The newspaper that brought us Judy Miller and the Iraqi aluminum tubes of mass destruction now wants us to believe that no one involved in the decision to authorize torture after 9/11 had any real idea what they were doing. They are, no doubt, shocked, shocked, to discover the true nature of the procedures they approved.
This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved – not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees – investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.
Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.
They could have learned about the water-board at the Tuol Sleng torture prison just by reading BMG (admittedly, in 2007).
Does anyone expect informed observers to believe this thinly-veiled apologia for the torturers? It reads more like an episode of Really? on S.N.L. than a serious news article. Maybe it’s a shot across the bow of possible European indictments of the torturers. Pull yourself together N.Y.T. This is embarrassing.
Discuss
91 Comments . Leave a comment below.So if it is true that only three people were waterboarded and one of them was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and because of the waterboarding we stopped an attack of the scale of 9/11 was it not worth it? I think so and I think the majority of Americans will think so. Obama may have opened up a can of worms that should not have been opened.
None of that is true.
With so much misinformation and rumors... floating around, how can you say at this point that something "is not true". Let me guess, did you say the rumors of John Edward's "love child" were not true either?
making up stuff I didn't say.
My remark was to Kirth who said "None of that is true." Who are you?
anything at all about John Edwards's personal life.
I think any semi-intelligent person can see the difference between asking a question vs. "making stuff up you did/didn't say". See the difference? You might say "Let me guess, you are against new taxes" and then I get outraged and say "Stop making up stuff I didn't say". My response would be you guessed wrong/right...
When FOX and a few other brave news companies broke the story about Edward's (then running for President) "love child", I'm sure the responses from the left were denial, demands for proof and the always popular "silence". (Before you respond, I didn't accuse you of any of these things). But six months later when the story couldn't be hidden by his handlers and the DNC any longer, the truth finally did come out.
Much of this discussion will go nowhere since the left will abhor torture regardless of any other TOP SECRET memos released by Obama (doesn't TOP SECRET mean they shouldn't be released?) showing American lives were saved by water-boarding the Sheik. And people like me will continue supporting these techniques even if a TOP SECRET memo comes out showing we gained no intelligence from the methods.
"...the left will abhor torture regardless..." I do believe you're correct about that. The Left, along with just about everyone else in the civilized world, does abhor torture, as they should. And people like you will not, regardless. Even if we agreed on every single other thing, that would be enough for us to deprecate and condemn you.
Which is why JohnD should be ignored.
If anyone brought a charge up against anyone you like it would be summarily dismissed while charges against any opposition would be embraced, considered but not rejected.
You are blind to a fault in support and from criticism.
believe everything the National Enquirer writes.
That's an argument for ignoring you — and your ilk.
The National Enquirer is not among my regular reading material but they do get it right from time to time just as the Globe and other MSM get it wrong from time to time.
Think outside the box KBusch.
Thinking outside the box is great for brainstorming and inventiveness.
Taking a mostly wrong news source as true because it aligns with your ideology is foolish.
Maybe you'll find a nut tomorrow. I mean other than yourself.
It's certainly nutty... and JohnD is convinced it's true.
Almost sounds like one of US Senators making a speech.
I could go find the records of the "Republican" towns and the income per resident... and then show how many at the bottom of the ladder (don't work, use tons of social services, contribute noting to society except illeteracy, prison population and crime... PAY NO TAXES... and based on election results these are overwhelming Democratic voters but I'll agree that I might have been over the top on some my words.
Maybe I have cognitive dissonance about this. Let me try the reverse...
- Conservatives don't work and live off social programs... no that doesn't work.
- Most protesters in the LA immigration protest or the Million man march were Republicans... no.
- If Republicans didn't pay Federal taxes then the Federal Tax revenues wouldn't go down... nope.
- The majority of people in the unemployment lines in Worcester are Conservative Republicans... nope.
- I wonder if the owner of Massiminos is a Republican (That's right, I wouldn't know since I've never been there according to you).
Hey, maybe I was right after all. I'll see if I can find some Republicans at the Soup Kitchen tonight when I'm working (after Daughter's softball practice).
But that doesn't matter to you.
Just as much of what you and others say here is also not "data" but we all seem to be ok with most postings NOT having links to citations.
You'd used it three times in the last week alone, all as justification for one of your fabrications (well, it COULD be true...).
I'd say it was the last refuge of a scoundrel, but, unfortunately, you tend to keep arguing long after that.
