So the Ticking Bomb is a Metaphor?
Dick Cheney and his fellow torture apologists have defended the use of techniques like waterboarding by repeatedly invoking the hypothetical "ticking bomb scenario." We're supposed to believe that real-life Jack Bauers are using these "enhanced interrogation techniques" to thwart one dastardly plot after another, just in the nick of time.
I'm having a tough time identifying the ticking bomb in this scenario, though:
It's probably also worth pointing out that the detainee in question here was a legitimate prisoner of war, not an illegal combatant. That adds a few additional levels of illegality to the request.
To Cheney's credit, though, at least he finally found a task for which these techniques were well suited. They were, after all, designed to extract false confessions from prisoners for political purposes. They're actually remarkably effective in this regard. I'm guessing that over the course of history the tally for waterboarding looks something like this: Politically Motivated Confessions Extracted = 53,507,932, Ticking Bombs Stopped = 0.
I'm having a tough time identifying the ticking bomb in this scenario, though:
Two U.S. intelligence officers confirm that Vice President Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.This is in the Spring of 2003, after the invasion of Iraq. The goal here was not to thwart an attack or even to gain intelligence. The only urgency here was political. Cheney wanted information that could be used for political purposes, to defend the administration's policies. The only ticking bomb here was the political firestorm that was about to engulf the administration when its stated reasons for taking the country to war turned out to be baseless.
It's probably also worth pointing out that the detainee in question here was a legitimate prisoner of war, not an illegal combatant. That adds a few additional levels of illegality to the request.
To Cheney's credit, though, at least he finally found a task for which these techniques were well suited. They were, after all, designed to extract false confessions from prisoners for political purposes. They're actually remarkably effective in this regard. I'm guessing that over the course of history the tally for waterboarding looks something like this: Politically Motivated Confessions Extracted = 53,507,932, Ticking Bombs Stopped = 0.
posted by A.L. at 11:20 PM
36 Comments:
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A nice attempt at distracting from the real story, what Pelosi and the Democrats knew and when they knew it.
By the way, this story, linking Cheney to other further waterboarding of prisoners, is full of holes.
From the piece:
At the end of April 2003, not long after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. forces captured an Iraqi who Bush White House officials suspected might provide information of a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi was the head of the M-14 section of Mukhabarat, one of Saddam’s secret police organizations. His responsibilities included chemical weapons and contacts with terrorist groups.
“To those who wanted or suspected a relationship, he would have been a guy who would know, so [White House officials] had particular interest,” Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraqi Survey Group and the man in charge of interrogations of Iraqi officials, told me. So much so that the officials, according to Duelfer, inquired how the interrogation was proceeding.
[snip]
Duelfer will not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding, saying only: “The language I can use is what has been cleared.” In fact, two senior U.S. intelligence officials at the time tell The Daily Beast that the suggestion to waterboard came from the Office of Vice President Cheney.
Later on is this:
But, Duelfer says, Khudayr in fact repeatedly denied knowing the location of WMD or links between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda and was not subjected to any enhanced interrogation.
So what we have here is that Cheney suggested the use of waterboarding on Khudayr, and it can be confirmed by Charles Duelfer and two anonymous intelligence officials. However, there was never any enhanced interrogation of Khudayr, at least according to Duelfer.
Not only that, there's this nugget:
“They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used,” Duelfer writes. “The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related..."
So even though Cheney made a suggestion, other executive authorities said that what Cheney suggested would be illegal, and enhanced interrogation was not done to Khudayr. No crime was committed.
The rest of the article has to do with enhanced interrogation of terrorists to gain information that is in the 9/11 Commission Report. Cheney isn't mentioned. In fact, here's what is mentioned:
A former senior U.S. intelligence official told me the Commission never expressed any concerns about techniques and even pushed for a second round of interrogations in early 2004, as the Commission was finishing up its work. The second round of interrogations sought by the Commission involved more than 30 separate interrogation sessions.
There's nothing here, or in the subsequent paragraphs, suggesting Cheney's involvement.
The Cheney part of the story is a big nothing. But again, a nice attempt at distracting from the real story, what Pelosi and the Democrats knew and when they knew it.
Steve,
Nice try at redirection, but you either missed A.L.'s point, or you think it's your job to defend Mr. Cheney. A.L. was using the case in question to point out the fallacy in statements that MR. Cheney continues to make about the need for, and effectivness of Waterboarding and other forms of torture. A.L. wasn't linking Mr. Chency to the actions taken in the Khudayr case, but I think he easily could have. There is a lot of information now available in the public record that Mr. Cheneny, his various Chief's of staff, and other of his assistants were the driving force in the U.S. Government's legal "analysis" that lead to the approval of torture (perhaps as early as 2002).Given that, and given what has been reported about early torture interrogations being approved at the White House level every time, I think A.L.'s knitting together of these two incidents to prove his point is entirely appropriate.
SteveAR's ego is so big he can't help but point at Pelosi's ego.
Cheney is the most grounded of the three. He at least has the sense to recognize that his legacy is vulnerable and is throwing sand in the faces of everyone with the gumption to document what he did in our names.
