“Torture” Worked

All this crap coming from the democrats about torture is just that…crap. This is just a way to sway the public in their Bush hatred. Trust me. Obama is using the same techniques and worse. He’s just not telling us and the media certainly won’t tell us. He’s not handicapped like Bush with the media dogging hjis every step. So he will get away with this junk and the American public that listens to the old MSM will never know his tactics. These techniques work and he will continue to use them and get credit for a kinder, gentler war against the Islamists.

I’m still waiting for him to come out of the closet and tell us he has regained his muslim faith. He’ll tell us this garbage but the truth is he never lost it, What really puzzles me is the attitude of the muslim countries about him. They think he is a muslim yet they must know he eats ham that costzs $99.00 a pound. Never let it be said he does not have expensive tastes.

Below is taken from Scott’s “tiny URL” link (first link in his post):

The USA signed the international torture convention. The US itself considered torture to be: “cruel, unusual, and inhumane punishment prohibited by the 5th, 8th, and/or 14th amendments to the Constitution of the United States.” In accordance with the convention, the US Congress criminalized acts of torture. Defined as in the preceding. Again, this is from Scott’s “tiny URL” link.

It’s been well established, from WWII precedent, that the USA considered water boarding to be torture. There is no doubt, that, had the USA not water boarded itself, and had any foreign entity water boarded US citizens, we’d have supported criminal prosecutions for those responsible, as we did in WWII.

There are a number of questions and arguments: Was it torture? Yes, according to both international treaty and US law. Was it against both international and US law? Yes. Did it work? Maybe. Was it necessary? Remains to be determined. Did it reduce cooperation of foreign intelligence and police agencies with US intelligence and police agencies? Possibly. Did it aid and abet our enemies in recruitment of terrorists? Probably. Did it aid and abet our enemies in fund raising from Islamic high rollers? Probably.

Is it a legitimate topic for national consideration and debate? Certainly.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

>>It’s been well established, from WWII precedent, that the USA considered water boarding to be torture.>>

Proof, please. Simply saying so doesn’t make it so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

or just Google:

waterboarding japanese

waterboarding world war II

etc.

Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry, you’ve been MIA for awhile, so I shall refer you to Aye Chi’s response INRE the myth of the Japanese waterboarding trials and convictions.

What I find more than a tad amusing is the eagerness of those who trot out the Japanese prosecutions as proof that waterboarding is “torture”.

The people who do that have never read up on the prosecutions and thus have never discovered that only two Japanese soldiers were actually prosecuted for waterboarding alone.

Of those two, only one, Yukio Asano, was found guilty. He was found guilty because he practiced waterboarding on a US civilian, a clear violation of the GC.

You will find more detail in Lorie Byrd’s post INRE these trials and the charges, with hotlinks to referenced articles.

Nor was the “water torture” of WWII days the same as the CIA waterboarding today.

Quit spreading the myths, guy. This site has too many informed contributors to be easily fooled. Wrong audience.

Meanwhile, on the subject topic, it should come as no surprise that the anti-waterboarding darling, Ali Soufan, is still on the “it didn’t work trip”, testifying before a Senate committee about how they were doing just fine getting information until the CIA contractors took over. Congress members are, of course, eating it up like a hydrated lap dog.

To assume Soufan’s version bears resemblence to an unshakable truth is to accept a very negative view of our interrogators as the norm… that they would throw out a working interrogation plan merely for the amusement of torture.

That doesn’t make sense to me, and I am not willing to blindly accept that they prefer S&M methods over those that were “working”. . I have no problems believing that some detainees may give up some information… just as is done here with criminals under law enforcement interrogations. But are they telling the entire story, or just enough to mislead or get reprieve? And are they telling the truth when it’s given up under little pressure

There’s more to this than meets the eye. And like Old Trooper and a few of us believe, it’s not in our national security interests to put the public in a “need to know” position merely to give the populus, and our arrogant and irresponsible elected elite, some smug and false moral sense of superiority.

Thanks Mata.

I was trying to make my way there, but this %$#@&%$ computer wasn’t cooperating.

Maybe I should pour some water over it.

The defense offered by Aye is that the waterboarding conducted by the US was less harsh than the waterboarding conducted by Japanese and others in my linked article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

Well, we don’t know that, do we, given that the waterboarding videotapes have been destroyed and no sworn eyewitness testimony has been given?

Aye, you are also neglecting to include the entire text of Scott’s link.

