U.S. Interrogator: Torture doesn't work

[Winehole23]

The evidence has been ac ulated before the opportunity presents itself. We didn't wait until KSM was in custody before we had ac ulated all sorts of evidence he probably had a wealth of knowledge of ongoing al Qaeda operations..and that extracting that information could save live.

More conditional tense. Still no proof torturing saves lives. Only endless conjecture.

[RandomGuy]

The author of the book regularly had people who had direct knowledge of imminent attacks in front of him.

He still didn't use torture, and prevented far more attacks by taking a long term approach that emphasized long-term benefits.

Ultimately, his team was responsible for acquiring information that took down the head of AQ in Iraq. He is of the opinion that his decision not torture was more effective ultimately than any torture session would have been.

Cost

to

benefit.

That is what it is about in the end. Torture = high cost, low benefit. Not torturing = low cost, high benefit.

[doobs]

That is what it is about in the end. Torture = high cost, low benefit. Not torturing = low cost, high benefit.

OK, that's about the stupidest thing posted in this whole thread.

Anyone who says torture is always effective is an idiot. Anyone who says torture is never effective is an idiot. Anyone who tries to oversimplify the matter by stating, "torture = high cost, low benefit, not torturing = low cost, high benefit" . . . is an idiot.

In reality, we are talking about two different questions:
(1) Is torture--no matter how it's defined--ever permissible? This is a moral question.
(2) Should certain methods employed by the US--like waterboarding--be considered torture? This is more of a legal question.

My answers:
(1) However it's defined, "torture" should always be illegal. You can't just shoot a guy in the knee, or rip his fingernails off, or rape his wife in front of him, or electrocute him . . . and so on. This kind of behavior is disgusting. No argument from me there. In fact, the effectiveness of these methods is pretty much irrelevant, because they are so brutal. We should not condone our government resorting to these methods.

But some interrogators are going to break the law under extraordinary cir stances, no matter what. This is the "ticking bomb" scenario that you seem to think is so stupid. In that case, the risk of a catastrophic attack GREATLY outweighs the risk that the interrogator will be prosecuted for torture. I, for one, would be eternally grateful to that successful interrogator who broke the law. And if the attack occurred, and none of the interrogators undertook extreme, illegal measures to stop the attack, I would be furious.

In fact, I think an argument can be made that occasional disregard for the illegality of torture can actually preserve our ability to outlaw torture. I would rather an interrogator illegally torture a suspect pre-attack than for the government to change the law post-attack so that all interrogators can legally torture.

In other words, I agree that the law should be clear: torture, however it is defined, is illegal. But the moral question is entirely independent of the legal question. Is it morally justified to break the law--i.e., to torture a suspect--in certain cir stances? Yes, of course it is. And the law doesn't really need to reflect that. No interrogator who prevents a catastrophic terrorist attack will be sent to prison because he beat the dog out of a suspect.

(2) A separate question has to do with the legal definition of torture. Is waterboarding torture? I think this is a harder question. But it's also a small question. We're not talking about what John McCain endured as a POW. We're talking about simulated drowning. Emphasis on simulated.

Is waterboarding brutal? I don't know. It really doesn't sound that bad to me.

Is waterboarding effective? I don't know. According to the government, it has worked in the past. But that's the government. (Then again, why would the government want to use waterboarding if it hadn't worked? To with Muslims? I don't think so.)

In other words, I don't feel comfortable either condemning or endorsing waterboarding. Basically, it's not so bad as to obviously be torture. So you have to consider its effectiveness. And who the knows anything about its effectiveness?

And, regardless, even if waterboarding is "torture", the moral question of (1) still lingers.

[Yonivore]

The author of the book regularly had people who had direct knowledge of imminent attacks in front of him.

He still didn't use torture, and prevented far more attacks by taking a long term approach that emphasized long-term benefits.

Ultimately, his team was responsible for acquiring information that took down the head of AQ in Iraq. He is of the opinion that his decision not torture was more effective ultimately than any torture session would have been.

Cost

to

benefit.

That is what it is about in the end. Torture = high cost, low benefit. Not torturing = low cost, high benefit.

And, I think if they had waterboarded the er on day one, they'd of know where Zarqawi was a lot sooner. I wonder how many deaths would have been averted then?

[LnGrrrR]

And, I think if they had waterboarded the er on day one, they'd of know where Zarqawi was a lot sooner. I wonder how many deaths would have been averted then?

Or they might have just killed him with torture, as they have others.

[Yonivore]

Or they might have just killed him with torture, as they have others.

You've been reading too much stupid . A) Waterboarding is non-lethal and B) Who have we tortured to death?

[ChumpDumper]

So which instance of torture has prevented an imminent attack on the US?

[Yonivore]

And, another thing while we're on the topic of Iraq. This interrogator you guys have been holding up as a saint because he befriended terrorists into giving up Zarqawi -- if he is to be believed -- has put the lie to one of y'all's biggest complaints about the war in Iraq.

Here's a paragraph from an article about how our "torture" techniques led to more deaths than it prevented (which, by the way, I don't buy for a minute but, again, this is your guy, not mine.)

He writes: "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-Qaida 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."

1) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

2) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before we invaded.

3) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was responsible for the suicide bombings that incited the sectarian violence in Iraq.

Therefore:

4) Al Qaeda was in Iraq before we invaded and is responsible for the violence that escalated the war after we had successfully unseated the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein.

If these are true statements, what has all the fuss about al Qaeda not being in Iraq been about the past 5 years?

[ChumpDumper]

Damn Yoni, after all these years you still don't know the difference between Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq?

You are one stupid mother er.

[Yonivore]

And another excerpt from the interview:

MA: Well, the things that we used in Iraq is we took the methods that had been used prior to our arrival, and we changed them. The methods that the Army was using were based on fear and control, and those techniques are not effective. They're not the most effective way to get people to cooperate. My team was a little bit different, because we were made up of several criminal investigators who had experience doing criminal interrogations, in which we don't use fear and control. We use techniques that are based on understanding, cultural understanding, sympathy, things like intellect, ingenuity, innovation. And we started to apply these types of techniques to the interrogations. And ultimately, we were able to put together a string of successes within the al-Qaida organization that led to Zarqawi's location.

AG: What does that mean, sympathy, those kind of -- using that approach?

MA: Let me just give you one example out of the book. Let's go to the example where I convince one of Zarqawi's associates to give up a path towards Zarqawi. This man was a highly religious man. He was deeply schooled in Islam. He had spent 14 years studying Islam. And we had tried fear-and-control techniques on him for a period of about three weeks, and they didn't work. He had maintained that he had nothing to do with al-Qaida.

AG: What do you mean, "fear and control?"

MA: By fear and control, I mean using tactics that are basically intended to intimidate a detainee. You're not allowed, within the rules of interrogation, to threaten a detainee, but there's ways to create fear without threatening a detainee. And those methods, although legal, are not most effective.

So, according to this 'gator, they replaced "fear and control" techniques which, by his description, did not include waterboarding.

I think waterboarding would have been more effective in finding Zarqawi than were his techniques. Khalid Shaihk Mohammed was singing in less than 3 minutes. That other guy in a mere 35 seconds.

Now, that's results.

[ChumpDumper]

Now Yoni is an expert on torture, too.

[Winehole23]

1) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Yes, but he wasn't affiliated with Al Qaeda until 2004, after the US invasion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...502263_pf.html

2) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before we invaded.

In US protected Kurdistan. We had chances to take him out, but the President and the NSC vetoed them.

http://www.answers.com/topic/abu-mus...o_kill_Zarqawi

3) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was responsible for the suicide bombings that incited the sectarian violence in Iraq.

Overstated, but this is minimally true. Sectarian atrocities and score settling were probably not avoidable in any case. To put them all down to Zawqawi is naive at best, misleading at worst.

The weakness of your premises makes your argument a parody of reason, YV. It is just pitiful.

[Yonivore]

Zarqawi allied himself with the Taliban and al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, and fled to Iraq via Iran after we invaded Afghanistan. His presence in Iraq wasn't confined to the North and there is evidence he was in Baghdad prior to 2003.

[Yonivore]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell...hapter12-o.htm

According to Globalsecurity.org, the CIA considered Zarqawi an al Qaeda operative as early as 2002 when they noted his presence in Kurdish Iraq and in Baghdad.

[ChumpDumper]

"Someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda."

- Donald Rumsfeld, 2004

[Winehole23]

Zarqawi allied himself with the Taliban and al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, and fled to Iraq via Iran after we invaded Afghanistan. His presence in Iraq wasn't confined to the North and there is evidence he was in Baghdad prior to 2003.

Moving the goal posts, eh?

It's a nice bit of pettifogging. This isn't what you just argued, and even though it's true, it doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

Instead of being so elliptical, why don't you unpack it, and say what you really mean?

[ChumpDumper]

He means they're still translating the do ents!

[Yonivore]

Zarqawi was wounded during America's Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and fled to Iraq when U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban. He received medical care for a serious leg injury and convalesced for more than two months in Baathist Baghdad. At minimum, Hussein's regime provided Zarqawi with safe harbor and free passage in and out of Iraq.

Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist camp in northeastern Iraq (with chemical weapons labs) and later arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan. While some analysts believe that Zarqawi is a rival rather than an associate of Osama bin Laden, he did have links to bin Laden and allowed his camp in Iraq to be used as a refuge for al Qaeda terrorists fleeing Afghanistan.

Zarqawi is not the only terrorist with ties to Hussein. In his report in the Hudson Ins ute's American Outlook magazine, Deroy Murdock explains how ``Baathist Iraq was a general store for terrorists, complete with cash, training, lodging and medical attention.''

Among the killers hiding in Iraq was Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. His Abu Nidal Organization killed or maimed more than 1,200 people in 20 countries, including the airborne bombing of a TWA airliner in 1974 and the attack on a TWA ticket counter at Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci airport in 1986. Nidal had taken refuge in Iraq since 1999. He reportedly ''killed himself'' with four bullets to the head in Baghdad in August 2002.