I value disclosure over misplaced loyalty at this point SteveAr, something you cannot and likely will never understand.
Thank you AL for pursuing what may well be the story that finally marginalizes this demented authoritarian cabal. Our collective legacy hangs in the balance.
And, this just in courtesy of Dan Froomkin - It seems the link is confirmable by someone in the know . . .
"The Cheney part of the story is a big nothing. But again, a nice attempt at distracting from the real story, what Pelosi and the Democrats knew and when they knew it."
This is a joke, right? The "real" story is what the minority party that was out of power knew and when? On what planet?
And by the way, I wasn't suggesting that Cheney actually succeeded in having this guy waterboarded, just that he wanted to. And it wasn't even close to a ticking bomb scenario. Luckily, other people realized how insanely illegal such an action would be.
Funny how apologists for an administration that used executive privilege and the philosophy of the 'unitary executive' as the moral, legal, and political underpinnings for its acts are now defending those acts by screaming that Congress is just as responsible.
Sorry, but I don't see "What did Pelosi know and when did she know it?" gripping the public imagination in this case. Time for Mr. Rove to head back to the drawing board and try to come up with a better dodge.
SteveAR-
A nice attempt at distracting from the real story, what Pelosi and the Democrats knew and when they knew it. Bravo! That's a truly impressive self-denial of reality. I knew you would come at this issue giving 110%, but even I could not foresee your genius. I commend you - you are a gentleman and a scholar.
SteveAR obviously got his marching orders from Fox News and Sean Hannity, both of which were flogging this bizarre new talking point. Dick Morris went as far as to suggest that Pelosi should be prosecuted, which begs a question.
If Pelosi should be held CRIMINALLY responsible for not objecting strongly enough to the American torture program, then why do conservatives continue to insist that torture is legal AND necessary?
Moreover, we have increasing number of public statements and affadavits from intelligence officers who have gone on record that they were pressured and even ordered to employ illegal interrogation methods in order to get detainees to "confess" to Al-Queda/Iraq links.
Steve is employing classic misdirection tactics by trying to shift the debate to Pelosi, when it is apparent that we began torturing prisoners BEFORE the suspicious OLC memos were even written, and that said torture was designed to provide political cover for a pre-planned war in Iraq.
Either way, Steve, god forbid conservatives ever came into power again. If we didn't get the full apartheid/South Africa treatment from the world community (including travel bans, economic sanctions, cultural boycotts, bans from Olympic competition), any additional terrorist attack on US soil under a Republican administration would be met with world indifference. Remember the potential effects of turning the US into the kind of regime we're allegedly fighting all over the world.
A.L.:
This is a joke, right? The "real" story is what the minority party that was out of power knew and when? On what planet?
Are you seriously suggesting to me that a member of Congress, one who is a member of a party in the minority (in the House, yes; but, Dems had control of the Senate in 2002, so they really weren't "out of power"), and one who was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and subsequently House Minority Leader, is nothing more than someone being paid for being mere window-dressing?
And by the way, I wasn't suggesting that Cheney actually succeeded in having this guy waterboarded, just that he wanted to. And it wasn't even close to a ticking bomb scenario.
How do you know that? In the article, Duelfer states what Khudayr's role was in the Hussein government. Considering it was less than 2 years after 9/11, and this guy may have had further knowledge of any Hussein-Al Qaeda links at the time, wouldn't it be possible that Cheney wanted to get any potential information this guy might have had on something pending?
Pete:
If Pelosi should be held CRIMINALLY responsible for not objecting strongly enough to the American torture program,...
Conservatives don't say that. Conservatives say that if Democrats want to hold Bush administration officials criminally responsible, then Democrats must hold other Democrats and Republicans criminally responsible, otherwise the "justice" Democrats want is nothing more than a blatant political witch-hunt (kangaroo court, drumhead, etc.), a true politicization of justice.
Pelosi and Reid and Rockefeller all need to be held to account for their role in enabling this disreputable period in American history.
This tangential point does not diminish or impact one bit the point of this post.
Steve,
Please reread what I said. It makes no sense for Republicans like Dick Morris to publicly call for Pelosi to be criminally prosecuted for not privately objecting strongly enough to torture while simultaneously insisting that the torture programs are both legal and necessary.
You can scream witchhunt and drumhead all you want, but here are the pertinent facts:
1. We started to use interrogation methods that under US law were deemed to be TORTURE.
2. After using said illegal methods for several months, the Bush administration reverse engineered legal memos to retroactively declare such methods to be suddenly legal. Of course, the OLC and the President did not have the power to unilaterally revoke standing US laws about torture.
3. The Bush administration attempted to suppress a dissenting internal memo that said that the interrogation methods were indeed torture.
4. Several intelligence officers directly involved with these interrogations have stated on the record that they were ordered to manufacture confessions from prisoners to "confess" to Iraq/Al Queda links as a justification for the invasion that had already been decided was going forward. It's not a coincidence that the most extreme periods of waterboarding were in the months leading up to Iraq.
