Was torture used to foil the latest terror plot?

[DRJ4]

<p>All good points, Hayden.</p>

<p>My guess is that tracking down terrorists, just like good police work, doesn’t mean there will be a magic moment when the subject spills the beans of the entire plot. It probably means we learn the identity of his contact, and the next and the next until the plan is disrupted. The British especially like to keep conspirators under surveillance for as long as possible until they can identify all the links in the chain. Some believe that is what happened in the Rauf case: That the Pakistanis jumped the gun by arresting Rauf so the British had to roll up the rest of the conspirators sooner than they planned.</p>

<p>In other words, coercive interrogation may well yield only a vague lead or a small clue, but it could make all the difference if your goal is to disrupt the plot. Taking out even a few links in the chain - especially a chain that is as decentralized as you describe - might undermine the ability of the cell to complete its deadly mission. It’s true that a decentralized terror cell has advantages for the perpetrators because they can’t reveal people they don’t know. On the other hand, they also have more difficulty if one part of the cell is corrupted or can’t fulfill its mission. For instance, how do they buy explosives or make travel arrangements if the banker is taken out of the loop? </p>

<p>

@Hayden

After all, when a man in US custody dies after being beaten for two days, and we give a slap on the wrist to the man who deliberately and knowingly beat the man to death, what kind of people are we becoming? And how do we then criticize Saddam’s torture rooms?

We are the kind of people who punish wrongdoers for their actions, even if it’s not as harsh a punishment as you would like. We are not the kind of people who reward people who torture others. There is no moral equivalence.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>Funding Father,</p>

<p>I read an article today that I think is interesting and that might interest you as well. Here’s an excerpt:</p>

<p>

Interrogation and the definition of torture</p>

<p>Of all the values issues in the war on terror, none have aroused such strong emotions as interrogation and what crosses the line into torture. The anguished discussion over the possibility that information crucial to preventing the London airline plot was obtained in Pakistan through harsh interrogation, perhaps torture, only raises the stakes. In order to go beyond the abstract phrases of existing laws and treaties, Congress must be willing to legislate what exact techniques are permissible, under what circumstances and with what oversight — not euphemisms, not ambiguous language, but plain, exact descriptions of techniques and when and how they may be used. Is waterboarding, for example, torture? If it is, then Congress should say so without reservation. If it is not and if it is merely “harsh” treatment, should harsh or physically coercive interrogation ever be permitted? If harsh or physically coercive interrogation is ever permitted, then Congress should say exactly and in precise detail when and how it may be performed by American authorities and upon whom. These activities are too morally fraught to permit anything other than the on-the-record vote of each legislator. Let our legislators tell us plainly what tough trade-offs they make between our security and our liberties — because indubitably there are trade-offs.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/magazine/03wwln_essay.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1157256207-k40Qf1ArywkhwB75HctziA[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/magazine/03wwln_essay.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1157256207-k40Qf1ArywkhwB75HctziA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[fundingfather]

<p>While I applaud the NYT for at least acknowledging that there is a large continuum of treatment when it comes to interrogation and that not all “harsh” treatment automatically is “torture”, I think it would be a mistake for Congress to get too specific in terms of what is and what is not allowed. To create a rigid guideline of what is permissible, to a great extent defeats the purpose of methods being used. Part of the process of interrogation using harsh measures is using the fear factor. One of the biggest fears is that of the unknown - exactly what might come next in the interrogation process. Once a detainee knows the nature of the boundaries - or even that boundaries exist, I would think that the interrogator loses a significant edge. There should be boundaries, but they should be hidden, flexible and not up to the discretion of the interrogator.</p>

[driver]

<p>

One of the biggest fears is that of the unknown - exactly what might come next in the interrogation process. Once a detainee knows the nature of the boundaries - or even that boundaries exist, I would think that the interrogator loses a significant edge.