I don't care to what extent it may have "worked" - it's wrong, PERIOD!
of why I will not be voting GOP for the foreseeable future. Because this position you espouse here is, especially after reading the previous administrations defense of torturing people, evil, and shocking to the Christian conscience. Defense of this evil by reference to the plot of last week's "24" (though, to be fair I don't think that you specifically have done this) is, in addition, stupid.
The Republican Party is thus presently comprised of people who are stupid, advocating on behalf of evil. They have thus brought extreme disgrace upon the republic.
I await the emregence of a conservative party that is interested in limited government, respects the traditions and institutions of that republic, and the protection of the rights of the citizens of the republic. Your party ain't it.
You're talking about the plot to fly a plane into LA's Library Tower. Waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed supposedly revealed the plot, allowing it to be prevented.
The problem is, that plot was either defunct or "broken up" in 2002, and Mohammed wasn't captured until a year later.
Please note the source of that quote; it's the "broken up" link above.
The former members of the Bush Administration can't be bothered with the truth. They will continue to lie as long as they can find someone to listen. Do yourself a favor - don't be that someone.
It's not like we hadn't done this before.
The NYT once had a less sanguine reaction to torture:
But in general the press is afraid. Every time I see a network or cable news person, or print reporter, use weasel words like "these techniques" and refuse to just call them torture, I feel a little bit of rage.
It's emerging in the senate report that one of the reasons for using the methods was to try to extract confessions of an Al Q -- Iraq connection.
to get the 'confession' they were looking for, they must not have been very good at torture. No wonder they waterboarded Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times.
I read this as a scathing indictment of their laziness, ignorance, and unwillingness to invest in a thoughtful consideration of methods. I don't view this tone of this piece as apologetic at all; in fact, I see it as quite the opposite. Take home translation: not only did they do these horrible things, but they were so cavalier in going down that road they didn't even take a nanosecond to actually think or research what they were doing.
I find that unlikely to the point of disbelief. A few, perhaps, but all? No way.
I suspect that they assumed that nobody would ever see any of it. Like most criminals, they simply assumed they would never be caught, never mind prosecuted.
I also strongly suspect that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg -- which is why the demands to stop any prosecutions are becoming ever more strident.
Philip Zelikow, a lawyer who read the memos as Condoleezza Rice's policy representative to the NSC Deputies Committee, wrote a contrary opinion, which the Bush Administration did its best to eradicate. He talks about it on Shadow Government.
... navy SEALS on withstanding 'these techniques' says we should prosecute:
Some other highlights:
forgot.... h/t Ed Brayton
I'm sure for every "former Navy Seal Trainer" you get saying torture is wrong someone else will find one who says we need to whatever necessary to protect American lives and American soil.
Former General "X" says the surge was wrong while former General "Y" says the surge is exactly what we need.
If you support severe interrogation techniques then you'll find reasons/people/studies... to show how useless/immoral/counter-productive these methods are while others find the opposite.
I have no problem with KSM being water-boarded or anything else needed to protect Americans. For those who believe that other countries will treat American prisoners properly based on how we treat our prisoners, please wake up and smell the coffee. Think about how Americans prisoners have been treated the last 20,30 years.
We'd damn well better prosecute their bosses in the Executive Branch: Bush and Cheney. These guys, like the CIA and the DoD, were just following orders.
Vengeance is mine sayith the Lord...
What's the penalty for releasing TOP SECRET memos?
You would rather penalize an administration which refuses to lie about torture than an administration that tortures?
You suggest that what Farnkoff or other folks here want is vengeance, not justice. You imply that the torture of those held captive should remain a secret. Which means that the torturers themselves are acting out of justice rather than vengeance or at best use overzealous measures to protect our country (which don't protect our country). What garbage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Seriously, can anyone figure out his column in today's paper?
Huh?
Torture is reprehensible, but when it's done by honorable Republicans, it's understandable. When Democrats release memos about it, the terrorists win.
Jacoby is a partisan. I was interpreting his column in my partisan fashion.
Phone call for you, Mr. Kettle. It's Mr. Pot. He says he's calling about your color scheme.
but he can understand why government officials sometimes do it under extreme situations. Sort of like when a guy comes home and finds his wife being raped and he pulls his gun out and shots the rapist. You may not condone the shooting and in fact you deplore the shooting, but you can understand that the emotions of the moment caused the husband to shot vs. "detain" the rapist. Or maybe I'm totally wrong.
