Should We Waterboard For Information

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Do you think we'd better information by waterboarding?

Wendy P.

We did! Without a doubt. Obama only need release ALL docs. But that is not what he did, is it.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,070]

>Cheny is making Obama look like the minority party today.

He is indeed! He's making more noise than a chicken coop full of angry cats. And having about the same effect. From comments by republicans concerning the results of his ranting:

"He seems determined to vindicate his decisions and policies even if it damages the GOP's recovery. And it has."

"Anything that reminds the public of the Bush administration harms the party's ability to turn the page. If he'd had any concern for his public image when he was in office, he wouldn't have to worry as much about defending his reputation now."

"There is nothing Dick Cheney can say or do to help the Republican Party today. The best thing he can do is disappear for the next 10 years."

"Let's face it: The guy doesn't know anything about winning elections outside of Wyoming."

"Not even a close call. With Cheney out there, Obama doesn't even need to remind the American people about the mess that was the Bush years."

"He's advocating for what's left of the party. We need to expand the party."

"Cheney represents the grumpy intolerance that has come to characterize the GOP. Get off the stage!"

[rushmc 23]

Quote

>Cheny is making Obama look like the minority party today.

He is indeed! He's making more noise than a chicken coop full of angry cats. And having about the same effect. From comments by republicans concerning the results of his ranting:

"He seems determined to vindicate his decisions and policies even if it damages the GOP's recovery. And it has."

"Anything that reminds the public of the Bush administration harms the party's ability to turn the page. If he'd had any concern for his public image when he was in office, he wouldn't have to worry as much about defending his reputation now."

"There is nothing Dick Cheney can say or do to help the Republican Party today. The best thing he can do is disappear for the next 10 years."

"Let's face it: The guy doesn't know anything about winning elections outside of Wyoming."

"Not even a close call. With Cheney out there, Obama doesn't even need to remind the American people about the mess that was the Bush years."

"He's advocating for what's left of the party. We need to expand the party."

"Cheney represents the grumpy intolerance that has come to characterize the GOP. Get off the stage!"

Nope, he is a good person. Where does that leave you.

NO one in YOUR party can hold a flame to this man. He is making your man look stupid.

YOU and YOURs attack those that are good at what they do. THe more you attack him the more I know you are afraid of what is right.

It has been a good week. I look forward to the next election should this continue...

By the way, you have posted the funniest, most intolerant post of the week. Congrats!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,070]

>Nope, he is a good person. Where does that leave you.

?? I didn't say he wasn't a good person. I said (and apparently most republicans agree with me) that he is damaging the GOP with his angry rants.

>NO one in YOUR party can hold a flame to this man.

Apparently most people in your party think you are wrong on that. They are wincing at the damage his blathering is doing to their chances at regaining power.

> I look forward to the next election should this continue...

Indeed. All Cheney has to do is remind people that the choice is between the party of Bush/Cheney and the party of everyone else and democratic victory is assured. (Which is too bad; we're not well served by having a one party government.)

>By the way, you have posted the funniest, most intolerant post of the week.

By posting quotes from republicans? Looks like you're labeling them 'the party of intolerance!' Didn't know you agreed with the democrats on that one.

[rushmc 23]

Quote

>Nope, he is a good person. Where does that leave you.

?? I didn't say he wasn't a good person. I said (and apparently most republicans agree with me) that he is damaging the GOP with his angry rants.

>NO one in YOUR party can hold a flame to this man.

Apparently most people in your party think you are wrong on that. They are wincing at the damage his blathering is doing to their chances at regaining power.

> I look forward to the next election should this continue...

Indeed. All Cheney has to do is remind people that the choice is between the party of Bush/Cheney and the party of everyone else and democratic victory is assured. (Which is too bad; we're not well served by having a one party government.)

>By the way, you have posted the funniest, most intolerant post of the week.

By posting quotes from republicans? Looks like you're labeling them 'the party of intolerance!' Didn't know you agreed with the democrats on that one.

Twisting and misdirection yet again.

Bill
I am happy with Cheney. You need to figure out the agenda of where you get your news, But, I know polls are important to you, regardless of how the questions are asked and who does them

As for Cheney, well, just keep an eye on the polls. After all, you seem to need to be on the side of the majority, regarless of the truth...

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,070]

>I am happy with Cheney.

Good! I am glad you feel he is representing you well, and encourage you to vote for him again.

>But, I know polls are important to you . . .

As they are to you, apparently! Keep your eyes glued to those polls, so you can flip from "I ignore polls" to "check out THESE poll results!"

>After all, you seem to need to be on the side of the majority, regarless of
>the truth...