5. As for what Pelosi did or did not know, please pay attention to Bob Graham's recent statements. He has gone on record as saying that the dates that the CIA provided for the "briefings" of Pelosi and Graham are simply wrong (Graham is renowned for his own record keeping). If the CIA is getting things such as the actual dates of briefings wrong, pardon me for being skeptical about what the CIA says went on in those briefings.
6. Remember, this is the same CIA who followed directives from the White House to manipulate intelligence about the non-existent WMD's that were allegedly the "ticking time bomb" that necessitated the invasion of Iraq.
7. If somehow conservatives get their way, and torture becomes official US policy, good fucking luck ever condemning the human rights records of any country on the planet ever again.
This tangential point does not diminish or impact one bit the point of this post.Correct, but the arguing with Steve has derailed discussion of the actual points of the post and moved it into dismantling Steve's ramblings...again. Personally, I think that's the point of his whole presence here. He's quite adept at it and I suppose it makes him highly successful as a troll, but that's all he is.
I have decided that the only way to get any enjoyment or edification out of the A.L's comment section is to simply ignore Steve entirely. It's already doing wonders for my suggestion.
Darn. That last sentence should have read. "It's already done wonders for my digestion."
I had not intended to make any type of explicit suggestion as I don't think I have any suggestion that would be remotely useful.
SteveAR, true to form, once again blames whatever the latest issue is on the Democrats, using bizarre and convoluted logic supported cherry-picked talking points.
First, pick one: is the torture the issue, or when Pelosi was told about it? Are you claiming torture is a good thing (in that it helps us) and then support that by saying Pelosi knew about claim it earlier than she says? Please explain how that explains anything.
Based on the CIA's demonstrated track record on this, it's VERY likely Pelosi is correct. But so what? What does that change about the use of torture, excuse me "enhanced interrogation techniques", to further US interests?
Oh, here I go again - I carelessly begin to think SteveAR might be capable of a rational discussion that didn't totally rely on some "The Democrats Did It!" talking point. My mistake.
The underlying theme of all the revelations about the operations of Bush/Cheney is that they truly believed that they "created reality".
They thought they could do this by manipulation of willing accomplices in the media, and were successful -- for a while.
They thought they could get the information and analysis they wanted by leaning on the CIA, seeding the intelligence agencies with accomplices, and, where necessary, simply making it up or getting others to make it up (by torture, by the use of tools like Chalabi, etc). They got away with it, and will continue to, unless they are prosecuted.
They thought they could protect themselves and their accomplices by lawyer-shopping, dangling federal judge positions, and other inducements. They definitely got away with that.
As Pete said above, nobody who has a similar philosophy should be allowed anywhere near the executive or judicial branches except possibly as a letter-carrier or courtroom bailiff. I fail to see the utility of putting someone with this philosophy in Congress, but that's a call for their district or state.
SteveAR is welcome to continue to amuse me, for my part. He provides anti-Democratic talking points reliably, if irrationally. It saves time to have them delivered rather than go look for them.
Pete:
It makes no sense for Republicans like Dick Morris to publicly call for Pelosi to be criminally prosecuted for not privately objecting strongly enough to torture while simultaneously insisting that the torture programs are both legal and necessary.
That isn't the issue. The issue is Democrats in Congress calling for prosecutions of Republican Bush administration officials while letting Congressional Democrats who did not come out against any of this, and in some cases supported it, off the hook.
6. Remember, this is the same CIA who followed directives from the White House to manipulate intelligence about the non-existent WMD's that were allegedly the "ticking time bomb" that necessitated the invasion of Iraq.
This has been gone through time and again and has been proven false.
1. We started to use interrogation methods that under US law were deemed to be TORTURE.
Get it right. Some call it "torture", but not everybody believes that U.S. law calls what we did to these terrorists to be torture. Remember also that waterboarding is done to members of our own military. If waterboarding is torture, then why does the military torture its own people?
3. The Bush administration attempted to suppress a dissenting internal memo that said that the interrogation methods were indeed torture.
Big deal. They didn't in the end, did they? They ended up being pragmatic, something the Obama administration states whenever it does anything.
7. If somehow conservatives get their way, and torture becomes official US policy, good fucking luck ever condemning the human rights records of any country on the planet ever again.
I find it amusing that the left hates it when conservatives lump all liberals together, but have no problem doing the same thing to conservatives, consistently using a strawmen arguments to state their "case".
I agree with C2H50H - Steve regurgitates the Hannitized Dittohead talking points pretty well. They are convoluted by nature. I enjoy watching them get picked apart.
Ahem, Steve,
Some of the first questions asked of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed upon his capture and during the time during which he was waterboarded were about possible connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, according to a review of several reports on U.S. intelligence operations.
The mastermind of the September 11 attacks was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and according to Office of Legal Counsel memos released last month, was waterboarded 183 times that same month.
The substance of the intelligence that was being sought from him has been an object of some speculation, with several defenders of the interrogation practice arguing that the goal was to prevent an impending attack on America. But a line buried on page 353 of the July 2004 Select Committee on Intelligence report on pre-Iraq war intelligence strongly suggests that the interrogation was just as centered on a possible Iraq-al-Qaeda link as terrorist activity.
