Well sure, for the ones who pay $300 an hour for it....
Nutcracker video
Posted on 12/12/2007 6:37:32 AM PST by UKrepublican
'Waterboarding broke al Qaeda captive in 35 seconds,' says former CIA agent defending torture
Use of the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" was approved by the White House and gets results, a former CIA agent admitted yesterday.
The technique - which simulates drowning - was used against Al Qaeda captives with success, John Kiriakou told a U.S. TV network.
The one-time CIA interrogator is the first to speak out about the "torture" methods that have earned President George Bush's administration worldwide condemnation.
The White House has denied torture is used on terror suspects, but Mr Kiriakou said waterboarding "broke" one stubbornly silent Al Qaeda recruiter after just 35 seconds.
Waterboarding involves wrapping plastic or fabric around a detainee's face then pouring water over the top until it is forced up the nose and down the throat to simulate drowning.
Suspects are told they will die if they do not talk.
And although the technique is supposed to be low-risk, critics say it can result in long-lasting psychological damage, injury to the lungs and even, in extreme cases, death.
Mr Kiriakou told the ABC network that he had fought an "intellectual battle" in his mind over the use of waterboarding, and had concluded that it is justified as it saves lives by preventing terror attacks. "This isn't something done willy-nilly," he added. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."
Mr Kiriakou told how waterboarding was used on Zayn Abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking Al Qaeda member captured after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Abu Zubaida was seized in a gun battle in Pakistan in the spring of 2002. For weeks he refused to talk and remained ideologically zealous, defiant and unco-operative. Then he was flown to a secret CIA prison - believed to be in Afghanistan - and strapped to a board with his feet in the air.
Cellophane was wrapped around the Al Qaeda man's face and water was forced up his nose and into his throat to make him think he was drowning.
The suspect lasted only 35 seconds before he broke.
"It was like flipping a switch," said Mr Kiriakou.
"From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.
"Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get.
"I struggle with it.
"At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do."
Mr Kiriakou said he did not interrogate Abu Zubaida, but learned the details from colleagues.
His account came as the U.S. Congress began questioning CIA director Michael Hayden yesterday about why the agency destroyed at least two videotapes of controversial interrogations.
Many senators believe it was done to hide evidence of illegal torture that could have been used against CIA agents in a war crimes tribunal.
General Hayden, speaking to the closed-doors Congress hearing yesterday was expected to say that CIA lawyers ruled that the interrogations were legal and the tapes were destroyed in 2005 to protect the identities of CIA employees who appear on them.
The torture scandal is likely to become a major issue in next year's presidential election.
Abu Zubaida - who says he was coerced into making false confessions - was eventually moved to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he is now held in solitary confinement.
He is likely to be tried next year on terrorism charges and the CIA expects that he will spend the rest of his life in custody.
Mr Kiriakou, a 14-year veteran of the CIA who worked in both the analysis and operations divisions, left in 2004 and works as a consultant for a private Washington-based firm.
You suppose that torture is evil. I refuse to make that stipulation.
I propose that torture is good, under some conditions and for some recipients.
That's right. If you haven't received what I've said already, there's nothing I can say that can penetrate your hard-hearted, darkened intellect.
In my culture we call that "relativism". Sometimes "utilitarianism". We find these appeals defective.
>>Those who protest this would rather have had the dozen or so attacks happen than this terrorist receive 35 seconds of discomfort.
Don’t give me that “we’re better than this”.
What’s worse?
35 seconds of water up the nose to save thousands of civilians’ lives?
The razing of Dresden?
Two A-Bombs on civilian population centers to end a war?<<
In an isolated case where a known terrorist is known to have knowledge that would stop an imminent attack and there would be no repercussions, of course I’d support torture.
In practice, once torture is authorized, it is used to see what can be extracted. It winds up being used on people who don’t have imminent information. And it sends the message the the U.S. are no longer the good guys. There is no telling how many lives and how much suffering that may cost in exchange.
Your bottom line is utilitarianism. It won’t do. Renounce it.
Torture is terror. To employ it is to become that which you propose to defeat. They win.
So if I want to prevent mass killing that makes me hard hearted?
You would sacrifice your own family and your fellow citizens by the thousands or millions and you call me hard hearted?
I use my intellect to prevent massive loss of life and that is dark intellect?
You are one wierd person.
You attempt to sound educated and superior to others by writing nebulous crap about evil and other suppositions of what torture is, for some reason.
Just state your point clearly so we know what you are talking about. Standing by for your condescension now.
Exactly what “culture” are you from that would sacrifice millions of innocents and find that good?
Is the reductio ad Clinton considered a valid argument now?
