Event Calendar
February 2012
(view month)
S M T W R F S
* * * 01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 * * *
<< (add event) >>


User Blox 4
- Put stuff here

Barack Obama
"Lincoln Sells Out Slaves"
by: Rob Kailey - Sep 13
1 Comments
If You Haven't Seen This
by: Rob Kailey - Apr 28
5 Comments
Impeach the President?
by: Rob Kailey - Mar 16
15 Comments
It's the system, stupid!
by: Jay Stevens - Oct 25
7 Comments

Search




Advanced Search


Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.

CIA: torture doesn't work

by: Jay Stevens

Mon May 11, 2009 at 10:12:17 AM MST


Here's an "interesting" tidbit of news from a CIA torture report soon to be declassified:

Government officials familiar with the CIA's early interrogations say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the "top secret" May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents. The full report remains closely held, although White House officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it for public release when the debate quiets over last month's release of the Justice Department's interrogation memos...

Although some useful information was produced, the report concluded that "it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks," according to the Justice Department's declassified summary of it.

And even government officials who were involved claimed that torture provided information, they felt that the same information could have been gathered from regular interrogation techniques.

Which begs the question, why does Dick Cheney still support torture?

Jay Stevens :: CIA: torture doesn't work
Tags: , , , (All Tags)
Bookmark and Share
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Cheney's trying to frame the argument (0.00 / 0)
to one of "the ends justifying the means." Mark points to another, more sinister goal of tactical torture. But if Cheney can limit the focus of the public debate to one of whether or not torture provided actionable intelligence (or whatever euphemism you want to use), then all the other stuff subsides in importance. He has forced us into weighing moral equivalencies: is the (as yet unproven) safety gained by torturing the three prisoners of war greater or lesser than the other consequences of those actions?

I think, though, and this is where the rest of the world seems to be going, is that another unintended consequence of the "means" is that torture fed the insurgency. It provided a rallying point around which al-Qaeda could recruit and infiltrate Iraq and extend the war. Now, this could have been an unintended consequence of using torture as a tactic. Or it could even be more sinister, in that Cheney had reasons to believe that torture would in fact have had the exact consequences that it did. That he and Haliburton & Co. benefitted immensely from having the nation diverted by an unnecessary war of choice.

Hence the war crime against Cheney not only becomes one of authorizing torture (with or without the president's explicit signature) for the three admitted cases. It becomes one of knowingly extending a war that took over 4,000 American lives, and injured tens of thousands. A war that took hundreds of our ally's, and ten's of thousands of Iraqis lives.

Cheney's war crimes are responsible for all of that and more. They become responsible for the trillion dollar debt for money spent on Iraq. Congress and the Administration's inability to act in the face of impending economic crises. The potential for another Great Depression. The list goes on.

So if Cheney can win the ends justifies the means argument for the three torture cases, then he can potentially avoid all of the rest. Then again, there is the possibility that he is just crazy enough to think he can stand up alone to the world and say that he made us safer.

And that sort of megalomania is enough to get him asylum--of the sort for the insane.


Cash for Clunkers (0.00 / 0)
I don't think so. The CIA people who have financed research into torture, are also experts at getting information, and know that torture is not the way to go. They always make sure that whatever they have presented are with backups investigation and experimentation as well as evidence. In relation to public awareness, the Cash for Clunkers is an interesting program.  In a bid to boost auto sales, and perform credit repair with the environment, President Obama has been pushing the Cash for Clunkers program, in which drivers with older cars can get vouchers for greater trade in value when they buy a new one.  The program is likely to be included with a further climate change bill, aimed to reduce carbon emissions and perhaps institute cap and trade legislation. A healthier earth is fast becoming a priority among the industrial nations.  The Cash for Clunkers program is almost like a cash advance for mother earth. For me this program is worth of all loans and cash advances!  

Be more productive to ask Pelosi. (0.00 / 0)
Cheney and Bush are gone.  Putting on a show trial may distract the masses but it won't actually eradicated it.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001

er...? (0.00 / 0)
"Eradicated it" what?

And "show trials"? What, you think once a crime's been committed it's a waste of time to prosecute? You have to catch 'em en flagrante?

