Very useful post - what blogs are supposed to be there for. Thanks!
 

[Prof. Luban, from the post]: [W]e have also been told that [Padilla] planned to purify radioactive material by spinning it in a bucket over his head, which – in case you are wondering – can’t be done.

Oh, it can be done. It just won't do anything useful, other than maybe killing the person doing it, depending on what kind of radioactive materials are used....

Cheers,
 

I don't for a second believe any claims by our criminal government that their use of torture has saved lives, innocent or otherwise, or has prevented further terrorist attacks. Why do I not believe such claims? Because this administration has told so many demonstrable lies that they have forfeited any goodwill on our parts in believing statements they cannot support with actual evidence.
 

we've heard that dog barking here on this very blog .. unverified barking to be sure .. but barking nonetheless .. perhaps if we remain very still and quiet .. said dog will wander by and yap ere yet again ..

i remain skeptical for no other reason than if hard facts were available to bail this administration out of their waterlogged analogies .. they'd have trumpeted it to the world long before now .. so the absence of the trumpets having blared long before now .. imo .. probable evidence that no such proof exists ...

the credibility of the administration in this matter is somewhat like the consistency of six-week-old bananas imo .. it's somewhat mushy and over-ripe ..

IOW .. it'd take something other than a verbal assertion to convince me .. and multiple sourcing ..
 

It's implicit that the interrrogation techniques used were so because the actors did not know how to elicit information any other way. You can say it's because the captives were so tough, or you can say that it's because the interrogators didn't have good enough skills. Those are two sides of the same coin to me, that if the interrogators can not get what they're looking for with the skills they have, they will up the ante.

It's a classic muscle play and has been SOP at least since my older brother used to tickle-torture me. "Abuse of power comes as no surprise," said Jenny Holzer.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

with all due respect Eric .. i don't think we can equate your brothers' past tickle-torture with the kind of high-jinks we're looking at in the here and now .. eh ??
 

Ah, dry humor bites me again.

Even so, wouldn't the answer to the question of this post involve a proof that correlation equals causation, or furthermore a disproof of the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy?
 

The "torture works" trope is about getting acquiescence by us to the criminality. That's all.

The problems Alberto Mora indicated in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on getting cooperation from allies etc due to the torture is a significant part of the calculus in these discussions that those who say "torture works" do not talk about.

Best,
Ben
 

We've been treated in recent years to any number of claims that State torture of prisoners by our Nation has saved lives. Unfortunately, the claims have arrived without evidence, from noncredible sources. And when the same noncredible source repeats his claim a hundred times without evidence, no only doesn't he make a case, he invites suspicion that he has no case.

Experienced interrogators say that relationship building works better than torture, and that information obtained with torture is unreliable: the prisoner says anything to make the pain stop.

So yes, nothing but skepticism is appropriate when we hear the latest claims from torture enthusiasts. They may not stand up to examination.

Suskind's review of Bush's claims for torture results provides a case in point:

Bush, [in his 2006 speech] in the East Room, did what has consistently landed him in trouble -- take creative liberties with classified information. Specifically, he ran through a simplified progression of how each successful interrogation led to the next capture, another interrogation, another capture and so forth. He put special emphasis on Zubaydah -- the insane travel agent [for al Qaeda] -- saying that, under duress, he gave interrogators information that identified Binalshibh and "helped lead" to the capture of both Binalshibh and the prized K.S.M. This is the sort of thing that has steadily eroded Bush's relationship with the intelligence community: presidential sins of omission, or emphasis, that would be clear only if you happened to know lots of classified information. In fact, according to senior intelligence officials past and present, Zubaydah helpfully confirmed that "Mukhtar" was K.S.M.'s code name -- something key intelligence officials already suspected -- and had nothing to do with identifying Binalshibh, who had come to the attention of investigators a few weeks after 9/11 because he had sent wire transfers to Zacarias Moussaoui.

While bits and pieces about Binalshibh and K.S.M. arrived from many sources, the key to capturing the former was information passed to the CIA by the Emir of Qatar -- information taken from the files of an al-Jazeera reporter (the Emir owns the network) who secretly visited both terrorists in the Karachi apartment where Binalshibh was subsequently captured in September 2002. As for K.S.M., the key was a cooperative source who met with K.S.M., summarily called the CIA, guided agents to the terrorist's safe house, then collected his $25 million reward and is now safely relocated, with his extended family, somewhere in the U.S.
(Time, Sept 10 2006.)

This is just one case in point, but it's illuminating. Claims for torture results that don't stand up to examination; you take a hard look and it turns out there was little you got from torture that was key, that you didn't already have, or that you wouldn't have obtained without torture, and with higher reliability as a huge bonus.

I have yet to see evidence that justifies the claims of torture enthusiasts.
 

jpk:

This is just one case in point, but it's illuminating. Claims for torture results that don't stand up to examination; you take a hard look and it turns out there was little you got from torture that was key, that you didn't already have, or that you wouldn't have obtained without torture, and with higher reliability as a huge bonus.

Not to mention mucking up potential criminal prosecutions by use of tainted evidence. No Article III court is going to accept evidence obtained through torture, and the FOTPT doctrine will make it difficult to allow any subsequent evidence legally obtained. Even a "Chinese Wall" separation of prosecution from those responsible for such illegal evidence may not be sufficient to remove the taint (see, e.g. the Ollie North prosecution), particularly for such well-publicised cases.

