McCain on the Torture Memos

When asked about his feelings about the release of the torture memos, McCain recalled his efforts in 2005 to make torture (more) illegal.

As you know it was my legislation, the Detainee Treatment Act, that prohibited torture, that said we had to abide by the Geneva Convention for treatment of enemy combatants and wish that we had done that. But release of these memo helps no one, doesn’t help America’s image, does not help us address the issue, and I think it was a serious mistake.

I wonder what McCain thinks about this footnote from the May 10, 2005 "Techniques" memo? Though it reflects an earlier Congressional effort than McCain’s attempt to make torture (more) illegal passed later that year, the bill Bradbury mentions was part of the effort in 2005 to bring interrogation under the rule of law.

Finally, we note that section 6057(a) of H.R. 1268 (109th Cong. 1st Sess.), if it becomes law, would forbid expending or obligating funds made available by that bill to "subject any person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States to torture," but because the bill would define "torture" to have "the meaning given that term in section 2340(1) of title 18, United States Code, 6057(b)(1), the provision (to the extent it might apply here at all) would merely reaffirm the preexisting prohibitions on torture in sections 2340-2340A.

Maybe McCain doesn’t like having these memos released because they demonstrate the disdain with which the Bush Administration treated Congressional attempts to end the torture program?

Sign the petition telling Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture here

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146 replies
  1. emptywheel says:

    Actually, I’m looking at the legislative history of the bill, and it appears this section was introduced in the Sneate, and then withdrawn in conference.

    So it is probably McCain’s first shot at ending torture.

  2. klynn says:

    Many efforts will be made to upstage your 183 scoop with “other” news events…Fight the shiny objects. Keep the petition up front and running for days. I would suggest a link box to go straight to the FDL Action.

    The klynn family sends a standing ovation to our heroine, Marcy.

    History was made by your efforts on Saturday. The fifth estate just set the bar very, very high for the MSM. The fact that the MSM is having to legitimize blogs from their perspective, is an event in itself to watch unfold.

    What a book…the Libby trial to now…It’s your story to write.

  3. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Not that anyone missed this the first time round, but Glenn Greenwald pays credit where credit’s due, and thanks the New York Times and Scott Shane for recognizing it:

    Kudos to The New York Times and Scott Shane not merely for amplifying a key fact about the OLC memos — that 2 of the detainees were waterboarded a total of 266 times — but, even more notably, for crediting Marcy Wheeler as the person who discovered that fact and first broke the story. Ironically, establishment journalists often complain that bloggers are “parasitic” on their work, yet many feel no compunction about simply copying what they read on blogs without any credit whatsoever. Some reporters are conscientious about crediting blogs — Shane is one of them — but it’s far more common for them to use the work of bloggers with no credit. Marcy is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable and most diligent writers around, and it’s excellent to see her get just some of the credit her work deserves.

    (emph. added)

  4. earlofhuntingdon says:

    McCain, like Obama, is also speaking with forked tongue. He decries Obama’s release of these memos. As many here noted at the time, McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act allowed him to brag about “stopping torture”. But it carved out an exception for the CIA from its “ban” on torture, allowing it to continue to be used by those who had most used it. Abominable, given his five-year stay at the Hanoi Hilton. The guy is all hat and no head.

  5. cregan says:

    In the interests of truth, it is important to note that this “report” totally clashes with what the two men, Khalid Sheik Mohammad and Mr. Z stated to the RED CROSS in private interviews. And I mean TOTAL. According to the Red Cross report, recently released, and the verbatim interview with both Mr. Z and Mr. KSM, this figure of 266 is totally impossible. TOTALLY. Khalid Sheik Mohammed said, “IN addition, I was subjected to waterboarding on five occasions, all of which occured during that first month.” That is a direct, word for word quote from the report and interview–done in private as the Red Cross said. KSM mentions no other times he was waterboarded. The story is very similar for Mr. Z who said one week of waterboarding done once or twice each day with one day of three times. This incident will show you how dishonest and destructive the some blogs can be. This 266 was totally fabricated as “showing through the redaction.” Worse, it came from a blogger and the NY Times reporter NEVER cross checked it with the Red Cross report–which was well known. Now, this phoney “story” has been spread across the internet. Since Mr. KSM and Mr. Z did not hold back anything in the rest of their interview, it is certain that what they said about being waterboarded was what actually happened. They have NO incentive to minimize it. Let’s be critical of torture all we want, but let’s be truthful and factual.

    • bobschacht says:

      According to some analysis of the CIA waterboardings, they would conduct sessions in which numerous waterboarding sessions were held on the same day, in close sequence. Some of the difference in enumeration probably relate to multiple waterboardings in the CIA account that were counted by KSM as one.

      It is also possible that KSM’s memory has been scrambled by frequent waterboardings so that he no longer can distinguish specific instances in any detail. I know that if I had been waterboarded 183 times, that I could in no way give a precise description of each instance, and I even doubt whether or not I would be able to keep count of them in any reliable way.

      Nevertheless, an important part of the investigative process will be to reconcile KSM’s and AZ’s accounts to the Red Cross with the CIA records that Marcy’s analysis was based on. And here’s where all those 3,000 reports that Hayden and Mukasey brag about might come in handy….

      Of course, it would also be useful to interview KSM and AZ again, under the right circumstances (gently, humanely, non-adversarial), with a trusted lawyer present.

      Bob in HI

    • emptywheel says:

      Thank you cregan.

      First off, you do realize the source of the numbers 183 and 83, right? The CIA. You might have heard of them–they’re the government organization who did this to KSM and AZ.

      And you might be interested in where the numbers–for AZ, at least–came from. From watching the interrogation tapes. Now, you might make a case that the CIA probably shouldn’t have destroyed the tapes so they could prove how many times they waterboarded these men. I agree.

      I don’t disagree that KSM and AZ didn’t say they had 183 and 83 sessions. However, they don’t say, one way or another, how many uses of the waterboard they underwent. In addition, AZ refers to blacking out and KSM refers to having his head beaten so badly it bled directly before the last waterboard session (which was stopped by a doctor). So they might be less than reliable in their counts.

      But ultimately, if you are advocating adopting the ICRC measure of what their treatment entailed, fine. I’m willing to agree that it was, “torture and/or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment” which would make it illegal. Then again, you could stick with what the CIA itself concluded about the activity, which was that it was cruel and inhumane, which is still illegal.

      So which is it?

      • bmaz says:

        I do not think the numbers are necessarily incompatible. The issue is what is the definition of a “waterboard event”. The subjects may have been counting perceived days or some similar temporal period. And keep in mind that 1) one of the purposes of the torture program was to temporally disassociate the subjects and 2) other torture modalities were being applied in conjunction with and between waterboarding sessions. I would tend to believe the logs more than the ambiguous numbers related by the ICRC.

    • cinnamonape says:

      You are confusing “applications” with sessions. According to the “rules” 6 applications were allowed per session, and a maximum of two sessions/day.

      But what’s odd is that the total amount of time in “application” (i.e. under water) per 24 hour period is 12 minutes. But the maximum amount of time water can be applied is 40 seconds.

      So even under the rules that would mean a maximum of 8 minutes/day (40 sec. x 6 applications x 2 sessions). So why is the upper limit 12 minutes? That would be an impossibility under the rules. This would have required a third session. Why suggest 12 minutes otherwise.

      I suspect that the rules must have been bent and broken. They interpreted the time limit to mean they could do up to 12 minutes of immersion, and in units of 10 seconds each. That’s be 72/day. But some of KSM’s “applications” were longer…after all, the CIA reports also note that KSM tolerated a 1 minute 40 second application. That also clearly violated the rules. They were allowed only 40 seconds.

  6. WilliamOckham says:

    Can’t we just ignore McCain now? He seems to have about as much real influence as Grandpa Simpson.

  7. earlofhuntingdon says:

    No, it’s not at all “certain”. Eyewitness accounts are inherently contradictory. They need corroboration and a reality check, especially where the witness has decreased mental function because of the abuse he reports. For the public, it’s especially difficult to make categorical statements when the reports, memos and opinions are redacted or not disclosed with their full context.

  8. Mary says:

    Then there was that amnesty in the DTA and the fact that it omitted any enforcement mechanism for violations.

    Booyah Johnboy.

  9. cregan says:

    I have serious doubt about the “CIA said it.” Also, if you actually read the Red Cross report and interview, they are very thorough in their interview and analysis. It is also clear that KSM and Mr. Z specified that they were put down for a 20 to 40 second water session and then brought up and then went down and they counted THAT as two times. Not counting many times having water poured over their face up and down as one session. It is very, very clear. Also, if you read their entire interview and report it is also quite clear that they knew and remembered in great detail what happened to them. They were not holding back. It is clear that if they had received 183 water boarding sessions that they FOR SURE have said it or alluded to it. Personally, I believe them. They have no motivation to minimize. At the very, very least, the NY Times reporter should have mentioned the conflict between what the blog said and the Red Cross report. Because the conflict is big and clear.

    • WilliamOckham says:

      You are, probably unwittingly, bringing in a lot of assumptions to your analysis. I’ve read the ICRC report very carefully. In fact, I’ll quote the relevant parts from KSM’s testimony (from Annex 1) with my comments inside brackets [like this]:

      In addition I was also subjected to “water-boarding” on five occasions, all of which occurred during that first month.
      [The CIA report and KSM agree that all the waterboarding occurred in March 2003, the first month he was in CIA custody] I would be strapped to a special bed, which could be rotated into a vertical position. A cloth would be placed over my face. Cold water from a bottle that had been kept in a fridge was then poured onto the cloth by one of the guards so that I could not breathe. This obviously could only be done for one or two minutes at a time. [KSM probably overestimates the amount of time for the drowning, but I think everybody understands that] The cloth was then removed and the bed was put into a vertical position. The whole process was then repeated during about one hour.[This phrase is the key. “repeated during” means that he underwent more than one waterboarding per session. KSM doesn’t tell us what happened between the waterboardings during each session.]

      The CIA says 183. KSM says he had 5 sessions with multiple waterboardings in each session. The CIA could be lying, but why would they do that in a document they fought tooth and nail to keep secret? Maybe there were more than 5 sessions and/or they lasted longer than 1 hour each. Maybe they really had reduced this to absurd farce where they waterboarded him between each question.

      Here’s the truth:

      The CIA claims to have waterboarded KSM 183 times, all in the same month. It’s right there in black and white.

      KSM agrees on the timing (March 2003) and says it happened in 5 sessions. You could call that a discrepancy, but it’s not a contradiction. It is very interesting and calls for more disclosure, not shutting down the discussion. Your comment was ill-informed, but there’s good news. Ignorance is curable. Follow the links provided above and read the footnote. Then come back and make a more informed comment. It’s ok to make mistakes, but it’s even better to learn from them.

    • emptywheel says:

      Okay. Let’s accept that, then. You believe Abu Zubaydah completely.

      Here’s what he said:

      A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited. The bed was then again lowered to a horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress.

      So Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded for a few minutes, he was given a chance to vomit, and then he was waterboarded for a longer period of time. According to the (you say, completely accurate) version Abu Zubaydah gave, he was waterboarded for over four minutes in two applications in rapid succession.

      Now, the CIA’s own doctors, after the CIA IG report, set upward limits of 40 seconds for each application of the waterboard. So you’re saying AZ was twice waterboarded, in quick succession, three times as long as the CIA’s doctors thought safe. Is that what you’re saying?

  10. Mary says:

    14 – LOL

    That “Serious doubt” can be addressed by reading the memos that were released. So rather than do that – actually read the memos and the references cited in them – you want to “NEVER cross check” the memo and instead you want to spread a “phony story” around the internet that the 266 was a number made up as “showing through” the redactions?

    Honey, honey, honey.

    Reading is fundamental. Go to the May 30, 2005 report:
    http://s3.amazonaws.com/propub…..0May05.pdf
    and since you aren’t big on reading, skip to page 37

  11. Mary says:

    I’m hearting Stein – he’s having his live chat on his story and answered my question on Goss being the go to:

    Your piece refers to a lot of action vis a vis the CIA re: the FBI investigation with no mention of Mueller and his role.

    Since when would Goss be the “go to” on signing off on an FBI application to FISCt for an ongoing FBI investigation? IOW, why is the CIA the spider in the center of the web for the decisions on the FBI investigation, with Gonzales going to Goss to spike the investigation?

    {I’ll have to say, I’m also confused as to how minimization would have allowed Harman to be in captured in toto in any event and also the identity of the AIPAC agent can be so fuzzy and yet there be a FISCt order that allowed the interceptions and also why Harman would have believed that the Israeli agent would have had the necessary connections with Pelosi to pull off what was being promised.

    Jeff Stein: Very good question. Mueller is the first “go-to,” and in his absence, his deputy. But I was told they were out of town when DoJ came looking for sign-offs on the renewal of the FISA tap. Thus Goss was the first to see the new info about Harman, and was intending to act upon it.