Not about Jacoby, but in your implied apology for torture.
I took a shot at it. I don't need to "imply" an apology since I outright support what our government did to protect us and I hope they continue to do whatever it takes to protect us. Was the explicit enough.
BTW, thanks for your ideas on what Jacoby meant (or were you too busy snarking at me).
or merely confirming your suspicion that you were "totally wrong?"
Try to stay on topic if at all possible ...
But I can tell that you and I will never agree on this, so adieu.
If you don't know whether torture will "work" to "save lives" before torturing, then aren't you admitting that you are going to torture people who have no actionable intelligence to offer? And if you think that torture is going to "save lives", isn't it a moral imperative to torture in every case?
The, "you can't make an omelet.." theory as it were.
Good points. That's why there were legal opinions, sharing knowledge with congressional members, and caution. Only three terrorists were subjected to waterboarding and one of them gave up info about a plot to attack a Los Angeles' skycraper. (if we are to believe the latest news releases)
The argument that boils down to we better torture everyone because you never know who might have information or not is a good point!?
Torture should be illegal in all cases. If any of you aspiring Jack Bauers of the world think that some piece of information is important enough to be worth torturing someone over then it should be important enough that you are willing to accept the legal consequences of your actions.
There is always a chance they have the wrong guy. If the one being tortured swears up and down he doesn't know anything how can that be helpful? He might eventually tell you what you want to hear, but all that does is misdirect us and send us on a wild goose chase and ultimately takes our eye off the real ball. Some ask what if we KNOW this person has information. Well, if we're that sure there's also a good chance we have some idea what that information is. In that case torture would be unnecessary and there are other ways to fill in the gaps. None of this really matters though; it is wrong to treat fellow human beings this way - PERIOD!
is it saves lives or national security. And many of the scenarios which could be laid out as to why T/I is needed would be dismissed by the other side as "hypotheticals". I could give you a hundred hypos where T/I would absolutely be employed to save possibly "millions" of US lives. And you could point to T/I which yielded little to no intelligence on a certain matter.
It is sort of like the death penalty where if you are against it then you will never agree to it no matter how heinous the crime.
The hitch-pin to both of these arguments is the capability to persuade the more moderate people of why T/I (or the death penalty) does work and save US lives vs any downside of making mistakes. I am willing to sanction interrogation on someone even if no intelligence is obtained. Many like you do not and it won't change. The difference is if I'm wrong some people may get scared/hurt unnecessarily and if you are wrong then many thousands (or millions) of innocent lives can be lost.
Tell me, John, how many tortured innocents equals one "saved life"?
10? 100? 1000?
At least the death penalty occurs after an offense is committed and proved in a court of law.
I might add: the ex-Bush Administration folk we're hearing from are liars. See Valerie Plame, aluminum tubes, Al Qaeda-Baathist connection, solvency of Social Security and private accounts, known pinpoint existence of WMDs, etc. In a culture putting more emphasis on honor, these people would not be treated with respect.
And you only get to claim it's "partisan" after examining the evidence which, JohnD, for which you lack the time:
KBusch, what would a smarty pants like you say if someone made conclusions without "all" the data available. I have seen some TOP SECRET memos released but have not seen the rest of the data. Until then, any conclusion would be premature. Even liars like Chris Dodd do tell the truth sometimes so let's wait until the truth comes out before you dismiss what ex-Bush people say. Please try not to let your bias steal your objectivity.
I am busy still. Went out to dinner at Via in Worcester last night. Very busy for a Tuesday night and the Seared Shrimp and scallops were outstanding. I also went out to Ted's in Westborough on Monday and had to wait 30 minutes but the bison short ribs were mouth watering.
I just watch a phantom gourmet rerun from last year where they visited both those places and used the exact same wording to describe their meals. Even the 30 minute wait was the same.
At the risk of angering the Bob Neer troll protection bot, you're a pathological liar.
You call me a scoundrel, a bigoted asshole and now you call me a pathological liar... Have the rules changed and we now allow NAME CALLING on this site?
Let me rate your post a 6 so it can get some play.
From an attack on HR's Kevin:
Why is it that the folks most likely to slander another poster are the ones that whine most about being called out?
Perhaps I should have gone for "plagiarist," given your tendency to "borrow" from Jay Severin. Either way, I think my description is accurate.
