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Confirmed: "torture" saved L.A. from 9/11 style attack (pg. 16)
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| MisterOpus1 |
I'm becoming more and more skeptical of any claims made by the CIA regarding torture:
| quote: | CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations
Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods such as waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend.
By Greg Miller
April 26, 2009
Reporting from Washington — The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects for nearly seven years without seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003. That year, the agency's inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about waterboarding and other methods, and recommended a study by outside experts on whether they worked.
That inspector general report described in broad terms the volume of intelligence that the interrogation program was producing, a point echoed in smaller studies later commissioned by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss.
But neither the inspector general's report nor the other audits examined the effectiveness of interrogation techniques in detail or sought to scrutinize the assertions of CIA counter-terrorism officials that so-called enhanced methods were essential to the program's results. One report by a former government official -- not an interrogation expert -- was about 10 pages long and amounted to a glowing review of interrogation efforts.
"Nobody with expertise or experience in interrogation ever took a rigorous, systematic review of the various techniques -- enhanced or otherwise -- to see what resulted in the best information," said a senior U.S. intelligence official involved in overseeing the interrogation program.
As a result, there was never a determination of "what you could do without the use of enhanced techniques," said the official, who like others described internal discussions on condition of anonymity.
Former Bush administration officials said the failure to conduct such an examination was part of a broader reluctance to reassess decisions made shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Defense Department, Justice Department and CIA "all insisted on sticking with their original policies and were not open to revisiting them, even as the damage of these policies became apparent," said John B. Bellinger III, who was legal advisor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, referring to burgeoning international outrage.
"We had gridlock," Bellinger said, calling the failure to consider other approaches "the greatest tragedy of the Bush administration's handling of detainee matters."
The limited resources spent examining whether the interrogation measures worked were in stark contrast to the energy the CIA devoted to collecting memos declaring the program legal.
Justice Department memos released this month show that the CIA repeatedly sought new opinions on the legality of depriving prisoners of sleep for up to seven days, throwing them against walls, forcing them into tiny boxes and subjecting them to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.
Whether those methods worked is facing independent scrutiny for the first time only now, three months after President Obama banned the CIA from using them.
As part of an executive order shutting down the CIA's secret prisons, the White House has set up a task force to examine the effectiveness of various interrogation approaches.
The Senate Intelligence Committee launched a similar review, and began combing through classified CIA cables that describe daily developments in the agency's interrogations of prisoners suspected of ties to Al Qaeda.
"To the best of our knowledge, such a review has not been done before," said a Senate aide involved in the investigation.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on the reviews, saying their contents remained classified.
A U.S. intelligence official who defended CIA interrogation practices said that "productivity was an obvious and important measure of the program's effectiveness. The techniques themselves were not designed to elicit specific pieces of information, but to condition hardened terrorists to answer questions about Al Qaeda's plans and intentions.
"By that yardstick -- the generation of reporting that was true and useful, that led even to other captures -- it worked," the official said.
Obama has described the agency's activities as "a dark and painful chapter in our history," and senior members of his administration, including Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., have called the techniques torture.
Defenders of the program, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have accused Obama of dismantling a capability that was crucial to keeping the country safe. Cheney also has called for the release of classified documents that he said would show how effective the program was.
Officials said that Cheney was probably referring to memos drafted by leaders of the CIA's counter-terrorism center to serve as talking points on the program to use in briefings for members of Congress and White House officials.
Many of those talking points have been cited publicly in recent years by senior government officials, starting with President Bush when he disclosed the CIA's secret prison system in September 2006.
At the time, Bush said that "alternative" interrogation methods had been crucial to getting Al Qaeda operatives, including Abu Zubaydah and self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, to talk.
"I cannot describe the specific methods used," Bush said. "But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary."
By then, Bush administration officials had become concerned with a shifting legal landscape. Congress had passed new laws on the treatment of detainees, and the Supreme Court issued a ruling that undercut the administration's claim that detained terrorism suspects were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention.
But officials said that the first high-level concern about the direction of the CIA's interrogation program had come in 2003, when then-CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson began distributing draft copies of his report on the program across the executive branch.