    He left off my “but that’s why I am going to watch your chat and learn more” from my email *g*

    • WilliamOckham says:

      This story makes less and less sense. Somebody’s been spinning Stein in a major way. I don’t have time to track this all down, but I’m reasonably sure that the sequence that Stein describes is pure bunk.

  12. Mary says:

    26/27 – Well, at least one CIA source supposedly told a reporter that KSM was waterboarding for a minute and half (was that Kirakou or an unacknowledged source?) But they were at the time trying to spin that as “and then he never had to be waterboarded again” at the time. Of course, that would also be well beyond the “40 seconds” that the memo authorizes. But if you go with his “one hour” vs the 2002 memo (20 minute segments) and the 2005 memo (12 minute segements) (and Cregan believes KSM is more accurate than the memos or the videotapes) then you could still get 40 0r so waterboardings per hour session, times 5.

    I also should get better at including a snark reference now and then I guess. If they were going to FISct, the dealmaker on it all would normally have been the AG, not FBI Dir (although for an FBI program he might be involved in the factual recitation certifications of the application). There’s no way FISCt was going to let them be targetting a US Member of Congress, on the Intel committe no less, without the AG on that application. So Gonzales didn’t have to go to anyone – just not sign off. My take at least.

  13. JohnLopresti says:

    Maybe MCA, but I thought hilzoy and Marty were covering DTA drafts closely, research to verify maybe.

  14. Mary says:

    I’m trying not to have a reaction to pulling up my yahoo page and finding the duel highlighted headlines of “Obama tells CIA employees they must act scrupulously” and “Mexican drug cartel tells members to live ‘clean’ family lives”

  15. rosalind says:

    ot: live web cam of bald eagle and baby chick on catalina island. (the baby’s been popping in and out of view to the right of mama)

    link

  16. burqa says:

    The number for that John Kiriakou chap they trotted out was one as well.
    Remember, he came on the teevee and said Zubaida needed to be waterboarded only once before he spilled his guts.

    How does one round off the number 83 and come up with one?

    • cinnamonape says:

      “The number for that John Kiriakou chap they trotted out was one as well.
      Remember, he came on the teevee and said Zubaida needed to be waterboarded only once before he spilled his guts.

      How does one round off the number 83 and come up with one?”

      The FBI also stated that any valuable information he gave was without waterboarding at all. He “spilled his guts” literally, and out flowed a bunch of nonsense. At they kept it up. Notice that Kiriakou didn’t say that they stopped at one session.

      Suddenly Zubaydah was telling them information. True, it was “worthless information”…but it justified Bush claiming he was “#3 in Al Qaida”. The get to write lots of reports, these are sent back to the Intelligence Division who vet it. Then agents in the field are tasked to check into many of the claims, often at some risk to their lives. Other people are rounded up, “interrogated”, and in some cases eliminated when they don’t return “valid” intel.

      So it goes on and on.

      • burqa says:

        The FBI also stated that any valuable information he gave was without waterboarding at all. He “spilled his guts” literally, and out flowed a bunch of nonsense. At they kept it up. Notice that Kiriakou didn’t say that they stopped at one session.

        Yeah, notice the time between when he was captured and when the waterboarding began.
        Actionable tactical intelligence has a very brief shelf-life.

        Check the following from THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of It’s Enemies Since 9/11, by Ron Suskind, pages 116-117:

        “Zubayda said that al Qaeda was close to building a crude nuclear device. This sent shock waves through the government. But it was unconfirmable.
        A tried and true maxim: the only intelligence of value is that which can be independently confirmed. Interrogators, sending home one open-ended alert after another, pressed Zubaydah for the verifiable. They needed a body, a colleague. The captive wouldn’t give up one.
        Then there was a small break. A CIA interrogator, according to sources who monitored the program, was skilled in the nuances of the Koran, and slipped under Zubaydah’s skin. The al Qaeda operative believed in certain ideas of predestination – that things happen for reasons preordained. The interrogator worked this, pulling freely from the Koran. Zubaydah believed he had survived the attacks in Faisalabad, when several of his colleagues were killed, for a purpose. He was convinced that that purpose, in the fullness of time, was to offer some cooperation to his captors, something a dead man couldn’t do.
        And he did cooperate. He gave up one body: Jose Padilla.”

  17. Mary says:

    This is the same McCain who voted to nix limiting the CIA’s interrogation options – and he feels how, exactly about that?

    To revisit the McCain sellout on the DTA, this contemporaneous release from Amnesty International desceribing his crawl back:

    http://www.amnestyusa.org/amne…..id=1105051

    Just before Christmas last, President Bush and Senator John McCain appeared in the Oval Office to announce an historic ban on torture by any U.S. agency, anywhere in the world. Looking straight into the cameras, the president declared with a steely gaze that this landmark legislation would make it ”clear to the world that this government does not torture.”


    Then came that dramatic December 15th handshake between Bush and McCain, a veritable media mirage that concealed furious back-room maneuvering by the White House to undercut the amendment. A coalition of rights groups, including Amnesty International, had resisted the executive’s effort to punch loopholes in the torture ban but, in the end, the White House prevailed.
    …McCain himself inserted the first major loophole: a legal defense for accused CIA interrogators that echoes the administration’s notorious August 2002 torture memo allowing any agents criminally charged to claim that they ”did not know that the practices were unlawful.”

    Next, the administration effectively neutralized the McCain ban with Senator Lindsey Graham’s amendment stipulating that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot invoke U.S. law to challenge their imprisonment. …In sum, McCain’s original amendment banned torture, but Graham’s later amendment , as finally approved by the Senate, removed any means for enforcement.

    For the final loophole, on December 30 President Bush issued a ”signing statement” insisting that his powers as commander-in-chief and head of the ”unitary executive branch” still allowed him to do whatever is necessary to defend America–the same key controversial doctrine the administration had first used to allow torture.

  18. cregan says:

    Mr. Z, quote, “This went on for approximately one week. During this time, the whole procedure was repeated 5 times. On each occasion, I was suffocated once or twice and put into the vertical position in between.” That is very plain. That is what the man himself said, and he has no incentive to minimize. And, he was very detailed about everything else, so highly doubtful he forgot due to disorientation.

    What exactly was meant by the Bradbury memo, “used” 83 times, is not totally clear. For certain there is a clear conflict between what Z said and what people hear are interpreting the memo to say or mean.

    And yes, contrary to your snide comment, I do read and did and had read the memo and other docs. I am trying to bring up some truth and a clear conflict that brings the conclusions you say into question.

    Aside from that, number of times subjected to something is not any test of whether useful information was gained. The two are separate. Actually, I don’t think anyone here cares whether useful information was gotten or not.

    Here is another point, as Obama has shown, this whole activity can be stopped on a dime and former policy restored. Unfortunately, no such restoration can be done for the lives of those killed by AlQueda. They are gone permanently and completely. You might not care about 3,000, but what if it were 300,000? Personally, I could care less if KSM lost some sleep or stood up for a long time.

    Let’s reverse the scenario and get real: Does anyone doubt for a second that a captured US soldier would give up useful information to a captor if only subjected to the good cop/bad cop technique or a bright light in their face?? Unless you are telling me yes to that question, then don’t bother me by saying KSM or the like would give any information with any Army Field Manual techiniques.

    • bmaz says:

      For certain there is a clear conflict between what Z said and what people hear are interpreting the memo to say or mean.

      Well, that is your continued insistence; however, as described above, that is truly not necessarily the case. You have driven yourself into an assumptive definitional wilderness and are intent on not finding your way out. We can agree to disagree and leave it at that; but continuing to argue our paradigms with your divergent assumptions will not convince anyone.

    • Aeon says:

      I do read and did and had read the memo and other docs.

      You clearly hadn’t at the time of your wingnutty message @7. We know this because you repeated the “it came from a blogger” talking point that had just been broadcast by Rush Limbaugh.

      And if you want to take the word of a terrorist like Abu Z. over the CIA, then that is your problem.

      As for your:

      Let’s reverse the scenario and get real: Does anyone doubt for a second that a captured US soldier would give up useful information to a captor if only subjected to the good cop/bad cop technique or a bright light in their face?? Unless you are telling me yes to that question, then don’t bother me by saying KSM or the like would give any information with any Army Field Manual techiniques.

      KSM gave up all the good stuff before the “EIT”s were used against him.

      How about if reverse the scenario and postulate an American soldier being waterboarded by a terrorist group — would that be torture?

      • burqa says:

        Glad you finally came clean as a pro-torture kind of guy. Just so you know, the Greatest Generation were quite adept at getting information from Nazis through rapport building. Sorry to ruin your personal torture fantasies in a quest for a ticking time bomb, but they are just fantasies.

        Nice pull, Phred, I was loking at that article when you posted it.
        Here’s another quote from Suskind’s book, The One Percent Doctrine

        “As to the underlying issue of effectiveness, of determining what works, the FBI had ammunition to support its “meeting expectations” critique of the CIA’s brutal, impatient techniques. Agents passed around copies of a training manual that was discovered in November in the ruins of Mohammed Atef’s bunker in Kandahar. it informed al Qaeda recruits that if they were captured, they’d face torture, dismemberment, and certain death.
        What the captives didn’t expect, FBI interrogators knew from experience, was respect and judiciously offered favors. Coleman and FBI interrogators had successfully plied prisoners – like Wadi el Hage, a key player in the 1998 embassy bombings, or Jamal al Fadl, a close aide to bin Laden and Zawahiri who turned into a witness-stand star – with Chinese food, porn, and, in one case an operation for a captive’s wife. Agents were present when the grateful wife told her husband, “Now you tell them whatever they want.” He did.”

        Someone call for a professional? Here’s military interrogator Tony Lagournis, who admitted in his book, – FEAR UP HARSH An Army Interrogator’s Dark Journey Through Iraq, page 242-243:

        “I can’t speak of the efficacy of torture with authority. I never got intelligence using torture, but it is possible that I was a bad torturer and perhaps a bad interrogator. But since every debate about torture involves the question of whether it works, I’ll address the practicality of the issue as well as I can. A torturer can often get an innocent man to confess to murder. We know this from domestic cases of police interrogation. For example, in 2003, then Governor Ryan of Illinois exonerated four men on [243] death row who had confessed under torture to crimes they did not commit.
        But a confession, valid or invalid, is not intelligence. A confession is backward-looking and not the forward-looking kind of information a commander wants in the field, nor the kind of information an investigator needs to thwart a terrorist attack. The military is not requesting permission to torture, nor is the FBI. Our civilian leadership in Washington, not the professionals, wanted to legalize torture.
        I spoke to Joe Navarro, a retired FBI agent and an expert in the field of interrogation. Joe has had great success in gathering intelligence during interrogations and interviews without the use of torture. He outlined four main reasons why torture is ineffective. First, talk can’t be confused with truth. A torture victim will say anything, true or false, to get the pain to stop. Second, the stress pain creates confuses the subject and he simply can’t remember details well enough to produce good intelligence. Third, the torture subject may die or go into shock, in which case no information can be obtained from him. Finally, and perhaps most compelling, the torture victim, if he tells the interrogator anything at all, is likely to give one piece of information, or very little information, whereas a cooperative subject will talk and continue talking. Joe added that he believes that torture strengthens the resolve of the detainee, citing Senator John McCain, who, after having his shoulder torn from its socket by interrogators in Vietnam, was more determined than ever to keep his silence.”

        I have many more of these babies, do any of the pro-torture crowd have any professional military interrogators who support their view?

        • bmaz says:

          I was personally involved in a case where four separate innocent individuals, subjected to coercive techniques, confessed to the the brutal execution style murder of nine souls. Distinct from these four, another individual also confessed. All five, the four plus the one, were 100% guaranteed, without any question whatsoever, innocent. False confessions occur every day in every jurisdiction under circumstances far less oppressive than those imposed by the Bush regime. Only a fool would deny the fact that torture and unduly coercive techniques yield completely and inherently unreliable junk evidence. It is a fact.

    • burqa says:

      Let’s reverse the scenario and get real: Does anyone doubt for a second that a captured US soldier would give up useful information to a captor if only subjected to the good cop/bad cop technique or a bright light in their face?? Unless you are telling me yes to that question, then don’t bother me by saying KSM or the like would give any information with any Army Field Manual techiniques.

      Goodcop/bad cop is just one of the techniques that have proved wildly successful, contrary to your imagination.

      Here is Captain Kyle Teamey, professional military interrogator:

      When I was in the officer’s basic course, one of the instructors, only half-jokingly, proclaimed, “Beatings and drugs are for fun, not for information.” His point was you can get anyone to say anything you want through torture. Good information came from psychology, interpersonal skills, and long hours with your prisoner. The best interrogators I’ve worked with tended to be very good at reading people and very good at using their understanding of the person and their culture to get them to talk — no waterboarding required. . . .

      Here’s Lt. Col. Terry Daley, a Vietnam-era intelligence officer:

      I have yet to speak with an experienced, successful interrogator who advocates mistreating their subjects. As personally satisfying as it may seem to beat the hell out of detainees, it doesn’t usually get you what you want — accurate, reliable information that you can trust and upon which you can act….
      …I think we make a major strategic error when we support such would-be macho men as we see in this administration showing their supposed toughness by advocating torture, when we know it doesn’t work.