“Waterboarding” was invented for the purpose of training Special Forces. The fact that they know that “everyone fails” is useful to the training. Works with terrorists just as well.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>FF and Driver,</p>

<p>Good points. From the standpoint of our service personnel and others who will be conducting interrogations, I worry that an absence of specific guidelines will leave them hanging out to dry. I suppose that’s part of what motivated McCain’s proposed legislation, and I disagree with McCain on just about everything so I guess that leaves me with you on this issue. </p>

<p>I also worry that a more liberal Congress will unduly constrain interrogation of suspects in extreme situations. I guess I worry that we might let the perfect be the enemy of the good on this issue.</p>

<p>Thanks for responding.</p>

[hayden]

<p>The two Fox employees who were released recently described their experiences while being held after their abduction in Iraq. They said that first everything was taken away from them, then gradually the abductors returned things - a little more freedom, a little more food. They said they could understand the Stockholm syndrome because even in the fairly short time of their captivity they said the pull of starting to sympathize with their captors was strong.</p>

<p>Handled even better by experienced and trained people, why wouldn’t the Stockholm syndrome work better than torture? I have heard a lot of former CIA say that they have techniques that work a lot better than torture. So why do we continue to think torture works the best when evidence doesn’t appear to support it?</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>Hayden,</p>

<p>What you suggest (and less) is considered torture by some Americans, including some in leadership positions. I think it’s unclear whether the American military and/or intelligence personnel could do even this without risking their careers.</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>hayden,</p>

<p>It would be nice to think that terrorists would cooperate merely by “being nice” to them. But we must recognize that people who have been hardened by an extreme ideology are not your typical Stockholm captives. Here is what interrogators have found out about today’s enemy:

It didn’t take long for interrogators in the war on terror to realize that their part was not going according to script. Pentagon doctrine, honed over decades of cold-war planning, held that 95 percent of prisoners would break upon straightforward questioning. Interrogators in Afghanistan, and later in Cuba and Iraq, found just the opposite: virtually none of the terror detainees was giving up information—not in response to direct questioning, and not in response to army-approved psychological gambits for prisoners of war.</p>

<hr>

<p>The need for rethinking interrogation doctrine in the war on terror will not go away, however. The Islamist enemy is unlike any the military has encountered in the past. If current wisdom on the rules of war prohibits making any distinction between a terrorist and a lawful combatant, then that orthodoxy needs to change.</p>

<hr>

<p>But the Kandahar prisoners were not playing by the army rule book. They divulged nothing. “Prisoners overcame the [traditional] model almost effortlessly,” writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, his gripping account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. The prisoners confounded their captors “not with clever cover stories but with simple refusal to cooperate. They offered lame stories, pretended not to remember even the most basic of details, and then waited for consequences that never really came.”</p>

<hr>

<p>Did the stress techniques work? Yes. “The harsher methods we used . . . the better information we got and the sooner we got it,” writes Mackey, who emphasizes that the methods never contravened the conventions or crossed over into torture.

<a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html[/url]”>http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You should read the entire article. It shows how stress interrogation does produce good intelligence and that it need not devolve into true torture to do so. It also shows, contrary to the distortions created by the left, exactly how restrained the interrogators have had to be and that even simple techniques like offering chocolate for information required that Rumsfeld be notified.</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>Here is another report from the Chicago Tribune about the success of waterboarding in getting information from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:

Moral and legal aspects aside, conventional wisdom is that torture simply isn’t practical: that someone who is being tortured will say anything to make the torture stop, and that information gleaned through torture is therefore not reliable. Some former military and intelligence officers say, however, that physically aggressive interrogation techniques that some human-rights groups consider torture can be effective in the short term. When asked for specifics, the technique they cite is “waterboarding,” in which water is poured over a subject’s face to create the sensation of drowning.</p>

<p>Consider Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 39-year-old former Al Qaeda operative who was the Sept. 11 mastermind and bearer of many Al Qaeda secrets. If anyone had a motive for remaining silent, it was the man known to terrorism investigators as “KSM.” But not long after his capture in Pakistan, in March 2003, KSM began to talk. He ultimately had so much to say that more than 100 footnoted references to the CIA’s interrogations of KSM are contained in the final report of the commission that investigated Sept. 11. Not that everything KSM said was believable. But much of his information checked out in separate questioning of other captured Al Qaeda figures.</p>

<p>What made KSM decide to talk? The answer may be waterboarding, to which KSM was subjected on at least one occasion, according to various accounts. Intelligence operatives say that while waterboarding can break through a suspect’s initial resistance, it isn’t effective for long-term interrogation. Once a suspect begins to communicate, however, an interrogation specialist can put into action a wide range of far more subtle techniques, which include playing to a subject’s ego or pretending to be his friend.</p>

<p>It could not be learned exactly when KSM was waterboarded or whether the technique was used more than once. But only 12 days after being captured in Pakistan, on March 1, 2003, KSM made his first reported major revelation.