The document triggered alarms about waterboarding, documenting that it had been employed far more frequently -- including 263 times against two Al Qaeda suspects -- than had been widely believed.
The report also faulted how agency operatives applied the method, dumping large quantities of water on prisoners' faces, apparently violating the agency manual and its agreements with the Justice Department. Nervous about the report's implications, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet suspended the use of waterboarding in 2003.
The document also was critical of other approaches, including sleep deprivation. But for all of its criticism of the program, the 200-plus-page document also included passages that have been cited by some as evidence that the interrogation operation was effective.
A May 2005 Justice Department memo noted that the inspector general's report described an "increase in intelligence reports attributable to the use of enhanced techniques."
A U.S. intelligence official familiar with its contents confirmed that the inspector general's report contains language that is consistent with the assertions by former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and others that the interrogation program accounted for more than half of the intelligence community's reports on Al Qaeda.
But officials said the document did not assess the quality of those reports. It also did not attempt to determine which methods were yielding the best information, or explore whether the agency's understanding of Al Qaeda would have suffered significantly without the use of coercive techniques.
"Certainly you got additional considerable volume of reporting when you started up with anything enhanced," the U.S. intelligence official said. "But nobody went back to say exactly what were the conditions under which we learned that which was the most useful."
In fact, Helgerson's team had steered away from that question by design, the official said, hoping that agency leaders would turn to interrogation experts for a thorough study on which methods were working and which should be discarded.
White House National Security Council officials who saw the inspector general's report became concerned with its conclusions, current and former officials said. Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security advisor, was particularly persistent on pushing the CIA director to follow up on the inspector general's recommendation.
Goss, who had taken the helm at the CIA four months after the inspector general's report was filed, eventually complied. But Helgerson had envisioned a group of experts, perhaps including specialists from the FBI; Goss turned instead to two former government officials with little background in interrogation.
Gardner Peckham, a national security advisor to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, produced the approximately 10-page document that praised the program. It concluded that the program was "very structured and very disciplined," said a former official familiar with its contents, but did not assess the effectiveness of various methods.
A separate report, submitted by John Hamre, a former deputy Defense secretary, was similar in scope and led to no significant alterations of the program. Hamre and Peckham both declined to comment.
Despite the high-level attention, former Bush administration officials said they never saw the results of the audits that Goss had commissioned.
"They never came and presented anything to the White House that said in response to the I.G. report they have commissioned a review," said one such official. "They essentially came back with the recommendations that this was the program and it couldn't be changed."
[email protected]
Julian E. Barnes in Washington and Doyle McManus in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...0,5771981.story |
So they made wonderful claims as to it's effectiveness and use, yet they may never have seemingly reviewed such claims in the first place.
Yeah. How nice. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
So this is a grand way of saying you can't respond to what he's written, no? Or is it a way of saying "you use ad hominems just like me, but I'm going to stand on a principle I deem cowardice in others"? |
Jesus Christ; I already answered the questions. What's with you Leftists? You have a set template, and if I don't answer questions in the manner that fit that template, you don't consider that a good enough answer if one at all. And if you read any discussion in which I am involved, I do not EVER start with ad hominems towards people... they only come out in my own defense when they are hurled at me first. You, Krypton, and whoever else I vehimently disagree with on policy still have discussions because "generally speaking", you don't engage personal attacks as part of your strategy. But that's not the case with MisterOpus and perhaps now you'll understand that my desire to not have dialogue with him is out of a matter of mutual respect, not cowardice.
| quote: | | Are you serious? The Administration complies with the Freedom of Information Act (something they are obligated to do by law), and you're pissed off about it? God, there really is no pleasing you, is there? |
That's one way to look at it. But you're still not answering the question regarding the motive/reason as to why this is being done now, during a time of war, knowing the repercussions after last time. That's what I'm fired up about.
| quote: | | I stopped reading after your ad hominem, and I don't think I can respond to anything you ever write anymore. |
LOL!! wow are you really that sensitive? How many times have you called me out for being a Rush sychophant and Bush deciple (which is utterly false)? But I refer to you as an Obamabot and you want to take your ball and go home? :stongue: |
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| The17sss |
Well, I hate to say "I told you so"... well, actually I don't. But since more detailed information is now being presented that clearly explains HOW waterboarding KSM lead to the foiled L.A. plot, perhaps you should read it. Read the whole thing.... the first half describes the types of arguments most of you are trying to make, and the 2nd half provides the information you've been trying to say doesn't exist.