If the military commissions are found to be unlawful, there will be no recourse, and people that are almost undoubtedly 'very bad people' will not see punishment. This may be one of the greatest tragedies of the lawlessness of the maladministration.

Cheers,
 

Professor Yoo has been correctly arguing that the legality of the CIA coercive interrogation program and the policy issue of whether to proceed with the program even if legal are two different questions.

Despite the Dem Committee political theater and the fondest wishes of many here, there is almost a zero chance that a Department of Justice who repeatedly opined to the CIA that the program is lawful will then prosecute or succeed in any prosecution of CIA members for following that advice.

That leaves the policy question of whether the next administration should proceed with some version of the previously approved program.

The actual pesky evidence indicates that the President, CIA agent John Kiriakou and Time Magazine among others are correct in their assertions that the CIA program obtained actionable intelligence where the FBI and Army failed.

The FBI admissions that they failed to get anything of use from al Qaeda trainer Abu Zubaydah over weeks of interrogation is well reported. There is no reporting that the FBI obtained the actionable intelligence with which we rolled up much of al Qaeda.

This week, we learned that the Army started considering using coercive interrogation when its efforts using the Army Interrogation manual failed to get any actionable intelligence from the captured 20th hijacker Mohammad al-Qahtani. There is no reporting that the Army obtained the actionable intelligence with which we rolled up much of al Qaeda using its interrogation manual.

However, we do have the testimony of multiple publicly identified sources that the CIA obtained the actionable intelligence with which we rolled up much of al Qaeda using coercive interrogation techniques including waterboarding.

It is plain that the CIA coercive interrogation program worked where the FBI and Army failed.

As to whether using the the CIA coercive interrogation program to break al Qaeda high value targets like KSM saved lives, there is another bit of inconvenient evidence:

The regular international terrorist attacks by al Qaeda against the United States and its interests outside of the Iraq war zone in Iraq came to a screeching halt after the CIA broke KSM & Co.

Thus, you can either believe that breaking KSM and Co. substantially compromised or destroyed al Qaeda's international reach or simply assume that al Qaeda has been on vacation for the past 6 years.

Marty may dislike this reality to the point where he continuously removes comment threads discussing the subject, but facts are stubborn things and do not vanish with the deleted inconvenient comment threads.

The question is not whether the CIA coercive interrogation techniques obtain actionable intelligence and save lives - they do.

Rather, the question is whether it is better policy to continue the CIA coercive interrogation program which many believe in goof faith to be "torture" or risk foregoing future actionable intelligence and sacrifice the lives which could have been saved by that intelligence.

That is not an easy question and does not deserve to be treated as such.
 

This is the only ticking bomb situation I know of. Hat tip and full credit to Rob at "Lawyers, Guns and Money".

Although it didn't occur to me the first time I wrote it, the experience on the battleship Viribus Unitis is an almost classic ticking time bomb scenario. Viribus Unitis was the first dreadnought of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. In October 1918, when it was becoming clear that the Central Powers would not prevail in the war, and that their navies would become subject to confiscation by the Allies, Emperor Karl I of Austria decided to turn over Viribus Unitis to the newly created Council of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that would soon occupy formerly Austrian territories on the Adriatic. Italy, however, had designs on some of the Austrian territory that might be turned over to the Croats, and didn't like the idea of 3 modern dreadnoughts being in the possession of the Austrian successor state. Although the SCS declared that it was no longer at war with the Allies, this declaration was not immediately recognized on the Allied Accordingly, Italy dispatched a pair of young men named Raffaele- one a Lieutenant Paolucci, and the other a Major Rossetti- to infiltrate Pula Harbor on a modified torpedo and attach a bomb to the dreadnought's hull. This the Raffaeles succeeded in doing, but they were captured while escaping, and brought on board the Viribus Unitis.

When the Raffaeles were brought on board, they told Admiral Vuckovich (the new commander of the dreadnought) that they had affixed a bomb to the hull and that the ship should be evacuated. This put the admiral in an awkward position. He could evacuate, but that would ensure the loss of the battleship when the mine exploded. The Viribus Unitis class was notorious for its poor underwater protection, making the threat of the bomb particularly potent. While it could be argued that the admiral should have evacuated VU anyway, thus saving the lives of his men, the ship was an extraordinarily expensive piece of state property. The men onboard the ship expected that they might have to die or kill in its defense. It was reasonable at the time to believe that the ship might be used to fight or deter the Italians. As such, evacuation doesn't present a very compelling option. Instead, the admiral decided to keep enough sailors on board to allow the best possible response to the damage that the bomb would cause. Inevitably, it risked the deaths of many sailors, but at the same time held out the best chance for saving the ship.

But what of the Raffaeles? The Italian officers had already admitted that a bomb was attached to the hull, and that it would explode in a relatively short period of time. They begged Admiral Vuckovich to be allowed to escape, and he agreed to let them go. However, when they reached the water they were assailed by angry sailors, and then dragged back onto the ship. Fearing prosecution (and potentially execution) for what amounted to a legally questionable attack on what its owners presumed to be a neutral vessel, the Italians demanded to be treated as prisoners of war. Admiral Vuckovich made no determination at the time, but ordered the crew not to harm the Italians. Twenty-five minutes later the bomb exploded. Fifteen minutes after that Viribus Unitis rolled over and sank with 300 men, including Admiral Vuckovich but not including the Raffaeles, who were allowed by Admiral Vuckovich to escape, and who spent about a week as prisoners of war.
 

Not to mention mucking up potential criminal prosecutions . . .

Yes.