      Here is Matthew Alexander,military interrogator in Iraq:

      I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology — one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi….

      I await any quotes from professional military interrogators who recommend abuse and torture….

  19. Mary says:

    39 – if you had read the memo, you would have known that your allegation “This 266 was totally fabricated as ’showing through the redaction.’” was a lie.

    So you were trying to tell us that the 266 was a fabrication that EW made up as something that showed through a redaction, even though you had read it yourself and knew that she hadn’t made it up and it wasn’t showing through a redaction?

    uh huh. Good job on that bringing up the truth.

    Obama hasn’t shown that anything can be stopped on a dime and it’s a piece of nasty, foul mouthed nonsense to spew crap like “you might not care about 3,000″ That shows who and what you are.

    If someone where to use that kind of approach, I guess they’d have to say you apparently don’t care about the 300,000 that there has been in Iraq – because there is no question but that torture was used for the express purpose of ginning up the Iraq war. They tortured al-Libi to say there were training camps and you approve – good for you. Now go pat yourself on the back over the limbless and the lifeless in Iraq, both US and Iraqi, that your torture support wins you.

    And while you’re at it, by all means ignore the fact that torture wasn’t used to capture al-Qaeda and that it began to include all kinds of people, from the thousands of innocents subjected to it at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and other concentrated population camps in Iraq and Afghanistan to the hundreds of GITMO detainees that the CIA, the military, the FBI, and our courts have agreed were innocent detainees (including children, old men, crazy guys, bipolar london chefs, etc.) to the acknowledged “mistakes” like el-Masri that the CIA kidnapped and abused anyway, to the disappeared children of KSM.

    Don’t show up here out of the blue and say that “You might not care about 3,000″ It’s not only a lie, it’s an evil. One that’s on you for now.

  20. behindthefall says:

    The fact that interrogators from, say, the FBI, apparently, can extract information from a prisoner or suspect without the use of outright fear and pain is extraordinary, and it speaks to a (by me) unsuspected degree of fragility in our makeup. I could understand why “tough guys” would not even want to admit to themselves that such a thing was possible. “They had to drown me fifty times and pull my arms out of their sockets before I would tell them my name. Yeah. I showed ‘em.” Meanwhile, the FBI interrogator is saying, “Please sit down in the comfy chair.” It is hard to comprehend.

    • burqa says:

      The fact that interrogators from, say, the FBI, apparently, can extract information from a prisoner or suspect without the use of outright fear and pain is extraordinary, and it speaks to a (by me) unsuspected degree of fragility in our makeup. I could understand why “tough guys” would not even want to admit to themselves that such a thing was possible

      We see it every night on that 48 Hours show.
      What is not understood is what is sought is information freely given rather than confessions that come by way of coercion.
      The best German interrogator of World War II, Hanns Joachim Scharff never used violence and got intelligence from every Allied flier he interrogated.

      The February 2007 issue of Leatherneck magazine has a story on Major Sherwood “Pappy” Moran who, during WW II set what the USMC calls the “Gold Standard” for interrogation. His humane techniques are taught today because they were extraordinarily successful.

      The best British interrogator after WW II, a chap named Skardon didn’t abuse subjects.

      Other professional military interrogators such as Marney Mason, Peter Bauer, Travis W. Hall, Henry Kolm, Kyle Teamey and over a dozen others I could name all say the humane approach works phenominally well.
      So even if we set aside the most powerful argument against abuse or torutre of prisoners, the methods that work the best are humane, and they work far far better than abuse….

  21. Mary says:

    Let’s also look at what Gary Berntsen (CIA, on the ground leading the hunt in Afghanistan for Bin Laden, author if Jawbreaker) says about that need to torture for info:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/…..ntsen.html

    “Do you want to talk to us?” They’d give a prisoner a couple of minutes.
    They were looking for someone that would step forward and volunteer information.

    That actually occurs. Someone does step forward and provides information to a friendly intelligence service — not a U.S. service, but a friendly intel service — who then stops the follow-up attack to 9/11, the attacks in Singapore. They’re going to use 21 tons of explosives against the U.S., the Israeli, the Australian and British Embassies. That comes from one of the prisoners. … We had provided medical assistance to that man, and another service was talking to him, … and then he decided to cooperate. …

    Provided medical assistance and got payoff – like the FBI did when they provided medical assistance to Zubaydah.

    Provide torture and we get – the Iraq war and Bin Laden still loose and lots and lots of innocent people caught in lots of different crossfires.

  22. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Not forgetting the young, old and middle-aged angry man John McCain has always been, here’s another nod to Marcy’s good work, from Scott Horton. In the Torture Tango, from 9.49 am today, he writes (emph. added):

    What about the limits given in the Bybee memorandum? Did Bybee and Rizzo really believe these limits would be carefully observed? There is good reason to be skeptical of this claim. In fact, as Marcy Wheeler points out in a superlative post, the actual application of the techniques bears little resemblance to the ones that Rizzo is quoted describing to Bybee. Waterboarding, for instance, was applied to one prisoner 183 times in a single month. (Recall, by the way, that Michael Hayden assured Congress that its use was “extremely rare,” a claim that should be kept in mind when assessing the truthfulness of other increasingly shrill claims he is currently circulating in his drive to be Dick Cheney’s second.) The volume of water used and other conditions suggest no attention was paid to the Bybee memo. In essence, it appears that Rizzo was bargaining for a greenlight for the use of techniques, and was engaged in a sort of kabuki theater with Bybee. It would be critical to establish the totality of Rizzo’s communications with Bybee at this time, as well as whether earlier drafts were issued and circulated and what comments were secured. The repeated and jarring use of the word “you” in the opinion strongly suggests that the opinion was the product of an extended dialogue, and perhaps a negotiation. These facts would prove very interesting to a prosecutor examining this case.

    The “superlative post” of Marcy’s he refers to is here:
    http://emptywheel.firedoglake&…..one-month/

  23. cinnamonape says:

    BTW Cregan…since you are going to accept whatever the “terrorists” say instead of the CIA memos…then do you agree that KSM’s children were tortured in order to find out where he was hiding?

    Clearly there are some discrepancies between what the CIA claims occurred, what their rules were, and what those who were interrogated say occurred. I think that you’ll have to agree that the only way to get to the bottom of this is to hold hearings or prosecute the matter? Since the Executive branch and judiciary are clearly involved, I’m sure you would agree a special prosecutor is needed to “get to the bottom of this” to see whether any laws were broken.

  24. Mary says:

    The founding fathers knew that torture was the only way to get people to tell the truth – that’s why they enshrined Executive torture powers in our Constitution, Article 666.

    Do I need a /snark on that?

  25. Mary says:

    46 – go back and look at the “confessions” the FBI got out of Higazy (the Egyptian student here who they falsely accused of having had a ground to plane communications device that put him in contact with the al-Qaeda hijackers — and he confessed – – – then the pilot to whom the device belonged showed up looking for it…

  26. cregan says:

    The interview of Z says exactly what it says. He said it. I know for sure he was there. Bradbury wasn’t there. And what Bradbury meant by a use is not clear, nor does it mean it is true just because he said it.

    When the guy who was supposed to have been robbed says, “There’s no money missing and no robbery,” I tend to believe him. Unless you can point to some reason other than “disorientation” for him to say it was only once or twice suffocating–clearly meaning an application of water–on each occasion and there were 5 occasions, then there is no reason to think it is any different than he says. That is not interpreting anything. He was there, he is one person we know for certain knows what happened; and he said once or twice on five occasions. And, he has every incentive to say it was more times. So, I take the word of a guy I know was there.

    Do you have the direct word of someone else that we know for sure was there that says different than Z?

    That’s just like Joe Wilson says he found nothing in Niger when on Dec. 5, 2003 Meet the Press–which I saw and recorded–he says under pressure from Tim Russert after trying to avoid answering, “Yes, the (Niger) official said the only reason the Iraqi’s would have requested the meeting was to talk about uranium.” THAT’s a quote.

    I believe Joe Wilson. The second version

    I am still waiting for all the librarians to be rounded up as predicted by so many on blogs like this back a few years ago. Maybe they got waterboarded 266 times and don’t remember their arrest.

    300,000 killed as a result of the war is like the 266 waterboardings–highly exaggerated. Small compared with the 2 million Saddam killed during 20 years. Just like the 57,000 killed in Vietnam pales in comparison with the 3 million or more killed after we left SE Asia. But, what the hell, nobody cared about them either.

    Lastly, I don’t listen to Limbaugh. That “blogger” reference came from the NY Times article. But, it will likely go on to urban legend.

    • bmaz says:

      You don’t know shit from Shinola for sure, much less the facts you allege here. Keep opening you mouth and proving yourself a disingenuous fool. You are a pitiful troll unworthy of the attention from anyone here. Begone.

    • skdadl says:

      Bradbury wasn’t there. And what Bradbury meant by a use is not clear, nor does it mean it is true just because he said it.

      cregan, you are simply not reading. Bradbury didn’t say it. Bradbury quoted it.

      The figures come from the report of the inspector general of the CIA. Bradbury is quoting the inspector general of the CIA. Is there any other way we can put that so that you will grasp it?

      • emptywheel says:

        And to follow on skdadl’s point,the Inspector General of the CIA came up with that number after, among other things, watching what happened to AZ. So in your example, you’re saying the guy who got hit on the head and then robbed is more credible than someone watching the robbery that got caught by the security camera with a clear view of everything.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      I don’t think the comment you cite by Joe Wilson means what you think it does. It doesn’t contradict his other claims.

      Iraqis wanting to talk about obtaining uranium ore is one thing. Saddam wanted to write novels and defeat American arms, too; he wasn’t very good at either. It’s not the same thing as their finding a credible seller, able and willing to deliver it, nor is the same thing as Iraqis themselves being able to buy or take delivery of it. They had been under sanctions since 1991.

      The numbers you cite for Iraqis killed is not exaggerated either. Iraq body counts vary from about 100,000 dead to over a million, depending on who’s counting, what statistical inferences they make, and the kinds of deaths included. Plus wounded, plus US service personnel killed and wounded, many with long term brain injuries. There are two million more Iraqis displaced internally and the same number of refugees. The magnitude of the disaster is huge, as will be the costs in money and goodwill needed to fix it. And as Bush has done his whole life, he didn’t want to pay for any of it.

      There’s a reason Bush didn’t want to count Iraqi bodies and it wasn’t because he wanted to substitute credible operations for the PR of a high body count. He wanted a low body count; we were supposed to be liberators, not enemies or occupiers. At least that’s what he said in public, though Cheney’s energy task force’s opinions in private may not have jived with public comments.

    • Aeon says:

      Dittohead, you aint fooling anyone.

      I don’t listen to Limbaugh. That “blogger” reference came from the NY Times article. But, it will likely go on to urban legend.

      Unfortunately for you, the NYT article correctly attributed the number of waterboardings to the OLC memos — with credit given to EW.

      However, Limbaugh did make the same assertion that you did about the NYT saying that the number came from a blogger.

      Are you saying that Rush is cribbing from your act?

    • burqa says:

      I believe Joe Wilson.

      “That information was erroneous, and they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British White Paper and the president’s State of the Union address.”
      —–Ambassador Joseph Wilson, “Meet the Press,” July 6, 2003

      Can we return to the topic?
      Here’s the man who set the Marine Corps “Gold Standard” for prisoner interrogation, “Pappy” Moran, quoted on page 45 of the February 2007 edition of Leatherneck magazine:

      Moran believed that “despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them.”He firmly believed “stripping a prisoner of his dignity, treating him as a still-dangerous threat, forcing him to stand at attention and flanking him with armed guards… invariably backfired.”
      In 1943, Moran wrote, “Without exception it has been demonstrated time and again that a ‘human approach works.”…
      “…Capt. Moran forbade strong-arm methods, threats and contemptuousness. “You can get a ‘confession’ out of a man by bullying him, by practicing ‘third degree’ methods – but an intelligence officer is not interested in confessions,” he said. “He is after information, and it has been demonstrated time and again that a human approach works best.”

      Cregan, you got any professional military interrogators to support your view?

  27. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Let’s reverse the scenario and get real: Does anyone doubt for a second that a captured US soldier would give up useful information to a captor if only subjected to the good cop/bad cop technique or a bright light in their face?? Unless you are telling me yes to that question, then don’t bother me by saying KSM or the like would give any information with any Army Field Manual techiniques.

    If you’d rather not engage in informed dialogue, this is probably not a good site to comment on. It’s built on it, as well as on superlative analysis and often first-rate reporting, using original documents, in a way I think Izzy Stone would appreciate. (If only he’d had the Internet.) It’s honed in front of an audience as polite and uncritical as a dissertation committee.

    It doesn’t matter whether comments are from right or left, though obviously many commentators here claim progressive priorities. Unlike Fox Noise, it matters that you bring facts to the table, along with a context that suggests their importance. We sometimes make mistakes on our facts. Unlike Fox Noise, we admit them and re-evaluate our comments in light of them. This is not a convivial corner where opinions substitute for facts, though we have lots of those, too.

