Eat this, assholes:
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida — chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates — was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
We introduced torture into the American toolbox and we got bupkis, zip, nada, zero to show for it. Nothing.
No one could have anticipated this. I’m just shocked!
Actually, we got less than bupkis. When intelligence operations go wrong, the intelligence agency using the bogus information wastes time and resources chasing phantoms. Instead of pursuing real leads with the full attention of the field agents and management, our focus was fractured into a zillion pieces, with failure etched on every fragement. Fuzzy thinking led to this result because of a reliance on torture. That’s what we get for electing the dullest collection of ideologically-driven knives in the drawer to office in 2000 and 2004. The wing-nuts who elected these losers got the exact opposite of what they thought they were voting for.
We got something: the now well deserved reputation for relentlessly pursuing our own interests at the expense of human rights. Nevermind the existance of international treaties of long standing.
In other words, what has been reality for many decades finally became so obvious that no one could ignore it.
We’ve never before had, until Mr.Bush, a president openly defend it.
The main difference between the last administration and its predecessors is that the Bushies were so brazen about it all.
No, the main difference is that they attempted to make it legal by abusing the Office of Legal Counsel and using an Unitary Executive argument, and that they engaged in more torture and did less outsourcing.
Can you find an example of Bill Clinton arguing that enhanced interrogation techniques are not torture, that he has the right to authorize them, that American government employees can and should engage in it?
I think the most you will find is that a handful of bad guys were handed over to Syria or Jordan and tortured at their hands. That was wrong. But Bush took it to a whole new level.
“the main difference is that they attempted to make it legal by abusing the Office of Legal Counsel and using an Unitary Executive argument…“
That is part of what I meant by being brazen.
“and that they engaged in more torture and did less outsourcing.“
I don’t see any difference between doing it themselves and getting someone else to do it for them. Either way it is equally criminal, and immoral.
In an absolute sense, there is no difference.
But I think the slippery slope argument has been proven in this case.
I understand what you are saying about the slippery slope. I still maintain, though, that there is no substantive difference in any sense that matters whether someone performs a crime himself or appoints a proxy to do it for him. Were the Mafia bosses less culpable for the murders they ordered because they did not pull the trigger themselves? I think not.
One can hardly blame the government. They were probably looking at all the shining success stories of earlier torturers successfully uncovering gobs of witches in their midst.
I wish I could be sure that was really sarcasm.
Thank you!
But … but … the witch hunters were in Alaska helping Sarah.
The damage done to this country by the previous administration is beyond appalling. One can understand why this President wants to look forward instead of backward. Yet, the chickens are coming home to roost. The DOJ has its work cut out to clean out this mess.
My news sources tell me otherwise.
.
Abu Zubaida was born in 1971 in Saudi Arabia to a Palestinian father and a Jordanian mother, according to court papers. In 1991, he moved to Afghanistan and joined mujaheddin fighting Afghan communists, part of the civil war that raged after the 1989 withdrawal of the Soviet Union. He was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a mortar blast in 1992, sustaining head injuries that left him with severe memory problems, which still linger.
In 1994, he became the Pakistan-based coordinator for the Khalden training camp, outside the Afghan city of Khowst. He directed recruits to the camp and raised money for it.
The Khalden camp, which provided basic training in small arms, had been in existence since the war against the Soviets. According to the 9/11 Commission’s report, Khalden and another camp called Derunta “were not al Qaeda facilities.”
…
After 9/11 and US Bombardment and Invasion of Afghanistan:
“He was the above-ground support,” said one former Justice Department official closely involved in the early investigation of Abu Zubaida. “He was the guy keeping the safe house, and that’s not someone who gets to know the details of the plans. To make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."No game is over and nobody is going to “eat” anything.
It’s been known for centuries that torture is next to useless (and in fact highly-counterproductive) for the purpose of extracting information.
Its purpose during the Bush administration is exactly the same as Saddam Hussein’s purpose or any other dictatorship’s (including our fun loving buddies, Egypt): torture is a political weapon.
Even some of the Inquisition members knew that 400 years ago.
Not even Hitler at the peak of his power had enough soldiers, police and SS to control the population by force. Therefore it must be done through political means, including most definitely the threat to use force, up to and including torture.
That’s all this is and all it ever was (Clinton tortured, etc, it’s not NEW and it didn’t get “put in the toolbox” recently). It is a way for the government to gain power through intimidation. Pure and simple. And for that purpose, it definitely DOES work.
The only fools are those who ever believed that torture is some form of interrogation tactic. It’s not, never was and never will be. Even the British figured this out during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland.
Quite simply put, there are other interrogation tactics which are far more effective and that’s why they’re used from anyone from police forces to militaries to heck, even Dr. Phil.
Pax
soj, you are so right. Torture is all but useless as a way to gain information, but is very useful as a way to control populations by intimidation. America’s history of torture goes back a long way. It did not begin with George W. Bush, and it will not end with George W. Bush.
As an aside, I can’t help reflecting again on one of the most insidious deleterious effects of the Bush presidency on the national dialoque: the adoption of corny comic-book language by supposedly sober media outlets. How many years of Obama is it going to take before we stop hearing about “evildoers” or “plots” being “foiled?” It’s like reading news commentary on an episode of Dudley Doright.
Actually, torture has been part of the American toolbox since long before GWB came along.