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Waterboarding Lies
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jsteele
Site Admin Online
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That article is based on an article in The Australian. The Australian, you will be shocked to know, is owned by Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch. According to Wikipedia, "The Australian has run many articles critical of the science and, more particularly, the politics of climate change[4]. It has received criticism for its climate change reporting from climate change commentary website RealClimate [5]." So, while the Economic Times may not be a Limbaugh mouthpiece, The Australian is probably not too far off as far as global warming is concerned. It's interesting that George Will recently misrepresented a report about the Arctic ice cap to suggest a growth in ice. Actually, the report said just the opposite. I wonder, if Will's ideological bedfellows in the southern hemisphere are borrowing his tactics? |
Anonymous
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From the NY Times today --
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22detain.html?hp "According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans. Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding. The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia. They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce. The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said." |
Anonymous
| I am damn happy we do this to KNOWN killers. Too bad it was just parial drownings. They are useless to anyone after we have extracted what ever they may know. Go USA, glad to know we have a set! |
Anonymous
So you are happy that we kill killers so that we can send the message that killing is wrong? You are truly, profoundly sick if your response to a death is gloating that we have a set. And to make it a matter of patriotism on top of that...god help us. |
Anonymous
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090421101629.htm They report the same phenomena - growing Antarctica ice -and attribute it to global warming. They do acknowledge that climate change may or may not be man made... "Turner continues: “Understanding how polar sea ice responds to global change – whether human induced or as part of a natural process – is really important if we are to make accurate predictions about the Earth’s future climate. This new research helps us solve some of the puzzle of why sea-ice is shrinking is some areas and growing in others.” All I was saying was that reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes torture (I consider waterboarding to be torture, but this other stuff in interrogation not so much, but I respect your right to have a different POV) in the same way that scientists do disagree on the causes of climate change (man made vs. the natural processes of a living planet vs. somewhere in between). |
Anonymous
But the problem is that we also do it to people who were just turned in for bounty money in Afghanistan -- who didn't kill anyone. |
Anonymous
| How many times did terrorists attack U.S. soil after 9/11? I'm glad the CIA had the guts to do what they needed to do. Terrorists never play by the rules, that is why they are labeled as terrorists! Was 9/11, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole, the first World Trade Center bombing playing by the rules? Let's say it is early post 9/11 and you are the person interrogating these guys. Do you want to tell the families of their next victims, we didn't try everything would could to get more intelligence out of our captives, because we wanted to play nice. |
Anonymous
| Has nothing to do with being nice. Has to do with being effective. |
Anonymous
I am about to write something outrageous; please do not think I am advocating this: It might be effective to hit Mecca with a nuclear missile if something like 9/11 should happen again. But effective as that threat might be, it is clearly out of bounds. Effectiveness is not the only criterion; morality ("being nice", if you will) also plays a role. |
Anonymous
Obama's Director of Intel Dennis Blair just came out this month and said that the harsh techniqeus (ie waterboarding) were effective in thwarting terrorist attacks inside the United States. This week, a CIA chief echoed Blair in announcing that the intel community learned of and thwarted a planned attack in LA only after waterboarding KSM. One American's life just mean a little more to me than a terrorists feelings, and I'm happy to see that Blair agrees. |
jsteele
Site Admin Online
Site Admin Online
You are misrepresenting Blair's statement and I have no idea what you are talking about in your second assertion unless you believe Bush's speechwriter was a CIA chief. Here is what Bair said: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country," Note, nothing about thwarting an attack or saving any lives. The phrase "deeper understanding" can have lots of meanings. For instance, based on the Congressional report that just came out, it could mean the torture confirmed that there was no al-Qaida - Iraq link despite Bush Administration beliefs. Moreover, here is what Blair also said: "The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means ... The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security." (emphasis added). http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html
A life -- American or otherwise -- means more to me that anyone's feelings. But, you are missing the point. Torture did not save lives. To the contrary, it caused more harm than good. You seem interested in vindictiveness. I am interested in effectiveness. Editing to add: See this article in the NYT written by one of the guys who actually interrogated Abu Zubaydah: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html He says traditional intelligence methods were yielded better information and "enhanced"methods were ineffective. |
Anonymous
I am still confused as to why the administration released the report detailing the sources and methods of interrogation, but purposely blanked out the parts of the report that listed the intelligence gained and the attacks thwarted. Let the results stand for themselves -- either good or bad. |
Anonymous
I may have been unclear. I meant that torture is ineffective -- but just in the way that hitting Mecca with a nuke would be ineffective. It might make a few people feel better in the short run but it would not serve our interests in the long run. And that's what needs to be considered. It might make the pro-torture pp happy to know that bad people have been tortured but I am more interested in what a) gets viable information that is accurate and b) protects Americans abroad from being tortured and c) sets a standard for protecting human rights that will increase pressure on other countries to follow and d) I would really like to avoid torturing innocent people. Just as both you and I know that nailing Mecca with a nuke would destroy the environment in the area, cause Saudi Arabia to withhold oil from us on a permanent basis and turn most of the world against us. It wouldn't be effective in the least in deterring terrorism. Some people confuse the emotional rewards they get from vengeance with true effectiveness. |
Anonymous
B/c the sources and methods aren't any big secret. Who was surprised by anything in there? On the other hand, I don't think the government is going to say "here is the list of safe houses that we have under surveillance". If it's useful intel, then the enemy most likely does not know that we have it or they would change plans. |
jsteele
Site Admin Online
Site Admin Online
I don't know if you were just writing carelessly since you were drafting a forum post and not a doctoral thesis, or if you truly are not clear on this rather crucial point. But, the Blair memo that was leaked to the times did not detail any attacks thwarted. All he wrote was this: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country," As I wrote earlier, there is no mention of thwarting attacks. The Administration summary of the memo did leave out that portion and maybe it shouldn't have. But, again, Blair said that intelligence was not worth the cost. |