    Regarding interrogations of the enemy in what’s regarded as a time of war, fear of loss of life and limb is always the subtext, regardless of how apparently convivial the interrogator. Combine enough stress over enough time, and everyone but the suicidal will talk. But there are legal and illegal, as well as effective and ineffective ways to do it.

    The point repeatedly made here is that torture is illegal. The specific techniques discussed in these memos, waterboarding in particular, have been regarded as torture since the Middle Ages. As Scott Horton points out, there are US legal precedents against its use since at least 1903, in a case involving waterboarding by soldiers in the occupied Philippines.

    One occurrence is as illegal as 183 of them. One, it could be argued, was a mistake. Three a conspiracy. A hundred eighty-three, and you have deep corruption in those who claim to protect us.

  28. eagleye says:

    I don’t know who Jeff Stein’s sources are for his story on Jane Harman, but presumably they are former Bush administration officials who had knowledge of the content of her wiretapped phone calls, and now they don’t mind making some trouble for Democrats. But isn’t it a crime for a former FBI or CIA or DOJ agent to reveal the details of a covert wiretap? So why aren’t the wingnuts on the Right all wound up and furious about this serious breach of security and protocol by whistleblowers?

  29. Mary says:

    56 – just keep right on showing how little you read in those memos. Bradbury wasn’t there – the CIA officials who provided the number to him were, and there were videotapes as well, together with IG support. But you’d know all that, since you read the memos.

    At least now you are agreeing that the official Dept of Justice fact recitation of waterboardings, based on CIA representations, IG investigation and videotapes, as set forth in the memos (and not as some made up something that might have been under a redaction) is 266.

    It’s just you think Zubaydah did a better job keeping count while he was drowning.

  30. Mary says:

    A bit non-sequitor, but one reason I also went to the Berntsen info @ 48 is that it certainly sounds to me as if the CIA/Bradbury were trying to take credit for KSM being the sourcing on info of the Singapore attacks but as Berntsen’s info and other info from the wiki link reveal, that info came from a lot of other non-torture sources.

  31. Mary says:

    71 – thanks for that too. I also liked the link to Zelikow’s bit at Foreign Policy where he goes through the possible options and why it’s a bad idea to make Presidential pronouncements now, before the record is complete

    http://shadow.foreignpolicy.co…..t_politics

    But while he makes a fair listing of options, I had to shake my head at this:

    Or you have option #5, in which the president does not exercise his pardon power but instead, in effect, tells his attorney general what conclusions he should reach about whether federal officials broke the law.

    Can you imagine what folks would say if a Republican president exercised option #5?

    Umm, yeah? Because unless you are assigning him another party affiliation, this is exactly what Bush did. And what did folks say Philip?

  32. MadDog says:

    Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer, on this evening’s BBC World News America just now said this (I’m paraphrasing):

    “The interrogator who waterboarded KSM is himself now a broken man. For a variety of reasons, including the KSM interrogation.”

  33. Mary says:

    OT – but I missed this:

    Miliband apologizes and antes up 13 new documents re Binyam Mohamed

    THE government has apologised to two High Court judges after discovering that an MI5 officer misled them over the case of a British terrorist suspect allegedly tortured while in America’s extraordinary rendition programme.

    Lawyers for David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said it was “a matter of great regret” that during “a full and independent review of the case” they had uncovered 13 new documents suggesting that the official account of Britain’s knowledge of what was happening to Binyam Mohamed was inaccurate.

    The documents reveal as false the claim by a senior MI5 manager, known as witness A, in the High Court last year that the last information MI5 received from the CIA about Mohamed’s whereabouts was in February 2003.

    Unlike here in the states, apparently committees actually get somewhere in Britain

    The new documents were unearthed after detailed questioning of MI5 by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Two documents were initially discovered, prompting government lawyers to order further searches of MI5 and MI6 files.

  34. Mary says:

    76 – If that’s true, it is that much more so sad that the CIA and administrations involved have decided on “remorseless” as the appropriate response to their torture involvement. It won’t take anyone anywhere closer to peace.

  35. Hmmm says:

    Feinstein’s Time-Out! letter to Obama, per Spencer:

    Dear Mr. President:

    I am writing to respectfully request that comments regarding holding individuals accountable for detention and interrogation related activities be held in reserve until the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is able to complete its review of the conditions and interrogations of certain high value detainees.

    This study is now underway, and I estimate its completion within the next six to eight months. A study of the first two detainees has already been completed and will shortly be before the committee.

    Sincerely Yours,

    Dianne Feinstein

    United States Senator

  36. Mary says:

    Obama is still not backing off the position that GITMO lawyer, Stafford-Smith, should face jail for … sending Obama a memo censored by his own DOD.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..172JDM.DTL

    This is not a decision made by Bush that Obama was somehow “stuck with.”

    This is all Obama.

  37. Mary says:

    Additional follow up on the “lost docs” and perjury misinformation that Miliband is having to admit

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..rture.html

    However, the new apology, which comes in a letter from Treasury Solicitor David Mackie to High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, reveals the Government’s previous disclosures were far from complete.
    The correspondence, dated April 9, admits to nine previously undisclosed documents. A further four were found last Friday.
    Mr Mackie’s letter says: ‘I am writing to inform the Court that nine documents that should have been disclosed as relevant to these proceedings have recently been identified.
    ‘Their disclosure at this stage is a matter of great regret. We offer our apologies on behalf of all concerned.’
    The letter says the documents came to light after Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee asked MI5 detailed questions about Mohamed’s case.

    Former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis described the new revelations as ‘frankly astonishing’.

    He added that the Government, MI5 and MI6 had ‘misled the court not in some minor way but over the major issue of the torture of Binyam Mohamed that is at the heart of this case.

    ‘The use of the phrase “selected for disclosure” indicates that some of this was deliberate.
    ‘Either this was action in bad faith, amounting to a cover-up, or evidence of such unbelievable incompetence that it calls the trust we place in these agencies into question

    Stafford Smith did offer to help MI5 and MI6 out with information on how to maintain a filing system – provided Obama hasn’t had him jailed.

    more here
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..e-evidence

    and it looks like the 42 docs are going to be revisited, what with the competing Miliband testimony to the High Court (the US won’t share intel if we air their torture secrets) v. Parliament (what what? I never said the US wouldn’t share intel)

    Lawyers for Mohamed and the media, led by the Guardian, will urge the high court tomorrow to release at least a summary of 42 documents which shed light on what MI5 knew about the treatment of Mohamed and other detainees. It is believed they will show who in government, including officials in 10 Downing Street, implicitly approved of the treatment.

  38. Hmmm says:

    Oh man, everybody’s getting in on the action now. I can’t bring myself to provide the link to Fox News, but you can find it on the TPM front page:

    In an interview with FOX News’ Sean Hannity to be aired on “Hannity” Monday night, Cheney questioned the point of releasing the legal decisions behind the interrogations but not the outcome of them.

    “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said.

    Cheney said he’s asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand.

    “I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” Cheney said. “I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.”

    Cheney’s interview at his home in McLean, Va., came just hours before President Obama traveled to nearby Langley, Va., to offer CIA employees his “full support” in their mission.

    Interview runs at the top of the hour.

  39. prostratedragon says:

    Is this another patented Chenyian masterstroke*? By way of the news side of TPM:

    Cheney Calls for Release of Memos Showing Results of Interrogation Efforts

    “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said.

    Cheney said he’s asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand.

    “I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” Cheney said. “I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.”

    ====
    * It should go without saying that I think the man is overrated as a strategist, though he might have other skills.

    • MadDog says:

      Shorter Cheney: “Torture works! I watch those videos every…ahmmm…I watched those videos…ahmmm…somebody somewhere told me something and I believe ‘em.”

      • Hmmm says:

        Dear Mr. Cheney,

        You may be confused by the fact that, on the one hand, the memos you received reporting on interro-torture results and, on the other hand, the OLC memos defining purportedly legal limits on interro-torture techniques, both contain the word “memo” in their names. Contrary to this similarity in naming, the two types of documents are actually extremely different as to origin, authority, and legal implications for their readers. However you will be glad to learn that both are also very similar, in the sense that they both serve as clear evidence of the planning and execution of grave crimes.

        Sincerely,

        — Hmmm

      • prostratedragon says:

        ‘Zakly8>

        You know, I’ve long suspected the guy had the ability to dislodge his own head and hand it over. Could this be that amazing moment?

  40. Mary says:

    84 – isn’t that what “mistakes were made” and “we Americans are better than anyone else” is long hand for?

    After saying Kappes and Brennan are his go-to guys, and joshing up all the cutesy youngsters at CIA willing to go hazing he says:

    What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it’s expedient to do so. That’s what makes us different.

    So, yes, you’ve got a harder job. And so do I. And that’s okay, because that’s why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we’re on the better side of history.

    That example he gave of upholding our values and ideals even when it’s hard? Ducking out on prosecution of torturers.

    Gosh – if we didn’t have a President strong enough to do that and an America exceptional enough to require that we disenfranchise our laws, Constitution, treaties, morality and humanity to tell the world that our torture is “different” than theirs, I just don’t know where we’d be today.

    • Hmmm says:

      Someone is going to ask the Prez the Nürnberg question before very long, and I don’t see how he’s going to be able to answer viably.

  41. Mary says:

    91 – I kind of think they have – I might be wrong on that though. I thought there was some kind of question on just following orders and he gave his nonsequitor – we need to look forward kind of non-answer.

  42. cregan says:

    Earl of Huffington you talk about facts and documents,etc. and then you give me only opinions. I hope that is not the high level discussion you are referring to.

    You see, someone, me, brings us a document coming from a credible source that contradicts what everyone here is saying. Yet, everyone doesn’t take even a second to pause and consider it.

    They didn’t take a second to ponder how far fetched the figure of 183 waterboardings was to begin with. I don’t care who seemed to say it.

    So, on one hand, you have a second hand figure (because you don’t know how the IG arrived at that figure or exactly what it meant). YOu are assuming a lot of things. That second hand figure stretches the bounds of credulity. To water board a person 183 times in 5 days (as it seems everyone agrees 5 is period of days) is quite unrealistic to begin. THEN, you have direct testimony from individuals who have EVERY reason to exaggerate the number of times they were waterboarded, and they say it was more like 10 to 15 times each. In VERY plain language.

    The fact they have no reason to downplay the number of times they were waterboarded lends tremendous credibility to what they say on the subject. I don’t care how many times you were waterboarded, you would know the difference between 15 times and 183 times. It is NOT believable that they could not tell that difference. Maybe the difference between 15 and 20 might be attributable to trauma, etc. But not between 15 and 183.

    You can believe whatever you want. You seem inclined to believe whatever fits your viewpoint.

    Lastly, I am sorry to disapppoint you, but you can’t use the Limbaugh thing to keep from facing the conflict of facts. I didn’t listen to Limbaugh and I don’t listen to him. Read the NY Times article posted on MSNBC and see what it says for yourself.

    What do I think of the Nurenberg trials? You mean you are asking me to equate the killing of 6 million people in a systematic machine designed solely for that purpose and the hangings, shootings, electricutions, gassings, medical experiments and confiscation of Jewish property, art, gold fillings and skin lamps and other such things with depriving KSM of some sleep and slapping him in the face??

    Or maybe you mean comparing it with how we rounded up all the librarians and checked the books everyone was reading? Oh wait, that never happened.

    Except for Congress trying to dictate what people make and confiscating their earnings after the fact, or the Department of Homeland Security issuing a report that basically implies the opposition party are extremists that should be watched, or the chief advisor to the current President saying that the protests of last week were “unhealthy” (can you imagine Bush saying such a thing and getting no response?), I still think the Constitution is very much in place. At least for now.

    • phred says:

      10 paragraphs and not even a passing mention of burqa’s request for quotes from professional military interrogators that support your pro-torture views. So much for your rigorous citation of documented facts. Pathetic.

      • burqa says:

        10 paragraphs and not even a passing mention of burqa’s request for quotes from professional military interrogators that support your pro-torture views.

        I’m sure there must be plenty out there.
        I still have a nice stockpile of quotes by other professional mlitary interrogators, but it’s only fair to give cregan a shot to put his out there so we can compare to the several I already posted….