| quote: | WEST COAST PLOT: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
by Marc Thiessen
Critics of the CIA program are desperate to convince Americans that no valuable information came from the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and other senior terrorists. They know that if our citizens learn the details of how enhanced interrogations stopped terrorist plots, most would support the CIA program. A recent Pew poll showed that 71% of Americans believe that there are circumstances under which torture (not just enhanced interrogations, but actual torture) is justifiable to get information from captured terrorists.
This is why Timothy Noah of Slate (with Andrew Sullivan cheerleading him on his blog) is at such pains to debunk the story of the West Coast plot.
This was a KSM plot for a “Second Wave” attack using East Asian operatives to use shoe-bombs to hijack an airplane and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Noah states in a blog post that this plot was never realistic. Here is his rationale:
The first reason to be skeptical that this planned attack could have been carried out successfully is that, as I've noted before, attacking buildings by flying planes into them didn't remain a viable al-Qaida strategy even through Sept. 11, 2001. Thanks to cell phones, passengers on United Flight 93 were able to learn that al-Qaida was using planes as missiles and crashed the plane before it could hit its target. There was no way future passengers on any flight would let a terrorist who killed the pilot and took the controls fly wherever he pleased.
Really? Planes were off the table after 9/11? That would come as a surprise to every passenger in the past three years who had their liquids confiscated in an airport security line. Those security measures were instituted because in 2006 we foiled an al-Qaeda plot to hijack airplanes leaving London’s Heathrow airport and blow them up over the Atlantic (a plot our intelligence community says was just weeks from execution). Apparently al-Qaeda didn’t get Noah’s memo explaining that hijacking airplanes for terrorist attacks is “no longer viable al Qaeda strategy.”
In his post, Noah calls the West Coast plot “Thiessen’s claim” and Anderw Sullivan calls it “Thiessen’s LA Tower Canard.” What these two fail to appreciate is that the story of how enhanced interrogation broke up the West Coast plot is not my story — it is the official position of the intelligence community.
In my Washington Post piece, I was citing the very documents which President Obama released, which quote the CIA saying that interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ to ‘use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” The memo released by Obama goes on the explain that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ”
Again, those are not my words. That is the position of our intelligence community.
And not just in the released memos. In his September 2006 speech revealing the existence of the CIA program, President Bush described specifically how the interrogation of KSM led to the capture of the key operatives in this attack. This was the most carefully vetted speech in presidential history — reviewed by all the key players from the individuals who ran the program all the way up to the director of national intelligence, who personally attested to the accuracy of the speech in a memo to the president. And just last week on Fox News, former CIA Director Michael Hayden said he went back and checked with the agency as to the accuracy of that speech and reported: “We stand by our story.”
In numerous subsequent speeches, President Bush said that the West Coast plot was disrupted because of the CIA program. Each of those speeches was carefully reviewed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — and each time the DNI provided the White House with a classified memo stating that the contents of the speech was accurate and did not compromise sources and methods. So the Director of National Intelligence has repeatedly affirmed the accuracy of the statement that the West Coast plot was disrupted because of the CIA program. And Noah himself acknowledges in his post a CIA spokesman affirmed the accuracy of the story.
So bottom line: The intelligence community says it is so.
In his blog, Noah cites the fact that Fran Townsend, the Bush administration’s homeland-security adviser, told reporters in a February 2006 press briefing that a key cell leader in the West Coast plot was arrested February of 2002. This, Noah points out, is before KSM came into CIA custody and underwent enhanced interrogation. He also notes Townsend said that after the cell leader’s capture other cell members “believed” that the plot was not going forward. |
This is where it will get difficult for you Leftists to swallow:
| quote: | I hate to break it to Noah, but this does not refute the fact that KSM’s interrogation disrupted the West Coast plot.