And not to mention making America less safe: American torture has handed al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool.

And not to mention generating hugely expensive wild goose chases: Zubaydah is a fine case in point.

And not to mention reducing reliable information on terrorist groups, the info that you might have gotten by relationship building and that you would then know you could count on.

And not to mention committing war crimes.

And not to mention making America an pariah, a rogue state, shocking our friends, giving our enemies exactly what they need, and reducing international cooperation with us in fighting terrorist groups. We've unified our enemies and divided our friends; not smart.

And not to mention it's wrong. It violates everything America stands for.

And not to mention running our credibility to zero. We claim we don't torture but we do. Who should take our word now? We don't mean what we say.

Yeah, the downside of torture, the blowback, is staggering.

So even if you did believe that torture has saved innocent lives, you'd still have to weigh that against all that downside, all the lives that will end up being lost because we did torture.

My weighing says the evidence for the downside of torture is a lot more clear and substantial and compelling then any evidence I've seen for any upside.

The evidence for the benefit of effective interrogation, the relationship building is compelling, however. And it has practically no downside whatsoever. That's why professional, experienced, interrogators use it.
 

Bart,

Actually all questions regarding torture are easy, for they have a single answer.

Torture is never justified. Under any circumstances. For any purpose.

You clearly don't get that. I fear for your soul.
 

"Bart" DeDicta:

Professor Yoo has been correctly arguing that the legality of the CIA coercive interrogation program and the policy issue of whether to proceed with the program even if legal are two different questions.

They are separate questions, that is true. Yoo is mostly known for the 'legal' argument, though, seeing as that's what he supposedly knows.

What about the question "of whether to proceed with the program even if illegal"? Shouldn't that have been something they ought to have discussed?

Cheers,
 

Time Magazine [says] CIA [torture] program obtained actionable intelligence where the FBI and Army failed.

No, the Time article you cite is a book review, of a book by Posner, and does not support the claim you atribute to it.

Actual reportage in Time comes to a different conclusion. The 2006 Time piece by Suskind that I excerpt finds we got little from torturing Zubaydah, we got a lot of false information he probably made up to stop the torture, and Bush's claims for the value of torturing Zubaydah were knowingly exaggerated. Not to put too fine a point on it, Bush was lying again, most likely hoping to get public support for something the public is pretty much against: torturing prisoners.

That's what the evidence says. Sorry if you don't like it. Might help if you started by accepting that sometimes the real world doesn't behave the way you like, or the way you think it should, or the way someone told you it does. In the real world, the record of torture is very dubious.
 

"Bart" DeDicta:

Despite the Dem Committee political theater and the fondest wishes of many here, there is almost a zero chance that a Department of Justice who repeatedly opined to the CIA that the program is lawful will then prosecute or succeed in any prosecution of CIA members for following that advice.

I've noted that (here and here). That's what happens when you hire a loyal consigliere instead of an honest AG.

I do note (in the previous thread) that not even the guys that actually murdered detainees have gotten prosecuted so far.

Of course, that may well change when we get a new AG in office that believes that lawbreakers ought to be held to account for their crimes. One would hope that this includes not only the low-level grunts that did the actual dirty work, but the whole criminal enterprise all the way to the top.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DeDicta:

The regular international terrorist attacks by al Qaeda against the United States and its interests outside of the Iraq war zone in Iraq came to a screeching halt after the CIA broke KSM & Co.

As pointed out before, even if you ignore the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, the Bali bombings (twice), and various other "inconvenient truths"), this is the fallacy of post hoc ergo prompter hoc. We wish you'd refrain from your interminable logical fallacies here.

Thus, you can either believe that breaking KSM and Co. substantially compromised or destroyed al Qaeda's international reach or simply assume that al Qaeda has been on vacation for the past 6 years.

Marty may dislike this reality to the point where he continuously removes comment threads discussing the subject, but facts are stubborn things and do not vanish with the deleted inconvenient comment threads.

"Bart": Newsflash for you. Repeated assertions are not facts. Re-repeated assertions are still not facts. You fail to get the message. Simply spouting your crap over and over and over again (and not responding to the valid points of your erstwhile fellow "debaters") is an "argument" only in the Monty Python sense. I can't fault Prof. Lederman for not wanting this to be a rehash of John Cleese's finest moments.

I think he should take the time to delete (individually) any such comments as he sees fit; once is enough, ten times is quit enough "free speech", and after that, comments that simply restate old assertions already beaten to death add nothing and should be summarily deleted.

Cheers,
 

I think Bart is mentally ill. But that's just my opinion.
 

Bart cites a book review? Classic.
 

Marty may dislike this reality to the point where he continuously removes comment threads discussing the subject, but facts are stubborn things and do not vanish with the deleted inconvenient comment threads.

Baghdad, as someone who censors his own blog, you're not really in a position to be accusing others of removing inconvenient comments.

And the bullshit spewing out of you hardly qualifies as "facts".
 

The regular international terrorist attacks by al Qaeda against the United States and its interests outside of the Iraq war zone in Iraq came to a screeching halt after the CIA broke KSM & Co.

Funny, I thought it might have more to do with invading Afghanistan and sending al Qaeda scurrying for its Pakistani caves.

Leaving aside that, one might expect, having KSM *in custody* would all by itself tend to thwart any number of possible attacks, assuming he was keeping up his "arch-plotter" role.

Bart, you can do better than that. Can't you?

--N.b. that the "debate" with Bart does some good. There are any number of places where tripe like that can be read, but not so many where its refutation is posted alongside it.
 

