U.S. Torture (?) Methods: Humiliation and Make-Believe Drowning
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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.
If you have to ask that question then you are hopelessly naieve or you are one of those anti Americans who think we are the greatest evil on the planet.
Both of which make you part of the problem.
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Gay patriot?
Answer the question.
I have stated before why we are fighting.
I am not going to play your stupid games to hide your ignorance.
The fact that you asked such a stupid revealing question is your fault.
“but Anderson Cooper calls it torture!!!!!!”
It’s torture to watch Anderson Cooper.
Why don’t you go back to DU you troll.
Perhaps because the entertainment here is so compelling, in a train-wreck sort of way.
Now, as you were saying...
Hey, can someone post those September 11 pictures of innocent people who were murdered at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and Shanksville, PA?
Perhaps those people who were terrified and jumped from the 102nd floor of WTC 1. Or maybe the incinerated Department of Defense workers at the Pentagon. There were no remains left after United Flight 83 went into the ground, but maybe there is a picture of the black crater after the plane hit the ground at a high speed.
THOSE are the photos that ought to never be forgotten whenever some JACKASS ACLU pantywaist or some liberal plant in the CIA or the State Department or the Justice Department starts leaking crap to the New York Slimes.
Crash and burn terrorists thugs.
Thank you, you admit that you are a troll just trying to stir things up as if our national security is some sort of sick game.
I’m the one who’s here trying to talk about national security. Such as: why are we at war?
Asking why we are at war now at this stage of the war is like asking why were at war in January 1945.
Don’t forget, the apple of God’s eyes David. Under your pacifist take on God, David should be condemned. When David conquered the Moabites he made them all lie down, measured them off with a length of a cord and every two lengths a person was killed. Every third length a person was allowed to live and were under David’s command, became subject to them and brought tribute to their conqueror. What does prophecy have to do with this? Yes a bit of condemnation of God towards the Moabites was used through David but on a strategic matter made the aspect of revenge moot since if you destroy the next generation and they become under your thumb what is left. Kill every man, woman, child etc... David/Joshua should be roasting under your take.
Yet your self righteous pacifist warped view of God is asking this same God that allowed all this violence to condemn people who practice in "waterboarding" Go figure.
Our intelligence agents are not torturing people for the fun of it or promoting the “power of their religion”. They are gathering information so we can defend ourselves from those wishing harm on us.
What did Jesus mean when He told His disciples to sell their cloak and buy a sword? Jesus knew while He was on earth everyone around Him were protected by God. You see Jesus mission was to be Crucified, not conquer. Once Jesus’s mission was complete that protection was lifted and the disciples now had to use earthly means to protect themselves. In short Jesus promoted self defense.
What Jesus did not promote was using His name to establish earthly kingdoms by the sword. You live by the sword you die by them. Crusades were one of many reminders of this.
Please take your elementary view of God and let the grown ups handle those who wish to slaughter the people who believe in Yahweh. God allows us to defend ourselves, sorry but torturing people to gather information to defend our freedom to we can continue to spread Christianity is not a ticket to hell.
Hard to fulfill the prophecy of spreading God's word to all the ends of the earth when you are living under Sharia law don't you think?
-and the IRS IS sanctioned by these liberal spending dems......figures.
You have no clue what this means.
your elementary view of God
Unintentional irony alert.
Tell us oh great one the meaning of the scriptures so we may sit at your feet and emulate your great insight as our sworn enemies slaughter us because we cannot defend ourselves.
Protect us in your ways of peace.
Why? Because like in my previous post Jesus’s mission was to die on the cross, not the battlefield under earthly weapons and His disciples were to carry out various other prophecies. In short they were all protected on High by more powerful weapons found on earth until the mission was over.
Once the mission was over, protection was lifted and Christians had to resort to earthly defenses. In short self-defense in order to continue filling the earth with their offspring. Do you actually think God hates His followers so much, that He took the ability of defending themselves away?
How else can you explain this? By making up and resorting to elementary BS which you probably think it’s all figurative double speak? “Everything is just figurative, God is only about love” elementary weak theology is not what the Bible is about, the Bible is about hard truths, period. The Bible speaks clearly on the subject of self-defense, from the Old to the New Testaments and God has ordered physical and psychological warfare implemented indiscriminately.
I am against the liberal uses of torture though, only on those who might be suspected of having info. Which means not every prisoner. I would hope a more psychological/medical form rather than physically is mostly implemented. If we ban all forms of torture that would mean all forms such as interrogation methods used by domestic law enforcement officials.
I know I'm supposed to find this reassuring. Such magnanimity.
I am not a pacifist, btw. I adhere to the classic Christian doctrine of just war.
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