Page 16 (article 37): Which clearly establishes that waterboarding meets the definition of torture, under the International Torture Convention ratified by the USA.

Page 18: Which quotes the anti-torture law passed by Congress. It states that the “threat of” “death, physical pain, or suffering” constitutes torture under the statute. The whole point of waterboarding is to simulate drowning. This is described in my linked Washington Post article, above. This is certainly consistent with the “threat of” death, physical pain, or suffering.

Aye’s seemingly exculpatory statement (about mental suffering having to result in harm lasting years) is simply an interpretation by the Bush Administration legal team, made in 2002. As you know, these same Bush administration lawyers are currently part of the center of the controversy. They are being accused of providing manufactured and invalid interpretations of the anti-torture law to justify harsh interrogation measures.

To Scott: I don’t at all quarrel with your analysis that Democrats try to politicize all manner of Bush administration policies to their own advantage. I think that both sides play this unfortunate game.

My point it that it is entirely appropriate to debate the concept of what torture means, whether or not the USA engaged in torture, in violation of international law to which we were signatories, and whether or not the intelligence gained through the use of torture outweighs the harm done to our national security from international blow back against our use of these harsh interrogation methods.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

On “Torture”…SERE Trained in the Philippines by Experts there before deployments by Folks that were really tortured by the Japanese in WWII…

*Waterboarding was like a Frat prank compared to the rest of SERE Training
*Waterboarding was a cakewalk compared to Ranger School
*Waterboarding was a Sunday School Picnic compared to what AQI did to captured US Soldiers in Iraq when they murdered and mutilated those Troopers and left their bodies booby trapped for their buddies to find.

Now the Moral Equivalence Game that is played out here by good folks of good conscience without exposure to that risk is patently absurd and ridiculously irrelevant to me. Many moons ago I had the honor of serving with COL James Rowe. He is no longer on this earth but he could tell you all about torture. So could Sen. John McCain and a few others.

Over 28 years Active Duty, recalled from retirement for the GWOT, not a “Man Made Disaster” but a War…with several breaks in service to get an education… I can tell you that no JAG Lawyer or Member of the Parliament of Whores (Congress) or that Punk Eric Holder, who was Janet Reno’s understudy for the Waco Massacre, can define Torture. They have never seen it or the results of it. I have. “Need to Know” is not for anyone without a Security Clearance. Sorry folks. That is the Law.

http://www.psywarrior.com/rowe.html

Any Moral Equivalence is pure speculation. Now if You will excuse me I have some marinaded deer steaks to throw on the grill and a glass of scotch whiskey that is old enough to vote waiting on me. It is my Daughter’s 18th Birthday. She reports to the Air Force Academy next month and she shot that deer in this past season.

Torture is reading this Moral Equivalence tripe.
Cheers!

@MataHarley: Mata, I’m glad you made the initiative to bring up Soufan, as his testimony today seems to be the big elephant in the room now. I’d also like to clarify that he isn’t just some anti-torture lapdog, but actually personally interrogated Zubaydah (whose evidence Scott uses in this very post), so his testimony is both relevant and well-sourced.

To assume Soufan’s version bears resemblence to an unshakable truth is to accept a very negative view of our interrogators as the norm…

This is a big part of the anti-torture argument; that torture is equal parts uncivilized and ineffective, and that the higher level members of the Bush administration encouraged it in spite of that (as a side note, I don’t believe they did so because they were “evil”, but because they let their feelings of anger and futility during 9/11 dictate policy that was provably counterproductive). What’s more likely, that KSM was water-boarded 87 times over the course of months because of a ticking time-bomb scenario? Because they thought he was still holding on to more shreds of evidence? Or because they wanted him to confess to a larger scenario that did not exist? Clearly, there’s a lot of conjecture going around, and Soufan’s testimony definitely muddies the pro-EIT position, which is why I’m surprised that the Right is still so vocally against a special investigation.

There are two broader points that I’d like to mention, first is the definition of torture ratified by the US in 1988 for “All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment”:

No person under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.* No circumstance whatever may be invoked as a justification for torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

* The term “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” should be interpreted so as to extend the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him, temporarily or permanently. of the use of any of his natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or of his awareness of place and the passing of time.

I think it would take a very shaky argument to claim that none of the EITs would fall under this definition. To this end, I’m curious what kind of boundaries you would place on detainee interrogation and why? If, as you claim, the detainee can always hold out on some amount of information, where do you draw the line and why even bother?

triz, I do know that Soufan was questioning Zubaydah, and my “lapdog” comment was not to Soufan, but towards our Congress members.

