Posted on 05/04/2011 9:23:23 AM PDT by drzz
A former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, who was investigated last year by the Justice Department for the destruction of videos showing senior al-Qaeda officials being interrogated, says the harsh questioning of terrorism suspects produced the information that eventually led to Osama bin Laden’s death.
Jose Rodriguez ran the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 2002 to 2005, the period when top al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and Abu Faraj al-Libbi were taken into custody and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) at secret prisons overseas. KSM was subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques. Al-Libbi was not waterboarded, but other EITs were used on him. “Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libbi about bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,” Rodriguez tells TIME in his first public interview. Rodriguez was cleared of charges in the video-destruction investigation last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at swampland.time.com ...
Last night, an ex CIA agent said just the opposite. He said if waterboarding was what worked we would have had bin laden in 2003. Not in 2011. He is right.
Sometimes the intel you get in 2003 isn't ACTIONABLE until 2011 - if ever.
Panetta is one of the better Democrats you can expect to get in a Democratic Administration.
That would be awesome if he did say it. Is there any documentation, or a video somewhere?
Yes, he is on video saying it...from Brian Williams no less
4 minute mark
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/03/panetta_open_question_if_waterboarding_helped_find_bin_laden.html
Still, with that, and the testimony from the ex-CIA official in Time, I think it is pretty safe to assume that waterboarding and other low-level forms of torture helped get OBL.
BTW, I hate euphamisms. I believe in calling a spade a spade. Anyone who denies that "enhanced interogation" is low-level torture is fooling himself. But that's fine. I don't believe we need to be apologetic about torturing someone like KSM.
If it is morally permissible to kill the guilty in order to save the lives of the innocent, why is it not permissible to inflict on the guilty temporary, non-lethal, non-injury-causing pain to acheive the same end?
No, he is wrong. His logic doesn't follow.
It is quite plausible that waterboarding gave us a lead in 2003, which in turn led to another lead, and then that lead led to another, and so on until it sequence of leads eventually led to OBL's location.
All the accounts written so far seem to suggest that is exactly what happened. That is, the waterboarding in 2003 was the start of a sequence of leads that led to the eventual result in 2011. But without that initial lead, it is hard to see how the final result could accomplished. I suppose, though, we will never know the counterfactual of what would have happened had we never got that first lead.
Torture is what the North Vietnamese did to McCain, and he still suffers from the injuries inflicted.
The afternoon of his water-boarding, KSM would have been perfectly able physically to play a rousing game of tennis, and has not a single scar to show for his “torture”.
Keep using it! It works.
In other words, it causes mental anguish, making it fit the standard definition of torture, which does not necessarily require physical pain.
Torture is what the North Vietnamese did to McCain, and he still suffers from the injuries inflictedThe afternoon of his water-boarding, KSM would have been perfectly able physically to play a rousing game of tennis, and has not a single scar to show for his “torture”.
There are different degrees of torture. Admittedly, waterboarding is among the mildest. Nevertheless, a form of interogation need not cause lasting injury to be classified as torture.
Bottom line, though, whether you call it torture or not, waterboarding KSM was quite obviously morally justified.
IMHO, we would have been morally justified to put him on the rack, medieval style, if it would have been effective at making him talk.
I suspect, though, that low-level, mental torture, such as waterboarding, is probably more effective at obtaining useful information than brutal, physically painful torture.
In other words, it causes mental anguish, making it fit the standard definition of torture, which does not necessarily require physical pain.
Torture is what the North Vietnamese did to McCain, and he still suffers from the injuries inflictedThe afternoon of his water-boarding, KSM would have been perfectly able physically to play a rousing game of tennis, and has not a single scar to show for his “torture”.
There are different degrees of torture. Admittedly, waterboarding is among the mildest. Nevertheless, a form of interogation need not cause lasting injury to be classified as torture.
Bottom line, though, whether you call it torture or not, waterboarding KSM was quite obviously morally justified.
IMHO, we would have been morally justified to put him on the rack, medieval style, if it would have been effective at making him talk.
I suspect, though, that low-level, mental torture, such as waterboarding, is probably more effective at obtaining useful information than brutal, physically painful torture.
When people think torture (and what images comes to mind among native speakers is what defines a word) they think dungeons and clamps and racks and redhot pokers and iron maidens and thumb screws.
I think making this distinction is not just semantics. And I agree that such coercive interrogation methods are more effective than torture - I don't agree that they are torture.
We don't torture people - we use coercion. Apparently water-boarding IS quite effective - rendering the need for such barbarities moot. And yet they are still practiced - leading to the necessity (in my mind) of drawing a distinction between them.
Bookmarked!
At least Wired.com (no change to title) made a feeble attempt to update this story...
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/surveillance-not-waterboarding-led-to-bin-laden
If waterboarding doesn’t work, try an ironing board, a surf board, or a good 2 x 4. This is war and if we don’t get tough, we lose. I’m not for gratuitous torture or even widespread torture, but something like waterboarding can save thousands of lives if used judiciously and sparingly.
I, for one, will not have the blood of our soldiers or innocents on my hands or conscience if I were to fail to try my best to protect them. A coward’s way out leaves a lot of bodies in its wake.
It is one form of torture, according to the US Federal Code:
(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2)“severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;
Waterboarding clearly qualifies under (B), as a "procedure calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses," and posssibly (C), "threat of imminent death."
Taken from here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/718/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html
We don't torture people
If there are Islamist terrorists who deserve torture, and by whose torture the lives of innocents can be saved, then we should torture them and be unapologetic about it.
I don't think panic over inducing a drowning reflex is a disruption of the senses or personality - they are making them quite aware of the sense of drowning - not disrupting that sense.
And while a drowning reflex makes someone go through the physical reactions associated with them being threatened by imminent death - nobody yet had died from it -nor is death threatened or implied as a consequence of this procedure - so I don't see it as a threat of imminent death either.
Torture has a clear meaning to most people, and making someone think they are drowning for 15 minutes to get them to talk doesn't cover it to most people - that is just a coercive interrogation technique.
Seeings as how genuine real deal torture DOES go on - I think it critical to differentiate what we do with what goes on elsewhere.
As the sibling of a rather sadistic older brother - I had to laugh at Ann Coulter’s characterization recalling herself growing up with her older brother.
Here is Ann Coulter describing (satirically) the absolute HORROR of reading the CIA “torture” memos.
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2009/04/29/muslims_we_do_that_on_first_dates
Huh? Anguish is excrutiating mental pain or suffering! That's the definition fo the word! Hence it follows that mental anguish is mental pain. Don't believe me? Look it up for yourself:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anguish
I don't think panic over inducing a drowning reflex is a disruption of the senses or personality - they are making them quite aware of the sense of drowning - I don't think panic over inducing a drowning reflex is a disruption of the senses or personality - they are making them quite aware of the sense of drowning - not disrupting that sense.
Dude, you are grasping at straws here. They are creating a sense of drowning when in point of fact the person is not drowning. If that's not a disruption of the senses, nothing is.
Disruption of the senses was mentioned in the context of drugs - and can also involve sensory deprivation, etc. It was not written to cover “you may feel like you are drowning - but this is just a physiological response”.
There is real deal 100% unambiguous TORTURE going on - we don't do that - I think the distinction is an important one.
It is fine that you disagree, but I don't think American interests are served by saying “We torture people” when we don't do anything that comes close to what most people do when they engage in torture.
Did you read the Ann Coulter article?
Did you laugh?
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