Anderson:

Most of the al Qaeda leadership including KSM were captured in Pakistani cities, where they had moved their operations after Afghanistan was liberated. The operations themselves were not halted until we captured the leadership and cells running the operations.
 

Most of the al Qaeda leadership including KSM were captured in Pakistani cities, where they had moved their operations after Afghanistan was liberated. The operations themselves were not halted until we captured the leadership and cells running the operations.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 9:57 AM


Operations appear to be continuing on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. What halt are you talking about?
 

bb:

BD: Thus, you can either believe that breaking KSM and Co. substantially compromised or destroyed al Qaeda's international reach or simply assume that al Qaeda has been on vacation for the past 6 years.

bb: Operations appear to be continuing on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. What halt are you talking about?

al Qaeda is not operating to any significant degree in Afghanistan. The Taliban is waging a low level insurgency there.

al Qaeda in Iraq was a local al Qaeda franchise which was run locally and not by the al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. al Qaeda in Iraq has one known international attack, blowing up a wedding reception in Jordan, which was not a US interest.

Once again, between 1993 and 2001, al Qaeda regularly launched international terror attacks against the United States and its interests around the world. That activity stopped after KSM & Co. were captured and broken, allowing much of the al Qaeda infrastructure to be rolled up.

It took al Qaeda years to train and put into place this infrastructure. When the infrastructure was decapitated and al Qaeda was denied training areas, it was nearly impossible to recreate al Qaeda's pre 2002 international reach.

The EU attacks were launched by surviving local al Qaeda cells which the EU neglected to preemptively hunt down and destroy because they were still treating this war as a law enforcement action.

The fact that we destroyed al Qaeda's ability to project power internationally is crucial. We can project power against them around the world (except to some degree in the Pakistani mountain region), but they cannot project power against the US and our interests around the world.
 

al Qaeda is not operating to any significant degree in Afghanistan

I have no idea what that assertion is based on.

The fact that we destroyed al Qaeda's ability to project power internationally is crucial

It's also a complete load of crap. You idiots sent them all the targets they could ever want. There is no need for Al Qaeda to operate internationally when we send the targets to them.
 

if hard facts were available to bail this administration out of their waterlogged analogies .. they'd have trumpeted it to the world long before now .. so the absence of the trumpets having blared long before now .. imo .. probable evidence that no such proof exists ...

QFE
 

. . . it took al Qaeda years to train and put into place this infrastructure . . .

The problem with that notion is the inconvenient reality that it takes not a whole lot of infrastructure to get a dozen or two men in country, train a few of them to fly a plane whose advanced avionics make it darn near fly itself, and supply them with box cutters and cash for tickets and training runs.

The problem with "projecting power" is the inconvenient reality of asymmetric warfare.

Reality is the stuff that if you ignore it, it doesn't go away.
 

"Bart" DePalma admits the maladministration has been "spinning", mileading, and outright lying for five years:

al Qaeda in Iraq was a local al Qaeda franchise which was run locally and not by the al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

Glad you got around to admitting the obvious, "Bart".

Cheers,
 

"Heads I win, tails you lose":

["Bart" DePalma]: It took al Qaeda years to train and put into place this infrastructure. When the infrastructure was decapitated and al Qaeda was denied training areas, it was nearly impossible to recreate al Qaeda's pre 2002 international reach.

The EU attacks were launched by surviving local al Qaeda cells which the EU neglected to preemptively hunt down and destroy because they were still treating this war as a law enforcement action.

If there's no attacks, it must be because torture works. If there are attacks, it's someone else's fault. Hard to argue with that 'logic'....

Cheers,
 

if hard facts were available . . . they'd have trumpeted it to the world long before now . . . probable evidence that no such proof exists ...

You bet.

Begging the question: why then does this administration keep insisting that it gets great results from torture? Knowing that the facts are never going to back that up?

Well, for a lot of the American public, torturing prisoners looks pretty bad. They don't think it's right. Would take a lot to convince them it was justified. So Bush has a powerful motivation to come up with a story in which torture wasn't so bad but delivered great results.

We've seen the first part splattered all over the media. E.g. waterboarding is just a "dunk in the water". That hasn't played well over time because the public has seen the face of torture and it does look bad.

The second part thus becomes even more important for this administration. That's why Bush tells fairy tales in which torture is a key part of winning against our horrible enemies. He knows he's leaving the facts far behind. And he knows that if he told the truth, he couldn't make the sale.

It happens that he's helped to sell this by a pouplar televised fairy tale in which torture gets results, fast, accurate, let's do this thing.
 

jpk said...

BD:. . . it took al Qaeda years to train and put into place this infrastructure . . .

The problem with that notion is the inconvenient reality that it takes not a whole lot of infrastructure to get a dozen or two men in country, train a few of them to fly a plane whose advanced avionics make it darn near fly itself, and supply them with box cutters and cash for tickets and training runs.

Please read the 9/11 Commission report and other detailed descriptions of al Qaeda operations.

The capability to conduct effective international terror operations without getting caught in short order involves far more than your description.

Recruiting: al Qaeda spent years recruiting technically educated people who were experienced in living abroad. It is not easy to find people educated in the West who buy into returning the World to the middle ages.

Fund Raising: al Qaeda developed an elaborate financial network of Islamic "charities" and donors to secretly raise the money it needed. This needed to be done very carefully to avoid the myriad of regulations meant to identify organized crime transactions. Even those highly experienced in this field like Elliot Spitzer get caught under these checks.