It is true that a key cell leader in the West Coast plot was detained in February 2002. According press accounts, his name was Marsan bin Arshad. What is also demonstrably true is that the captured terrorist did not lead us to the members of the cell tasked with carrying out the West Coast plot. Indeed, when KSM was captured 13 months later — in March of 2003 — almost all of the key operatives in the plot were still at large and operating with impunity. |
And, this is what happened next (link---> http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans...s0.8319666.html)
| quote: | * In March of 2003, the CIA captured another key operative in the West Coast plot — a terrorist named Majid Khan.
· * When KSM was captured later that same month, he knew that Khan was in CIA custody — and assumed that Khan had given us the details of the West Coast plot.
· * KSM refused to provide any information about active plots, telling his interrogators: “Soon you will find out.”
· * After undergoing enhanced-interrogation techniques, KSM revealed that Khan had been told to deliver $50,000 to individuals working for a terrorist named Hambali — the leader of al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate Jemmah Islamiyah and KSM’s partner in developing the West Coast plot.
· * CIA officers then confronted Khan with this information from KSM. Khan confirmed that the money had been delivered to an operative named Zubair. He provided both a physical description and contact number for this operative — which led to the capture of Zubair in June 2003.
· * Zubair then provided information that led to the capture of Hambali in August 2003, along with another key operative, a JI terrorist named Bashir bin Lep (aka “Lillie”).
· * Told of Hambali's capture, KSM then identified Hambali's younger brother Rusman Gunawan (aka "Gun Gun") as Hambali's conduit for communications with al-Qaeda, and the leader of the JI cell that was to carry out the West Coast plot. This information led to the capture of “Gun Gun” in September 2003 in Pakistan.
· * Hambali's brother then gave us information that led to a cell of 17 JI operatives — the Guraba Cell — that was going to carry out the West Coast plot.
All of these operatives were captured because of information gained from the interrogation of KSM using enhanced interrogation techniques.
To buy Noah’s argument that the plot was over before KSM’s capture, you would have to accept that premise that if Zubair … and Hambali … and Lillie … and Gun Gun … and the 17-member Guraba cell were all left at large and unmolested, they would not have eventually carried out the West Coast plot.
This flies in the face of logic — and the official position of the intelligence community. And it is contrary to everything we know about the way al-Qaeda operates. If we have learned anything from recent history, it is that once al-Qaeda develops a plot for a major attack, it never gives up until that attack has been carried out. Al-Qaeda’s modus operandi is to continue going after the same target time and time again until they succeed.
In 1993, al-Qaeda tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and failed. In 2001, al-Qaeda finished the job.
In 1995, KSM hatched the “Bojinka Plot” to hijack multiple passenger planes and blow them up over the Pacific. The plot failed — and so al-Qaeda tried it again over the Atlantic in 2006.
From this experience, Noah takes the lesson that because one al-Qaeda cell leader in the West Coast plot was captured, al-Qaeda just gave up. Indeed, he claims, they not only gave up on the Library Tower, after 9/11 they decided they would never try to fly a plane into a building again. But in the same briefing Noah cites, Fran Townsend says that “the intelligence tells us that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed began to initiate [the attack on the Library Tower] in October 2001” — a month after 9/11. She also states that “KSM, himself, trained the leader of the cell in late 2001 or early 2002 in the shoe bomb technique” — again after the 9/11 attacks.
The fact is Noah and Sullivan’s claims are absurd. But put aside the West Coast plot off for a moment. What about all the other plots that were stopped as a result of enhanced interrogations?
Here are some facts: Last weekend, General Hayden declared that after enhanced interrogation techniques were used on Abu Zubaydah “he gave up … information that led to the arrest of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh.” Bin al-Shibh was KSM’s right-hand-man, and a key 9/11 plotter. At the time of his arrest, Bin al-Shibh was in the midst of planning a 9/11-style attack on Britain, in which al-Qaeda operatives would hijack planes in Europe and fly them into Heathrow airport. According his CIA biography, “as of his capture, Bin al-Shibh had identified four operatives for the operation.”