My point in my #7 comment remains. Soufan is declaring clairvoyance when he says what he’s doing would have worked better than waterboarding. First of all, there is nothing to say definitively that the information gained via waterboarding sessions is identical to what would be gained without. Only with vision of a parallel path.

What Soufan says is that Zubaydah was giving up some info, and insists he could have gotten the same results. Again, you are suggesting I believe that intel operatives came into an interrogation method that was successful (per Soufan), and decided to ignore what was working merely to have a bit of water fun. Personally I consider that accusation morally reprehensible from armchair spook wannabees. These guys have a dangerous and thankless job. And now it’s worse. They have a job where they are hamstrung with threats of investigations, exposure to the public and enemy alike, from the moral equivalency crowd (H/T to background friend for that…).

Feh… BS on that.

The second issue I have is you tend to use “torture” as an equivalent term for waterboarding. There is no agreement from me on that. If you want to speak maiming, I’ll agree. But no way you’ll convince me that waterboarding is at that level.

As far as the definition you wish to hold up… i.e.

….“cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” should be interpreted so as to extend the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him, temporarily or permanently. of the use of any of his natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or of his awareness of place and the passing of time.

By this definition, blindfolding the bastard is “torture”. Playing loud music is “torture”. Isolation is “torture”. Hang… mental abuse can be construed as anything a detainee finds offensive.

You might include frat/sorority inductee ceremonies in this as well. Shall we start charging college students with “torture”? How about our military trainers? Want to haul them thru the mud too? If an act is considered “torture”, then it matters not the reason that act was done.

All this vague legislative language makes for good political grandstanding, but wars are not conducted and won by following nanny feel-good rules… especially since the only nation that seems to be held to that standard is the one everyone loves to hate… the US.

One more time. You are not in the “need to know” category, and neither am I. And when this stuff endangers our military and intel operatives, I’m going to be right here, reminding those of you who feel you should be privvy to the behind the scenes details of our intel, that you are responsible for their deaths – just so you’ll sleep better at night.

As for what I do draw the line at, you’ll notice in my earlier comment, I quoted from the summary of MCA. Pull out the vague terms “torture” and “cruel and inhumane” as that is subjective. However the murder, multilation, maiming, rape, sexual abuse (not forced nudity) fits the torture description.

The price a soldier paid for that public “need to know”… from Trooper’s link to Col. Nick Rowe’s story.

On October 29, 1963, Capt. “Rocky” Versace, 1Lt. “Nick” Rowe, and Sgt. Daniel Pitzer were accompanying a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) company on an operation along a canal. The team left the camp at Tan Phu for the village of Le Coeur to roust a small enemy unit that was establishing a command post there. When they reached the village, they found the enemy gone, and pursued them, falling into an ambush at about 1000 hours. The fighting continued until 1800 hours, when reinforcements were sent in to relieve the company. During the fight, Versace, Pitzer and Rowe were all captured.

For 62 months, Rowe battled dysentery, beri-beri, fungal diseases, and grueling psychological and physical torment. Each day he faced the undermining realization that he might be executed, or worse, kept alive, but never released. His home was a wooden cage, three feet by four feet by six feet in dimension. His bed was a sleeping mat. In spite of all this, Rowe was a survivor. From the start of his capture, he began looking for ways to resist his captors while he could make plans for his escape. Since he was the S2 or Intelligence Officer for his unit, he had access to all sorts of classified and sensitive information including camp defenses, mine field locations, names of friendlies and unit strengths and locations. All information the viet cong would love to know.

Rowe concocted a cover story that he was a “draftee” engineer who had the mundane job of building schools and other civil affairs projects. As he was not wearing his West Point ring (he had left it home with his parents when he came to Vietnam), Nick claimed he went to a small liberal college and really didn’t know much about the military. The Viet Cong unsure whether to believe Rowe used torture to see if he would break and change his story. As a last resort his interrogators gave him some basic engineering problems which they felt would either validate Rowe’s story or prove that he was lying. Fortunately, as engineering courses were mandatory at West Point, Rowe was able to fool his captors.

Rowe’s cover story was eventually broken but not through any fault of his own. All his efforts were destroyed when an Anti-War Activist Group came to North Vietnam. As part of their visit to North Vietnam, the group asked to see some of the American POW’s so they could tell the American people that POWs were being treated fairly by the North Vietnamese government. Rowe’s name was on the list that they gave their hosts along with the information that he was the intelligence officer for the Special Forces Advisor Unit.