Training: al Qaeda's training rivaled that of many militaries around the world. There was a basic training, advanced technical training and then mission specific training and rehearsals.

Intelligence Gathering: al Qaeda's intelligence gathering was superb. They would do remote research and then sent teams posing as tourists to personally recon and photograph the sites. This is why the Patriot Act was so concerned with attempting to deny the enemy access to publicly available data on targets such as libraries. Moreover, reconnaissance teams are some of the most highly trained in the military - they need to get in an out uncaught and need to possess the technical expertise to identify the information necessary for a successful attack.

Planning: Terrorists attacks and other irregular operations are some of the most difficult operations to plan. We spend years and millions of dollars training our special operations personnel to do such planning. al Qaeda spent years planning 9/11 and working out the myriad problems.

If you kill or capture the recruiters trainers, financiers and planners and deny the enemy the ability to train replacements, you have crippled the organization.
 

jpk:

We've seen the first part splattered all over the media. E.g. waterboarding is just a "dunk in the water". That hasn't played well over time because the public has seen the face of torture and it does look bad.

It's not just torture, it's murder.

I find it astounding that people can talk about these abuses with a straight face and not be demanding that those responsible face serious felony charges.

Congress needs to demand a special prosecutor.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DeDicta has started drinking early today:

This is why the Patriot Act was so concerned with attempting to deny the enemy access to publicly available data on targets such as libraries.

They were targeting libraries?!?!? Oh, the humanity. OTOH, you'd be thinking that "Bart" would be applauding such attacks, seeing as any such attacks might reduce the number of inconvenient and pesky lib'ruls and informed people that are causing the Deciderator-in-Chief such pretzel-anxiety....

Cheers,
 

. . . the maladministration has been "spinning", mileading, and outright lying for five years [on AQI being al Qaeda]

Actually, this does not fully un-do the spin. But then, the difference between the facts and the spin on AQI is vast and deep. Bush (and now McCain, sadly) would have you believe things about AQI that are so far from the facts that it's hard to know where to begin.

To take just one example, the administration has repeatedly spun that AQI was the source or at least a major source of violence in Iraq. Don't you see, it's al Qaeda! Oh? The facts:

"Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq,' according to Nance, 'is a microscopic terrorist organization.'

The Myth of AQI, Washington Monthly

This administration's utter lack of respect for the law is matched by its lack of respect for the facts. It has never let a fact get in the way of claim that serves its interests. Torture gets great results. AQI is al Qaeda. We don't torture.
 

If you kill or capture the recruiters trainers, financiers and planners and deny the enemy the ability to train replacements, you have crippled the organization.

Seems reasonable. Too bad we haven't done that.

What we have done instead: pushed up al Qaeda recruiting (our torture program was a big help there), moved their finances and training facilities elsewhere, and failed to cut their finances sufficiently.

The 9/11 Commission report cited says the 9/11 attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute, plus the cost of training the 19 hijackers in Afghanistan. That's not a lot of money. To choke off their money, you have to choke off pretty much all the money. Now, I happen to believe that's an excellent goal. Too bad we haven't done so. Perhaps we would have been effective if we hadn't pissed off the folks we needed to cooperate. Our torture program was probably a big help pissing them off, although we didn't fail to do too many things that would piss them off.

Other than that, the thing's going great.
 

If you kill or capture the recruiters trainers, financiers and planners and deny the enemy the ability to train replacements, you have crippled the organization.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 1:35 PM


As soon as you get some evidence that we have done any of those things, you should post it here.
 

jpk:

To take just one example, the administration has repeatedly spun that AQI was the source or at least a major source of violence in Iraq. Don't you see, it's al Qaeda!

I commented on that in my own sardonic manner here.

Cheers,
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

jpk said...

BD: If you kill or capture the recruiters trainers, financiers and planners and deny the enemy the ability to train replacements, you have crippled the organization.

Seems reasonable. Too bad we haven't done that.

What we have done instead: pushed up al Qaeda recruiting (our torture program was a big help there), moved their finances and training facilities elsewhere, and failed to cut their finances sufficiently.

Really? Do you have any evidence at all for this? Please provide links.

BTW, links to others repeating the same urban myth is not evidence. Show me witnesses who actually saw these additional recruits, new training facilities and new financial networks.

The fact is that even the Libs have started admitting that al Qaeda as been crippled and are now wringing their little Chicken Little claws over uneducated gang bangers who have been inspired to become "jihadists" by the internet. This "new generation" of terrorists are completely inept and have yet to get close to executing any actual attacks in the US.

The 9/11 Commission report cited says the 9/11 attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute, plus the cost of training the 19 hijackers in Afghanistan. That's not a lot of money.

Once again, this does not take in account the overhead of running the organization which made the attack possible. It only takes 1% of GDP to pay for costs directly associated with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it costs about 5% of GDP to run the national security organizations which make projecting power into Iraq and Afghanistan possible. al Qaeda is no different. When we rolled up the organization, the missions became impossible regardless of the cost.
 

Really? Do you have any evidence at all for this? Please provide links.

Baghdad, you made the claim, it's up to you to provide supporting evidence. And that article you cite is not evidence, it is opinion.
 

. . . the overhead of running the organization . . .

With all due respect to the Pentagon, al Qaeda's overhead is lower.

To be perfectly fair, the Pentagon has a better retirement plan.

The point remains: in asymmetric warfare, one side can do more with less. If the other side aims to cut off the money supply, it will not be sufficient merely to reduce it.