Enhanced interrogations also helped us capture an al-Qaeda terrorist named Ammar al-Baluchi. Ammar had prepared Jose Padilla for his plot to blow up apartment buildings in America (which was foiled thanks to information from Abu Zubaydah), and was the one who had sent Majid Khan to deliver the $50,000 to Zubair for the West Coast plot. According to Ammar’s CIA biography, “From late 2002, Ammar began plotting to carry out simultaneous attacks in Karachi against the U.S. Consulate, Western residences, and Westerners at the local airport…. He was within days of completing preparations for the Karachi plot when he was captured.”
These are just a few of the plots that were broken up because of information gained from CIA interrogations. According to the intelligence community, terrorists held in CIA custody also provided information that helped stop a planned strike on U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti using an explosive laden water tanker. They provided information the helped us uncover al-Qaeda cell from developing anthrax for attacks against the United States. And according to the memos released by the Obama administration “intelligence derived from CIA detainees has resulted in more than 6,000 intelligence reports and, in 2004, accounted for approximately half of the [Counterterrorism Center's] reporting on al Qaeda.”
General Hayden calls these facts an “inconvenient truth.” He put it this way in his Fox News interview: “Most people who oppose these techniques want to be able to say: I don’t want my country doing this – which is a purely honorable position – and they didn’t work anyway. That back half of the sentence isn’t true. The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.”
Former CIA Director George Tenet has said, “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than [what] the FBI, the [CIA], and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
Former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has said, “We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.”
And even Obama’s director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said in a letter to the intelligence community on April 16, 2009: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.”
So you can believe Hayden, Tenet, McConnell, and Blair … or Tim Noah and Andrew Sullivan. |
http://corner.nationalreview.com/po...GMxY2I4ZDQ4YWQ=
....awaiting apologies...... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Well, I hate to say "I told you so"... well, actually I don't. But since more detailed information is now being presented that clearly explains HOW waterboarding KSM lead to the foiled L.A. plot, perhaps you should read it. Read the whole thing.... the first half describes the types of arguments most of you are trying to make, and the 2nd half provides the information you've been trying to say doesn't exist.
This is where it will get difficult for you Leftists to swallow:
And, this is what happened next (link---> http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans...s0.8319666.html)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/po...GMxY2I4ZDQ4YWQ=
....awaiting apologies...... |
Just like I'm waiting for an answer to a handful of my own questions, the biggest one is of course to see if you can answer whether or not torture is illegal, considering our own Constitution ratified international treaties like the Geneva Conventions. I doubt you'll ever answer that question, or perhaps you'll try and sidestep again and try to explain that the detainees were not bound to Geneva, regardless of what the Hamdan decision in 2006 clearly states about Common Law article 3. But one can only hope.
In regards to Thiessen's response here, I'm wondering if you or Thiessen can somehow explain despite this description of events how that seemingly runs counter this memo in May, 2005, written by then-acting assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson:
| quote: | aa - WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.
aa - That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.
The risks and effectiveness of waterboarding and other enhanced techniques are at the center of an increasingly heated debate over how thoroughly to investigate the CIA's secret detention and interrogation programs.
"It is difficult to quantify with confidence and precision the effectiveness of the program," Steven G. Bradbury, then the Justice Department's principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a May 30, 2005, memo to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, one of four released last week by the Obama administration.
"As the IG Report notes, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks. And because the CIA has used enhanced techniques sparingly, 'there is limited data on which to assess their individual effectiveness'," Bradbury wrote, quoting the IG report.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html |
Is this to say the CIA inspector General was lying?
Or how about former FBI director Robert Mueller, when asked if torture techniques had thwarted any attacks, he stated:
Surely he would know, or was he lying as well? If so, why would both of these individuals lie or not even know?
Furthermore, Dan Froomkin from the WaPost depicts Thiessen's original op-ed as the same one that he ran back in January, the same one that still has a few holes in it:
| quote: | But investigative journalists have found that this story -- like all the other ones attempting to justify torture -- falls apart at almost every turn. In this case, the most authoritative reporting has been done by Ron Suskind and is laid out in his book The One Percent Doctrine.
For starters, Zubaydah was not a major player. According to Suskind, he was a mentally ill travel booker who under CIA torture sent investigators chasing after false leads about al-Qaeda plots on American nuclear plants, water systems, shopping malls, banks and supermarkets.