Rowe’s captors were furious that Rowe had fooled them all this time. Even worse was they knew that the valuable information he had at the time of his capture was dated and virtually worthless to them now. Rowe’s captors beat him for hours then stripped him and staked him out naked in a swamp. Now if you have ever had a mosquito bite you you know how much it hurts and itches. That night Rowe’s body was covered with a blanket of mosquitoes that feasted on him for two days. Despite his captors best efforts to torture him, Rowe still would not break to their will or give them the old dated information.

continue reading here…

Yeah… you all “need to know” about intel. Then you also “need to know” what you are doing to those protecting the US.

Then you might want to know it was this same man who was assigned the mission to develop and implement the SERE training.

From: Old Trooper

Presidential Oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The President swears to protect the Constitution of the United States, meaning that he swears to protect the laws of the land. The charge that Obama broke this oath two minutes after taking office is beyond spurious. It is a charge which is ridiculous on its face, and it reeks of pure partisanship, as opposed to serious debate.

I think that the issue of enhanced interrogation techniques goes beyond the simple question of “was it effective,” meaning did we obtain information which couldn’t be otherwise obtained.

There are certain weapons of war which are “effective,” but which are considered counter-productive to use. Poison gas being a great example.

I think that Scott and others have made a credible point that a number of prominent Dems in Congress have been trying to score political points — clumsily and hypocritically, in some cases — but this doesn’t mean that Obama’s decision to draw a clear line with regard to which interrogation techniques are permitted and are not constitutes a violation of his Oath of Office or indicates executive malfeasance. Obama’s position is not that different from that of John McCain, or even Lindsay Graham, for that matter.

Mike says that the onus is on me to “prove” this and that. I don’t have the resources or knowledge to “prove” anything regarding what precisely was done, but I have read the language of both the Torture Convention and the anti-torture law passed by Congress, and I think that the average citizen of the world, based on what is currently in the public domain, could justifiably conclude that the US has violated the intent of both international and domestic torture statutes. With due respect to Scott’s massive PDFs, I do think that the “damn rough” procedures used to obtain information would constitute torture under existing international and domestic torture statutes, in the minds of most people.

The attempt to “lawyer” the Bush administration out of culpability for violating international and domestic statutes strikes me as being quite similar to similar attempts to prove that Saddam did, in fact, possess the same WMD which were used to convince the world Iraq required regime change through war. Yes and No. Yes and No.

But let’s at least grant that Obama has not approached this irresponsibly. His position has been that rearward-looking witch hunts are not in order. His position is that certain harsh interrogation techniques are counterproductive and will no longer be used. He is supported in this view not only by liberal Democratic politicians but by a sizable number of credible people in the military, in intelligence, and on the other side of the aisle.

There are two ways of fighting terrorism. Terrorists are the world’s most renewable resource. Even Rumsfeld said that it’s impossible to kill or capture them faster than they are being replenished and renewed. It’s like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Each time Mickey chops up the broom into tiny pieces, the pieces come back to life and grow into ever more brooms to carry ever more water to drown Mickey.

The other method is the supply side approach. Reduce the rate at which terrorists are being recruited to Jihad and Islamic high rollers are motivated to donate money to terrorist organizations, while, at the same time, motivating the rest of the world to support us and to arrest and turn over terrorist suspects to our intelligence and police organizations.

When the rest of the world believes that we are in violation of international torture agreements, we assist in Jihadist recruitment and fundraising, and we make it politically difficult for foreign governments to be seen as our allies. This is a consequential problem for Pakistan, for example.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

To Scott:
I was following the back and forth between you and Larry and you posted something that I feel is incorrect.

You said:

“They tried traditional interrogation methods, didn’t get actionable intel”

But according to Ali Soufan:

From Newsweek:

Last week Soufan, 37, now a security consultant who spends most of his time in the Middle East, decided to tell the story of his involvement in the Abu Zubaydah interrogations publicly for the first time. In an op-ed in The New York Times and in a series of exclusive interviews with NEWSWEEK, Soufan described how he, together with FBI colleague Steve Gaudin, began the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. They nursed his wounds, gained his confidence and got the terror suspect talking. They extracted crucial intelligence—including the identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the architect of 9/11 and the dirty-bomb plot of Jose Padilla—before CIA contractors even began their aggressive tactics.

I think in fact there was some actionable intel gained from non EIT techniques.