The reality remains: we have merely reduced it.

Worse, some of our actions have weakened our ability to actually cut it off.

Even worse, others of our actions have strengthened enemy fundraising capability.

I wonder how much more money you can raise to fight evil America when you can exploit the fact that America tortures, and not just as a result of a few bad apples, but as a direct result of decisions made at the highest levels of American government.

I wonder how much more money you can raise to fight evil America when you can exploit the fact that America supports repressive and undemocratic regimes around the world.

Hell, I wonder how many American dollars we sent to Musharraf ended up in al Qaeda's coffers.

No, I don't think it's the case that we have reduced al Qaeda funding sufficiently to prevent attacks. Which might have something to do with subsequent al Qaeda attacks.

I'd love to cut off al Qaeda's money supply. On September 12th there was a lot of power to do that; we had the world with us. Now, not so much. That seems like a bad thing.
 

From 'Marxist' rag USA Today, April 2008:

The State Department's annual report on terrorism includes some sobering news about al-Qaeda, which is said to have "reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities" by exploiting the lack of governance in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, has emerged as the terror group's "strategic and operational planner," according to a section of the report that says says al-Qaeda is still planning attacks against Western targets.

Keep up the good work, Bart!
 

Hey, Ben, howya been :) --

"The 'torture works' trope is about getting acquiescence by us to the criminality. That's all."

Exactly. The "perfect" circular argument: (a) torture works, but (b) the evidence that it does is top secret, so (c) trust me.

"The problems Alberto Mora indicated in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on getting cooperation from allies etc due to the torture is a significant part of the calculus in these discussions that those who say 'torture works' do not talk about."

That was an extraordinarily clear statement. And when he detaild the real-waorld damage done I had to weep -- in part because finally truth was being told.

He has every reason to be furious at what hs been done: not only does the military protect the country, but in this instance the lives of its members have been squandered for a lie and a lost cause. And even that's not the whole of the damage and harm done.
 

Bart babble --

"This week, we learned that the Army started considering using coercive interrogation when its efforts using the Army Interrogation manual failed to get any actionable intelligence from the captured 20th hijacker Mohammad al-Qahtani. . . ."

Dear Bart,

The Bushit criminal enterprise has dropped all charges against Mohammad al-Qahtani since the SC told that enterprise that the enterprise's Soviet-style show trials are flatly illegal.

Why? Probably because someone finally explained to the enterprise in a way it could grasp that, and why, evidence obtained by means of the war crime of torture is INADMISSABLE.

You have two options, Bart: "debate" in bad faith, or be silent.

Sincerely,

U.S. Constitution and laws
 

# posted by burnspbesq

Bart,

Actually all questions regarding torture are easy, for they have a single answer.

Torture is never justified. Under any circumstances. For any purpose.

You clearly don't get that. I fear for your soul.

Fret not. You fear for nothing.
 

Yo, Bart --

"Most of the al Qaeda leadership including KSM were captured in Pakistani cities, where they had moved their operations after Afghanistan was liberated."

And, post-"liberation," has exceeded its pre-Taliban status as the world's largest producer of heroin.

I would never have guessed that you're opposed to the War on Drugs.
 

Bart's military expertise -- an embarrassment of lack of riches --

"al Qaeda is not operating to any significant degree in Afghanistan. The Taliban is waging a low level insurgency there."

"Low level" I take it is militarycodespeak for "on the ground"?

Whatever: at the end of last week, Talibanists broke a minimum 1,200al qaeda fighters out of a prison in . . . Afghanistan.

"Once again, between 1993 and 2000, al Qaeda regularly launched international terror attacks against the United States and its interests around the world."

Provide the evidence for that assertion.

"That activity stopped after KSM & Co. were captured and broken, allowing much of the al Qaeda infrastructure to be rolled up."

I guess anyone who'll believe the lies of the Bushit criminal enterprise will also believe a terrorist of KSM's notoriety would also tell the truth.

Criminals are well-known to be that: above all things moral about consistently telling the truth.

Even when tortured.
 

Neocon Bart quite wrongly assumes that “Al-Quaida” is some kind of top-down organisation which can be defeated by knocking out the “commanding generals”. That is, of course, a parrot-like, repetition of what the Bush Administration (also infected by the Neocon world view) has got so badly wrong.

He also asserts the various Neocon justifications for torture and ill-treatment.

In the 10 year Soviet-Afghan war (79-89) the USSR side had 13,310 dead and 35,478 wounded. The Afghan side had 2 components: Afghans and tribal area Pakistanis and the “Mujahiddin” – largely Arabs from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen – but with smaller numbers from other Muslim states. There are estimates of over a million losses in the ranks of the Mujahiddin.

There were many different Mujahhiddin groups - Al-Quaida was just one of many - but all have to be thought of as being very much akin to religious cults. When the Carter administration decided to provide covert assistance to the “Mujahiddin” and when the Reagan administration continued that same policy, what the CIA discovered was that the people who flocked to join the Mujahiddin could be brain-washed.

Much the same brainwashing techniques were used in the 16th Century on the Roman Catholic priests who were trained in seminaries in Europe before being sent to face almost certain detection, torture and barbarous execution at the hands of Queen Elizabeth I’s security services: group living, long periods in night prayer, fasting, incalculation of the idea of being soldiers for God and above all, the glorification of martyrdom.

The same techniques were refined and updated and used in the training camps located in the tribal areas of Pakistan before the ‘novices’ were sent into active service. It helps enormously if a guerrilla fighter sent into battle against a sophisticated military machine believes that: (i) he is doing God’s will; and (ii) if he dies in battle he will go to paradise as a martyr.