      • burqa says:

        Aw, shucks, Phred, I can’t resist.
        Above, I gave a quote from the Leatherneck article on “Pappy” Moran, USMC. Moran landed on Guadalcanal and was credited with an interrogation that confirmed the large Japanese force poised to stike on what i now known as Edson’s Ridge.
        Here’s more from the article:

        “Moran used his experiences in the campaign to write “Suggestions for Japanese Interpreters Working in the Field,” which has become one of the “timeless documents” in the field and a “standard read” for insiders, according to the Marine Corps Interrogator Association (MCITTA), a group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel. MajGen Michael E. Ennis, former director of Marine Corps Intelligence, has gone even further, saying Moran’s reports are the “gold standard” of interrogation techniques…

        “Herbert C. Merillat, 1stMarDiv historian, described Moran as “a delightful man, full of bounce and verve at God knows what age. Bald, blue-eyed, wearing thick-rimmed spectacles, which often rested halfway down his nose as he peered at the person he was talking to, he had a penetrating voice crackling with energy. He admired the subtleties of the Japanese language. His own mastery of it and his sympathetic manner seemed to put at ease the prisoners he interrogated.”
        Merillat observed that Pappy occasionally interrupted a captured soldier to compliment him: “How well [you] said that. What a nice phrase [you] used,” which often surprised the prisoner, who expected to be killed….
        “…. He considered “a prisoner as out of the war, out of the picture, and thus, in a way, not an enemy. When it comes to the wounded, the sick … I consider that since they are out of combat for good, they are simply needy human beings, needing our help, physically and spiritually. This is the standpoint of one human being thinking of another human being. But in addition, it is hard business common sense, and yields rich dividends from the intelligence viewpoint.”
        “….. Moran’s philosophy of interrogation was proven time and again in the form of actionable intelligence that saved lives on the battlefield.”

        and,

        “Moran left us with an enduring philosophy, one that clearly defined his concepts for dealing with the complexities of interrogation techniques. Despite the fact that he developed the philosophies more than 60 years ago, his wisdom is not hidden away in some dusty archive. They are in use today.
        “The Marine Corps is devoting tremendous time and energy to enhancing interrogation methods, and the techniques being taught are similar to those developed and used so successfully by Sherwood Moran in World War II,” Brigadier General Richard M. Lake, the director of Marine Corps Intelligence, said….
        “Cultural knowledge can be a huge plus for effective interrogation,” said Barak A. Salmoni, the deputy director of CAOCL [Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning]. Marines at the school are taught “informational, informal interviewing techniques,” much as Moran stressed. “Hard” methods are not effective, according to Salmoni, who added, “Remember, Iraqis have lived in a world of terror and intimidation for 30 plus years, thus threats [and] intimidation are not effective with them.”

        • acquarius74 says:

          burqa, your comment here deserves to be a front page diary! It shoots down every pathetic argument for torture that Cheney & Co. spout. He’s at it again per BBC news last night. BBC quoted Marcy’s numbers and showed a pic of the memo with 2 lines highlited (too small to read). Here is BBC video The timing of BBC’s quoted numbers makes it obvious that they picked up on Marcy’s discovery, but BBC does not give her credit.

        • burqa says:

          burqa, your comment here deserves to be a front page diary! It shoots down every pathetic argument for torture that Cheney & Co. spout.

          Thanks, acquarius.
          I have more to come.
          On any subject, I believe one should consult the best experts in the field before taking a position, and if one disagrees, one should alter one’s opinion.
          What is not understood by the pro-torture crowd, whether it be “Whatta” Dick B. Cheney or cregan here, is that humane interrogation methods are extremely successful and always have been; whereas torture and other coercive methods consistently yield poor results that not only fail to get the truth, but also tend to waste limited intelligence resources by sending them to tack down false leads when they are desperately needed elsewhere…

        • acquarius74 says:

          Thank you, burqa. I’m so sorry I didn’t return to this thread so didn’t see your additional info. Did you see my today’s (Wed 4/22) diary (article) on Oxdown Gazette? It’s your comment above about Pappy Moran. I gave you full credit. It made the Top Ten at Oxdown. And it made page 1 on Google’s menu when I searched for ’successful interrogation methods’. We’re gonna be famous!!! (heh, heh)

          This has got to get out, burqa. I’m very serious. You are obviously a very skilled writer and researcher, therefore I wish you would write diaries and not let your comments just be read by a few. (Now anyone who Googles for interrogation, or interrogation methods will see our article. Pappy deserves to regain his rightful place as ‘the best of the best’, let’s me-’n-you see that it happens, o.k.?

          I’m fighting with my printer so I can use your later comments and names. It prints out so small I need a microscope a foot thick! I’ve read the instructions but can’t get my print dialog box out of ‘default’ choices. Oh well, have to dream up Plan B.

          Thanks for all you do, burqa.

        • burqa says:

          Thanks, acquarius.
          You are too kind.
          I am unfamiliar with this site and like the idea, suggested by Phred as well, of putting it all in one place and Oxdown seems a good location.
          Since what I have is extensive, are there limits to the length of a single post?
          I’m toodling over there now to take a look at what you posted…

        • acquarius74 says:

          burqa, I don’t know about any limits; don’t recall seeing anything about that in the few instructions you’ll see listed just above where you write your diary.

          Here’s a few rules I do know:

          Never post a source in its entirety (copyright laws);
          Give full credit to your source (name, etc., and link if possible)
          Other things I don’t need to tell you, like no profanity or character assassination, etc.

          To include a video or picture in your diary you need to install flickr I installed it but can’t yet make it work. (duh)

          Go for it!

    • Hmmm says:

      What do I think of the Nurenberg trials? You mean you are asking me to equate the killing of 6 million people in a systematic machine designed solely for that purpose and the hangings, shootings, electricutions, gassings, medical experiments and confiscation of Jewish property, art, gold fillings and skin lamps and other such things with depriving KSM of some sleep and slapping him in the face??

      Or maybe you mean comparing it with how we rounded up all the librarians and checked the books everyone was reading? Oh wait, that never happened.

      No, I didn’t mean either of those and would never suggest either of them. I did mean whether you think saying “I was just following orders” is a proper defense to a war crime prosecution in cases where there is evidence that the crime actually occurred. Because in Nürnberg the world said no, and that is still the law.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      It’s always all about you, isn’t it? Don’t believe your “lying eyes” then. It is good to know that EW’s posts – and more importantly, the issues raised in them – are getting this much attention.

      • acquarius74 says:

        earl, please see my #107. Marcy got the world’s attention but sadly the less than ethical press (not all) fails to give her credit. Nevertheless, the credit is her’s, and she just may have had the key that opens the door to more enlightenment about that whole unspeakable torture program.

        Notice that Bush is so far silent on this, but Cheney is barking loudly? He wants the CIA to declassify and release the papers showing the great success of the torturing.

        The link in my 107 is just a clip, but the full video at Huffpo is so bad I could not watch it.

        This deserves one of you fine diaries, earl. How about it?

  43. burqa says:

    Arguing over the number of times someone was waterboarded and trying to chart it out just shows the banality of evil we see in the memos and in the attempted justifications of the sort of cruel treatment of prisoners our country has stood against for over 200 years.

    Arguing that waterboarding is not torture conveniently sidesteps the issue of whether it is legal according to our laws, which include the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the values many of us were taught America stood for.

    Since the first European settlers arrived on these shores, we have fought those who tortured and did quite well, thank you.
    I read a lot of history and I am unaware of any time where we were defeated in battle because one of these enemies tortured vital information out of an American who was taken captive.

    There are two arguments against waterboarding and other prisoner abuse.
    One is the moral question as to whether this represents the kind of moral values hundreds of thousands of Americans have died to preserve.
    The other is whether it works very well, in contrast to humane approaches.
    I am still waiting to read where a professional military interrogator says waterboarding and abuse of prisoners works anywhere near as well as other techniques…

  44. cregan says:

    First, you all must think I have nothing better to do than read every single posting on the board. I am busy with the normal things of life, family and work; I simply don’t have the time to read every single post here, most of which simply repeat each other.

    So, no mention of burqa’s request for quotes, etc. was made for that reason. Had I seen it, I likely would not have responded anyway.

    The question here is simple. Do you have some interest in the truth of something, or merely parroting something you agree with to begin?

    I have found that you cannot really argue with someone who has their mind made up–it is like arguing with the President of Iran about Israel.

    On one hand, you have a very unrealistic, and far fetched claim–no matter the source, use your own common sense–that someone was waterboarded essentially 30 something times every day for 5 days. Something no person would ever forget (if it were even possible to do in the first place).

    On the other hand, you have the direct testimony of a person that we ALL know was actually there. Bradbury wasn’t there. The IG wasn’t there. How the IG came up with the figure is speculation. (I have heard that people make mistakes)

    Their direct testimoney, which the Red Cross and the interviewer believes and gives great credibility, says more like 1 or 2 or 3 times each day.

    None of you are stupid enough to believe that a person who had been waterboarded 30 times a day for 5 days would every forget it or neglect to mention it to the one organization he knows will get the truth out.

    Does it matter whether it was 30 times a day or 3 times a day? Only if the truth matters to you. It doesn’t change the right or wrong of the argument regarding torture, but it does matter to your own integrity.

    This was the central question.

    The question of whether the interrogation methods work is one which actual investigators in Congress will work out using actual information and not quotes and rumors, etc. I will go by that, yes or no. Will you?

    I should say this whole thing reminds me of the famous Downing Street Memo. The “smoking gun” etc.

    In reality, it was what one guy thought another guy said in a meeting about what he heard another person told him that a person he saw in Washington thought that his higher ups were thinking.

    And, also misunderstood what “fixed around” meant. ( maybe similar to ‘uses’ here) Fixed around simply meant in common usage “organized around” not fixing intelligence.

    Now, that is real evidence!

    • Hmmm says:

      Your analysis of secondary & tertiary sources and your interpretation of British English usage is real evidence. Riiiight.

    • burqa says:

      First, you all must think I have nothing better to do than read every single posting on the board… I simply don’t have the time to read every single post here, most of which simply repeat each other.
      So, no mention of burqa’s request for quotes, etc. was made for that reason. Had I seen it, I likely would not have responded anyway.
      The question here is simple. Do you have some interest in the truth of something, or merely parroting something you agree with to begin?

      Understood.
      There’s no rush, but it would be nice if you would commit to responding when you can.
      You are missing the question I am raising.

      The question of whether the interrogation methods work is one which actual investigators in Congress will work out using actual information and not quotes and rumors, etc. I will go by that, yes or no. Will you?

      Of course not, and the reason is the issue I am raising with you on torture which is why I requested anything you may have from professional military interrogators as to its efficacy.

      I do not regard members of congress or their flatfoot investigators to be as qualified on the subject as veteran, highly successful professional interrogators; any more than they are more qualified than, say, a Joe Montana is on the subject of winning the Super Bowl.
      I believe the way to go before reaching a conclusion on a subject is to get as much information from the best sources available, and then decide.
      Do you have any such standard?

      I opened with post #52 where I named several such professional military interrogators.
      One was William Skardon.
      Skardon was the best interrogator MI5 had after World War II. They had very little to hang Klaus fuchs with, until Skardon got ahold of him. Skardon was quite nice to those he questioned and was highly successful. He not only got Fuchs to confess, but Fuchs spilled the beans on another spy, Harry Gold, the investigation of whom led the fuzz to the Rosenbergs.

      In post #49, Phred linked to a story that quoted several of them who interrogated German prisoners in World War II.

      In post #58 I quoted from a book describing the successful interrogation of Abu Zubaida before he was waterboarded.

      In post # 64 I quoted professionals Kyle Teamey, Terry Daley and Matthew Alexander.

      In post #72 I posted a description of the successful interrogations of Wadi al Hage, Jamal al Fadl and another unnamed terrorist carried out by the FBI interogators working under the G-men’s top al Qaeda guy, Dan Coleman.
      I then proceeded to quote from professional military interrogator Tony Lagournis on torture and interrogation; who then gave a great description of why torture is a bad way to go given to Lagournis by ace FBI interrogator Joe Navarro.

      In posts #74 and #99 I quoted from the Leatherneck article on “Pappy” Moran, who set the “gold standard” for USMC interrogation. I’ll add here that he was so successful that his reports were widely distributed throughout the Pacific during World War II as a model to follow.

      So, cregan, do you have anyone with the expertise of those professionals to base your opinion upon?
      And if not, wouldn’t it be wise to align your opinion on the efficacy of torture versus humane interrogation techniques with the best experts in the field?

      So far I have deployed:
      William Skardon,
      the pre-torture interrogator of Zubaidah,
      Kyle Teamey,
      Terry Daley,
      Matthew Alexander,
      Dan Coleman and FBI interrogators,
      Tony Lagournis,
      Joe Navarro,
      “Pappy” Moran.

      ………………………………………..and you have….?

      • phred says:

        By the way burqa, I have really appreciated all of the effort you have gone to cite all of those sources. I got a lot out of it, even if others didn’t take the time to read them ; ) Thanks!

  45. cregan says:

    Hmmm, you see you are off base. I wasn’t the one who talked, like Earl of Huffington, about all the extensive evidence, etc. I wasn’t boasting of evidence like others.

    I was simply pointing out the sometimes flimsy nature of the so called evidence used on blogs.

    I am not saying that 183 is not possible. It might be. I am only saying that given the choice between what the guy himself says in a situation of great importance to him and what some memo writer or report says, I’ll take what the guy who was there says. Especially when he had every reason and motivation to say it was 183 or an even higher number, but, rather said something much more believable.

    As far as evidence goes, I’d believe that before some report or memo.

    But, I must say, being involved in government is getting very tricky. Too many, on both the right and left want to make the other side into criminals. How are the people in Obama’s administration to know that some right wing administration coming into office in the future will not retroactively go after them because the policy on something they did changed?