Zubaydah did not, as Bush maintained, identify bin al Shibh. As Spencer Ackerman blogged for the New Republic in 2002: "A Nexis search for 'Ramzi Binalshibh' between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002 -- the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002 -- turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was."
Zubaydah did not, as Thiessen asserts, provide information that led to bin al Shibh's capture. Bin al Shibh was captured almost half a year after Zubayda was, and Suskind reported that the key information about his location came not from Zubaydah but from an al-Jazeera reporter who had interviewed bin al Shibh and KSM at their safehouse apartment in Karachi. The reporter passed the information to his superiors, who passed the information to al-Jazeera's owner, the Emir of Qatar -- a friend of the CIA -- who then passed it to Langley.
Zubaydah did not, as Thiessen asserts, provide information that led to KSM's capture. Suskind reported that a tipster -- a "walk in" -- led the CIA directly to KSM and subsequently collected a $25 million reward.
And skipping ahead to the end of Thiessen's tale, the West Coast plot has been debunked repeatedly. It's never been clear that the alleged plot to fly an airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast was ever more than a pipe dream. After Bush first mentioned the plot in February 2006, Peter Baker and Dan Eggen wrote in The Washington Post that "several U.S. intelligence officials played down the relative importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush's speech to politics. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to publicly criticize the White House, said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the... scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk."
The Bush White House never provided any independently verifiable information to support its claims that extreme measures helped keep Americans safe. Indeed, in this particular case, at least one key bit of evidence was made to vanish. Zubaydah's entire interrogation was captured on CIA videotapes -- that the CIA destroyed in 2005.
Why should anyone care about this particular deceit? After all, even if torture did work, it's still morally indefensible. Well, the reason I keep calling attention to the misleading and fabricated assertions of the now-former Bush administration is that it's important to remember that they didn't tell us the truth, that we still don't really know what they did in our name, and that, if some people have their way, we never will.
Here's what Suskind had to say in an e-mail to me yesterday: "Almost all the valuable information offered by Zubaydah -- and there was some -- was obtained with traditional debriefing, especially certain artful uses of the Koran and Zubaydah's believe in predestination. The point, made again and again by the leading interrogation experts in the U.S. government: torture doesn't work. It is misleading to frame this debate in terms of doing whatever's necessary to get the information we desperately needed. CIA and some DOD interrogators -- legally unleashed and encouraged to improvise by a go-with-your-gut, expert-phobic White House -- forfeited some of America's most cherished principles for virtually nothing. They got very little with their 'enhanced methods.' And what they did obtain could have just as easily been yielded by traditional methods. What was lost, in terms of America's most precious asset -- its moral authority? Where does one begin? This is the hard truth that responsible public servants -- past and present -- should, at this point, acknowledge. Instead, some dead enders are relying on the fact that files remain classified and videotapes have been destroyed to confuse this issue at a time when the country is crying out for clarity. Right now, America's position should be: we tortured some people in these troubled years since 9/11, it didn't work, we shouldn't have done it, we've learned from our mistakes and we commit to never doing it again. That's what a mature nation does. It evolves."
Jane Mayer, in her book The Dark Side, substantiates many of Suskind's findings, and concludes that "whatever their motives, it appears the President and the Director of Central Intelligence gave the public misleadingly exaggerated accounts of the effectiveness of the abuse they authorized. Some might impute dishonest motives to them. But it seems more likely that they fooled not just the public, but also themselves."
I'll generously put Thiessen in that category.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wh...fense-of-t.html |
Again, I'm having a greater amount of skepticism about the claims made by the CIA, primarily because they're up to their necks in serious just like the Bush Administration who authored and authorized the torture.
And even if we were to take Thiessen's claims at face value, that the capture of one led to another, then another, and so on to the point of thwarting a possible attack because, well that's al Qaeda's modus operandi (i.e. never giving up until the job is done, or something along those lines), why did Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, state:
| quote: | | "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward" |
I know, because at that time that was what they believed, right, only to find out later that the CIA through torture was unraveling a future attack anyway? Well, it really goes to follow then, that wouldn't the Bush Administration in one way or another have acknowledged this at some point in order to justify their actions then? The Bush Administration did at one point post a "top 10" foiled attacks list that they helped foil - did they ever mention anything remotely specific or even in general that they helped avoid this possible future attack by the unraveling of events and captures that Thiessen seemingly provided?