</p>

[driver]

<p>Mark Steyn answers Hayden’s query directly. <a href=“http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn03.html[/url]”>http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn03.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Dadguy]

<p>I am a little disturbed how for this “new kind of enemy” that require us to use “techniques never considered before”, we’ve become really proficient in such a short order of time. I have a hard time picturing the Greatest Generation resorting to this stuff, even though they were up against some really nasty guys.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>Something I hadn’t heard about until I started looking at this issue more closely (thank you, FF):</p>

<p>

MORE ON INTERROGATION [Rich Lowry]</p>

<p>E-mail: “Torture achieves little except the demeanment of the torturer. Why do you vaguely allude to torture as the means to capturing wanted terrorists, and do not give a specific example?”</p>

<p>ME: First, I don’t endorse torture. Second, here is a specific instance of a coerced interrogation producing valuable information. Bush critics should tell us whether they would be willing to forgo this kind of information, and the resulting captures, or not. From the June 27, 20004 Washington Post: "In March 2002, Abu Zubaida was captured, and the interrogation debate between the CIA and FBI began anew. This time, when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III decided to withhold FBI involvement, it was a signal that the tug of war was over. “Once the CIA was given the green light . . . they had the lead role,” said a senior FBI counterterrorism official.</p>

<p>Abu Zubaida was shot in the groin during his apprehension in Pakistan. U.S. national security officials have suggested that painkillers were used selectively in the beginning of his captivity until he agreed to cooperate more fully. His information led to the apprehension of other al Qaeda members, including Ramzi Binalshibh, also in Pakistan. The capture of Binalshibh and other al Qaeda leaders – Omar al-Faruq in Indonesia, Rahim al-Nashiri in Kuwait and Muhammad al Darbi in Yemen – were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations, according to U.S. intelligence and national security officials. All four remain under CIA control."

<a href=“http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=“greatest+generation”+torture+interrogation+atrocities&fr=FP-tab-web-t500&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_02_corner-archive.asp&w=“greatest+generation”+torture+interrogation+atrocities&d=JxiYtyQ8NY4C&icp=1&.intl=us[/url]”>http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=“greatest+generation”+torture+interrogation+atrocities&fr=FP-tab-web-t500&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_02_corner-archive.asp&w=“greatest+generation”+torture+interrogation+atrocities&d=JxiYtyQ8NY4C&icp=1&.intl=us&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Rich Lowry doesn’t provide a link for this information. He posted this in early January 2005.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>From the same NRO link, here is Jonah Goldberg’s comparison of current and WWII interrogations/atrocities:</p>

<p>

[FDR VS. GWB [Jonah Goldberg]</p>

<p>Does anyone doubt that more “atrocities” and atrocities were committed during FDR’s prosection of World War II? Never mind the wholesale internment of the Japanese and how you think that compares to Abu Ghraib. It seems beyond doubt that there were summary executions, beatings, torture and generalized cruelty throughout the European and Pacific theaters. How much of this sort of thing was officially sanctioned and how much wasn’t would be interesting to know. If any of my military history guys want to shoot me some 411 on this I’d like to see it. But I find it pretty hard to believe that things didn’t get out of hand from time to time.</p>

<p>Anyway, I understand that the two wars are different in very practical senses. For example, we weren’t fighting a battle for many hearts and minds back then and there was no equivalent of al Jazeera. But if we’re talking about absolute morality, I’d like to know if any of the folks – like Senator Graham – who say that we’ve lost the high moral ground in the war on terror also think we lost the high moral ground in WWII when some GI shot a bunch of German prisoners or when the President of United States rounded-up 100,000 Japanese families?

Later, at the same link:</p>

<p>

From a reader:</p>

<p>I think it was in the Band of Brothers book (and wasn’t in the HBO mini series), that Ambrose told this story…</p>

<p>If a German were caught by a paratrooper (this happened in the dead of winter) with US Army boots on, they were shot on the spot. The paratroopers felt this probably meant that a US POW was walking around a German prison camp with no boots on.</p>

<p>If they caught a German with a pair of their US paratrooper boots on, the German was marched around in the snow in his bear [sic] feet until his legs froze. Then, he was taken to the hospital where, to save the German, the surgeon would have to cut off the Germans legs. Thus sending them home to Germany after the war as cripples.

And one more:</p>

<p>

From a professor:</p>

<p>Here’s a story a colleague of mine told me just yesterday. His father served on a transport ship in the Navy during WWII. For example, he picked up men as they got off of Guadalcanal. They also picked up Japanese POWs at various times. It was not uncommon to put some prisoners on the fastest boat available, tie a rope around one, throw him off the back and speed around the water at high speed, bouncing the prisoner off the water. They would reel him in, take prisoner #2, and do it again. They would do this to five or six prisoners, at which point it would be clear to all prisoners that they had better not act up. I don’t know if this counts torture in a technical sense, but it is inhumane. And the more I learn about life of the average GI and Marine in the South Pacific in WWII, the less I blame them.

<a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_02_corner-archive.asp[/url]”>http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_02_corner-archive.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[citygirlsmom]

<p><a href=“http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15430755.htm[/url]”>http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15430755.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>updtate of Florida terrorist “plot”</p>

<p>hmmm, seems the “informant” was a bit more than that…wow…looks like the law breaking, paid, dishonest “informants” had some agenda of their own…</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>and gee FF, just today our government has decided that torture, not such a good idea…</p>

<p>and finally, they acknowledge the "secret prisons’ which we have all known about for a while…</p>

<p>my thinks of wagging the dog here with elections 2 months away…or is the governent finally getting it</p>

<p>btw, the CIA can still torture, so if they want to torture just bring in the CIA…so not sure what is up with the public announcements that torture, nots such a good plan really means</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>“I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world. The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it.”</p>

<p>wonder who said that…partly true, cause we did torture, so I am confused…but…interesting nontheless</p>

<p>so, FF, do you have the same values a our President</p>

[golani89]

<p>Torture used propery is a very moral and important tool in the war on terrorism. Can anyone be against torture in the case of a ticking bomb? If a bomb is hours away from exploding can you use torture to find out where it is? Do you sacrafice one murderer for the sake of 100 or a 1000 innocent people, among whom can be you or your children? When Israel was posed with the same problem in 1994 it refused to authorize torture. The result was a blown up bus and 10 dead Jews. Yet when Israel decided to authorize torture in a different situation the result was a captured murderer.</p>

[citygirlsmom]

<p>so do you stand by the Presidents statement or not…</p>

<p>I for one wish the President actually meant what he said and that it was true, but…maybe he really does mean it…but who really knows anymore</p>

<p>so, FF, your choices are:</p>

<p>the President means what he says or he doesn’t </p>

<p>if he does mean it, do you agree with him? or disagree with him?</p>

<p>and if you disagree, does that mean you don’t share America’s values?</p>

<p>and if he really doesn’t mean it and is just saying it…</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>Here is a very fascinating (and about time) link to the interrogation program including specifics about plots that have been disrupted because of the interrogation methods. Note that the methods being used were disclosed to the leadership of Congress and also note the professionalism that was used. Now, if anyone doesn’t approve of these coerced interrogation methods, please at least be intellectually honest enough to say that you would rather have had these plots enacted and many people killed to avoid the interrogation. I shudder to think that if any of the weak-kneed Democrats were in office how many of these plots would have been carried out.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.odni.gov/announcements/content/TheHighValueDetaineeProgram.pdf[/url]”>http://www.odni.gov/announcements/content/TheHighValueDetaineeProgram.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[citygirlsmom]

<p>so, ff, you don’t want to answer the question…f you want the quote by the president, you can read the transcript of his speech today, I did</p>

<p>so, do you agree with GW that torture is against American values or not?</p>

<p>oh yeah, NOW Bush cares about Bin Laden</p>

<p>all through this thread you have been saying torture is needed, is a okay, and today the President said, nope, torture is against american values, so, what is your stance now?</p>