  46. cregan says:

    Discovered nothing really. Yes, she should get credit for reading a memo. But honest journalism calls for bringing up the conflict with the detainees own testimony.

    As in other similar “club” blogs where everyone pats each other on the back and drink the same tea, contrary evidence is ignored. It doesn’t fit with the close minded mind set of the blog and so is ignored or put down with jokes, etc.

    This is true of both left and right blogs. Left blogs are no more open minded than any right wing blog.

  47. phred says:

    Discovered nothing really

    Willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of. If you have learned nothing here it is only because you choose to believe what you wish, facts be damned.

    I trust that whenever and wherever Americans are tortured that you will continue to cheer it on from the sidelines as you have done here.

    The rest of us meanwhile will continue to oppose the brutal treatment of prisoners wherever it occurs and will continue to call for the investigation and prosecution of those who procure it and carry it out.

  48. cregan says:

    But, Phred, will you take credit for the dead when another attack occurs that might have been avoided?

    If you want to take credit for taking the tool away, you have to take some credit for the possible consequence. Yes, an attack might not have been prevented by interrogation of this type, but what if it had?

    The guy is telling you, “Soon you will see” when you ask him nicely. You keep asking nicely and good copping and bad copping and still get nothing and then shortly after, the attack happens and you pass by his cell and he says, “See, now you know.”

    Are you willing to take credit for that also?

    • phred says:

      You keep telling us you can read, but there is no evidence of it.

      Torture. Does. NOT. Work.

      But that doesn’t matter to depraved people like you. So you make assertions based on false premises to justify your grotesque immorality.

      We had sufficient information prior to the 9-11 attacks to have prevented them, without torturing a soul or using illegal wiretaps. But the morons you elected were too busy trying to gin up a war in Iraq to pay attention to real threats to our country.

      You can repeat your lies over and over again, but it won’t make them true. Perhaps rather than spending your days watching reruns of 24, you could spend some quality time in a library or better yet a church.

  49. cregan says:

    Phred, you are assuming a lot. How do you know it doesn’t work? Do you have ALL the information, or just what those who are against torture have released? You only want me to read the material that supports your position and not anything else? I’ve read things that say it doesn’t work, and I’ve read things that say and show it does.

    You never question your sources. If it agrees with your viewpoint, you accept it without question. What example can you give of some report or quote that was against torture that you questioned? Not one I would guess.

    Who said I voted for Bush? Again, an unfounded assumption on your part. You need to really dig in and not sloganier.

    However, I think it is the very fact that torture can reveal information not otherwise obtainable (that would weaken terrorists) that makes you object to it so strongly.

    Besides, I don’t think it is torture. No sleep. Loud noise. Slap to the face. made to stand. Being naked. Waterboarding. As a former POW debriefer said in the LA Times today, “the one thing I learned from water boarding is that it makes you think you are going to drown, but doesn’t really hurt you.”

    I do object to slamming against the wall, even if flexible. As the memo states, the idea is to make the person think he is being hurt by the sound, even though he is not. That is too close to beating. That I do object to.

    I like the morality of saving the lives of the general population as opposed to making KSM comfortable. That to me is a good moral trade off in this non-black and white world.

    I think we are going to see plenty of instances where the interrogations produced valuable information as real data continues to come out. One example came to light to today when the CIA spokesman confirmed the data in the memo that KSM gave information that led to the capture of Hambali and others only after water boarding. That one man, Hambali, had he not been caught, could have killed hundreds–as he already had.

    Try telling the mother of a victim of Hambali why you were very intent on keeping your morality in tack and so you are sorry her daughter had to die, but your morality was more important.

    You should read Lincoln’s explanation of the suspension of the writ of habeus to get some insight.

    You are not living in a movie. There is no guarantee that the democracies and the good guys therein will win. There is no guarantee that the Taliban and Al queda and Iranian view will not win. The world has sunk into a Dark Ages before after civilization. Not all the modern institutions in existence can guarantee it will not again.

    You are willing to gamble all of our futures to maintain some theoretical morality. Even now, the terrorists have won. Not from Librarians being rounded up by Bush, but because they demanded we change our policies more toward their way of seeing things, and we have. What concession is next in order to beg them off hating us or hurting us?

    • phred says:

      Well cregan you finally got something right and it only took you to comment #116. No I am not living in a movie.

      You are, however. You love the fictional scenario of a ticking time bomb. You don’t believe things are torture if you don’t want to — just like Rumsfeld. Not a good role model if you ask me, but I digress…

      Unlike you I am not a coward. The world is not a safe place, but I am willing to risk living in a free society rather than submit to living in the Soviet gulag system you so desire.

      I guess that’s what makes me proud to be an American. It isn’t about the flag, it’s about the Constitution. With the Constitution intact, I have nothing to fear, but fear itself. Pick up a copy sometime. After you read it, you might feel better, but it’s a better read in the broad light of day, rather than quaking under a bed with a flashlight.

  50. cregan says:

    Burqa, thanks for your post. I appreciate your points. I agree there is a question to be investigated on this. And a real answer is required.

    To me, the statements from professional interrogators has some value, but it is not a complete picture. For me, the question boils down to:

    What information was obtained from KSM and Z after the higher pressure methods were used that was not before. Was the information real and did it result in anything?

    Now, it is said, but not verified yet, that the interrogation of one lead to the capture of the other. If that’s true, and the information was not disclosed using gentle methods, then I would say that is a result. The “expert” can say all he wants, but the proof is in the pudding. Was the information volunteered before? Was it only volunteered after?

    One thing I very much agree with you on is that the normal, usual Army Field Manual methods should be thoroughly and exhaustively used (assuming you have the time) when the person is first captured. All that can be gotten in that way should. If you have done that, can get nothing more, but there is evidence or certainly the person knows more that is important, then you have a decision to make. You would side with not going to a higher pressure method. I would. That is where we part ways.

    Democrats have every reason to issue a report that says torture doesn’t work. Therefore, to me, if they issue a report that it does, it is likely believable. The most likely scenario to me is a report which says that some valuable information was obtained during high pressure interrogation, but that maybe it could have been obtained some other way. I think it is a near certainly Democrats will never issue a report saying torture works no matter now many plots might have been foiled (if there were any) or people captured.

    Yeah, I think the pro interrogators have some place in the mix, but it is not definitive. What is definitive for me is what I stated above. That may not work for others.

    • burqa says:

      Burqa, thanks for your post. I appreciate your points. I agree there is a question to be investigated on this. And a real answer is required.
      To me, the statements from professional interrogators has some value, but it is not a complete picture. For me, the question boils down to:
      What information was obtained from KSM and Z after the higher pressure methods were used that was not before. Was the information real and did it result in anything?

      There are two main questions on a national policy of using tortue or other coercive techniques. One is the moral question as to whether this is the sort of thing our nation stands for or against. We can get to that one later.
      The other is the efficacy of these techniques in comparison with what I refer to as humane techniques.
      The best judge of how well these techniques work are the professionals in the field and what they say deserves close scrutiny. They do indeed give a better picture than focusing on one tree at the expense of missing the entire forest.
      In terms of the interrogations of Zubaidah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I have posted on what worked with Zubaidah in post #58.

      As for Mohammed, here is what abuse and torture led to:

      “… Ultimately, however, Mohammed claimed responsibility for so many crimes that his testimony became to seem inherently dubious. In addition to confessing to the Pearl murder, he said that he had hatched plans to assassinate President Clinton, President Carter, and Pope John Paul II. Bruce Riedel, who was a C.I.A. analyst for twenty-nine years, and who now works at the Brookings Institution, said, “It’s difficult to give credence to any particular area of this large a charge sheet that he confessed to, considering the situation he found himself in. K.S.M. has no prospect of ever seeing freedom again, so his only gratification in life is to portray himself as the James Bond of jihadism.” ”
      “The Black Sites A rare look inside the CIA’s secret interrogation program,” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, August 13, 2007, page 11

      Mohammed’s false confession led to the diversion of limited, valuable resources, which could be considered a victory for the terrorists because it removed many intelligence officers from their trail.
      The same thing happened with Zubaidah:

      “… he was waterboarded, a technique in which a captive’s face is covered with a towel as water is poured atop, creating a sensation of drowning. He was beaten, though not in a way to worsen his injuries. He was repeatedly threatened, and made certain of his impending death. His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights. He was, as a man already diminished by serious injuries, more fully at the mercy of interrogators than an ordinary prisoner.
      Under this duress, Zubaida told them that shopping malls were targeted by al Qaeda. That information traveled the globe in an instant. Agents from the FBI, Secret Service, Customs, and various related agencies joined local police to surround malls. Zubaydah said banks – yes, banks – were a priority. FBI agents led officers in a race to surround and secure banks. And also supermarkets – al Qaeda was planning to blow up crowded supermarkets, several at one time. People would stop shopping. The nation’s economy wopuld be crippled. And the water systems – a target, too. Nuclear plants, naturally. And apartment buildings.
      Thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each flavor of target. Of course, if you multiplied by ten, there still wouldn’t be enough public servants in America to surround and secure the supermarkets. Or the banks. But they tried. The FBI generally kept its various alerts secret. But word drifted out to the media, time and again, considering the thousands who wre involved.”
      – THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of It’s Enemies Since 9/11, by Ron Suskind (Simon and Schuster, 2006), page 115-116

      Please look again at the following from my post #72 from Tony Lagournis, who was a professional military interrogator in Iraq. I shall be posting more from him soon:

      “A torturer can often get an innocent man to confess to murder. We know this from domestic cases of police interrogation. For example, in 2003, then Governor Ryan of Illinois exonerated four men on [243] death row who had confessed under torture to crimes they did not commit.
      But a confession, valid or invalid, is not intelligence. A confession is backward-looking and not the forward-looking kind of information a commander wants in the field, nor the kind of information an investigator needs to thwart a terrorist attack. The military is not requesting permission to torture, nor is the FBI. Our civilian leadership in Washington, not the professionals, wanted to legalize torture.
      I spoke to Joe Navarro, a retired FBI agent and an expert in the field of interrogation. Joe has had great success in gathering intelligence during interrogations and interviews without the use of torture. He outlined four main reasons why torture is ineffective. First, talk can’t be confused with truth. A torture victim will say anything, true or false, to get the pain to stop. Second, the stress pain creates confuses the subject and he simply can’t remember details well enough to produce good intelligence. Third, the torture subject may die or go into shock, in which case no information can be obtained from him. Finally, and perhaps most compelling, the torture victim, if he tells the interrogator anything at all, is likely to give one piece of information, or very little information, whereas a cooperative subject will talk and continue talking. Joe added that he believes that torture strengthens the resolve of the detainee, citing Senator John McCain, who, after having his shoulder torn from its socket by interrogators in Vietnam, was more determined than ever to keep his silence.”

    • burqa says:

      (Sorry folks, for the length of these)

      More on the Zubaidah interrogation:

      “Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman, who led an examination of documents after Zubaidah’s capture in early 2002 and worked on the case, said the CIA’s harsh tactics cast doubt on the credibility of Abu Zubaida’s information.
      “I don’t have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted,” Coleman said, referring to the harsh measures. “He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn’t believe him. The problem is they didn’t realize he didn’t know all that much.”
      “There is little dispute, according to officials from both agencies, that Abu Zubaida provided some valuable intelligence before the CIA interrogators began to rough him up, including information that helped identify Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and al-Qaeda operative Jose Padilla.”
      – “FBI, CIA Debate Significance of Terror Suspect Agencies Also Disagree On Interrogation Methods,” by Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 18, 2007, page A1

  51. cregan says:

    Phred, please try to stick to real things.

    There is no evidence in my posts that I like the gulag system. I think the Constitution is important, but it means nothing if the country goes down the tubes.

    Not realistic? Let’s take this idea: about 4 months after 9/11, a new attack occurred. On just as big or bigger a scale. And, maybe one more happened about 5 months after that. Do you have any idea of the outcry to clamp down on rights and using thumbscrews would have been? I can promise you many Democrats would have been leading the charge. Not because they are bad, but because there would have been pure panic. The US mental condition, while it recovered to a degree within a few months after 9/11, would have been sent down to the toilet.

    The economy, already in bad shape during that first period of time, would have really tanked. And how many would have suffered? Not just a few thousand that might have been killed.

    The fact that SOME rights were altered a small amount helped save the whole enchilada from going down. I think the freedoms we all have were preserved more by stopping any further attacks. You saw the general support for the Patriot Act at that time. Just imagine what kind of support there would have been for even more drastic laws if another few attacks had occurred.

    That is real world, not fantasy.

    Maybe you can imagine a US where everyone would have been singing happy tunes and saying, “oh,no, lets be nice to those people,” had more attacks occurred.

    This likely would have been the case if these attacks had happened within a few years of 9/11 and not just a few months. Heck, with a few attacks NOW it could happen in spite of Barak Obama. One, we might recover from, but not as quickly as 9/11, but two, and you would have a whole different scenario to contend with.