Hmm. I've been in the minority for most of the last decade, and I am still in the minority with many of my beliefs. But don't let that stop you; rant away.

[rushmc 23]

Quote

>I am happy with Cheney.

Good! I am glad you feel he is representing you well, and encourage you to vote for him again.

>But, I know polls are important to you . . .

As they are to you, apparently! Keep your eyes glued to those polls, so you can flip from "I ignore polls" to "check out THESE poll results!"

>After all, you seem to need to be on the side of the majority, regarless of
>the truth...

Hmm. I've been in the minority for most of the last decade, and I am still in the minority with many of my beliefs. But don't let that stop you; rant away.

If you are in the minority, I can only imagine how radical your views really are.

I would guess government does not yet contro enoug for you.

Just a guess though.....

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,070]

>If you are in the minority, I can only imagine how radical your views
>really are.

Per your posts - no, you really can't.

>I would guess government does not yet contro enoug for you.

You would guess wrong, then.

[rushmc 23]

>I would guess government does not yet contro enoug for you.

You would guess wrong, then.

I can only hope so.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[skydived19006 4]

Ok I'll concede, that if nothing useful was gained through water boarding, then it was a waste of time. Maybe one indicator of it's effectiveness is that we only used it with three of these good fellows.

That said, what I am generally hearing (maybe it's just me) from the other side of the isle is simply "no", regardless of what may have been gained.

It was a biased poll, but then aren't they all?

Martin

Aren't all DZOs assholes by definition? (BTW I'm a DZO so it's pointing my finger at me. The Man isn't going to ban me for calling DZOs assholes is he?)

Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else.

AC DZ

[TankBuster 0]

Your poll is well intentioned, but your statements don't make sense. There is no way to know how many lives will be saved through information gained during an interrogation. You're either in favor of it or you aren't. For me, relying on the experience of the CIA when they recommend its use is good enough. I don't have a moral aversion to it. I've been waterboarded. It is VERY unpleasant, and if you want to call it torture, fine, I don't care. Sleep deprivation, dietary control, confinement, they all are designed to make the subject uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. Several people here seem to think that the main purpose of an interrogation is to get the terrorist to confess to something, and of course they'll confess to being on the grassy knoll if it will make the pain stop. That's not the reason we interrogate. Information gained can be checked for accuracy and the when the interrogators can convince the subject that accurate infomation equals less pain and vice versa, you can get a great deal of very valuable information from them. And you can bet that high level operatives like KSM had and have information that, if known, will save lives. Names and addresses of operatives, for example, are relatively easy to check and yield futher surveilance intel. If only those who want to sit on the moral high horse and watch people die would be the first to die. But that's not how it will happen.

Anyhow, put me in the column of hell yes, if one innocent life is saved. If the pussy in chief ever releases the other half of the memos, you'll see that lives have been saved. And as for the argument that we are recruiting terrorists, yes we are. That's why these interrogations should have been kept secret.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[billvon 3,070]

>Anyhow, put me in the column of hell yes, if one innocent life is saved.

And if lives are lost because someone chose waterboarding over techniques that have been proven to work? How will you feel then? Would you be willing to waterboard someone if your friends and family would be among the first to die from the bad intelligence?

[TankBuster 0]

Bill, how do you know that waterboarding doesn't work? What other techniques have "proven" to be more productive? The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top. They use the techniques that their experience and timeliness dictate. They didn't just invent waterboarding because the evil Bush/Cheney regime told them to. If they get information from less painful techniques, great, but if they feel they need it, it's my opinion they should be allowed to use it. It's not black and white, and one never knows how useful the interrogation will be, so to answer your question, yes I'd err on the side of the CIA's experience.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[BikerBabe 0]

*facepalm*

Links and testimony and studies and information has been posted in SC over and over and over again, mostly by nerdgirl, that show it doesn't work, and that there are more effective methods of interrogation.

Over and over and over again.

Marg, i hate to say it, but i think people actually don't bother reading your posts and links, which is really unfortunate.

Is it an attention span thing? maybe she should post one link per post, with little to no cutting and pasting...but i'm not sure that would work either.

it's like watching someone run into a wall, then telling them "hey, there's a wall there" and then watching them run into it again and again. Why do they keep running into it? "Oh, i don't believe you because Dick Cheney says there ISN'T a wall there!" *wham*

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[TankBuster 0]

And YOU need to read MY post, Babe. The spooks don't go straight to the waterboard. They'll begin with more benign questioning, and if they get the results, then fine. IF they feel the need to ratchet it up, they will. That is, they used to.