A reflection of what I call the glorification of marytrdom is to be found in Father Faber’s 1849 Roman Catholic hymn:

“Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious Word!

Refrain
Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death.

Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free:
How sweet would be their children’s fate,
If we, like them, could die for thee

Refrain

Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers
Shall win our country back to Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
England shall then indeed be free.

Refrain”

[An Episcopalian version of the same hymn was part of the order of service at the funeral of President Roosevelt]


Many of the Arab Mujhiddin fighters returned home to their own countries. Today in much of the the Arab world an "afghani" means, neither an inhabitant of Afghanistan, nor its unit of currency but one of these brainwashed veterans of the Afghan conflict.

They have wreaked havoc in all the countries to which they have returned. An example is Algeria where a civil war between the "afghanis" who wished to turn Algeria into a fundamentalist state and the Algerian army which wishes to preserve Algeria as an officially Muslim but western oriented country has been raging for over 10 years and is not yet over. From North Africa, there has been export of the ideology throughout Europe.

Of the 9, terrorist attacks against US interests between 18th April 1983 (US Embassy, Beirut) and 26 February 1993 (bomb in basement garage of World Trade Center), not one can be attributed to Al-Quaida. Likewise the evidence for Al-Quaida involvement in the 1992-1996 attacks is tenuous, although it is much more certain that the attacks were organised by returned “afghanis”.

The first attack actually showing Al-Quaida involvement is more likely to be the 1998 Embassy bombing in East Africa.

What one has is not a “top-down” structure but a collection of what one might call “auto-cephalous” groups - self-organising and self-sustaining. Amoeba-like, they can even develop without any direct contact by way of radicalisation of vulnerable youth. We are finding in the UK that his is happening right now in our prisons (as it did in France and Algeria in the early days of the Algerian Revolution or in Egypt during the repression of the Muslim Brotherhood).

Repression, particularly torture and ill-treatment creates more martyrs and more recruits.

The terrorist outrages in Madrid, London, Bali etc were in no sense organised by a “military command” stretching back to a case somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan and nor will the eventual killing or capture of Bin Laden have too much of an immediate effect. Indeed, were he to be killed, the effect might be negative in the sense that he would be made a “martyr”. On this point Senator Obama is right.

What would be beneficial would be a capture followed by a public trial. Scrupulously fair and with the whole process covered by Courtroom TV and broadcast on satellite with simultaneous translation into Arabic. And with a great deal of documentation of the victims and the consequences. That would shock the consciences of many in the Muslim world.

Torture and other mistreatment fuels the justification of terrorism – due process pours cold water on the fire.
 

"The problems Alberto Mora indicated in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on getting cooperation from allies etc due to the torture is a significant part of the calculus in these discussions that those who say "torture works" do not talk about.

. . . .

"# posted by Benjamin Davis"

Ben --

I've been looking without success for copy of Alberto Mora's excellent -- and moving -- statement to Congress, but without success. It deserves re-reading, and circulation.

Have you seen it? If you come across it, would you alert me to it, please?

Thanks.
 

I am constantly amazed, Mourad, at your knowledge of history, even to the finer details of even that of the US -- greater knowledge than that had by the vast majority of US citizens.

And with your balance.

And then you write (in summary):

"Torture and other mistreatment fuels the justification of terrorism – due process pours cold water on the fire."

It could not be more accurately, truthfully -- or beautifully -- stated. Thank you -- again.
 

JNagarya - Thank you for saying such nice things.

I do not pretend to have all the answers on any subject, but as a secular Muslim living in London, with some experience of the Arab and Muslim world, I do have a special interest in how we got to where we are today – and it is a huge subject.

There are some documentaries from the BBC which may help towards a general understanding of terrorism issues:-

There was a 3 Part series called “The Power of Nightmares “ and it can be found on the Information Clearing House:-
Power of Nightmares

There is a more recent series on BBC2 called “The Age of Terror” and it can be found on the BBC2 website:-
Age of Terror

I would not agree totally with either series – but both give food for thought.
 

Mourad --

"JNagarya - Thank you for saying such nice things."

I mean ever word of it. I wish I could always be as civil as you are. I don't know if perhaps it's in the difference in legal education -- the method -- but I note a civility in British lawyers I see in a too-small percentage of US lawyers.

"I do not pretend to have all the answers on any subject, but as a secular Muslim living in London, with some experience of the Arab and Muslim world, I do have a special interest in how we got to where we are today – and it is a huge subject."

It is. But your final line is, of course, actually a no-brainer: if person A pushes person B around for long enough, person B is finally going to retaliate.

"Bart," of course, only gives rights to person A, who can do anything whatsoever to person B, without compunctions, limits, or penalty, but person B has only one "option" to take it and take it and take it, and make no objection of any kind, else be called "terrorist".

"There are some documentaries from the BBC which may help towards a general understanding of terrorism issues:-

"There was a 3 Part series called “The Power of Nightmares “ and it can be found on the Information Clearing House:-
Power of Nightmares"

I saw that one. Fascinating -- and frightening -- parallels on the extremism on both sides. Exact same thing only named differently.

"There is a more recent series on BBC2 called “The Age of Terror” and it can be found on the BBC2 website:-
Age of Terror"

I'll see if I can catch that.

"I would not agree totally with either series – but both give food for thought."

The first one certainly did. As does the fact that there any number of extremist cults of wouldbe "terrorists" other than al Qaeda.
 