And then, of course, it goes back to my original question - was it legal in the first place, given the fact that we signed and ratified an international treaty and are legally bound by our Constitution to uphold that treaty which indicates we cannot torture people? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Jesus Christ; I already answered the questions. What's with you Leftists? You have a set template, and if I don't answer questions in the manner that fit that template, you don't consider that a good enough answer if one at all. And if you read any discussion in which I am involved, I do not EVER start with ad hominems towards people... |
I specifically displayed where it was YOU who started the silly namecalling first.
| quote: | | they only come out in my own defense when they are hurled at me first. |
Sorry, champ, you're dead wrong on this one. The namecalling was done first by you here:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=520350&perpage=12&forumid=66&pagenumber=11
"Condescending ," if memory serves. Are you going to concede the fact that you started this first or not?
| quote: | | You, Krypton, and whoever else I vehimently disagree with on policy still have discussions because "generally speaking", you don't engage personal attacks as part of your strategy. But that's not the case with MisterOpus and perhaps now you'll understand that my desire to not have dialogue with him is out of a matter of mutual respect, not cowardice. |
I'm willing to drop the namecalling if you are, but my questions directly towards you, and my general crassness will remain.
| quote: | | That's one way to look at it. But you're still not answering the question regarding the motive/reason as to why this is being done now, during a time of war, knowing the repercussions after last time. That's what I'm fired up about. |
Wait - the Executive is presented with a legal obligation to release documents, but somehow that's an insidious motive to you? Following the law and making sure they don't commit an illegal act is "one way to look at it"?
It's the ing law for him to release those things when presented with a FOIA request, nothing more. I know we've all been used to 8 years of a douchebag and crew refusing to abide by the law, or at least circumvent it at every turn, but understand that guy's gone now. If anything you should be happy we finally have someone who's actually following the law in this regard.
And "during a time of war?" That couldn't be more irrelevant. The law states he has to release them. Why are you having so much difficulty with this idea? The only motivation he has is to abide by the law. Jesus.
| quote: | | LOL!! wow are you really that sensitive? How many times have you called me out for being a Rush sychophant and Bush deciple (which is utterly false)? But I refer to you as an Obamabot and you want to take your ball and go home? :stongue: |
I think he was proving a point, one you obviously missed...... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Who is Marc Thiessen?:
| quote: | served as Chief Speechwriter to President George W. Bush, and a member of the White House Senior Staff. He was the lead writer on the President’s 2007 and 2008 State of the Union addresses, helping the President navigate his first appearances before a Democratic Congress.
He worked closely with the President on hundreds of
speeches – including remarks for his 2004 presidential campaign and televised addresses from the Oval Office. Over five years at the White House, Marc helped the President craft his public arguments on issues ranging from defense and national security, to energy, health care, taxes, trade, and economic policy.
http://www.ovalofficewriters.com/team.htm |
Gosh, no conflict of interest there or anything. Can't imagine why he's trying to protect the Bush Administration so vehemently....... |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Jesus Christ; I already answered the questions. What's with you Leftists? You have a set template, and if I don't answer questions in the manner that fit that template, you don't consider that a good enough answer if one at all. And if you read any discussion in which I am involved, I do not EVER start with ad hominems towards people... they only come out in my own defense when they are hurled at me first. |
Personal history suggests otherwise.
| quote: | | That's one way to look at it. But you're still not answering the question regarding the motive/reason as to why this is being done now, during a time of war, knowing the repercussions after last time. That's what I'm fired up about. |
Because that's when the request came. It's pretty straight-forward really. FOIA gives a timeline for these things. A request for disclosure can't just be ignored. Your anger is misdirected - find out who is requesting the information and be pissed at them.
| quote: | | LOL!! wow are you really that sensitive? How many times have you called me out for being a Rush sychophant and Bush deciple (which is utterly false)? But I refer to you as an Obamabot and you want to take your ball and go home? :stongue: |
It was actually parody (of you), but think what you will. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
I specifically displayed where it was YOU who started the silly namecalling first.
