The other day, former Vice President Dick Cheney was on the Fox News Channel claiming that the questionable, some say torturous, interrogation tactics used with suspected terrorists resulted in information that thwarted major terrorist attacks. I was a bit dismissive of all this because, well, after all, this assertion comes from Cheney, believed to be the chief proponent of coercing information from terrorists in the previous administration. But now comes word that a key member of the Obama administration is verifying Cheney's claim.
The New York Times reports that a memo penned by National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair confirms that the tactics, that have been forbidden by President Obama, resulted in "high value information."
I am among those who have always felt that strong arming tactics don't work. That they only serve to get a suspect to tell you what he thinks you want to know, not what he really knows.
A former intelligence expert with the FBI who was a guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com echoed that sentiment.
But what if, say those on the other side of the equation, the torturing of a terrorist stops just one major attack on the United States? Wouldn't the ends justify the means.
Until now, this argument was purely academic. But perhaps, not so any longer.
The issue of the United States' reputation around the world still plays into the discussion of course. But let's put this a little bit into perspective. Most of these suspected terrorists come from nations that would not hesitate to use similar interrogation techniques - or worse.
That doesn't mean, of course, that two wrongs equal a right. But it does mean that, perhaps, we need to enter a little more information into the discourse before jumping to conclusions.
As one who watched the Twin Towers collapse I feel we owe ourselves at least another look at the issue.
We talk about issues like this and more weekdays at 5 PM New York time on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com
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Comments
The US has stumbled badly and is now flailing in denial. The last line of our national anthem could be replaced, doing away with "Land of the freeeee and home of the (pause) braaave" with something along the lines of "We are fucking monstrous trolls living in squalor and blood and pretending to be virtuous."
But there's an even more fundamental issue here. "As one who watched the Twin Towers collapse" do you think it is morally justifiable to torture (and in at least a hundred documented cases, kill) a detainee in order to save others' lives? I do not believe so.
There are two major problems with your argument.
First, it presumes that Americans' lives are more valuable than those of other nations. Why are Americans' lives better than other peoples'? By what standard is that defensible? And in this particular instance, what relationship do all of the Iraqis who we have tortured and in some instances murdered through torture have to 9/11? In case that answer's not obvious, the answer is NOTHING. Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11.
Second, if you permit circumstances in which torture is allowable, because the government doing the torture CLAIMS that there's a ticking time bomb somewhere, then WHO judges whether that claim is justified? Do you not open the door to any and all tyrants and sadists who hold governmental power to torture their opponents and anyone unlucky enough to fall into their hands? That is the reason why int'l law mandates that torture is illegal and immoral and a crime against humanity under any and all circumstances.
I don't know why this simple point is so hard for some people to get.
Under any and all circumstances torture is illegal, immoral, and unjust and those who carry it out are barbaric, if not before they began the torture, then in the course of doing it they become so.
"They [the Bush White House] 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."
...will always be: We really do not know.
To which I would add: Who really gives a shit? If we have to stoop to the kind of garbage a Hitler, Tojo, or Idi Amin would relish...why do we want to know it?
All that information can do is to save our way of life...and if our way of life is that abysmal...it doesn't deserve to be saved.
“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,” Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “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."
Hurt our image... damage... not essential. That's pretty clear-cut.
Wrong.
The self-serving claims of Bush officials and intelligence officers should not be taken as fact.
What is required is an independent investigation, mandated by Ciongress, into all aspects of the Bush era torture policy -- including its impact on obtaining actionable intelligence.
And even if torture advanced our war aims or made us more secure from our enemies aboard -- it is unacceptable because it makes our fundamental rights less secure from tyrannies at home.
As to this post, I think the same term applies. I don't know for what or when or from whom you got your "award for journalism", Gary, but when you headline your piece with an unqualified assertion "Bush Interrogation Tactics Worked" (without even an "according to") and then weasel-word Cheney's "claim" with "some say torturous" -- the rest of your piece is not worth bothering about.
WOOF
That is why the lights and stuff and sensory deprivation can work; you slowly go over the edge. And if someone presses you physically hard enough, you will talk, and BBE is right, a lot times, that will be about what the person wants to hear, but then it is like 1984 or John McCain in Vietnam, that that is the goal, to demonstrate that anyone can be broken if you go far enough, which might as a demonstration tactic coerce others into talking, although obviously, you want to avoid the situation in the first place in terms of always being prudent in terms of not say making terrorism a bigger deal than it is, and especially understanding why people use it as a tactic.
Missing form this whole discussion is the fact that KSM was obviously a US intelligence asset to begin with (which does not mena he did not also work with real violent radical elements, but those were largely the result of US efforts in Afghanisatn aginst the Soviets. I am very tired of reading about KSM without that very important bit of context.
See: http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&other_al-qaeda_operatives=khalidShaikMohammed
or yeah, what Rob said.
Additionally, I love the parade of GOP-apologists on the TV news now trying to make sense this way -
in Abu Ghraib - it was abuse because we weren't trying to get info.
in Gitmo - not abuse, but "harsh interrogation techniques" b/c we were trying to get info.
you can put all sorts of false justifications on it, but it is torture and abuse
and, as one former CIA analyst said on msnbc tonight, If there were evidence that even one life had been saved using these techniques, it certainly would have leaked by now. (I'm paraphrasing, but I tend to agree with that).
either way effectiveness is beside the point. we as a society agree that there are certain things that cross the line of morality and legality and that despite the safety risks, we do not engage in those things. we do not build internment camps regardless of whether or not they make people safe. we do not have military officers patrolling the streets with guns even though it might make people safe. and we do not admit evidence to court that was improperly gathered (hey there exclusionary rule!). it's just not a very difficult issue to understand.