I use this term to describe people who won't face an alternative view even though there are facts backing the alternative view. I like the example of people who simply won't believe the Atkins diet casues weight loss since their strong feeling f a diet high in fat could not possible lead to weight loss and simpy refuse to believe the facts to the contrary. I myself suffer from CD from time to time.
Are you saying my subjective view that some people who I argue with have cognitive dissonance is on par with being called a scoundrel, a bigoted asshole and a pathological liar? Are you trying to engage me in a name calling contest? I don't think this is the right blog for this. When I first started posting here I got my hand slapped (another Barney Frank joke) since I really didn't know the rules but I have tried following them since. Do you know the rules?
This is how tasteless, unattractive, stupid, clumsy people make it through the day.
Isn't there some social program the state could pay for to help them? Maybe help them develop some self esteem, some self worth... Imagine if they also had no job, no income, no house AND had to suffer from the social stigmas of being tasteless or unattractive, stupid and clumsy (sounds like "Screech" on the "Saved by the Bell").
I'm going to learn from this kBUScH and try to help. The Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus is having a Commonwealth Commentary breakfast on April 30 and maybe I can quote your insightful post and do a little "community service" work. I could become the next Messiah (aka POTUS).
You have a good day buddy.
Because you insist on debating and disagreeing with this administration. You have no right to debate and disagree with the Obama administration.
HI, I'm JohnD and I'm a serial plagiarist.
Don't you see, adding her name and title makes it even more ironic. Anybody asking questions or disagreeing (Republicans) are being cast as traitors and cowards or in the case of the Tea Party protest... total whack-jobs or right-wing whackos... So this quote is awesome. I'll keep adding her name but maybe there is a character limit. DO you think all the Hillary supporters who cheered so loudly when she said these words would cheer for the Tax Day protesters? Bunch of hypocrites!!!!
I think the quotation doesn't mean what you think it means.
The SERE program, on which the Bush-Cheney torture regime was based, was originally to train military personnel facing similar treatment from Southeast Asian communists. The goal of the Khmer Rouge was not to extract truth; it was to extract false confessions.
And sure enough. Revealed today is evidence that the Bush-Cheney Administration tortured people as part of their effort to concoct a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
Let me remind any remaining members of the ill-informed "with us or against" crowd about Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the caliphate. Getting the U.S. off Saudi soil is part of that goal, but so is removing secular Arab leaders, like Saddam Hussein. Hussein would no more have wanted to work with Al Qaeda than he would have wanted to work with Iran. So Rumsfeld and Cheney tried to create truths where there were none.
Conclusion: Not only were the torture methods designed to extract false confessions: They were used to extract false confessions.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30... NY Times, via MSNBC. You know that I respect your opinions, K, so give me an honest answer about his interview on the subject. (He is considered to be a "liberal."
Quoting:
One problem is that the mindset advocated by Rumsfeld and Cheney seeped into Afghanistan, and then, from Afghanistan, into Iraq. The Abu Ghraib revelations had a bad and terrible effect on Iraqi public opinion; they made whatever the Bush Administration was trying to achieve there that much harder.
One piece of evidence I have is negative. The Bush Administration was very keen to win politically. So eager were they that they revealed an asset in Pakistan prematurely so that they could point to some success. The result was they endangered the mission.
Similarly, if their interrogation regime had revealed anything valuable, they would have blanketed the news with it. But everything they came up with turned out to be silly. The Justice Department under both Ashcroft and Gonsales had an infinitesimal conviction rate on terrorism charges. There is evidence that the false confessions they extracted led them on numerous false goose chases.
Finally, there is significant evidence that torture is unreliable at producing truth and that other approaches are much more fruitful.
Thank you for the kind words, Edgarthearmenian.
I guess what makes me reconsider my own arguments is the fact that Bush's team really screwed up the whole process, right or wrong.
Is the likelihood that an individual who is tortured might provide a phony "arrest list" of random (and innocent) acquaintances, just to get the interrogators off his back for awhile. Then those people get arrested and tortured, only to "give up" more people, make more false confessions, and so on.
But the pressure to provide interrogators with any type of actionable statements, whether they be true or false, probably increases exponentially with the level of physical and mental distress.
I was thinking about the reports that at least a handful of Gitmo detainees got there by being vengefully fingered not because they had been terrorists. The Bush Administration was slow and sloppy (even bad record keeping) in processing the detainees.
The scenario you describe is certainly possible but, I would guess, unlikely.