Am I missing something?

Ron

Larry W: I don’t have the resources or knowledge to “prove” anything regarding what precisely was done, but I have read the language of both the Torture Convention and the anti-torture law passed by Congress, and I think that the average citizen of the world, based on what is currently in the public domain, could justifiably conclude that the US has violated the intent of both international and domestic torture statutes.

I’m still waiting for just what anti-torture law passed by Congress you refer to, Larry. I provided some summary language for the MCA 2006, which totally belies what you say above as the interpretations of “torture” were to be clarified by Executive Order. So, since you say you’ve read “the language”, I suggest you tell us the name of the bill that was enacted to which you refer.

Otherwise the only language applicable is US Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, 2340 on Torture. It incorporates the latest legislative updates from Jan 2007.

Under the opening section of 2340, definitions: reproduced below it it’s *entirety*

As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

Waterboard is not severe physical pain or suffering. Nor is it the threat of imminent death. The only way you can classify waterboarding as torture is by going the route of “mental suffering”. If you want to rely on that, there is little of anything that can be done that won’t meet the definition of “mental suffering” as it’s all subjective.

I call your absolute pronouncement of waterboarding as torture, based in US Code, the height of BS spin.

~~~

Ron, INRE your assumptions taken from Soufan’s quotes:

KSM was on the US radar because of his suspected involvement in the first WTC bombing by his nephew, Ramzi Yousef. They’ve been after him for quite awhile and, if you actually read Section 5 of the 911 Commission Report, you’d know he fled to Pakistan in 1996 to avoid US capture. The Pakistani’s picked him up in 2003 and handed him over to us.

So, pray tell, what was “actionable” about Zubaydah’s information that KSM was mastermind of 911? He did not provide the information for capture or whereabouts. And it was a man the US had already been chasing. KSM ultimately confessed his own participation in 911.

As KSM was no stranger to US intelligence, neither was Padilla. His relationship to Zubaydah was known, as well as his relationship to Muhammed Atef. Condi approved waterboarding of Zubahdah in July, and documents cite he was first waterboarded in August 2002. Bush officially declared Padilla an enemy combatant in June 2002.

Nor was Zubaydah the lone detainee giving information about Padilla.

Again, did he tell them anything they didn’t already know? And did Zubaydah… who another detainee said was against the dirty bomb plot as it may cause more problems for the jihad movement – find it oh so difficult to give up a guy who’s idea he was against?

I suggest that you are being led to believe (by Soufan) that he managed to get fresh new data out of Zubaydah. And I suggest that, based on documents I have read, what he offered up was merely yesterday’s appetizer, with no promise of a main course to follow.

To Mata:

Well according to Ali Soufan:

“Soufan also showed him photos of a number of terror suspects who were high on the bureau’s priority list. Abu Zubaydah looked at one of them and said, “That’s Mukhtar.”

Now it was Soufan who was stunned. The FBI had been trying to determine the identity of a mysterious “Mukhtar,” whom bin Laden kept referring to on a tape he made after 9/11. Now Soufan knew: Mukhtar was the man in the photo, terror fugitive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and, as Abu Zubaydah blurted out, ” the one behind 9/11.”

And:

“Soon enough, Abu Zubaydah offered up more information—about the bizarre plans of a jihadist from Puerto Rico to set off a “dirty bomb” inside the country. This information led to Padilla’s arrest in Chicago by the FBI in early May”.

And from Soufan’s Op-Ed in the New York Times:

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

So on the one hand yes they were already looking for KSM but they didn’t know he was the Mastermind behind 9/11 which I think is pretty darn important. Maybe you don’t. And according to the Newsweek article, Padilla was arrested because of Zubaydah’s confession which I would say is also pretty important.

If you read the last paragraph I listed, Soufan talks about the arrest of Mr. Shibh from a traditional interrogation and not the use of EITs.

My point was Mata that there was useful intelligence from traditional interrogations. You haven’t really provided anything that refutes that. Whether or not you personally feel the information gained was important is irrelevant. The FBI obviously felt it was important so perhaps you should take up your issues with what information is or is not important with them.

I was merely citing an account by an FBI interrogator who’s story so far hasn’t been refuted. Also if you read the rest of Soufan’s Op-ED he talks about the wall the existed between the FBI and the CIA prior to 9/11 was put back up because the FBI was not allowed to engage in those “questionable” techniques because guess what…the FBI thought those techniques were at worst illegal or at best questionable.

And besides all of that Mata, who knows what else could have been gotten from Zubaydah using traditional methods.

Ron

