Posted on 10/21/2001 6:49:04 PM PDT by blam
MONDAY OCTOBER 22 2001
FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent
FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON
AMERICAN investigators are considering resorting to harsher interrogation techniques, including torture, after facing a wall of silence from jailed suspected members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, according to a report yesterday. More than 150 people who were picked up after September 11 remain in custody, with four men the focus of particularly intense scrutiny. But investigators have found the usual methods have failed to persuade any of them to talk.
Options being weighed include “truth” drugs, pressure tactics and extraditing the suspects to countries whose security services are more used to employing a heavy-handed approach during interrogations.
“We’re into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking. Frustration has begun to appear,” a senior FBI official told The Washington Post.
Under US law, evidence extracted using physical pressure or torture is inadmissible in court and interrogators could also face criminal charges for employing such methods. However, investigators suggested that the time might soon come when a truth serum, such as sodium pentothal, would be deemed an acceptable tool for interrogators.
The public pressure for results in the war on terrorism might also persuade the FBI to encourage the countries of suspects to seek their extradition, in the knowledge that they could be given a much rougher reception in jails back home.
One of the four key suspects is Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan, suspected of being a twentieth hijacker who failed to make it on board the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Moussaoui was detained after he acted suspiciously at a Minnesota flying school, requesting lessons in how to steer a plane but not how to take off or land. Both Morocco and France are regarded as having harsher interrogation methods than the United States.
The investigators have been disappointed that the usual incentives to break suspects, such as promises of shorter sentences, money, jobs and new lives in the witness protection programme, have failed to break the silence.
“We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck. Usually there is some incentive, some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . . where we don’t have a choice, and we are probably getting there,” an FBI agent involved in the investigation told the paper.
The other key suspects being held in New York are Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan, Indians who were caught the day after the attacks travelling with false passports, craft knives such as those used in the hijackings and hair dye. Nabil Almarabh, a Boston taxi driver alleged to have links to al-Qaeda, is also being held. Some legal experts believe that the US Supreme Court, which has a conservative tilt, might be prepared to support curtailing the civil liberties of prisoners in terrorism cases.
However, a warning that torture should be avoided came from Robert Blitzer, a former head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section. He said that the practice “goes against every grain in my body. Chances are you are going to get the wrong person and risk damage or killing them.”
In all, about 800 people have been rounded up since the attacks, most of whom are expected to be found to be innocent. Investigators believe there could be hundreds of people linked to al-Qaeda living in the US, and the Bush Administration has issued a warning that more attacks are probably being planned.
Newsweek magazine reports today that Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader who died in the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre, had been looking into hitting an aircraft carrier. Investigators retracing his movements found that he visited the huge US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, in February and April this year.
Ordinary people were at an extraordinary building. The terrorists did not attack a small town or city, or a McDonalds or a Blockbuster. The WTC and Pentagon were attacked because they represent capitalism (and possibly the White House and Capital), and the guarntee of high exposure. Similar to anthrax, news readers and congress will have a better chance of making international headlines than me. If we were not at war with these terrorists, if we did not retaliate, if we gave in to the peaceniks, if Gore was in charge, then we would have big problem. And I thank God every day that George W. Bush is our leader.
We all have seen the pictures of people hanging out of the WTC, the images of ground zero. It's appalling, the death and destruction, but we need to destroy the b@stards and their regimes, those who committed these crimes, they will be eliminated.
I do understand, more than you will ever know.
I would highly recommend all Americans watch "Beneath the Veil" on CNN. It is something you will never forget. It will be engraved in my mind forever. It is an experience similar to the first time you learned about what Hitler and Stalin did to humans in WWII. But, fair warning, it is very graphic and very disturbing.
President Bush refers the taliban as evil, I believe he was being kind. The taliban are devils, straight from he!!. You will never be able to forget. This is what we are fighting for, to keep our freedom and our liberty.
CNN link:
Beneath the Veil, Women in Afghanistan, click on 'story'
Here is the beginning text from the web site:
Ever since the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan in 1996, the group has imposed its harsh version of Islamic law on the country. In "Beneath the Veil," journalist Saira Shah traveled to Afghanistan to see the effects of the Taliban's rule on her father's homeland.She discovered public executions, allegations of human rights violations like massacres and torture, and a place where women are forced to beg because they are prevented from working. But she also found that the first voices of protest come from the most repressed, including an opposition group that uses hidden cameras to film the executions.
The FR link is:
That seems pretty pointless, seeing as how you don't understand it.
It's not something you write books about. I didn't read anyything about Washington's sex life, but I still assume he had one. Certain things are nasty little facts of life.
The phrase "ALL is fair in Love and WAR" holds true. Hell it was our founders gumption to defy the "rules of war" that won us our freedom. They came in from behind and shot officers in the back, they mercilessly slaughtered red coats in order to scare the crap out of the ones yet to arrive. War is not pretty.
If the prisoners talk it's great; If they don't, then the "entertainment" is kicked up a notch ;-)
You mean the same smug, arrogant, Clinton-apologist-Lanny Davis who will be remembered for nothing but lies and subversions of the law of the land (as seen repeatedly on Geraldo) WILL NOT LIKE THE IDEA OF G. GORDON EXTRACTING INFO FROM A GUILTY PARTY? LOL!
Probably because it didn't happen. But, as you may know, it is logically impossible to prove a negative. You can continue to think that Gen'l Washington and the rest were war criminals, but you have no evidence to back it up and no military historian of the period will take your contentions seriously.
"Certain things are nasty little facts of life."
Do not confuse 20th century practice with 18th century practice. There are many things we now accept as "facts of life" which would have been anathema to Gen'l Washington, his generation, and his class.
"Hell it was our founders gumption to defy the "rules of war" that won us our freedom."
If you mean accepted tactical and strategic common practice, the point is open to question.
" . . .they mercilessly slaughtered red coats in order to scare the crap out of the ones yet to arrive."
Check the casualty counts some time. More men died of disease than from wounds. The American War may have been many things, but it cannot be characterised as "merciless slaughter." And I do not recall any Crown forces either running away, surrendering, or mutineeing because of fear. If anything, it was the British who were the ones accused of atrocities (e.g., "Tarleton's Quarter"), although the colonists occasionally indulged to the slaughter of non-combatants, preferably of the native variety.
During the war, both sides took a considerable number of prisoners. Those in British captivity, while not tortured, were kept in extreme discomfort on prison ships. Those in American captivity were often paroled and sent to work on local farms. Check out the history of "The Convention Army" some time. They were the troops who surrendered with Burgoyne at Saratoga.
Would America still be worth fighting for if it forfeits its soul for the sake of this war?
As usual the silence is deafening.
He probably knows my name by heart by now, he hears from me on a regular basis. Occasionally I will get the typical "canned" form letter response, it takes about 3 months for it to get to me. It's the usual line of liberal BS.
MKM
And yes, brutality on the innocent was perpetrated by the British however the British soldiers experienced it as an action of war. You cannot deny that we did some "dirty" (by that times standards) things. We, in essence JUMPED their platoons with surprise attacks that gave no chance of retaliation or survival to the enemy.
And all this was the 1700's. Today we are dealing with an enemy that WANTS to slaughter our innocent citizens. And that would do anything necessary to do so. We must do anything necessary, under the restraints of the constitution, to stop them. And torture as warfare, not punishment, is not unconstitutional.
THE FIRST 10 AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION AS RATIFIED BY THE STATES
Amendments 11-27 to the Constitution of the United StatesConstitution of the United States of America - We the People of the United States...
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