    That is the real world gamble you are willing to take, and I am not. It isn’t a matter of simply saying you are brave. It is correctly looking at the potential situation and seeing the consequences of it. More far reaching and devastating to freedom than KSM losing some sleep or Z losing his urine–as he said.

    Harkening back to the forefathers, etc. is generally very good. But this is a situation that none of our forefathers ever faced. Even the Civil War was something people could get their mind around, “well, it’s happening down South and and if I stay up here or down in Florida, I’m pretty safe.” The fighting is over there, we are here, if we push them here or there, etc. we can solve it.” This is far different. Even in the Civil War, it was not possible for the entire system to break down. There was fighting, it was “there” and some day soon, it will be over.

    You might say that is like a movie. But, let me hear your version of what would have happened if a few more attacks had occurred during those first years after 9/11.

    • burqa says:

      Here again is Lagournis, from his book, FEAR UP HARSH An Army Interrogator’s Dark Journey Through Iraq, (NAL Caliber, 2008) pages 246-249

      “Once introduced into war, torture will inevitably spread because the ticking time bombs are everywhere. Each and every prisoner, without exception, has the potential to be the one that provides the information that will save American lives. So if you accept the logic that we have to perform torture to prevent deaths, each and every prisoner is deserving of torture. In a situation like Iraq, it wasn’t just a few abstract lives that might be saved somewhere, at some future time. The mortars came almost every day. The life in question was my own.
      Once we accepted that any prisoner might be holding information that could save lives, we gladly used everything in our toolbox on everyone. This resulted in an expansion of the class of people who could be tortured. Now it included people who had been picked up for questioning but were not suspected of being insurgents, and it included people who were picked up on hunches – people against whom we had no solid evidence – and it included relatives of our real targets. Again, I see the spread of torture to these groups as natural and inevitable. At the time, I barely noticed it happening.
      We should be very concerned about this steady progression and where it will lead, because the essence of torture – tyrannical control over the will of another – is everything that a free and democratic society is supposed to stand against. We should be very skeptical of the idea that our use of torture overseas will never come home….”
      [Speaking of 9/11] “ … Those attacks, coming as they did from people who rejected the rules of civilization, made us want to respond in kind. Suddenly, their defeat was not enough. Standard military operations using high-tech weaponry and the utter obliteration of the enemy via cruise missiles and five-thousand-pound bombs was not enough. They should be made to feel the same pain we felt, and America, the mightiest power in history, should be able to dominate this enemy utterly and tyrannically. It came to be perceived as our right, due to us as a hegemonic power. So we suddenly had no problem putting absolutely tyrannical power in the hands of army specialists. They would show each terrorist the face of America, and they would dominate the terrorists’ very souls as much as our military dominates the battlefield. That’s the kind of victory I believe many Americans want.
      As I discovered in Mosul, this kind of dominance requires evil. The prisoner will not break unless he believes the potential for escalation is endless, and the only way to convince him of that is to be the embodiment of evil. For a truly evil person, the rules of civilization do not apply and any course of action is possible. The prisoner who faces an evil captor is transported to a totally alien world that makes no sense and that he finds impossible to fathom. This is where true terror and panic set in, for the prisoner can never know or even imagine, what is next. If we want torture to “work,” this is where we have to go. So we have to ask ourselves: Is this what we want?
      This kind of evil is true of al-Qaeda. They have convinced us that they are evil people who ignore the rules of civilization, and their evil has an effect on us. All they lack is the absolute power over us that a torturer has over a captive. Many Americans, on the other hand, believe that we do have that power, and that using it is a perfectly legitimate response.
      On the Senate floor, arguing for his antitorture amendment, Senator McCain made all the standard practical arguments about the inefficacy of torture that I think miss the point. But his most powerful argument was when he told an opponent, tersely, that this issue was “not about who they are,” meaning the terrorists. “It’s about who we are.” This is what we have to decide. Torture might be an effective way to gather intelligence. It can be a very emotionally satisfying response to the vicious 9/11 attacks. But it also has the power to define what America is in ways that we cannot fully control…
      … And what if we feel no revulsion or feel torture is okay “sometimes”? I experienced this, and here is what happens. We see the evil, both outside and inside of us, and we accept it. We accept the evil, and it comes to us whole and it fills our being. We accept this evil in us, and then we accept all that it is capable of doing.”

      • phred says:

        fwiw burqa, no need to apologize for the length of your posts. Your comments on this thread are some of the best I have ever seen. Thank you for sharing these quotes with us. Of all of them, #127 was the best imo.

        • burqa says:

          Thanks, phred.
          I will be returning to professional interrogators soon, but thought I’d throw in some quotes
          from other authorities.

          When researching strategy and tactics in war, a great place to begin is Sun Tsu, who said:

          “Provide for the captured soldiers and treat them well. This is called increasing our own strength in the process of defeating the army.”

          We can go to the Founding Fathers:

          “Let our manner distinguish us from our enemies, as much as the cause we are engaged in…”
          – from the Provincial Congress, June 20, 1775 in an order to form an army.

          George Washington, anyone?
          “In New York, Washington had wept while watching through a spyglass as the British massacred Americans who had surrendered. But Washington, Fisher writes, “Often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies.” To the American officer in charge of 221 prisoners taken at Princeton, Washington said, “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”– from, “Our Greatest Christmas,” by George F. Will, Dec. 25, 2004

          How about David Hackworth, one of the most highly decorated American warriors in history?
          let’s go to page 532 of his book, About Face:

          “…Hank Lunde’s Alpha Company made contact and captured a malaria-ridden, panic-stricken soldier from the 141st NVA Regiment. Lunde gave the prisoner water and got him covered with a blanket. Then Emerson landed, and before he hit the guy with a barrage of questions, he gave him some cigarettes and a much-needed meal. The POW’s reaction to this kindness was simply to break down. Hank’s interpreter explained that the NVA had been told he’d be beaten, tortured, and then shot if captured by the Americans. As this was obviously not the case, the grateful prisoner eagerly provided Emerson with the straight skinny on the disposition of his unit: a four-company ambush was waiting some forty minutes away, and six more companies were behind them, at a further forty-minute walk.”

          ….and you might want to check out, SHOOTER The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper, by Gunnery Sergeant Jack Coughlin, USMC and Captain Casey Kuhlman, USMCR with Donald Davis.
          From pages 189-190:

          “[Lt. Col. McCoy, commander of 3/7 Marines] had written and distributed to his officers and staff NCOs before the war a printed list entitled, “Expectations of Combat Leaders,” in which one element stated, “Treat prisoners with dignity but do not trust them and be forceful and firm. Do not abuse prisoners, it is cowardly.” In all, those of us on the front line treated them better than they had expected, and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. What happened to some prisoners later in some of the prisons startled us all.
          Torturing prisoners is dishonorable, no matter who does it and it usually gains nothing of value, because a prisoner being tortured will say anything to make it stop.”

          Napoleon Bonaparte knew a thing or two about warfare:

          “The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

    • phred says:

      LOL : ) I write a comment suggesting that you dwell in fantasyland and you reply with 9 paragraphs of imaginary nonsense.

      Earlier in the thread you pointed out that there was no comparison between current events and the Nazis. And yet, you insist that terrorists pose an existential threat to the United States. You. have. lost. your. mind.

      So, if we’re going to imagine bleak and scary fantasies, lets try this one…

      If torture works in producing useful intelligence as you suggest, and therefore becomes yet another tool in our intelligence gathering toolbox, do we apply it to domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh? Do we allow the CIA to kidnap right wing nutjobs and whisk them off to Guantanamo to get information on all their plans and associates? Or do you prefer to only use such methods on scary foreigners?

      And just as an aside, I think it is hysterical that Harman is in a snit over having been wiretapped after all her years of advocating exactly that. Funny how her opinion has changed, eh? I guess in Harman’s world, and quite probably in yours, that what is good for the goose is most definitely not good for the gander.

  52. burqa says:

    I understand your reluctance to directly address the specific quotes given by the professionals I have cited and those I will cite as this discussion continues.

    I also understand the thought that we should employ humane methods, but have coercive techniques and even torture in the “toolbox” of interrogators should humane methods fail.
    That argument fails on more than one count.
    First, it presumes the interrogator knows what the prisoner knows, and that is ridiculous.
    Second, it presupposes that abuse and torture can be limited somehow, but that is not the case either.
    At Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq it spread to where it was used as a disciplinary tool or a retaliatory one rather than as techniques to obtain intelligence.
    Lagournis’ book describes how having that door opened affects the interrogator and how they quickly abandon the methods which work and go stright to the abuse. The result is a degraded intelligence-gathering operation.
    He described torturing prisoners in his book, and here is another quote from pages 244-245:

    “I don’t like to admit the possibility that even scant pieces of information or intel can be gained from torture, but to be honest, the examples may be out there. If we always argue for or against torture on grounds of efficacy, however, we will always be stuck in the realm of “dueling anecdotes.” We have to take this debate to another level.
    My opposition to torture rests entirely on moral grounds. I’m opposed to its use in all circumstances. Americans should never use torture, and to this there should be no exceptions. Even if there were practical reasons to torture someone in particular situations, the consequences of torture go far beyond individuals and individual circumstances, so we can’t let short-term gain or practical considerations decide this question for us. We have to look at a much larger picture before we decide. This is how, after my experiences in Mosul, the larger facts about torture appear to me.
    Torture cannot be contained. It is not something you can do once and then go back to your regular routine, hoping you won’t have to do it again, but keeping it in reserve just in case. As a method, as a human interaction, and as a moral choice, it is simply too large and too powerful to confine.
    Rights advocates, from those who oppose gun control to those who oppose school prayer and everything in between, have used the slippery-slope argument so promiscuously that it’s become unconvincing. So I want to make clear that my view of torture isn’t exactly a slippery slope. When we start using torture, we don’t just fall down a pit. There’s a mechanism of many interlocking parts that pushes the thing forward. It grows like an ink stain and spreads like a disease, and along the way its face changes so you end up in a place totally unlike where you started. But most important, unlike gun control or school prayer, you can’t have just a little bit of tightly regulated torture. It can’t help but expand.
    One of the reasons lies in the interaction between the torturer and the victim. I learned in Mosul, while trying a set of techniques on prisoners, that torture cannot be effective, even for achieving the limited goal of domination over a prisoner, unless there is escalation and the continued threat of escalation. If a person is in pain, he is enduring that pain. It may be excruciating and he may wish for death, but he is still enduring it, and he knows that he is enduring it. He has no reason to give the torturer what he wants unless there is the threat of more pain and worse pain.
    In Mosul, the silence of my prisoners illuminated this for me. I could cause fear, but it would plateau, and I found myself wanting to go further, push harder, and cause more pain. The fear told me I was on the “right track,” so taking it to the next level seemed like the right thing to do. Once I got started, it seemed pointless to stop, and each escalation appeared seamless, natural, and justified.”

  53. cregan says:

    burqa, you have some extensive arguments. I don’t have time at the moment to read them carefully. But I will in the morning.

    On the pro’s, yes, they have a place. Their opinion does have weight, but I have no way of knowing what other pro’s out there might have a different opinion. Besides, it is speculation. I would rather see the results of checking the specific information the people who are looking into this (who are not being leaked info by someone with a slanted viewpoint–like the book by Jane Meyer–whose reporting I generally find one sided). I think it needs to be real information from the real people in a formal investigation.

    I really don’t have the time to research every quote and check it and write some position on it, but I will read your post carefully tomorrow..

    • burqa says:

      burqa, you have some extensive arguments. I don’t have time at the moment to read them carefully. But I will in the morning.

      On the pro’s, yes, they have a place. Their opinion does have weight, but I have no way of knowing what other pro’s out there might have a different opinion. Besides, it is speculation

      I have tons more to post and since I am new here I ask the rest of you whether I should just post them one right after the other or scatter them more.
      I am unsure of the accepted form.

      Those with experiential knowledge in the field and who have had much success are the best sources, in my opinion. As I continue to post, you will notice more than one say they know of no professional interrogator who supports the use of abuse or torture because 1) it is ineffectual and 2) it is contrary to the fundamental values our nation was founded upon.

      Their opinion is not “speculation.”
      It is based on many years of experience in the field, many of the pros I am quoting have spent decades doing it and are or have been interrogation instructors.

      One often hears or reads someone who is apalled at “giving them milk and cookies.”
      Well, if it saves American lives, I am all for it. Hell, give-em filet mignon and thousand-dollar-a-bottle wine if it gets the intelligence we need!

      Since I don’t think you will find many, if any, other professionals with long experience in the field supporting abuse or torture, I hope you will take your own advice about bias into account and adjust your opinion to that which an overwhelming number of experienced professionals say.

      • phred says:

        I have tons more to post and since I am new here I ask the rest of you whether I should just post them one right after the other or scatter them more.
        I am unsure of the accepted form

        .
        In general, if you are on an active thread it’s best not to go overboard with long comments (a few a generally fine). However, given that this isn’t really an active thread, only a few of us are checking back here, you should feel free to post whatever you think is relevant. Note, comments are only open for 2 days, so this comment section will close later today.