Ron, I didn’t say what Soufan got was irrelevant or not useful. I said what they got was day old appetizer news…. they already had KSM on a capture list… no matter what he called himself in alter ego names. Zubaydah did not give information that led to his capture.

I also doubt it would come as a surprise that KSM was involved in the 2nd WTC bombing since he was also involved in the first failed attempt to bring the towers down. A confirmation also comes from KSM himself, as well as another detainee on that same issue. Was Zubaydah relevant? Yes. The sole reason for KSM’s capture, or even him being sought? Absolutely not. Earth shattering and actionable? Not in my armchair opinion.

And, as you finish off your post… “…who knows what else could have been gotten from Zubaydah using traditional methods.” That’s the point. Soufan is stating emphatically they *could* have gotten information using other methods, and the left is taking that as irrefutable fact. I’m saying that’s something only a clairvoyant could know. Fact is, what they were getting was somewhat helpful, but not necessarily actionable. It was a crumb from a breadstick.

triz, I am not arguing with Larry about “no law”. I have, in fact, provided the current text of US Code Title 18, plus the definitions, as well as the same subject addressed in the MCA of 2006.

Larry, on the other hand, is saying that the “anti-torture law passed by Congress” defines waterboarding as torture… but provides no text of the law to support his claims. Were waterboarding, via US law, so definitively described and labeled as torture, there would be no debate.

Your straw-man arguments about hazing or SERE do not apply because those are performed on willing participants under no form of detention: in the same way that sex with a non-consenting adult becomes rape; these techniques practiced on a detainee become torture.

Try again, triz. Using your analogy, anything done to a detainee that he considers mental suffering is now “torture”. The act of waterboarding is either torture, or it is not. If our military beat a recruit within an inch of his life, is it not torture or assault and a crime, merely because he is a volunteer serving in our armed forces? What if they beat him within a foot or yard of his life? How much of a beating meets your threshhold between torture and criminal act, and voluntary training? How about if they hang him by his thumbs for days and he suffers permanent damage. Is that okay, merely because he or she enlisted in our armed forces?

Or do you just have this vague line just on waterboarding? Talk about “straw man”.

BTW, sex – consenting or not – and rape are not the same animal, and has little to do with the sexual act itself. Rape is not about sex. It’s about power. But to show you how totally off base you are, a man that has sex with a consenting 13 year old is still charged with rape.

INRE Soufan … “after a few days”… *days*?? I repeat, DAYS???? Did Soufan bother to say how many “days” it took before Zabaydah starting giving up info to Soufan, or is that not included? Soufan says they traded interrogation teams several times. If Soufan ever got what they wanted, within the time frame they felt they needed it, why do you think they replaced Soufan at all?

You seem to think their interrogations were all about getting a confession, however they had plenty of data on Zubaydah already. What they needed from him was not self-incrimination, but info that would lead to thwarting future attacks.

As I said, I have no problem that Soufan got some intel. But I have a real problem with those who suggest that replacement CIA interrogators came in, and decided to bypass a “working method”. You are – despite what you say – accusing these intel ops of dissing a proven plan merely to inflict what you consider torture. And I might point out that were a confession forthcoming to Soufan via his kinder/gentler methods, he would have had it in a timely fashion, and the replacement interrogators would not have been needed. Waterboarding did provide more info than Soufan did. Soufan does not argue that. He merely argues that, given enough time, he could have gotten it.

Soufan is all about presenting his methods as the only successful way to get the intel. And as I have said, Soufan is likely a very honorable man, but he is not a clairvoyant. Obviously they wanted info from Zubaydah that Soufan was *not* getting, hence the multiple changes in tactics and interrogation teams.

Now, let me ask you something… what makes you think a hard edge jihadi like Zubaydah is going to spill his guts merely because he may like his interrogators? Do you think Soufan was getting info that was genuinely hard to pull out? And you also might consider what Soufan was using as his bag of tricks… ala knowing his nickname. Think that info was obtained by buying some hard core AQ types some Mickey D meals and providing a few clean Korans and prayer mats? I’m not a “need to know” status, but I suggest that the data Soufan used to coax and trick what he did out of this detainee may have been achieved with methods you probably would not approve of. The threads go deep in entanglement here.

As far as Padilla… and KSM, for that matter… I already addressed both INRE Soufan’s added contributions. Whether KSM was the “mastermind behind 911″ was less relevant because the US already had it on their platter to nail the sucker. Soufan’s info did not advance that one iota.

