellow humans were systematically torture (in our name I might add)
who cares? I mean so what? a few people were torture, what really matter is who the jets pick in
the first round of the draft, NOW that is important. There is no sense of perspective.

This casual indifference to the fate of our fellow human beings does not bode well for us or the future.
This indifference reminds me of an old "joke" about the Nazi's in the 30's. When the Nazi's came to arrest
my catholic neighbors, It didn't matter to me, so what? When the Nazi's came to arrest my Jewish neighbors,
so what, I had more space to park my car. When the Nazi's came to arrest my homosexual neighbors, I said good
riddance. When the Nazi's came to arrest me, there was no one left in my neighborhood to notice I was gone.
I didn't stand up for my neighbors when they needed it and they can't stand up for me when I need it.


Kropotkin

[felix dakat]

Thank you Peter. Like you I find apathy toward this issue perplexing.

[Faust]

Imp - that's pretty much my point, yes.

Felix - it's not indifference at all. I think you are unempathetic to those who must prosecute a very messy war. Again, I am no fan of the Bush administration. But they were, in the main, doing just what we wanted them to do. It's not apathy at all. It's a point of view that differs from yours.

The ruling elite themselves want to retain the freedom of to do "whatever it takes."

There has never been a war which followed Robert's Rules of Parliamentary Procedure. I bet some of our troops even scratched their asses in public. War is not a game. It's not a Spielberg movie.

I'll grant them some special privilege, yes, to a point. While the herd is busy chomping through the aisles at Walmart, these folks were engaged in a very difficult task. That some disagreed is no reason for me to. I have my own views. I don't care if Rumsfeld disagreed - I have my own view.

If I let the dandelions grow on my lawn, is that apathy? Or could it be that I find them a necessary evil? Or at least an acceptable one?

[felix dakat]

I think you are unempathetic to those who must prosecute a very messy war.

There was no "must" involved. They freely undertook an unnecessary war that had nothing to do with an immanent threat. You have already admitted that yourself.

But they were, in the main, doing just what we wanted them to do.

Who is this "we"? It never included me.

It's a point of view that differs from yours.

That much I understand.

There has never been a war which followed Robert's Rules of Parliamentary Procedure. I bet some of our troops even scratched their asses in public. War is not a game. It's not a Spielberg movie.

Therefore, a war should not be entered into lightly. These civilian leaders who have spent their lifetimes avoiding danger had no qualms about sending other people's children into combat from which they and their cronies would profit. Same as it ever was.

I'll grant them some special privilege, yes, to a point. While the herd is busy chomping through the aisles at Walmart, these folks were engaged in a very difficult task.

Right. Bush used to say "We're working hard for you" repeatedly so it must be true. Only he set a record for the most time a president spent on vacation let alone during war time. As for Cheney, and Rumsfeld, Rice etc.they were doing the heavy lifting pushing toy soldiers around on a map in the war room. My heart goes out to them.

If I let the dandelions grow on my lawn, is that apathy? Or could it be that I find them a necessary evil? Or at least an acceptable one?

Well that's YOUR lawn. In what metaphorical sense are we talking about YOUR lawn?