Sorry, champ, you're dead wrong on this one. The namecalling was done first by you here:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...6&pagenumber=11
"Condescending ," if memory serves. Are you going to concede the fact that you started this first or not?
I'm willing to drop the namecalling if you are, but my questions directly towards you, and my general crassness will remain. |
I'm going against my own rule by responding, but no I'm not wrong. This is what you said PRIOR to me calling you a condescending :
| quote: | | Please tell us what Rush says tomorrow. I can't wait for another ing "frat boy prank" analogy. |
Did you call me a direct name there? No... but you took things in the direction of disrespect, and away from regular dialogue, by talking down to me like that. I hate condescention more than anything, and I'm going to react when people do it.... especially to those who can't help themselves in doing it every single time they get into a political debate with someone on the opposite side.
And Lebez, little barbs and jabs get tossed around, I understand that... we all do it. But show me the personal history you speak of where I baited someone into it. If you're referring to the I said directly to you a while back, it was AFTER you repeatedly insulted me, AND I came forward first offering sincere apologies (and they were) to you for making things personal.
Edit: I get the parody... I realized it shortly after I sent that reply. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
Hmmm... a conservative who can't stand condescension from socialists and leftists and Obamabots...
And getting called out on plagiarism is not the same as being insulted. Insults imply that you did nothing wrong, or are at the very least a victim of something unfair or unwarranted.
I'm not going to beat on an old drum here, but it's very puzzling to see you try and take the high road on Opus given that you've been guilty of both the accusations you're throwing around. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Hmmm... a conservative who can't stand condescension from socialists and leftists and Obamabots...
And getting called out on plagiarism is not the same as being insulted. Insults imply that you did nothing wrong, or are at the very least a victim of something unfair or unwarranted.
I'm not going to beat on an old drum here, but it's very puzzling to see you try and take the high road on Opus given that you've been guilty of both the accusations you're throwing around. |
Using words like leftist, obamabot, etc. are the barbs I was just talking about... I don't get all bent out of shape when you call me a right wing nut or whatever. Calling me out on plagiarism "Joe Biden" style is one thing but certainly not what made me get personal with you. It was the incredibly elitist way in which you spoke to me, telling me I "make you sick" and remarking over and over about how stupid I was, what an idiot I am, blowing Rush, being incapable of having original thoughts... etc. It was a series of events and I was ing sick of it. And you obviously can't handle a sincere apology either. Whatever.
And I'm not trying to go all "high road" on Opus... I'm just over talking to people who can't have a disagreeing dialogue without trying to bait me into a verbal war. Sorry. Did you not see the line from him I posted showing what he said before I called him a condescending ? Do you not understand it's a pattern of behavior and not an isolated incident? If I talked to you like that, you wouldn't converse with me at all either. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
"Please tell us what Rush says tomorrow."
Really?
:stongue: :stongue:
Also, I'm not josh4, and I'm not Clovis. I know all of us leftists sound alike, but if you're going to quote me "insulting" you, make sure you read back the tape correctly. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
"Please tell us what Rush says tomorrow."
Really?
:stongue: :stongue:
Also, I'm not josh4, and I'm not Clovis. I know all of us leftists sound alike, but if you're going to quote me "insulting" you, make sure you read back the tape correctly. |
sweet jesus. *sigh*... you aren't hearing me. Have you ever heard the term "it's not what you say, it's how you say it"? Well, that's the case with Opus. It wasn't an isolated incident with him, it was the last straw for me in that every single time we get into a discussion, the baiting and condescending talk starts.
I never even said anything directly to him and this was in his first post to me:
| quote: | | "Hi 17, you can save your topic-changing bologna for another thread. Actually, I'm quite certain this blather has been discussed at length in other threads." |
and
| quote: | | Please tell us what Rush says tomorrow. I can't wait for another ing "frat boy prank" analogy. |
First of all, I wasn't changing the subject... I was responding to you saying I lost credibility for insinuating the "crazy" notion that Obama is moving us in the direction of socialism. And secondly, his whole opening comment towards me in the thread was rude. And you did insult me... several times. I don't pop off on people over a couple of jabs. |
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