You also forget, since you didn’t read the links I supplied in that comment above, that there was another detainee that was also giving up info on KSM. And ultimately, it was KSM who confessed to his involvement. Had Zubaydah never said a word about KSM, the US still would have gotten him thru Pakistan, and still gotten to the bottom of it. Zubaydah’s comment about 911 was useful, but it wasn’t ultimately necessary.

INRE Padilla – prior to Zubahdah’s waterboarding, they already had data on Padilla, where he had been, what his specialty was, that he hung out with Atef… so they were quite aware of his expertise in dirty bombs. I also pointed out Zubaydah would give that up more easily since he did not approve of Padilla’s plan to use a dirty bomb because of backlash on the jihad movement.

But did Zubaydah’s info via Soufan expose a plot? Lead to Padilla’s capture? Nope. Padilla was arrested months before Zubaydah was ever waterboarded. Was he convicted and now serving his sentence because of information from Zubaydah? No…. the key piece of evidence was his application to an AQ training camp.

In fact, other than ID’ing a man the US already had in custody, Zubaydah’s info on Padilla was never used by the justice department… From a Sept 2006 NYTs story about Zubaydah:

But Mr. Zubaydah dismissed Mr. Padilla as a maladroit extremist whose hope to construct a dirty bomb, using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials, was far-fetched. He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material.

In light that evidence used to convict Padilla contained nothing obtained from Zubaydah, I would question just how “actionable” his contribution was via Soufan.

@MataHarley:

INRE Soufan … “after a few days”… *days*?? I repeat, DAYS???? Did Soufan bother to say how many “days” it took before Zabaydah starting giving up info to Soufan, or is that not included?

You’re misreading the quote, Sufan is saying that the contract interrogators that used EITs did not get anywhere after several days, here’s the context to make it clearer:

Then, however, a CIA interrogation team from Washington led by a contractor arrived at the secret location. Zubaydah was stripped naked and the contractor began a series of coercive, abusive interrogations, based on Cold War-era communist techniques designed to elicit false confessions … “The new techniques did not produce results, as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking,” Soufan explained. “After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from D.C. asking why all of a sudden no information was being transmitted … we again were given control of the interrogation.”

We don’t (and shouldn’t) know what this intelligence was, and the time-line regarding KSM is very sketchy, with Soufan himself claiming that many of these memos were inaccurate; we do know, according to him, that the intelligence was quickly obtained and was actionable. Your doubts do not change the severity of these accusations. To your other point that “Waterboarding did provide more info than Soufan did. Soufan does not argue that. He merely argues that, given enough time, he could have gotten it.” In fact, he does argue just that in the quote you misread: “The new techniques [EIT] did not produce results, as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking“.

As for what kind of confessions the White House was looking for from these detainees? I suspect it was something like this, where, according to Duelfer, Cheney suggested that a detainee be waterboarded to extract an al-Qaida/Iraq connection.

My point is not that this is a smoking gun, but can you imagine a scenario with these kinds of primary source accusations against Obama where you would not argue for an investigation?

triz, I read the entire article you linked. I am aware of the entire context… and it says, “after a few days of getting no information, and repeated inquiries”. This indicates to me that, after their first “few days”, the CIA interrogators turned the reins again over to Soufan to see if he could get more effective info.

It was then that Soufan pronouces he got the info about Padilla. Well, considering that what he got wasn’t useful for evidence for a guy the US already had in custody, how thrilled should they be that Zubaydah’s telling them something they already know, and does not advance their evidentiary arguments?

The timeline about KSM’s flight to Pakistan in 1996 to avoid US capture is “sketchy”? Boy, that’s news… Don’t see any overlap there, guy. We’re talking years that the US has been on KSM’s trail because of the 1993 WTC bombing. He did not magically become wanted the minute Zubaydah ID’d him.

Soufan says “memos are inaccurate”? Then why should we believe his?

You keep repeating Soufan’s comment about “shut down” inbetween the CIA/Soufan trade off interrogation teams. Yet it was only days. And ultimately, Soufan was out of there, and Zubaydah *did* talk. So Soufan’s statement that it doesn’t work is moot, and belies the facts. As I said, Soufan’s all about saying that he could have gotten the same info without waterboarding. That’s just a bolt out of the blue comment with no foundation in fact.