        That said, you have compiled a wonderful set of references here. I would highly recommend that you organize them into two (possibly more) posts for the Oxdown Gazette. Say, a post on highlights from professional interrogators and another on highlights from historical figures on the futility of torture. More of course as you see fit. By writing those posts, more people will see them than will see what you have put here and even better, people will be able to bookmark those posts to make them handy references for any future discussions either on-line or with others via email and such.

        I really really hope you will consider writing this stuff up and posting it on Oxdown. I would be delighted to have this information at my fingertips.

  54. cregan says:

    burqa, thanks for all the extensive comments and quotes. I will try to address at least some of them in a minute.

    First, poor Phred, you still cannot post without resorting to jokes and ridicule. At least, in my post, I stated at the time that I was speculating. I am still waiting to see insight and most of all critical thinking. You couldn’t even analyze my scenario and state why you think it is unrealistic. I suppose you think that if one attack produced the Patriot Act, then two attacks would have produced milk and cookies. If you want to see the real world effect on rights that multiple attacks can have, look no further than Israel.

    That’s real world. It is speculation, but with good odds,that keeping further attacks from happening preserved more freedom for the US than all the bloggers and newspapers put together.

    If there is a large scale attack sometime in the next 4 or 5 months, with the economy the way it is now, just check out the picnic we will all be having. It’s no fantasy.

    Burqa, again thanks for the posts and the extensive reasoning.

    I agree with you that the moral componant is most important. I also agree that if high pressure techniques don’t produce any results, they shouldn’t be used. I am not saying you agree with that, only that I agree that these methods should not be used with that provision.

    Lagournis: He has a point. But, the Red Cross report disputes this to a degree. After first reading the report, and then reading the memos, I was surprised at how the descriptions in the Red Cross report jived very well with what the memos said to do. Again, that is based on interviews with all 14 high value detainees. Not just one or two. I would have expected the ‘creep’ that Lagournis suggests, but this report, the most comprehensive detail of all the 14 detainee’s side of the story. And done by a neutral and well reputed organization. The potential of this ‘creep’ is something that is a problem.

    Hackworth: a good account. This agrees with what I said. All the comfortable techniques should be tried first, unless some extraordinary time pressure is present–we know a bomb is set to go off in NY in the next few hours. For the military dealing with opposing soldiers in a war, I don’t see any need to go beyond the Army manual. The guy puts on a uniform and is part of an Army, he deserves the treatment specified in the Army manual. I think a person undercover, so to speak, especially from a suicidal organization of highly dedicated operatives (as opposed to your rank and file soldier who likely is reluctantly there in the first place) is a different situation. Blanket policies and blanker statements alike prove unworkable in some situations. Also, as we know, a person from the opposing side in a war who is in plain clothes, operating behind the lines and caught has always been treated differently from the uniformed soldier caught.

    Coleman: he is expressing his opinion and speculation. Him not having confidence in Z’s data doesn’t mean Z’s data was unuseful. Other people with more access to the actual data, Michael Hayden for one, says that Z’s data that lead to KSM’s capture was from the high pressure interrogation program. I don’t have time, but it seems that you could check the date that KSM was caught and the general time frame that Z’s was under high pressure interrogation and see if it was before or after. As I remember in the RC report, he began the routine maybe 3 or 4 months after capture. I don’t think KSM was captured until later. But, I have not checked that, so I can’t be sure. It is just from memory.

    I will try to do more in a bit.

    • phred says:

      cregan, you came back! I didn’t think you would…

      As for ridicule, you bet. You are a torture advocate you deserve nothing less.

      However, to your point, I just posted this on another thread because I didn’t think you were going to show. My response to your fictional scenario is this…

      burqa posted a bunch of really good quotes on the McCain thread the other day and it has gotten me thinking about the whole ticking time bomb scenario. There are 3 underlying assumptions that the Jack Bauer crowd makes:
      1) There is a ticking time bomb
      2) The person you are torturing knows about it
      3) Torture will force the person in part 2 to yield information fast enough to defuse the bomb (or expressed another way, faster than rapport building).

      Here we see evidence where in fact
      1) There was not a ticking time bomb, they just postulated its existence
      2) The person(s) they tortured didn’t know about the time bomb, because it didn’t exist

      And in other reports we have seen that
      3) Rapport building worked prior to any torture tactics.

      In a movie, the writer is omniscient, so the ticking time bomb scenario makes sense. The audience knows it’s there. The torturers know it’s there. And the tortured cooperate only under tortured coercion, because the script says so.

      In reality, these assumptions are false. Even under the one “justifiable” (to some, not to me) case that gets trotted out over and over and over again, torture cannot succeed because the torturers don’t already know what the tortured person knows. It is doomed to fail.

      • phred says:

        Here we see evidence where in fact

        I should have clarified my use of “here”. That refers to EW’s post that according to the 9-11 Commission Report, for all the torture perpetrated on Abu Zubaydah, they got 10 pieces of information, none of which were useful in defusing a bomb or plot of any kind. At best they got snippets of background on al-Qaeda. Even by your own expectations of “useful torture”, this is indefensible.

    • phred says:

      I agree with you that the moral componant is most important. I also agree that if high pressure techniques don’t produce any results, they shouldn’t be used.

      Exactly! You can never know when torture will produce “results” (by this I assume you mean the information you need to defuse your ticking time bomb), because you can never know whether the person you are interrogating has the information you seek. You are doomed to torture innocent (or at least ignorant) people and by your own admission, under such circumstances torture shouldn’t be used.

    • burqa says:

      First off, in response to your remarks about Hackworth, when we ratified the Geneva Conventions we made them U.S. law. In them are provisions about taking uniformed military on the battlefield. Also, they state those captured who are not in uniform have to be brought before a tribunal to assess their status and they are likewise protected from abuse or torture.

      Second, Dan Coleman was the top FBI expert on al Qaeda. He was there when Zubaidah was captured and his opinion on the reliability of Zubaidah is based on his examination of Zubaidah’s diaries, which revealed he has multiple personality disorder, perhaps related to a severe head wound Zubaidah suffered from a mortar explosion several years previous, as well as the fact that Zubaidah had nothing to do with operational matters. He was a logistics guy who funneled people in and out of Afghanistan.

      Our Founding Fathers established this nation with a set of values we should not so quickly dismiss. The British we fought during the Revolution abused and tortured prisoners, and also murdered wounded soldiers on the battlefield. They also refused to recognize them as soldiers, but regarded them as terrorists.
      Here is John Adams:

      “… In 1776, American leaders believed that it was not enough to win the war. They also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of this society and the principles of their cause. One of their greatest achievements in the winter campaign of 1776-77 was to manage the war in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the American Revolution. It happened in a way that was different from the ordinary course of wars in general. In Congress and the army, American leaders resolved that the War of Independence would be conducted with a respect for human rights, even of the enemy. This idea grew stronger during the campaign of 1776-77, not weaker as is commonly the case in war.
      In Congress, John Adams took the lead. To his wife he wrote, “I who am always made miserable by the Misery of every sensible being, am obliged to hear continual accounts of the barbarities, the cruel Murders in cold blood, even the most tormenting ways of starving and freezing committed by our Enemies… These accounts harrow me beyond Description.” John Adams resolved that the guiding principles of the American Republic would always be what he called the policy of humanity. He wrote, “I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this – Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won’t prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed.”
      – Pulitzer Prize – winning Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press, 2004), page 375-376

    • burqa says:

      Back to the professionals, here is a statement given to the Armed Services Committee signed by 20 military interrogators
      :http://www.amnestyusa.org/denounce_torture/statement_on_interrogation.pdf

      Trained and experienced interrogators
      can, in fact, accomplish the intelligence gathering mission using only those
      techniques, developed and proven effective over decades, found in the Army
      Field Manual 34-52 (1992). You will also see that experienced interrogators find
      prisoner/detainee abuse and torture to be counter-productive to the intelligence
      gathering mission.
      The signatories to the Statement represent over 200 years of combined
      interrogation service and experience, including Chief Warrant Officer 5 Donald
      Marquis who, at the time of his retirement earlier this year, was the Army’s most
      senior interrogator….
      … Of the
      interrogators with whom we were able to establish contact, 100% have
      expressed total agreement with the Statement. The names of active-duty
      interrogators have not been added to the list of signatories because of conflicts
      between the Statement and public comments by the Secretary of Defense and
      his staff, and the Vice President and his staff….
      …We urge you to listen to the subjectmatter
      experts – the actual Interrogators to whom you entrust intelligence
      gathering – and refute any efforts to condone or authorize techniques we find to
      be counter-productive to the intelligence collection mission.

  55. burqa says:

    More from the professionals:

    Peter Bauer:
    “I conducted interrogation operations and training, and served as an interrogator near the front lines during Operation Desert Storm…. I know the techniques in the field manual work, and I know torture isn’t as effective…I did resistance-to-interrogation training for NATO forces. We simulated the sort of abuse they could expect…This treatment is quite similar to the sort of techniques described as the CIA’s “alternative interrogation procedures.” We invariably obtained more reliable information using our own techniques than we did using the abusive procedures. I cannot name one instance in which abuse was successful after standard interrogation techniques failed…. Not a single military interrogator with whom I have communicated expressed anything but contempt for the idea that torture could be more effective than standard interrogation techniques.”

    Marney Mason:
    ” You try to develop a very intense relationship with another human being so they’ll part with information they’d rather not part with. You wheedle, cajole, trick, lie. The point is to collect usable, actionable information. Sure, if you start pulling a guy’s fingernails out, he’ll start talking – it may not be the truth, but he’s going to tell you exactly what you want to hear.
    In a training environment ( a mock prisoner-of-war camp), my students would be subjected to hostile forms of interrogation: loud noises, fake burials, 15-20-volt electric shocks. And I got people to confess to things they absolutely did not do. The information you receive is worthless.”

    Travis W. Hall:
    “Over my 14 years of military experience, both as an interrogator and as a JAG, I observed degradation in the respect of service members for the laws of war since 9/11. When I attended interrogation school in 1992, all of the attendees had 40 hours of classroom time on the Geneva Conventions followed by a written exam on all the rights and obligations of the military personnel under the Conventions.
    What I saw firsthand as an interrogator and, later as a JAG in Iraq in 2003 working on detainee issues, has left me with a strong belief that torture is counterproductive. What has proven effective in interrogation time and again, regardless of what culture the detainee is from, is building a positive relationship with an individual. Americans really want their soldiers to not only come home, but come home with honor. I would challenge the current administration to come up with one example where torture in interrogation has produced actionable intelligence that saved American lives in the United States.”

    Above quoted here:The Questioners Answer

  56. burqa says:

    Successful interrogation by the professionals is not well understood. They don’t just sit down and talk.
    No, before they do, they may spend hours on plans of approach and have an extraordinary array of techniques they use. I have been in contact with one of those I have quoted in this thread and he told me how rewarding it was to get intelligence from a subject without him even knowing he divulged it.
    It is a very delicate business requiring great skill.

    One book that gives insight is, THE INTERROGATORS Task Force 500 and America’s Secret War Against al Qaeda, by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller (Back Bay Books, 2004)
    Mackey commanded interrogators in Afghanistan.
    On pages 31-32, Mackey describes his training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona:
    “Staff Sergeant Casey, our senior instructor, hammered home the idea that prisoners being tortured or mentally coerced will say anything, absolutely anything, to stop the pain. All of the instructors told us stories of the experiences of Army interrogators working in Vietnam alongside South Vietnamese units that would do the most unspeakable things to prisoners – take two of them up in a helicopter and shove one out the door, torture one of the prisoner’s relatives right in front of him – and the squeals of anguish and false information that would flow. The goal of interrogation isn’t just to get prisoners to talk, our instructors stressed, it’s to get them to tell the truth.”Mackey goes on to say the famous photo of the Saigon police chief shooting the VC prisoner in the head with a revolver.
    “This just hardens the enemy against us……This is not the way we do business”
    and on page 33:
    “Later on, as we got farther along and started practicing interrogations in the booths, instructors loved to bait us to step over the line. Even students overheard by an instructor expressing macho admiration for this or that torture technique were given a failing mark for the day. If there was any suspicion on the instructors’ part about the restraint of a student, the offender was dismissed from the program.”

    On page 477 Mackey writes”
    “The reason the United States should not torture prisoners is not because it doesn’t work. It is simply because it is wrong. It dehumanizes us, undermines our cause, and, over the long term, breeds more enemies of the United States than coercive interrogation methods will ever allow us to capture.”

  57. burqa says:

    Wanna know how we got Zarqawi in Iraq?
    Here’s professional interrogator Matthew Alexander:

    “I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today.

    I’m not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me — both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn’t work….

    … Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators’ bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules — and often break them. I don’t have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

    I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology — one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi….
    ….Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war’s biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi’s associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader’s location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders…”
    – from, “Torture’s the Wrong Answer: There’s a Smarter Way,” by Matthew Alexander (pseudonym) Washington Post, November 30, 2008, page B1

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