Torture memos

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

What I find remarkable is how certain you are of the effectiveness of these methods. How could you have this level of certainty?

I'm certain because I've done my homework. I've studied the history. I've read the evidence.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

You're at odds with the CIA interrogators whom, I'm certain, know more about it than do you or I or anybody writing for McClatchy. I'm guessing that it works because the CIA interrogators think it works.

Cite that they think it works. It didn't "work" to thwart the attacks in L.A., because that attack was thwarted a full year before the waterboarding began. It didn't "work" to enough of a degree that they stopped using it in 2004. If it was so effective, why stop?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I'm also guessing that it works because I personally am a huge pussy, and would tell every intimate detail I had in order to avoid even getting tased.

You're doing an awful lot of guessing.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I am guessing that your certainty is driven less from application of careful thought, and more from the fiery passionate hate you hold for torture. Your passion is admirable, and shows you deeply care. But don't let it burn you because at the end of the day there is no substitute for careful thought.

Once again, you guess wrong. Especially after the well-cited post I provided to you above, I find it highly insulting that you would charge me with not applying careful thought to my opinion or conclusions. I wish I could find your obviously uneducated guessing as admirable, but I don't.

[Undertoad]

"Highly insulting"? No need to get all riled up, I'm just some idiot on a message board.

This is the Internet, get a helmet.

OK, well let me ask you this. In Pakistan, the US has a program where it identifies certain known bad guys and vaporizes them via missile from a predator drone.

Should we not do that?

[Jill]

I think I'll take this guy's experienced word over your personal guesses. . .

My Tortured Decision

by Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005

. . .

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.

. . .

The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).

My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)

. . .

Editing to add yet another source:

Unresolved debate: Does torture work?

. . .

In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation.

“The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information,” former military interrogation instructor and retired Air Force Col Steven M Kleinman wrote in the Intelligence Science Board report. “In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that ‘compliance’ carries the same connotation as ‘meaningful cooperation.’”

In short: Slam someone up against the wall, keep him awake for days, lock him naked in a cell and slap his face enough, and he will probably say something. That doesn’t necessarily make it true.

. . .

Originally Posted by Undertoad

....I am guessing that your certainty is driven less from application of careful thought, and more from the fiery passionate hate you hold for torture. Your passion is admirable, and shows you deeply care. But don't let it burn you because at the end of the day there is no substitute for careful thought.

UT...at the end of the day, there is no substitute for the rule of law.

Whether its torture in violation of treaty obligations or circumventing FISA and spying on Americans w/o a warrant or asserting presidential "war powers" when Congress authorized no such powers...when we condone lawbreaking by our highest elected officials.....where does it end?

[Jill]

More historians and scientists weigh in. . .

Torture Has a Long History ... of Not Working

. . .

As a rule, torture is not an effective method of extracting information from prisoners, most experts agree.

. . .

A switch from more physical methods of torture to the psychological approaches emerged in the following decades [since the 1950s] in places such as Vietnam, Central America and Iran, McCoy said, without any definitive proof of their effectiveness.

. . .

Though captives are less resentful when tortured psychologically, it doesn't make their statements any more trustworthy, Rejali said.

"Torture during interrogations rarely yields better information than traditional human intelligence, partly because no one has figured out a precise, reliable way to break human beings or any adequate method to evaluate whether what prisoners say when they do talk is true,"

. . .

There's no such thing as "a little bit of torture," McCoy said of the "light" tactics that are preferred today. Detainees are just as likely to tell their interrogators whatever they want to hear under psychological distress as they are under physical distress, he said, a statement backed up by Sen. John McCain, who himself was tortured as an officer during the Vietnam War.

. . .

Innocent Suspects Confess Under Pressure

A new study finds some people under interrogation will confess to crimes they did not commit, either to end the questioning or because they become convinced they did it.

An unrelated study last year found it is fairly easy to create false memories in people in a lab setting.

Lack of sleep and isolation contribute to false confessions, the scientists say in the new study, announced today.

. . .

In the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the scientists call for videotaping of confessions so they can be properly analyzed by experts.

"Modern police interrogations involve the use of high-impact social influence techniques [and] sometimes people under the influence of certain techniques can be induced to confess to crimes they did not commit," write Saul Kassin of Williams College and Gisli Gudjonsson of King's College, University of London.

A University of Michigan study last year reached the same conclusion in analyzing 328 cases since 1989 in which DNA exoneration defendants convicted of rape, murder and other serious crimes.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" have been scientifically proven to be completely useless in gaining truthful and accurate information. Testimony from people who have endured it and/or inflicted it, corroborates these truths, not guesses.

[Undertoad]

OK, well let me ask you this. In Pakistan, the US has a program where it identifies certain known bad guys and vaporizes them via missile from a predator drone.

Should we not do that?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

OK, well let me ask you this. In Pakistan, the US has a program where it identifies certain known bad guys and vaporizes them via missile from a predator drone.

Should we not do that?

UT...IMO, it is dishonest and disingenuous to even raise the comparison of a battlefield tactic to prevent an armed enemy from striking US forces (or US civilians) to the treatment of an enemy captive in your total control.

[Undertoad]

OK, well let me ask you this. In Pakistan, the US has a program where it identifies certain known bad guys and vaporizes them via missile from a predator drone.

Should we do that?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

OK, well let me ask you this. In Pakistan, the US has a program where it identifies certain known bad guys and vaporizes them via missile from a predator drone.

Should we not do that?

Start a new thread on the subject and we can discuss it.

I would raise the issue of the capacity of the enemy forces in question, proportionality, likelihood of success, the potential impact on non-combatants, and other battlefield issues....and acknowledging the fact that the enemy is "stateless" which raises an entirely new set of questions.

But it is an entirely separate discussion from torturing captives in your total control.

[Undertoad]

Why?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Why?

The law regarding torture vs military rules of engagement.

[Jill]

I've shown with cites that the activities our government and its agents participated in has been legally prosecuted as either a violation of international laws and treaties, as well as our Constitution, or violations of national and/or state laws. I've cited first-hand testimony from an FBI interrogator and a Naval serviceman who personally had experience with these techniques, and what they result in. And I've cited the results of studies done by historians and scientists, that show that these techniques do not provide reliable information.

And instead of reading my cites, studying the evidence and acknowledging that your "guesses" were inaccurate and unfounded, you ask a totally unrelated question in an apparent attempt at a "gotcha"?

Will you please do me the courtesy of not insulting me with allegations of not having exercised careful thought, while at the same time not exercising your own careful thought? I can't debate with someone who is unwilling to examine the expert evidence and admit when he is mistaken.

[Undertoad]

They were very good cites, Jill, and you have changed my opinion.

[Undertoad]

You haven't convinced me, Dux, pretend I'm dumb. Surely there's a connection in the discussion between killing the enemy, versus capturing them and what you do with them once they've been captured. In the case of Pakistan, surely these "targets" could provide some interesting intelligence if captured and questioned. What is the moral basis for killing them, versus capturing them and putting them in a box with a bug? If it's a question of law, is the law correct?

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

They were very good cites, Jill, and you have changed my opinion.

Thank you, Undertoad. I respect you very much for that acknowledgment. I'm also glad to have changed your mind on this issue.

Don't think that I don't appreciate your gut reaction here. Some of these guys have perpetrated great evil against our citizens and our government, and some of them are or were involved in plots to do more of the same. I am against the death penalty, not because I don't believe the scum who find themselves facing that punishment don't deserve to die, but because I don't believe the government has the right to intentionally take a human life as a form of punishment. That doesn't stop me from fantasizing about being the one to pull the handle or press the plunger at some of these guys' executions. It's normal and natural to want to seek revenge. And it's normal and natural to sometimes very much want to beat the everlovin' fuck out of some asshole.

I would have a very hard time not shaking with rage if I were ever to be placed face-to-face with one of these pussbags. Restraining myself would not be easy, trust me.

But as a nation, subject to laws that we and the rest of westernized, civilized nations have adopted, we simply cannot resort to diminishing ourselves by behaving like barbarians. Here's another article with some interesting observations. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's one of the more interesting bits:

. . .

Al Qaeda does not pose a threat to the United States' (or any of its allies') existence. Its real threat lies in provoking us to employ authoritarian measures that would weaken the fabric of our democracy, discredit the United States internationally, diminish our ability to utilize our soft power and undermine our claim to the moral higher ground in the fight against the terrorists.

In other words, the critical threat is not that the United States would fail to defend itself but that it would do so too well and in the process become less democratic and lose sight of its fundamental values. "Whoever fights monsters," warned Friedrich Nietzsche, "should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

. . .