BTW, I think any Dem who was in on this should get the same treatment. Which is probably why we won't see any trials, "show" or otherwise. A lot of people have dirty hands.

That said, torture belongs to the GOP and the Bush administration. That's probably one of the reasons Republicans are less popular that Communist Cuba.


[ Parent ]
Yep, I made eradicate past when it should have been present. (0.00 / 0)
And so?

It doesn't negate what I said.

Jay, I don't think anyone should be prosecuted for their actions while in the course of their duties, if what they did wasn't against the law.  Then you're prosecuting policy not criminal acts.  You are also using a very singular definition of "torture".  When words don't mean anything anymore, then what's the point?

Pelosi knew about waterboarding and condoned it.  Obama knew and won't do anything about it either.  So how does it "belong" to any one party?  No one I know in the GOP advocates pulling out finger nails or rape rooms... so if you want our military to stop using techniques YOU disapprove of, perhaps you should try first understanding and then actually changing the policies of your own party.  You can't even get Democrats to shut it down, when they could have.  So you shift blame to others and then demand trials.    

Get over them Jay.  They're gone.  Wanna make a difference?  Clean your own house first.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Prove it. (0.00 / 0)
Pelosi knew about waterboarding and condoned it.

You're lying, syd.

[ Parent ]
Nope. (0.00 / 0)
Look below or google it yourself.

She knew.  She didn't object.  They're all objecting now because they've been found out and they realize their base will be pissed off.  Funny though that the majority of Americans really don't seem to care.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
You're still lying. (0.00 / 0)
She knew.  She didn't object.

Prove it, with something other than a Google search that brings up nutters such as yourself.  Prove it, syd.  You won't, I know.

Funny though that the majority of Americans really don't seem to care.

Don't care?  Prove that as well.  You lie more with every comment you post.


[ Parent ]
So Washington Times (0.00 / 0)
and Washington Post are nutters now?

LOL

No use at all to have a discourse with the insane.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Yes (0.00 / 0)
You've still offered no proof.  Do so. Come on syd.  Rise to the occasion.  Or remain a liar.

Your choice, of course.


[ Parent ]
LOL (0.00 / 0)
Two false choices.  I linked down below.

What kind of proof would ever satisfy an apologist such as yourself?  None I'm guessing.

Look it up- a lie means a deliberate fallacy.  You may disagree, but I'm not lying unless I know the truth to be otherwise.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
The proof you offer (0.00 / 0)
is based on reports generated by the Bush Administration...and officials  associated with those meetings have already admitted that no one is certain that the memos actually convey that which actually transpired at the meetings.

In other words - torture, per se, may have been discussed, but not in the context of Iraqi prisoners, and not in the context of the U.S. doing the deed.  


[ Parent ]
Nope (0.00 / 0)
They're reports offered by the CIA and Pelosi's AIDES.  Hardly Bush apologists.

They specifically addressed waterboarding, as well as other enhanced techniques.  Harmon was the only one to object with a letter, and even Pelosi admits she knew that Harmon was writing it.

Sorry, but while I'm with you on the whole "questioning of motives on who is telling the story", it doesn't appear that this is something put out there by the Bush Administration.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Anything that is evidence. (0.00 / 0)
What kind of proof would ever satisfy an apologist such as yourself?

Anything that is proof. YOu contend that the media is liberal, but you can't show proof except through liberal media.  Anything, syd.  You point to opinion pieces.  Point to proof.  I've already pointed to a piece that disproves your claim. Proof, syd.  Provide it, or fuck off.  


[ Parent ]
Pure Republithink (0.00 / 0)
First, syd, if Cheney were gone in any meaningful way, this post likely wouldn't have been written.

Second, it's typical of Republicants to blame everybody else for bad things except the people who actually ordered and justified those bad things.

Third, like a typical Republicant, you have no grasp of current events.  People are 'asking' Pelosi, and the answers they are getting point to even more criminal activity on the part of the past administration, and the CIA. I know it's hard with your mind full of fairy farts and all, but do try to keep up with the facts.  


[ Parent ]
My name ain't syd. (0.00 / 0)
Thanks for playing.