Nerdgirl does good research and makes great arguments but forgive me if I don't fall in line immediatley after her post. In the real world, where real live terrorists will slit your throat, fly planes into buildings, or bust off a nuke in downtown Cincinati, I'm ok if the CIA feels it necessary to step up an interrogation. Why take away the tool? YGBSM if you believe all these guys are going to give up the goods over milk and cookies. As for Mr. Soufan, he's done some great work, but he's been at odds with the CIA for years, he's the perfect stooge for congress to pick for an anti EIT testimony. I'm sure he loved the opportunity to sell some books.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[billvon 3,070]

>Bill, how do you know that waterboarding doesn't work?

Because of decades of experience with such methods by our interrogators. Hearing people here claim it does is like listening to whuffos claim that parachutes go up when they open. After all, they saw it on TV!

> The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of
>techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top.

You mean the techniques championed by these guys?
===========
According to current and former government officials, the CIA's secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington. Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates.

The new documents show the CIA later came to learn that the two psychologists' waterboarding "expertise" was probably "misrepresented" and thus, there was no reason to believe it was "medically safe" or effective. The waterboarding used on al Qaeda detainees was far more intense than the brief sessions used on U.S. military personnel in the training classes.
=============
While I suspect they made a load of money off their false expertise, I also don't place much stock in their opinions.

How about some military interrogation experts? Although they may not make quite as much money as the above entrepreneurs, I tend to place more stock in their reasoning:

Army Major General Antonio Taguba: "We violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values."

Army Field Manual 34-52, "Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

United States Joint Personnel Recovery Agency: "The application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information."

Question: Do you believe that torture decreases or increases the risk of terrorism?
Terrell Arnold, Deputy Director, Office of Counter-Terrorism and Chairman of the Department of International Studies at the National War College: It increases the risk. There is a school of thought that it is deterrence. But I do not believe that. If people's grievances multiply, you will have more terrorism.

US Air Force interrogator Matthew Alexander: "It's extremely ineffective, and it's counter-productive to what we're trying to accomplish. When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve, and the information that you get is unreliable."

Former Navy Judge Advocate General Admiral John Hutson: "Fundamentally, those kinds of techniques are ineffective. If the goal is to gain actionable intelligence, and it is, and if that’s important, and it is, then we have to use the techniques that are most effective. Torture is the technique of choice of the lazy, stupid and pseudo-tough.”

Brigadier General David R. Irvine: "No one has yet offered any validated evidence that torture produces reliable intelligence. While torture apologists frequently make the claim that torture saves lives, that assertion is directly contradicted by many Army, FBI, and CIA professionals who have actually interrogated al Qaeda captives. Exhibit A is the torture-extracted confession of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda captive who told the CIA in 2001, having been "rendered" to the tender mercies of Egypt, that Saddam Hussein had trained al Qaeda to use WMD. It appears that this confession was the only information upon which, in late 2002, the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state repeatedly claimed that "credible evidence" supported that claim, even though a now-declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report from February 2002 questioned the reliability of the confession because it was likely obtained under torture. In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his "confession," and a month later, the CIA recalled all intelligence reports based on his statements."

> They didn't just invent waterboarding because the evil Bush/Cheney
>regime told them to.

No, it's existed since the Spanish Inquisition. The torture memos just told them to use it.

>It's not black and white, and one never knows how useful the
>interrogation will be, so to answer your question, yes I'd err on the
>side of the CIA's experience.

So, again, you'd be OK watching a friend of yours die because you wanted to torture someone rather than use methods proven over decades of interrogation experience? If they paid you what they paid those two psychiatrists to promote waterboarding, would that make it OK?

[jcd11235 0]

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They'll begin with more benign questioning, and if they get the results, then fine. IF they feel the need to ratchet it up, they will. That is, they used to.

Oddly, they also have a history of switching to "enhanced interrogation tactics even if they are getting good results from more benign questioning, a switch that tends to end the flow of reliable, accurate information.

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In the real world …

In the real world, the shit that Jack Bauer gets away with on 24 simply doesn't work.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[nerdgirl 0]

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but forgive me if I don't fall in line immediatley after her post.

There’s nothing to forgive. I always welcome questions and challenges.

On what do you base your assertion: “The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top.” How did you come to that conclusion? What do you think is the history of waterboarding in CIA interogation?

Maybe you know something I don’t. What studies? Show us, please.

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It's not black and white, and one never knows how useful the interrogation will be, so to answer your question, yes I'd err on the side of the CIA's experience.

Really? So if actual operators from the CIA state that it doesn’t work, i.e., “err on the CIA’s experience” would you change your mind? That’s your condition.