"CTC [Counter Terrorist Center] noted that the questions regarding al-Qaida's ties to the Iraqi regime were among the first presented to senior al-Qaida operational planner Khalid Shaikh Muhammad following his capture."
Revelations that KSM was questioned about possible al Qaeda ties to Iraq at roughly the same time that he was undergoing waterboarding provides some key insight into the purpose of the CIA interrogations. A recently de-classified Senate Armed Services Committee report quoted army psychologist Maj. Paul Burney as saying that a large part of his time on a Behavioral Science Consultation Team was "focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq." McClatchy newspapers, meanwhile, published an article last month citing a former intelligence official acknowledging that the Bush administration had pressured interrogators to use harsh techniques to produce evidence connecting the terrorist organization and Iraq's regime.
The efforts at establishing a link never bore fruit. Burney went on to note that "we were not being successful in establishing a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq." Meanwhile, earlier in the July 2004 Select Committee on Intelligence report, it is noted that KSM was "unaware of any collaborative relationship between al-Qaida and the former Iraqi regime, citing ideological disagreements as an impediment to closer ties. In addition, he was unable to corroborate reports that al-Qada associate Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi had traveled to Iraq to obtain medical treatment for injuries sustained in Afghanistan."
That said, reports showing that waterboarding would be used as a means of establishing a link between Iraq and al Qaeda does appear to diffuse the notion that so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" were only being used to prevent an imminent terrorist attack.
***********************************
So, tell me Steve-o, is Major Burney lying about what he was asked to do?
By the way, read the ACTUAL LAWS on the books about torture. Read Ronald Reagan's actual statements about torture upon signing the UN Conventions against Torture into US LAW. The law was pretty clear about exactly what methods constituted torture (and by the way, the laws prohibited torture against ANY prisoner).
The Bush Administration simply declared the law to be irrelevant and went on their merry way (let me repeat that they only wrote the legal memos several months AFTER beginning the program)
By the by, Steve, let me punch another hole in your talking points. In the absence of any due process or even formal charges at Gitmo, it's a stretch to rationalize torture because we tortured "terrorists". Remember, unless we formally charge a person, at best they are "suspected terrorists". Or is merely an accusation good enough before we start breaking out the rubber hoses?
As for your "strawman" retort. Seriously, if some conservatives make torture without due process an official part of US policy, the slippery slope will be a dangerous one. What happens if waterboarding doesn't give you the false "confessions" you need? Should we then authorize cutting off limbs? Killing family members of suspected terrorists? Just where do you draw the line?
Moreover, if you truly have no problems with using torture as a means of gaining confessions in terrorist intelligence gathering, would you care to lay odds that local police forces will be clamoring for the right to do the same thing to suspects in domestic crimes as well?
If you think that the world is going to have endless patience for the US becoming a torture state, you're fucking insane.
Pete, in an earlier comment on this thread I asked this question regarding the Khudayr mentioned in the article A.L. linked to:
In the article, Duelfer states what Khudayr's role was in the Hussein government. Considering it was less than 2 years after 9/11, and this guy may have had further knowledge of any Hussein-Al Qaeda links at the time, wouldn't it be possible that Cheney wanted to get any potential information this guy might have had on something pending?
Now you bring up KSM. So I ask you, considering it was less than a year after 9/11, and KSM may have had further knowledge of any Hussein-Al Qaeda links at the time, wouldn't it be possible that the administration and the CIA wanted to get any potential information this guy might have had on something pending?
As for your "strawman" retort. Seriously, if some conservatives make torture without due process an official part of US policy, the slippery slope will be a dangerous one.
What happens if waterboarding doesn't give you the false "confessions" you need? Should we then authorize cutting off limbs? Killing family members of suspected terrorists? Just where do you draw the line?
Moreover, if you truly have no problems with using torture as a means of gaining confessions in terrorist intelligence gathering,...
It doesn't help your argument when you misrepresent and misstate what conservatives, even some conservatives, say.
By the way, read the ACTUAL LAWS on the books about torture.
Link to them. By the way, one of those who testified at this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Professor Jeffrey Addicott, is of the opinion that what we did to KSM and the rest wasn't torture. I would also guess that there are other legal scholars who agree, and everyone knows there are many who don't. So apparently the law isn't as clear as some think. Saying it is doesn't make it so.
In the absence of any due process or even formal charges at Gitmo, it's a stretch to rationalize torture because we tortured "terrorists". Remember, unless we formally charge a person, at best they are "suspected terrorists".
There's only one problem with that. We are at war. We are at war with the group these people are connected to (the ones that are still in Gitmo). Had they not been captured, they would have been killed outright for being the enemy, all without what some would consider "due process". So, they are not "suspected terrorists", but terrorists. They may be suspected of committing some specific crimes (ie., 9/11), but that doesn't negate that they are terrorists.
If you think that the world is going to have endless patience for the US becoming a torture state, you're fucking insane.
Again, it's amazing. Nobody has been "tortured" in over five years, which was stopped by the Bush administration, and the left is worried about the U.S. becoming a "torture state". Which part of the world? Would that include the Chinese Communists, the government the U.S. refuses to turn the Uigher terrorists over to because our government fears their government will torture and kill them? Spare me on your opinion of world opinion.
SteveAR isn't here to have his mind changed. He is here to repeat Republican talking points ad infinitum.
Why bother trying to outgadfly the gadfly?
The important points to remember:
1) Cheney and the top members of the CIA have no credibility.
2) Torture has a long history of usage. For eliciting false confessions.
3) Although being "tortured" by your older brother until you reveal where you hid his baseball cards may "work", torturing suspects for months is a fundamentally different situation.
4) Expert interrogators (e.g. from the military and the FBI) will ALL tell you that torture is a medieval tactic for eliciting information. Skilled interrogation, similar to what cops use on suspects, is modern and much more effective. In fact, sometimes all you need to do is act kindly when they are steeled for the worst.
5) If police can't use a certain tactic when questioning suspects, chances are -- it's torture.
6) The only downside to modern interrogation techniques is that they require trained professionals. Any moron with a streak of sadism can torture.
7) If Republican goosesteppers are so intent on taking down Pelosi, they should be strongly supporting an independent truth commission. Otherwise they are all bark and no bite.
Keep on yapping, little doggie.
Steve, you said
"There's only one problem with that. We are at war. We are at war with the group these people are connected to (the ones that are still in Gitmo). Had they not been captured, they would have been killed outright for being the enemy, all without what some would consider "due process". So, they are not "suspected terrorists", but terrorists. They may be suspected of committing some specific crimes (ie., 9/11), but that doesn't negate that they are terrorists. "
Oh, so we justify our actions because "we are at war", but then ignore standing laws about the conduct of war (ie the Geneva Conventions) by pretending that the Gitmo detainees aren't actually prisoners of war?
By trying to do an end around run on the POW issue by declaring that these are "stateless actors", this raises another interesting question. Just how will we know the "war" is over if there's no state actor to formally surrender? Oh, that's right, there's no actual way to truly win a "war on terror" so there will be no surrender, no end. Which, in turn would serve as a permanent justification for police state tactics? That's pretty damn convenient, no?
As for your brusque dismissal that the opinion of the world is irrelevant to US war policies, let me ask you just how many troops do you think the US would need to fight wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Phillipines, etc if other countries, horrified by our human rights attitudes, refused to help us out?
China has the unfortunate ability to ignore world opinion because it's the world's lending bank right now.
By the way Steve, the Gitmo prisoners are "suspected terrorists" in the absence of formal charges.
Not everyone in Gitmo was picked up on the battlefield, guns in hand. In fact, some people were picked up on city streets FAR away from any front line. Oh, that's right, you're willing to implicitly believe that the same intelligence agencies that INSISTED that there was an Al Queda/Iraq link and that Iraq was building nuclear weapons couldn't POSSIBLY pick up the wrong person.
Treat them as POW's. Use legal interrogation means. Actually determine guilt or innocence. Why exactly is this so difficult for you conservative clowns to get on board with?
Real Americans don't torture, Steve
SteveAR,
If torture was so valuable in producing good information, why did the Bush administration, without the force of public opinion, stop using it, according to you, in 2004? According to you, it wasn't congressional or public pressure, so we need to look elsewhere for a reason.
The only possible conclusion is that his office couldn't convince enough people outside his little group of sociopaths that it was legal.
This is even with the OLC memos to give them a "get out of jail free" card. So then they destroyed the videotaped evidence and tried to bury the victims, to the extent of requiring them, as a condition of release, to never talk about their treatment (now, there's a tell if I ever saw one).
Last time I heard, there was no statute of limitations on torture crimes. If we set a precedent today to quietly forgive those crimes, we are making it virtually certain that, the next time there's an incompetent administration (and we'll have another one, if history is any guide) -- we'll likely have another outbreak of lawlessness.
If we have a proper investigation, we'll find out what Pelosi knew and when she knew it and the voters can take care of her. She's calling for one, by the way, which indicates that she thinks she's got the facts on her side. Meanwhile, the other side is trying to avoid an investigation. It doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out who is likely being more truthful here. Right now we have to believe Pelosi more than the CIA.
Pete:
Why exactly is this so difficult for you conservative clowns to get on board with?
I asked you this before and you didn't answer: considering it was less than a year after 9/11, and KSM (and others) may have had further knowledge of any Hussein-Al Qaeda links at the time, wouldn't it be possible that the administration and the CIA wanted to get any potential information this guy might have had on something pending? If, perchance, either Bush, Cheney, or even Pelosi (or anyone else) comes to trial, any attorney defending them that is worth his/her salt will ask this question of their accuser(s). The defense attorney will also ask if enhanced interrogation as defined in those memos is clearly defined as torture. As I mentioned above, the idea that the law is clear isn't the case.
Let me add this: is it that the left's so-called absolute belief in "right" and "wrong" is more important than the potential risk of the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans? America has had to make hard choices in the past using this justification (dropping the A-bombs on Japan), but it's one Americans still expect of its government. It's why it's completely hypocritical for anyone to believe Harry Truman was a war criminal.
By the way Steve, the Gitmo prisoners are "suspected terrorists" in the absence of formal charges.