Do you need attention that much?
rhetorically.
Yeah but my comment was about a handful of the Gitmo detainees. It was not about all and it is dumb to think Gitmo can be closed down so quickly.
There might be intelligence somewhere in that rhetorical flourish. Doubt it.
I realize I may have misread Kirth's comment. I had read it as a defense of JohnD, as "KBusch, give him a break. He's only asking rhetorically."
Instead, I suspect that Kirth meant to respond to my "Do you need attention that much?" with a meaning like, "Well, duh, of course he needs a lot of attention."
Your suspicion is well-founded.
In the future, assume nobody on this site will write something "in defense of JohnD". The tribe sticks together... like glue.
Think more. Write better. Write less. Earn praise.
nor do I mind giving praise on informative responses even showing how wrong I might be. Of course subjective responses to my subjective opinions may not elicit a admittance of erring since I may not be convinced of being wrong. If you r others want to categorize this is not being "able" to admit being wrong then I can't stop you. I have admitted being wrong many times on this site and have never maintained any grasp on "all truths".
I didn't say, "Don't write anything until you know all truths." Nor did I write, "Only write things that are true."
Misreading and then responding to misreading has become typical of your commentary. Do please learn to read.
Instead, I was responding to your complaint about how you're criticized no matter what.
That is simply untrue. Follow the 4 steps, away go your troubles.
about the memos, interrogating Abu Zubaydah, and the utility of the torture.
NPR had a good take on this by a professional interigator. Basically, interigation gets information and torture gets confessions. Of course the press acted as enablers for the prior administration. Not daring to paint them as they were. It looks as if the 30 pieces of silver won't stay bankruptcy (neither monetary of moral).
Why lower the country to torturer? Because they could. They can strike fear in the hearts of good citizens. A country where what passes for law officials behave as a scene from "Slumdog Millionaire". Big time, not the penny ante stuff of TSA, IRS - big time stuff like cutting you up stuff. Better than the local cop with taser stuff. Power-trip stuff. Get the We the People to crawl before you stuff.
What's the definition of "sociopath"?
James Bond: Tell me, which lunatic asylum did they get you out of?
Donald 'Red' Grant: Don't make it tougher on yourself, Mr. Bond! [Grant slaps Bond across the face]
Donald 'Red' Grant: My orders are to kill you and deliver the Lektor. How I do it is my business. It'll be slow and painful.
Following the Phillipine war (see above), many soldiers who had used the 'water cure' on filipinos returned home and became policemen. They found he techniques they'd learned overseas just as effective in their new jobs, and elicited many confessions using them. Some of those confessions were probably true, but how could anyone know?
It may not be the foreign terrorists who "follow us home."
-- I'm being ironic.
Elements of our culture cheered our unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation. They categorically denied the increasingly frequent reports of kidnappings, rapes, tortures, and murders. They re-elected the administration that ordered all this, while cheering the despicable and utterly baseless attacks on veterans from the Vietnam era whose politics didn't please them.
Now, as the documentary evidence of the full extent and depth of the depravity of the prior administration surfaces, these same elements seek to "turn the page".
Now we know that a generation of US soldiers (and spies, and "private contractors") has been trained and supported in the means, methods and purposes of torture. For years, their superiors -- all the way up the chain of command -- have carefully and repeatedly explained the "importance" of extracting "information", and repeatedly denied the very humanity of their victims. The end justifies the means, "remember Daniel Pearl", and all that.
You are absolutely right that some of these returning veterans, spies, generals, accountants, and lawyers will apply these techniques when they get home. Surely "information" needs to be extracted from suspected child pornographers. Surely "confessions" need to be extracted from "those who sell drugs to America's children".
Thirty years ago, returning Vietnam veterans were derided as "baby killers". Today's returning Iraqi war veterans may well be derided as "torturers".
THAT is a very good reason why the perpetrators of these crimes need to be prosecuted. THAT is why the full extent of the evidence against them needs to be published. THAT is why the prosecution of the chain of command that ordered and then covered up the My Lai Massacre would have helped, rather than hurt, the overwhelming majority of returning Vietnam-era conscripts who were so unfairly slandered (we tend to forget that crucial distinction between Vietnam and Iraq veterans).
Incarcerating those who are guilty of committing, ordering, and covering up these horrific crimes is the best way to defend and support the innocence of the overwhelming majority of returning veterans who are NOT torturers.
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