I'm not blaming anyone.  It's you and Jay and JC and Matt and Mark and... who have a problem with what Pelosi, Bush, Cheney, Reid, and all the politicians in DC knew and condoned.  I have no problem with a technique that journalists willingly try out just to see how horrible it is.  They come out smiling and saying it felt like drowning.  But when you call it "torture", you conjure images of electric shock and burn marks.  We may still decide to not waterboard, but calling it torture is a bit much.  (As an aside, the American people tend to support strong interrogation techniques on terrorists... interesting.)  

And the last part- nope.  It shows that they are all in on it.  The only ones looking like fools here are all of you for trusting politicians.  I don't.  Didn't trust Bush either.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Your name ain't syd? (0.00 / 0)
And yet you knew I was writing to you.  You might want to figure out how language works sometime, kitten.

I'm not blaming anyone.

Bullshit.  You just wrote that Pelosi, Ried, Cheney and Bush were to blame, but you earlier called for us to forget about Bush and Cheney.  As evidenced by your own writing, you're a liar, aren't you?

And the last part- nope.  It shows that they are all in on it.

Prove how.  You won't, I know.  You'll wail and cry about how you shouldn't be held accountable for what you wrote, but you will avoid any support for that very thing.  PROVE that Pelosi and Ried were, as you wrote, "in on it".

[ Parent ]
Your post was beneath mine. (0.00 / 0)
Generally, when a person has a reply nesting mine, I figure they're responding to ME.  Weird huh.  And on another occasion you combined my name with syd.

I can quote myself if it helps-

"Be more productive to ask Pelosi.  
Cheney and Bush are gone.  Putting on a show trial may distract the masses but it won't actually eradicate it."

I can keep quoting, but if you're going to play word games, accuse me of lying then put words in my mouth, you're going to have to debate this by yourself.

Oh, and here are some links on their knowledge and involvement.  But when you're as brainwashed as you are, it won't help.

http://www.google.com/search?q...

It gives plenty of links showing she knew years ago what was going on.  
 

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Uh, syd? (0.00 / 0)
Don't be dumbass.  I already posted a specific link, not a Google search result, that shows it quite clear that Pelosi may or may not have known about 'torture', but she certainly didn't "sign off" on it.

Try again, liar.

And you continue to avoid looking at those who most certainly did know about torture.  If this is the way you raise you children, I won't be surprised when they are incarcerated by the age of 19.  


[ Parent ]
Learn how to read Rob - (0.00 / 0)

I just read the ABC news story on the report issued by the DNI (That's Director of National Intelligence)

The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

Pelosi knew about it - handle it -

That's why the non-issue is fading fast - the top Dems are running away from it -

Maybe you should stick to championing gay rights -  


[ Parent ]
That contradicts the eveidence of the CIA (0.00 / 0)
Explain it, asshole.

[ Parent ]
Link? (0.00 / 0)
How could the CIA have "proof" of a negative?

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001

[ Parent ]
WTF? (0.00 / 0)
You're claiming that CIA didn't know who they told what when?  That's among the dumbest shit ever wrote, syd.

[ Parent ]
I can't believe that a grown man (0.00 / 0)
Requires this type of hand holding.

Here are a few really real news articles contained in that search:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Quote:

"Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and  Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and  John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and  Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan). "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Quote-

"A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy. Pelosi herself acknowledged in a December 2007 statement that she was aware that Harman had learned of the waterboarding and had objected in a letter to the CIA's top counsel. "

Other articles:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thes...

I'm sorry but it doesn't look as though your perfect Democrat politicians are so perfect after all.  Grow up Wulfgar.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
You didn't bother to read the report, did you? (0.00 / 0)
OH MY GOD!  PELOSI KNEW IN 2007!  She learned about it from Sheehy long after we'd already begun doing it!!!!!111!!one!!

Time lines. syd.  Get a fucking grip, or grow up and read facts.

I'm done.  You people are too fucking dumb to even read a timeline.  And you're certainly too fucking stupid to get the point.  We should hold to account those who ordered it. But no, we supposedly need to spend our time arguing with ignorant fucks like syd and Coobs about when someone who obviously had no power to control the practice, didn't sign off on the practice.  Well done, you immoral assholes.  


[ Parent ]
Here's a new link: (0.00 / 0)
From CNN saying she knew in 2002.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI...


- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Not objecting equals signing off. (0.00 / 0)
And as I've said earlier, I don't equate waterboarding to torture. So I wouldn't be about looking to ANYONE about it.  I already said I didn't like or trust Bush/Cheney/Republican establishment.  Time to stop running off with stereotypes and generalizations, Rob.

You guys are the ones with hard-ons about it.  At least Jay has the intellectual honesty to want to prosecute ALL people who knew and didn't stop what he considers torture.  You just want selective prosecution.  Handy that.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Except that you're completely wrong. (0.00 / 0)
Proof. syd.  Provide it, or fuck off.

[ Parent ]
If you're going to name drop, (0.00 / 0)
please don't put words in my mouth:

"... JC... who have a problem with what Pelosi, Bush, Cheney, Reid, and all the politicians in DC knew and condoned."

You may think that I believe in the notion that silence is complicity, and to some degree I do. But complicity via silence isn't a crime. Knowledge of a classified, and illegal, government action is not a crime. Failure to break the law and leak the covert and classified actions of the U.S. government is a crime. Pelosi knows this. She also knows that she can't speak to classified events in order to clarify the record. Hence Obama's declassifying and releasing of documents so that people can speak to the record.

What is a crime, indeed a conspiracy, is the framework constructed by lawyers as they coverup the commission of war crimes by the administration all the way down the chain of command to grunt level. Any and all of the people who participated in that conspiracy--up to and including the president and vice president--should be prosecuted. And if the crimes slide sideways into Congress, so be it. I have no fondness for those who lacked the spine to see through the Bush/Cheney charade in the lead up to invading Iraq, and stand up and question it.

Whether or not waterboarding is torture or a crime in your mind sydney@alias, is irrelevant. The United states has successfully prosecuted foreign nationals for waterboarding. Of course, if you want to invoke the Nuremburg Defense, then we can relive the holocaust one more time.

That Bush Administration officials, conservatives, and republicans want to resort to the Nuremburg Defense to protect those down the chain of command just goes to show how corrupt our nation has become under the leadership of people like Cheney.

And the only way to root out corruption of this sort, and for our country to regain any kind of moral standing in the world requires us to follow the rule of law and prosecute these crimes wherever they may leave.

Of course, moral standing in the world has no meaning to those who would resort to and defend torture. To them, the only moral authority the world should recognize is that which is imposed by nation builders seeking to spread our wonderful values and freedom via armed occupations.


[ Parent ]
edit (0.00 / 0)
"Failure to break the law and leak the covert and classified actions of the U.S. government is a crime."

to say:

"Failure to break the law and leak the covert and classified actions of the U.S. government is a not in and of itself a crime."


[ Parent ]
I'm not out to protect Bush/Cheney (0.00 / 0)
But you can lump me into that category if it makes you feel good.

The only instances that I know of (unless you can cite a source) that waterboarding was prosecuted as a crime is when it was used on CIVILIANS.  These are not civilians we're talking about.  And has it been prosecuted by us, in our country?  Another relevant point, as I don't care what a UN Tribunal thinks.

And whether waterboarding is torture or not is highly relevant.  If it is, and torture is against the law, then you may be able to successfully prosecute.  If it's not, and not against the law to use on enemy combatants, then it's going to be much harder.  

I really don't care about "moral" standing in the world.  I care about doing the right thing, and taking care of OUR COUNTRY.  Are you always going to make decisions based on what other nations would have us do?  Qui bono??  

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
'I really don't care about (0.00 / 0)
"moral" standing in the world. ' And out of thus was born the seeds of terrorist activity, and torturer revenge.

For people like you, the chickens have truly come home to roost...

If you need a history lesson, you should read up about then Lt. Chase Nielsen, one of Doolittle's Raiders who was taken prisoner in the secret attack on Japan in WWII.

As Judge Evan Wallach (and professor of War Law) puts it in the Washington Post:

"After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding."

Yes, Japan used waterboarding to torture American soldiers. The torturers were brought to trial and convicted through the testimony of American military personnel like Chas Nielsen. Oh, and before you get your diapers in a twist about War Crimes Tribunals, the Japan War Crimes Trials were conducted by the U.S.--General MacArthur, to be exact.