No, they are terrorists.
Oh, so we justify our actions because "we are at war", but then ignore standing laws about the conduct of war (ie the Geneva Conventions) by pretending that the Gitmo detainees aren't actually prisoners of war?
They aren't prisoners of war by anybody's standards. POWs are soldiers who are supposed to fight under the accepted (and more or less) unwritten rules of warfare, even though this hasn't always been the case. These terrorists don't even attempt to fight under any rules and deserve whatever they get.
China has the unfortunate ability to ignore world opinion because it's the world's lending bank right now.
China's unfortunate ability began decades earlier than that.
As for your brusque dismissal that the opinion of the world is irrelevant to US war policies, let me ask you just how many troops do you think the US would need to fight wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Phillipines, etc if other countries, horrified by our human rights attitudes, refused to help us out?
How many are actually helping us now? Obama's little jaunt to Europe garnered nothing. Besides, your view is hopelessly myopic and simplistic. I don't need to go into details as to why.
Just how will we know the "war" is over if there's no state actor to formally surrender? Oh, that's right, there's no actual way to truly win a "war on terror" so there will be no surrender, no end.
So you'd rather fight these monsters via the failed "enhanced law enforcement" process? Besides, that's a question you may want to ask the current commander in chief. He's vowed to get bin Laden, just as Bush did.
SteveAR,
"No, they are terrorists."
And you know this because?
KSM was waterboarded 183 times in March, 2003. This was after the decision to go to war with Iraq had already been made, since the invasion took place on March 20.
Hence, asking about AQ connections at that point can only have been ass-covering, especially since the administration had been claiming it for months at that point.
Steve, I'll type slowly so your lips don't get tired reading this.
1. No reputable intelligence agency or officer ever thought that Iraq and Al-Queda were in an alliance. The Administration had decided even before 9/11 that they were going to invade Iraq, but that selling the American public on such a thing was going to be difficult. The focus of the KSD interrogations, based on the records and testimony of several officials seems to indicate that the US wasn't determined to find out what AQ operations were coming, but instead wanted to "prove" a definitive link between AQ and Iraq. Considering all the other instances of the Bush people deliberately ignoring evidence contrary to their claims about Iraq, such as the Niger yellowcake, it's not at all implausible to say that the interrogation of KSD was part and parcel with ginning up the case for invading Iraq. It's akin to writing a paper where you back up your thesis by simply pretending that contrary points of view don't exist.
2. Gee, Steve, if all of the Gitmo prisoners are for sure "terrorists", then why did Bush let some of them go without even charging them with a crime? I'm assuming that you believe that all people who are arrested are automatically "criminals".
3. Again, Steve, it's amazing that you are basing your rationalization for committing war crimes with the statement "because we're at war".
4. Oh, the "myopia" card. Why, America has the only right position, the ENTIRE WORLD must be wrong, right Steve? In a world that has many human rights violators, it's actually a crying shame that the US has voluntarily chosen to abdicate its own committment to human rights. Remember that when the next GOP President decides to invoke the "he's a nasty dictator who commits atrocities" card on whatever country he wants to invade.
5. Again, Steve. Provide for us some evidence that actually following the laws on the books about torture would not have kept America safe. I ask because it doesn't appear that the Bush people ever thought about following the law for a second after 9/11. The thing is, now we'll never know, will we, because Bush/Cheney went straight for the rubber hose.
Quick, name for me how many convictions for terrorism from the Gitmo prisoners that we secured in the eight years of W? Well, we did convict a guy of driving Bin Laden's car, that's a start.
The guys who bombed the WTC in 1993were arrested, tried in an open court, convicted, and sent to prison in half the time it's taken to even bother officially filing charges against KSD.
As for "simplistic" thinking, remember the idea that "Shock and Awe" would somehow cause a 1500 year old Shia-Sunni war to magically vanish? Did you find the notion that we would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators to be "complex" or "simplistic". Did you find Budget Director Mitch Daniels' prediction that the war would only cost $200 billion to be "complex" or "simplistic".
My point about the foolishness of pissing off the world is that each time we decide to invade another country for some "noble cause", it will be OUR troops doing all the dying. And with each new theater of war the GOP wants to open up, that's more troop deaths, and more debt incurred from China to pay for it.
6. Finally, Steve. Time for a direct question. Just where do you draw the line when it comes to interrogation? Bonus question. If the methods that were used at Gitmo are so solid and so surefire, should local police departments be allowed to use them against suspects in domestic criminal investigations?
Up to this point, 27 comments. One, spam for a game, and 26 revolving around Steve's misdirection.
Here is a usefull suggestion: Stop feeding the troll.
Here is a suggestion to the proprietor: Until Steve demonstrates the ability to be both sensible and somewhere in the same time zone as the topic at hand, why not just delete his posts? They have negative value.
Pete:
The Administration had decided even before 9/11 that they were going to invade Iraq, but that selling the American public on such a thing was going to be difficult.
You might as well be telling me that Oliver Stone's "JFK" is a documentary. If you are basing your answer to my questions that the Bush administration was already working out that the U.S. was going to invade Iraq, and do so without all of the evidence (I would contend that those few officials that testified constitute a miniscule amount of the information that is still classified). Your laughable assertion regarding the Bush administration ignoring the Niger yellowcake story, which was backed up by British intelligence, is hardly evidence since that agency has never refuted it; Joseph Wilson didn't have the final answer on that. All of this is mentioned in the first pre-war Intelligence report from the Senate Intelligence Committee and the British government's Butler Report.
Let me know if I'm wrong. You are asserting that the law is clear in regards to enhanced interrogation, correct, even though the fact is that the law isn't clear? And, that it isn't possible for the Bush administration to have had the national security of the U.S. in mind when enhanced interrogations, especially if they are determined to be legal, were done on KSM and others, even though all you have to show for it is a crackpot theory and speculation?
Steve,
The torture techniques that were reverse engineered as "legal" by the OLC were very clearly illegal under numerous statutes in the Federal Code. This site and numerous others have shown that Bybee and Yoo simply declared Federal Law that explicity prohibited these techniques to be obsolete with legal reasoning that was faulty, and illegal.
I have to give it up to you for your very subtle hedge at the end of your talking points.
"isn't it possible for the Bush administration to have the national security of the US in mind.."
Oh, so if you have really super duper good intentions, then it's ok then to break domestic and international laws? So when Yoo told the WH that "crushing the testicles of the 12 year old son of a suspected terrorist" was appropriate, such a sadistic piece of legal "advice" is acceptable because of "good intentions"?
I think that there were elements in the WH that really wanted to settle a score with Iraq from the getgo, and that 9/11 gave them the cover to sell such an operation.
In 2003, the Bush people were still talking out of both sides of their mouth about Iraq/Al Queda/9/11
***********************************
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Bush: No Iraq link to 9/11 found
President says Saddam had ties to al-Qaida, but apparently not to attacks
By SCOTT SHEPARD
COX NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- President Bush, having repeatedly linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorist organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said yesterday there is no evidence that the deposed Iraqi leader had a hand in those attacks, in contrast to the belief of most Americans.
The president's comments came in response to a reporter's question about Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press" program that Iraq was the "geographic base" of the terrorists behind the attacks on New York and Washington.
Bush said yesterday there was no attempt by the administration to try to confuse people about any link between Saddam and Sept. 11.
"No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," Bush said. "What the vice president said was is that he (Saddam) has been involved with al-Qaida.
***********************************
So, crack away all you want about Oliver Stone, but you still haven't addressed a few salient points.
1. Why were the torture techniques employed ordered several months before the memos retroactively declearing them legal were written?
2. Why have several intelligence officers involved with these interrogations gone on record stating they were pressured by the WH to secure confessions of an Iraq/Al Queda alliance that not a single intelligence agency had any concrete proof existed. Are they all lying?
3. Many of the same techniques employed in Gitmo were also used against the US prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton? Does that mean they either weren't tortured or were their "confessions" legitimate
4. If its ok for the US to use these techniques against SUSPECTED terrorists, does that mean that countries like, say Venezuela, should be allowed to just pick up US citizens off the street and do the exact same things to them in the name of "national security"?
Pete:
The torture techniques that were reverse engineered as "legal" by the OLC were very clearly illegal under numerous statutes in the Federal Code.
In an earlier comment, I linked to the testimony given this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee by Professor Jeffrey Addicott, a law professor at St. Mary's University School of Law. He goes through parts of the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, a few of the statutes, some case law, and some arguments made in foreign courts. In his opinion, no torture occurred. Conversely, there are plenty of legal experts who would disagree and, like you, believe these techniques were torture. All that means is that the question of whether these enhanced interrogations were a violation of the law isn't one bit clear.
Oh, so if you have really super duper good intentions, then it's ok then to break domestic and international laws?
You can deduce my answer from this: where does it say that the law of this country is supposed to be a suicide pact? 3000 people died as a result of the actions of vicious terrorists, terrorists who weren't stopped beforehand due to bad law, domestic and international.
Now I'll get to what you ask.
1. Why were the torture techniques employed ordered several months before the memos retroactively declearing them legal were written?
Assuming they were torture, the potential threats following 9/11.
2. Why have several intelligence officers involved with these interrogations gone on record stating they were pressured by the WH to secure confessions of an Iraq/Al Queda alliance that not a single intelligence agency had any concrete proof existed. Are they all lying?
I have no idea if they were lying. However, at least three Senate Intelligence Committee reports, along with the Robb-Silverman report, showed no manipulation of intelligence. I believe there was plenty of testimony from other intelligence people that allowed for Congress to deduce the lack of manipulation from the Bush administration.
3. Many of the same techniques employed in Gitmo were also used against the US prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton? Does that mean they either weren't tortured or were their "confessions" legitimate
Of course, the North Vietnamese also went much further, medieval even, than the U.S. did.
4. If its ok for the US to use these techniques against SUSPECTED terrorists, does that mean that countries like, say Venezuela, should be allowed to just pick up US citizens off the street and do the exact same things to them in the name of "national security"?
Good luck to them if they try. Here's the deal with foreign policy; true international law is the law of the gun. Being friendly isn't what counts in foreign policy, it's being respected. You want your allies friendly, but you want their respect; conversely, you treat the allies with respect. You want your enemies to respect you, but you also want their fear of what you can do to them; your respect of them is counterproductive. Fear, not being friendly or nice, is what keeps a country like Venezuela from doing what you suggest. This "liberal" idea of "international law" is nothing more than what I would call "happy horseshit". This "international law" gives the "bad actors" huge loopholes with which to abuse the law.
But in regards to your question, nothing would stop Venezuela to do what you suggest if they wanted to, and had the power to back it up, regardless of the legality within international law.
In 2003, the Bush people were still talking out of both sides of their mouth about Iraq/Al Queda/9/11
Actually, that never was the case. The opening sentence of the piece, falsely iterating what the reporter believed Bush had been saying for two years, gives it away. It's the same as those who say Bush said Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. It was actually Jay Rockefeller (it's part of a video clip mentioned in an episode of "Fox News Sunday" in 2005; Rockefeller tries to weasel out of it). Yet, Bush is still accused of saying Hussein was an imminent threat.
SteveAR,
Apparently you were too young in 2003 to watch the constant claims by Cheney, Bush, and their mouthpieces that Iraq and AQ had a "collaborative relationship" predating 9/11. Which was found to be false, BTW. They just made it up.
The other option is selective memory.
As for Bush saying Hussein was an imminent threat, um, you do recall the infamous Niger yellowcake debacle? Or maybe you don't.
You know, your credibility isn't helped by these selective lapses in memory.
Steve:
If waterboarding and the like were so damned important to national security, why was the program stopped when Abu Ghraib went public?
And I can't believe you actually worked "suicide pact" into your argument! I haven't heard that one in so long.
Lastly, you really must stop using that atrocious argument, that because a small percentage of US soldiers are voluntarily waterboarded in order to prepare them for the eventuality that they may actually be waterboarded by those whom we term "terrorists", it somehow makes what we do "not torture". Because it makes you look truly ignorant, once you understand that our soldiers consent to such treatment at the hands of their command structure, and are allowed to withdraw consent at any time. Most of the world recognizes that inflicting such suffering on another human being without their consent is, like rape, the very definition of torture.
C2H50H:
Apparently you were too young in 2003 to watch the constant claims by Cheney, Bush, and their mouthpieces that Iraq and AQ had a "collaborative relationship" predating 9/11. Which was found to be false, BTW. They just made it up.
Actually, it hasn't been. However, those who have no interest in looking at the truth ignore any evidence that shows that there was a relationship, even if that relationship didn't link Hussein to 9/11. Case in point:
As for Bush saying Hussein was an imminent threat, um, you do recall the infamous Niger yellowcake debacle? Or maybe you don't.
That has nothing to do with the left accusing Bush of saying Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, when in fact the person who said it was Sen. Rockefeller. In addition, I've already addressed the Niger issue earlier.
My credibility is fine.
Aeryl:
If waterboarding and the like were so damned important to national security, why was the program stopped when Abu Ghraib went public?
Because it didn't happen that way and Lawrence Wilkerson is extremely muddled on his facts. I believe Jack Goldsmith is a much more credible resource on why the program stopped, because he helped end it.
And I can't believe you actually worked "suicide pact" into your argument! I haven't heard that one in so long.
It's a good argument, especially within this context.
Lastly, you really must stop using that atrocious argument, that because a small percentage of US soldiers are voluntarily waterboarded in order to prepare them for the eventuality that they may actually be waterboarded by those whom we term "terrorists", it somehow makes what we do "not torture". Because it makes you look truly ignorant,...
Excuse me, but those of our soldiers that are captured by Al Qaeda terrorists aren't waterboarded. They are tortured (the real definition of it), brutalized, and murdered. In many cases, Al Qaeda saws off the heads of their prisoners while those prisoners are still alive. Not chops like with an axe or guillotine, but with a saw. They don't do this out of a sense of injustice they believe is occurring to them; no, it is standard operating procedure for these vermin. They do it to anybody, including American soldiers. The periods of discomfort KSM felt after being waterboarded is nothing compared to what this pig would (and probably did) do to others. It isn't just KSM, but every single piece of filth that is part of the Al Qaeda network. I am not the one who is ignorant of what is going on.
Most of the world recognizes that inflicting such suffering on another human being without their consent is, like rape, the very definition of torture.
Oh really? Then why don't those parts of the world threatened by Al Qaeda (and the Taliban, and Hezbollah, and Hamas) get what these terrorists are about and eradicate these vermin outright? It wasn't a problem to figure out how to end Nazism in Germany, fascism in Italy, and imperialism in Japan.
Steve,
If you recall, ending Nazism, Facism, and Imperilism in World War Two took many years, hundredrs of thousands of soldiers lives, lots of POW camps, 6 million murdered Jews, and a multinational military campaign on what 6 or seven simultanious fronts? And when it was all over, we still put the Nazis on TRIAL at Nuremburg. Publically. WIth no "Secret Evidence." Vastly different construct then today vis the terrorists.
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