And just what does Windrem’s bias-morphed account of two Intelligence agents saying that the office of the veep suggested waterboarding an Iraqi suspected of knowing AQ-Saddam ties have to do with why they waterboarded Zubaydah? Stay on topic please. Talk about left field… geeez. This was a month after the US entry into Iraq. Waterboarding was not a hot topic, as Pelosi confirms. Why dig this up about a guy who was not waterboarded to dodge the specifics of one who *was* waterboarded?

As I said, they already had the skinny on Zubaydah… they didn’t need his confession, and in fact backed down his import in AQ to a different level.

@MataHarley: You asked why I thought the interrogators would want a confession, I offered an example where EIT was purportedly justified to get a confession from another detainee. I suspect the same motivation was driving all of these interrogations.

@MataHarley: The confession interrogators wanted from Zubaydah is the same – that of a link between al Qaida and Saddam. And I’m not stating this as fact, but as a plausible reason for taking Sufan off even though he was getting actionable intelligence.

My contention is not that torture stops being torture because the victim is enlisted, but only if he is a willing participant. The Glass incident is disgusting; but if two marines were involved in a boxing match and sustained similar injuries, that would obviously not be torture because they both were consenting participants.

No, no and no, triz. Soufan was taken off because he was not obtaining whatever specific and in depth info the CIA needed. He was “effective” to a point. But as I have repeated here many times here… like crumbs off a breadstick, or day old appetizers. Zubaydah was talking… just not giving up the main course, which is what the CIA was looking for.

Obama is a receiver of intel, not an interrogator. And I give Obama considerable latitude on keeping info classified for our national security, just as I did Bush. I applaud his decision to withhold the photos, however it does not negate the damage he did by voluntarily releasing the memos without holding it up and away from the ACLU and public… as it should have been… thru litigation. He caved for poll points. He then realized the error of his ways. Good… just wish he’d done it before screwing it up the first time.

Let me get this straight, twiz. You’re telling me that my claims that the primary objective for interrogation is to get intel on future attacks is “assumption”, yet you say to me:

The confession interrogators wanted from Zubaydah is the same – that of a link between al Qaida and Saddam. And I’m not stating this as fact, but as a plausible reason for taking Sufan off even though he was getting actionable intelligence.

Spare me the assumptions lecture and apply your own “privvy to something the public is not” to yourself. Or perhaps, as Scott pointed out, you were inspired by Keith O’s diatribe this eve.

While the executive is meant to be the receiver of intel, it now looks like Cheney was intricately involved in deciding the kinds of interrogations should be carried out.

The same applies… the “it now looks like” is an assumption, but one with a twist. Cheney as VP is #2 guy to the CIC. They have a direct and legit say in what is being done for interrogation policy. However, that still makes the executive branch a RECEIVER of intel once that interrogation is complete. Methods and results are two different aspects.

But it’s good to find some… any… common ground that we both believe documents and details on our operatives methods and results should remain classified. Ultimately, my bottom line still remains the populous is not a “need to know” security cleared class.

Which then leads me to your other question. You do seem to be adamant to try and get some ODS out of me. No… I do not support airing our internal intel/executive branch battles of who knew what, when, what happened. I am not partisan about our military, our national security, or classified intel.

@ trizzlor

Wait. You’re saying that by going to SERE school I was consenting to torture? I knew I should have read that contract.

Just like everyone else that served, I knew what I was getting into when I joined. And when I decided to become a member of the flight crew, I knew I would have to go to SERE. Just like I knew when I joined ParaRescue I knew I’d have to run until I puked up a lung. But if you think SERE is like a classroom where they show you interrogation techniques and then ask for volunteers, you’re sadly mistaken.

Once you join the military, that’s the end of your volunteering. Once the uniform is on, your butt belongs to Uncle Sugar. I read that contract and they don’t put that in the fine print. It’s right up front where you can read it. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it all over again.

@Ron:

Malcolm Nance? His story has been in question and, I believe, refuted, found not credible by men who trained, took the training and served in the SEALs:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/015994.php

FWIW:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/015900.php#comment-39605

@Aqua:

Tis’ an honor to have you here with us and thank you for your service. I’m not surprised that you did not go into an indepth explanation about your training to refute Ron’s post. True patriot and man of honor.

To all:
I just threw it up to liven up the discussion. I don’t know Mr. Nance personally nor can I verify his claims.

I just wanted to get some reactions.

Ron

Missy:

Ooops.

David Wiles does say who he is in the comment. I was speed reading and missed it.

Thanks for the link

Ron