Explicit comments from a couple former CIA operatives who assert that torture is not effective in obtaining intelligence:

Former CIA Directorate of Operations (DO), not the analysis side, officer Robert Baer: torture is “bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough.”

Larry Johnson, another former CIA officer – operations not analyst – and former deputy director of counterterrorism at the Department of State:

“I’m a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways.

“What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust - even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming - than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights.

“I am not advocating that terrorists be given room service at the Four Seasons. Some sleep deprivation - of the sort mothers of newborns all endure - and spartan living conditions are appropriate. What we must not do is use physical pain or the threat of drowning, as in ‘water-boarding,’ to gain information. Tough, relentless questioning is OK. Torture is not.”

A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard has publically acknowledged turning down ideas of ways to create pain as part of interrogation methods who he was deputy DO. If they were effective, would he do that?


How about the DIA?

LTG Harry E. Soyster, USA (ret) and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), i.e., the Defense Department's lead intelligence agency, & Commanding General of Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM): “If they think these methods ["enhanced interrogation," i.e., torture] work, they're woefully misinformed. Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world.”

In light of the 60+ years of operator expertise – from the Marine interrogators to former FBI agent Ali Soufan to the USAF officer who obtained the information that led to the location and killing of al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006 – that torture, including waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation” methods, are not effective, how do you reconcile that with your own assertion that we should err on the side of those with operational expertise?

Are you asserting the that USMC interrogators – the ones whose operational experience is that

“…despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them.”

aren’t in the real world?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

but forgive me if I don't fall in line immediatley after her post.

There’s nothing to forgive. I always welcome questions and challenges.

On what do you base your assertion: “The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top.” How did you come to that conclusion? What do you think is the history of waterboarding in CIA interogation?

Maybe you know something I don’t. What studies? Show us, please.

Quote

It's not black and white, and one never knows how useful the interrogation will be, so to answer your question, yes I'd err on the side of the CIA's experience.

Really? So if actual operators from the CIA state that it doesn’t work, i.e., “err on the CIA’s experience” would you change your mind? That’s your condition.

Explicit comments from a couple former CIA operatives who assert that torture is not effective in obtaining intelligence:

Former CIA Directorate of Operations (DO), not the analysis side, officer Robert Baer: torture is “bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough.”

Larry Johnson, another former CIA officer – operations not analyst – and former deputy director of counterterrorism at the Department of State:

“I’m a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways.

“What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust - even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming - than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights.

“I am not advocating that terrorists be given room service at the Four Seasons. Some sleep deprivation - of the sort mothers of newborns all endure - and spartan living conditions are appropriate. What we must not do is use physical pain or the threat of drowning, as in ‘water-boarding,’ to gain information. Tough, relentless questioning is OK. Torture is not.”

A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard has publically acknowledged turning down ideas of ways to create pain as part of interrogation methods who he was deputy DO. If they were effective, would he do that?


How about the DIA?

LTG Harry E. Soyster, USA (ret) and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), i.e., the Defense Department's lead intelligence agency, & Commanding General of Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM): “If they think these methods ["enhanced interrogation," i.e., torture] work, they're woefully misinformed. Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world.”

In light of the 60+ years of operator expertise – from the Marine interrogators to former FBI agent Ali Soufan to the USAF officer who obtained the information that led to the location and killing of al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006 – that torture, including waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation” methods, are not effective, how do you reconcile that with your own assertion that we should err on the side of those with operational expertise?

Are you asserting the that USMC interrogators – the ones whose operational experience is that

“…despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them.”

aren’t in the real world?

/Marg

Marg

There are also those who have stated that is does work. Do we just pick and chose the side that we decide to sit on?

I sent you the interview (and again I forget his name) who said it did work . Then people say they had all the info before water boarding was used. He says no, we got better intel during and after.

Cheney is saying it did work. I am sorry, the hype doesnt match up.

This issue is ,at this time, no longer about whether is works or if it is the right thing to do anymore. It is about political smack down. And here is where the danger now lays

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[jcd11235 0]

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There are also those who have stated that is does work. Do we just pick and chose the side that we decide to sit on?

I've made the request before, and it went unfulfilled by anybody. I'll ask again. Can you please provide links to experienced interrogators claiming that torture works? Can you provide any specific examples of significant, accurate intel resulting from torture? Marg isn't picking and choosing her data, selecting only that stuff that supports her assertion.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[fasted3 0]

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It's an interesting world. Really, "let them die?"

I understand what you mean. When it is your family at stake where do you draw the line?
So where would you draw the line? Anywhere? Is there any act so heinous that you would not do it to save your family? Seriously, I am not talking about waterboarding now, I mean gutting babys - stuff like that. Is there anything that would be too much for you? Or does anything go?
I am asking you, since you started this thread, but welcome other's comments as well.