Yes, MacArthur successfully prosecuted Japanese for torturing U.S. soldiers with waterboarding. How much more evidence do the deniers need in order to see that they are just plain wrong on this one?  


[ Parent ]
Clearly torture... (0.00 / 0)
...that's what your "smiling" journalist, Hutchinson said after he got waterboarded.

It's clearly torture as defined by the treaties against torture that we signed, which makes it illegal for someone to do which fulfilling their duties. I'm not after policy makers, I'm after torturers.

It's clearly torture as defined by war crimes investigations after WWII. We executed Japanese for waterboarding US prisoners.

It's clearly torture by the common usage of the word.

The only place it isn't torture was as defined in the infamous "Torture Memo," which bent the government's definition of torture so as to cover everybody's *sses for, well, torturing.

So let's go over the facts. It's torture. Torture doesn't extact useful information. It's illegal. It's immoral.


[ Parent ]
It was (0.00 / 0)
Christopher Hitchens.

"I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."


[ Parent ]
Yeah I watched it (0.00 / 0)
He wasn't traumatized.  He was smiling, discussing it rationally.  For a limp-wristed journalist, that may be torture, but for the rest of us, it's not.  

Been in the military, Jay?  Ever really been confronted with it?


- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


[ Parent ]
Nope (0.00 / 0)
This line of reasoning I find hilarious. Yeah, basic is hard. Sure, there's sleep deprivation. Sure they put you through hell. But then, you sign up for it, and it pales in comparison to what the government did to detainees.

Going to your local tattoo/piercing parlor and getting a Prince Albert is not torture. Snatching someone off the street without any legal process and shoving needles through their dicks is.

And consider this: basic lasts, what? A few weeks? Detainees have been undergoing these techniques for years. And there's no recourse, no way out, no discharge.

And we haven't even talked about rendition, in which the government kidnapped folks and sent them to places where they use electrical shocks on genitals, etc & co.

Is torture really a subject for which you suddenly want to embrace moral relativism?


[ Parent ]
Aide told Pelosi waterboarding had been used (0.00 / 0)
A source close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now confirms that Pelosi was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was actually used on CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah.

This appears to contradict Pelosi's account that she was never told waterboarding actually happened, only that the administration was considering using it.

Sheehy attended a briefing in which waterboarding was discussed in February 2003, with Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who took over Pelosi's spot as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

This source says Pelosi didn't object when she learned that waterboarding was being used because she had not been personally briefed about it -- only her aide had been told.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI...

OH NOES!!1!


Schumer also knew (0.00 / 0)
http://hotair.com/archives/200...

Audio included of him speaking in 2004.

- Keeping the Left honest since 2001


WULFGARRRRR!! (0.00 / 0)
No response, kitten?!

[ Parent ]
That's comedy, not proof. (0.00 / 0)
Keep digging, little camper.  Keep on digging ...

[ Parent ]
Do you drink your kool-aid (0.00 / 0)
out of a sippy cup?  Don't want you makin' a mess in all your rage!  RAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRR!!1!

[ Parent ]
Sorry, Cupcake. (0.00 / 0)
I drink my beer out of a can, just like real 'Murkins do.

Shouldn't you be ragging on Pelosi?  Shoo, come on, go!  Shoo!


[ Parent ]
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Bookmark and Share

Poll
Voting. Useful or not?
Yes!
No!
Maybe, but only if you vote my way.
There are theories that ...
Meh ...

Results

Blog Roll
  • A Secular Franciscan Life
  • Big Sky Blog
  • David Crisp's Billings Blog
  • Discovering Urbanism
  • Ecorover
  • Great Falls Firefly
  • Intelligent Discontent
  • Intermountain Energy
  • Lesley's Podcast
  • Livingston, I Presume
  • Great Falls Firefly
  • Montana Cowgirl
  • Montana Main St.
  • Montana Maven
  • Montana With kids
  • Patia Stephens
  • Prairie Mary
  • Speedkill
  • Sporky
  • The Alberton Papers
  • The Fighting Liberal
  • The Montana Capitol Blog
  • The Montana Misanthrope
  • Thoughts From the Middle of Nowhere
  • Treasure State Judaism
  • Writing and the West
  • Wrong Dog's Life Chest
  • Wulfgar!

  • Powered by: SoapBlox