In April 2003, Khala Khadar al Salahat, another terrorist with ties to Nidal, surrendered to the First Marine Division in Baghdad. According to at least one published report, a Palestinian source claimed that Salahat and Nidal had furnished Libyan agents the plastic explosives that destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

U.S. Special Forces also captured terrorist Abu Abbas in April 2003 just outside Baghdad. He had been living there under Iraqi protection since 2002. Abbas planned the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean in which the terrorists killed wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, a retired 69-year old American.

Italian authorities had detained Abbas briefly at the time but released him because, according to Italy's then-Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, ''Abu Abbas was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic passport.'' Abbas later died of natural causes in U.S. custody.

Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted for mixing the chemicals in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and still on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, fled to Baghdad after the WTC attack and lived there for years. Do ents discovered by U.S. forces in Tikrit showed that the Iraqi government gave Yasin both a house and a salary.

Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi who orchestrated the first WTC bombing, also entered America on an Iraqi passport.

Hussein supported Palestinian terrorists (''martyrs'') who also killed numerous Americans. In March 2003, eight days before the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq began, Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported about a ceremony organized by the Hussein-backed Arab Liberation Front in Gaza City in which ``the families of 22 Palestinians [suicide bombers] killed fighting the Israelis each received checks for $10,000 or more, certificates of appreciation and a kiss on each cheek -- compliments of Saddam Hussein.''

According to the State Department, the terrorists whom Hussein backed had killed or injured more than 3,500 civilians outside Iraq. U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 paragraph 32 (the 1991 Iraq disarmament resolution) called on Hussein to renounce terrorism. He clearly failed to do so.

Yet, another reason given for invading Iraq...and, given that al Qaeda was fleeing Afghanistan for Iraq, it made sense to go there next.

Zarqawi wasn't the only one. Hussein had a long history of aiding and abetting terrorists.

[ChumpDumper]

Now I'm Paul Crespo! Watch me steal!

[Yonivore]

http://www.husseinandterror.com/

[LnGrrrR]

You've been reading too much stupid . A) Waterboarding is non-lethal and B) Who have we tortured to death?

Links: http://www.counterpunch.org/phillips12022005.html
http://www.warcrimeswatch.org/news_d...rtid=841&cat=1

And some pictures of abuse, with only one or two of deaths caused by interrogation along with Abu Ghraib: http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

I fear that waterboarding goes over a certain line that, once crossed, will lead to inevitable other violations. If waterboarding doesn't work, then what? Do we step it up?

If you say no, then you and I differ on the line to draw. If you say yes, then I disagree with your thinking completely and disagree with the moral statement you're making.

[Yonivore]

Links: http://www.counterpunch.org/phillips12022005.html

Four Americans tried for murder in the case this website leads off with. Not exactly a support of sanctioned torture being the case. Do atrocities occur? Yes. The difference between us and most other countries of the world, including our enemies and non-state terrorists, is that we bring our offenders to justice when they are discovered.

http://www.warcrimeswatch.org/news_d...rtid=841&cat=1

No support in the article for their claims. I read another article by a group critical of the U.S. used the same "eight killed by torture" figure. They too led off with the alledged murder of the Iraqi General for whose murder four Americans were tried. That this is the most agregious case, because it leads stories on our abuses, tells me they've been unable to find any cases where sanctioned torture led to death.

And some pictures of abuse, with only one or two of deaths caused by interrogation along with Abu Ghraib: http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

Abu Ghraib was punished. And, I'm not going to weed through the other images trying to place them in context.

Show me a death caused by sanctioned torture and, then, you have an argument.

I fear that waterboarding goes over a certain line that, once crossed, will lead to inevitable other violations. If waterboarding doesn't work, then what? Do we step it up?

Seems to the the other violations were perpetrated by people who never tried waterboarding. And, by all accounts, waterboarding works just fine.

If you say no, then you and I differ on the line to draw. If you say yes, then I disagree with your thinking completely and disagree with the moral statement you're making.

There's no evidence the use of waterboarding crossed any lines, everyone subjected to it is alive and well at Gitmo...free to use their U. S. Supplied laptops and Korans and enjoy 3 squares a day.

[LnGrrrR]

There's no evidence the use of waterboarding crossed any lines, everyone subjected to it is alive and well at Gitmo...free to use their U. S. Supplied laptops and Korans and enjoy 3 squares a day.

With no habeas corpus, of course.

So, do you believe waterboarding is acceptable because it is not torture? Or do you feel waterboarding is acceptable because of the 'ticking time bomb' theory?

[Yonivore]

With no habeas corpus, of course.

Not exactly torture. When have we ever extended habeas corpus to enemy combatants?

So, do you believe waterboarding is acceptable because it is not torture? Or do you feel waterboarding is acceptable because of the 'ticking time bomb' theory?

I believe waterboarding is acceptable because it produces results, quickly and non-lethally.

[ElNono]

Not exactly torture. When have we ever extended habeas corpus to enemy combatants?

Throughout American history? With the exception of the Civil War and parts of the World War II, where it was suspended, we always have. This administration sought to suspend it again for those in Guantanamo Bay, and as we all know, it didn't work.