But what do I know?

[millertimeunc 0]

Since you mentioned 24...

I read somewhere that Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his car keys. He then tortured himself for 3 hours until he gave up the location of his car keys.

See? Torture works!

The best things in life are dangerous.

[TankBuster 0]

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Really? So if actual operators from the CIA state that it doesn’t work, i.e., “err on the CIA’s experience” would you change your mind?

Do ALL CIA interrogators believe this? Why do you think the CIA uses the technique if it isn't effective? They simply enjoy it? Obvoiusly not everyone in the CIA agrees with you.

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“What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust - even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming -

This takes too much time in many instances. Actionalble intell is fleeting.

I appreciate your references to Army Field Manuals and the words of my fellow servicemen, but they have no application here. AFMs are unclassified and written for the enemy's consumption as much as our own. These are not the uniformed combatants of a nation state. These are terrorists. The rules are different. If you feel the Geneva Convention should apply, as many do, fine, but they are not signatories to it.

Do you think Mr. BHO should release the other intel on the attacks that were thwarted? If they show that enhanced interrogation saved American lives you can still be against it, but would you admit its validity as a technique? Why won't he release it? Maybe it doesn't support his position?

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The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them.”

For me to imply that you don't live in the real world is disrespectful and a bit condescending. My apology. Lets just say that based on our experience, we have a very different view of reality. I was in the Middle East immediately after 9-11 and one of my friends drew the job of helping to escort detainees from staging areas in Afganistan to Gitmo. These people were shackled, cuffed, and hooded almost all the time for a reason. They would kick, spit, urinate, bite, and throw feces at every opportunity. Being nice to the animals would not yield actionable inteligence.

The forecast is mostly sunny with occasional beer.

[nerdgirl 0]

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There are also those who have stated that is does work. Do we just pick and chose the side that we decide to sit on?

I sent you the interview (and again I forget his name) who said it did work .

Yes. It was an interview on Fox News with former DCI Michael Hayden.

As I wrote before and to you directly, I was already aware of Hayden's comments. They were not something I had not seen.

He's not specific -- the closest is this:

This statement:

Quote

HAYDEN: I should correct you — before he was slammed against a false flexible wall with something wrapped around his neck so that he would not be injured.

In September 2006, President Bush gave a speech on the Abu Zubaydah case. He pointed out that he — Zubaydah gave us nominal information, probably more valuable than he thought. He clammed up. The decision was made to use techniques.

After that decision was made and the techniques were used, he gave up more valuable information, including the information that led to the arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh. After the New York Times story yesterday, I called a few friends to make sure my memory was correct, and I guess, to quote somebody from your profession, we stand by our story.

The critical information we got from Abu Zubaydah came after we began the EITs.

is contradicted by (1) the statements of those who were there, including those who *were* there. See former FBI interogator Ali Soufan[s testimony *under oath*: Fox News isn't under oath. And the DoD-transcripts released by the Bush administration. It’s also contradicted by (2) chronology.

There’s too much contradictory in Hayden’s statements.

We have nothing yet that shows anything gained from torture/waterboarding. Sorry.

As I wrote, I think these guys genuinely were operating under a ‘fog of war’ and wanted to do what they were persuaded was best.

Have you followed the money, as they say, to James Mitchell? He and another were largely responsible for filling a knowledge void in CIA with what they were recommending, i.e., use of waterboarding.

Quote

Then people say they had all the info before water boarding was used. He says no, we got better intel during and after.

Cheney is saying it did work. I am sorry, the hype doesnt match up.

Who's pushing the hype?
I agree that Cheney is pushing hype.

(Imagine if it was another former Vice President who just kept repeating over & over with *no evidence* that global warming was occuring, how would you react?)

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

There are also those who have stated that is does work. Do we just pick and chose the side that we decide to sit on?

I've made the request before, and it went unfulfilled by anybody. I'll ask again. Can you please provide links to experienced interrogators claiming that torture works? Can you provide any specific examples of significant, accurate intel resulting from torture? Marg isn't picking and choosing her data, selecting only that stuff that supports her assertion.

Look, I am talking about Cheney and the ex CIA chief who was inteviewed on Fox.
I dont think you will find any that have used it (and it worked) talk publically because it is the wrong thing to do. Those that are against it just say it doesnt work. Make them prove it or do you not have too because you just agree with them.

You got your mind made up as to I. IF the POTUS has the guts to release the rest of the docs Cheney is asking for we may have a better answer. But he refuses to. He will only release part of them. Why?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln