Torture memos

[Undertoad]

You would kill the Japanese soldiers even if they weren't returning fire; you'd also kill civilians, who happened to be unlucky enough to be driving across a bridge at the wrong time, or working in a plant you destroyed.


We've already had that McClatchy story in the thread, and we've discussed it at length. The CIA IG didn't say enhanced techniques weren't effective, period; he said they weren't helpful in thwarting any specific imminent attacks.


What I find remarkable is how certain you are of the effectiveness of these methods. How could you have this level of certainty? You're at odds with the CIA interrogators whom, I'm certain, know more about it than do you or I or anybody writing for McClatchy. I'm guessing that it works because the CIA interrogators think it works. I'm also guessing that it works because I personally am a huge pussy, and would tell every intimate detail I had in order to avoid even getting tased.


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

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

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

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

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

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

You're doing an awful lot of guessing.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

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

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

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

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

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

You would kill the Japanese soldiers even if they weren't returning fire; you'd also kill civilians, who happened to be unlucky enough to be driving across a bridge at the wrong time, or working in a plant you destroyed.


We've already had that McClatchy story in the thread, and we've discussed it at length. The CIA IG didn't say enhanced techniques weren't effective, period; he said they weren't helpful in thwarting any specific imminent attacks.


What I find remarkable is how certain you are of the effectiveness of these methods. How could you have this level of certainty? You're at odds with the CIA interrogators whom, I'm certain, know more about it than do you or I or anybody writing for McClatchy. I'm guessing that it works because the CIA interrogators think it works. I'm also guessing that it works because I personally am a huge pussy, and would tell every intimate detail I had in order to avoid even getting tased.


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

I'm pretty sure Jill has careful thought. She certainly seems to, from her posts anyway. My opinions, well, my opinions come from looking at different times in history when torture has been used, like the Inquisitions. Everything I've read makes me believe that evidence gained during torture is unreliable. Add to that all the experts who have testified or said in interviews that torture is an unreliable way to gain information makes me believe it even more. And my moral compass tells me it's wrong. No one can make me believe it is actually OK for a civilized country or people to act in that way, no matter what is at stake.

UT, the scenario you described above, the accidental killing of innocent victims while striking at an enemy, is far different from torturing someone who is in custody. One is collateral damage that is an accident, the other is purposeful and intentional mistreatment of someone who is already in custody.

[Undertoad]

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

This is the Internet, get a helmet.

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

Should we not do that?

[Jill]

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

My Tortured Decision

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

. . .

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

. . .

Editing to add yet another source:

Unresolved debate: Does torture work?

. . .

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

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

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

. . .

[Jill]

More historians and scientists weigh in. . .

Torture Has a Long History ... of Not Working

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

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

. . .

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

. . .

Innocent Suspects Confess Under Pressure

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

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

[Undertoad]

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

Should we not do that?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

Should we not do that?

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

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Redux

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

It's all the same battlefield, Redux. Can't really part 'em. Haven't since WWI. We shall stand or fall on our HUMINT in this fight. If there is failure to gather information through HUMINT, how is your life improved should the enemy thereby manage to kill you off?

It sure wouldn't improve mine.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

Should we not do that?

Sure.

What's that got to do with torturing captives?

[Jill]

Originally Posted by TGRR

Sure.

What's that got to do with torturing captives?

I believe he's conceded that question is irrelevant.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Jill

I believe he's conceded that question is irrelevant.

You had me at hello, you had me at...
\

[Undertoad]

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

Should we do that?

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

Should we not do that?

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

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

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