To clarify: the attacks on Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not at all intended to kill civilians but to reduce three military installations.
My use of "solely" was to amplify the point of Gaudium Et Spes: the fathers of the Council were not teaching that warfare was impermissible, but that the use of military capability for the purpose of killing and punishing civilian populations was impermissible.
It was not used to imply that the fathers were teaching that one could simultaneously intend to reduce military targets and also intend to kill civilians in addition.
Of course the nature of an indiscriminate attack is its indifference to targeting.
The pinpoint accuracy of aerial bombardment in 2007 did not exist in 1945. What is indiscriminate by the standards of 2007 technology was not indiscriminate given the capabilities of 1945 technology.
The historical record is quite clear that civilian terror was a conscious aim of those behind the aerial bombardment. You know this.
The conscious aim of the bombardment of Dresden was to destroy Dresden as a center of military reinforcement and supply for the Eastern front.
The conscious aim of the bombing of Hiroshima was the facilities and arsenal of Japan's 2nd Army - in other words, the elimination of key military resources the Empire of Japan would have used against US landing forces if it had been necessary to invade Japan amphibiously from the South.
The conscious aim of the bombing of Nagasaki was the destruction of a key military shipbuilding facility and the incapacitation of a sizeable portion of the Japanese fleet that would have been used to prevent the US navy from successfully attempting such an amphibious invasion from the South.
It was, of course, hoped that the power and effectiveness of these bombings would inspire the Japanese and German governments to surrender - but the primary concern was to prevent a stalemate in the German east that would have enabled a stiffer resistance to the Allies in the West and considerably more Allied casualties on that front after the severe losses sustained at the Bulge two months before, and to minimize the number of casualties the US would have to sustain if a full-scale invasion of Japan became necessary.
Water boarding is NOT torture.
Every GI who ever went through SERE training got his turn at being water boarded.
I’m not sure what the 35 seconds means, but with the class of SERE students I was in, most of us were ready to give up our mothers about half way through the second 5-gallon pail of water. Three minutes after it was over though none of us were the worst for wear. Anyone who thinks this is torture can only be considered a wus.
I neitehr solicited nor wanted RedEyeJack's "assistance."
I speak for myself, not I for him nor he for me.
Then they spat in his face and struck Him, while some slapped Him, saying, "Prophesy for us, Messiah: who is it that struck you?"
A melodramatic misuse of Scripture.
If by "utilitarianism" you mean prioritizing innocent lives over a murderer's or attempted murderer's personal comfort, certainly.
It won’t do. Renounce it.
I will never renounce the cause of defending innocent lives from terrorist assassins.
Sorry.
>>Water boarding is NOT torture.
Every GI who ever went through SERE training got his turn at being water boarded.
I’m not sure what the 35 seconds means, but with the class of SERE students I was in, most of us were ready to give up our mothers about half way through the second 5-gallon pail of water. Three minutes after it was over though none of us were the worst for wear. Anyone who thinks this is torture can only be considered a wus.<<
Perhaps they did that to teach you to resist torture or to teach you that you could not resist torture.
The problem is that once you allow government to start making that kind of calculation, it will enver end, and they will rarely decide wisely. If this accepted today, 30 years frmo now government will decide which government-controlled health care patients can be left on life support and which will be unplugged against the patient’s and family’s wishes, in order to save money that can be used to pay policemen and firemen, or to pay for pollution standards upgrades for a factory, etc, any of which would save more lives.
Giving government any more power over life and death decisions, especially without the triple redundancies inherent in capital trials and appeals, is a terribly bad idea.
I was referring to this golden oldie from 1997: "I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution."
The pinpoint accuracy of aerial bombardment in 2007 did not exist in 1945.
This isn't about the inability of technology to keep up with good intentions. The Allies engaged in aerial bombardment whose avowed purpose was civilian terror. You know this.
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. We shall not, for instance, be able to get housing material out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction."
Winston Churchill, 28th March 1945 memorandum to Air Marshall Arthur "Bomber" Harris (n.b. post-Dresden raid)
G&S condemns indiscriminate acts of war. You are defending them. Renounce and repent.
Dresden accomplished nothing.
Most of the bombing accomplished nothing.
Defeat was accomplished by Willie, Joe, Tommy, and Ivan
in their muddy boots.
Yeah, eschewing torture has kept Americans from being treated badly by Al Qaeda.
What was I thinking...
>>Yeah, eschewing torture has kept Americans from being treated badly by Al Qaeda.
What was I thinking...<<
Its not Al Quaida - its the rest of the world that sees us as not as different from the bad guys as we used to be.
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