JNagarya,

The 2nd Series - the Age of Terror can be viewed on the site on-line - if you have the time and there is a further series going to air this and next month bringing matters up to date: This is a quote from the BBC web site about what's coming:-

"The Madrid train bombings of 11 March last year killed 191 people - one of the most devastating terrorist attacks ever carried out in Europe.

It was the bloody calling card of the new al-Qaeda, a loose network of jihadi groups, locally recruited and acting independently of Osama Bin Laden.

A British Intelligence source points out: "The point is not that Madrid was al-Qaeda as we know it, but that it wasn't."

What makes the new al-Qaeda different is the recruitment of criminals and drug dealers into its cells.

Many are known as Takfiris who adopt Western dress and lifestyle as cover for their terrorist activities.

I think idea of Al Quaida as a single organisation is dead and those like Bart who think that "Victory in Afghanistan/Iraq will solve anything are sadly - and dangerously - mistaken.
 

Mourad --

"The 2nd Series - the Age of Terror can be viewed on the site on-line - if you have the time and there is a further series going to air this and next month bringing matters up to date: This is a quote from the BBC web site about what's coming:-

"The Madrid train bombings of 11 March last year killed 191 people - one of the most devastating terrorist attacks ever carried out in Europe.

"It was the bloody calling card of the new al-Qaeda, a loose network of jihadi groups, locally recruited and acting independently of Osama Bin Laden.

"A British Intelligence source points out: "The point is not that Madrid was al-Qaeda as we know it, but that it wasn't."

"What makes the new al-Qaeda different is the recruitment of criminals and drug dealers into its cells.

"Many are known as Takfiris who adopt Western dress and lifestyle as cover for their terrorist activities."

All of which is, of course, relatively predictable, based upon observation of and experience with human and group behaviors.

"I think idea of Al Quaida as a single organisation is dead and those like Bart who think that "Victory in Afghanistan/Iraq will solve anything are sadly - and dangerously - mistaken."

Exactly. That is a point underscored, separately, by Alberto Mora and US Army Col. and Powell's former Chief of Staff Wilkerson.

How many times must the experts, and others who know more than "Bart," testify to the facts and realities -- publicly, to Congress, and in other media -- before "Bart" and his arrogance-deluded ilk cease their propagandizings against those facts and realities. Against the interests of their own country -- for partisan political gain. Against their own sane interests.

I don't know about England; but it's been this way in the US since at latest the 1950s and the "Red Scare": extremist right-wing lunatic fringers spewing dark ideological/paranoia-based and hateful delusions against all who hold a different view than they*, and against any form of communication with those they characterize as "the enemy" because of their neurotic need for something to hate in order to feel a sense of individual -- actually group -- identity.
_____

*I noted the same in the first of the BBC series: the extremist groups who are so convinced of their flawless righteousness, so convinced they are right, so convinced they cannot be wrong, that the slightest divergence by anyone in the group leads ultimately to armed conflict between factions within the group.

It's the exact same extremism as that held by -- or holding -- anti-al Qaeda and other "Christian" "religious" fanatics. And extremist partisan political ideologues such as "Bart". Not only are they unreasonable in themselves, but also they refuse to reason based upon their projections of their own paranoias and opposition to reasoning onto the "enemy" who, as result, according to them, refuse to reason.

Though it may not come to open violence, I anticipate the same sort of in-fighting and mutualized accusings and scapegoatings within the extremist "Republican" party as it goes down. We're already seeing those in the party who see the writing on the wall deciding to retire from politics in order to not be around when the collapse of the group-think delusion occurs.

Ultimately it all comes down to dispensing with all reasons not to kill, and dispensing with all means to other ends than that, the particular label slapped onto it being ultimately irrelevant. In any language it is the "patriotism" demanded of everyone by those who insist everyone must wear Made in Communist China flag lapel-pins to "PROVE" they are patriots and not one of "Them". In reality it's meaningless, but is absolutely essential to their reductive simpleton's need to distinguish between "us/GOOD-them/BAD".

"Bart" has sufficient IQ not to be stupid. One wonders, though, if he'll learn to distinguish between that, on one hand, and on the other, ego.
 

i've very much enjoyed the history lessons and literary style of m. mourad ..i've learned much from his various postings [and a salute to chas. giddings as well] .. and i join you in saluting this quite honorable fellow ..

"oh he flew through the air with the greatest of ease .. " .. :)
 

As an example of a country where a very serious problem was created by the Mujahiddin returning from Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets, Algeria, is a good example.

I spent quite a long time there in the 1970’s and I have visited regularly ever since.

While Morocco and Tunisia were French protectorates from which the colonial French departed relatively easily, Algeria was different. Algeria was considered part of metropolitan France. The Algerians were systematically discriminated against by France which did not consider France a colony but part of its metropolitan territory. De Gaulle famously spoke of France being a single country from Tamanrasset to Dunkirk.

Yet in the Algerian Departments of France, there were two kinds of French citizen: one the "European" settlers ("the Pieds Noirs"), one the "Muslim" native inhabitants. The identity card definition "Français de Souche Musulmane" guaranteed a second class status much like that of non-whites in the deep South of the USA prior to the civil rights movement.

Although the vast majority of the Algerian population was Arab or Berber, the electoral system ensured that the European settlers controlled the institutions. This discrimination permeated the whole of society and day to day life. For example, at the time of independence in 1962, 89% of the employees of banks in Algeria were French non-Muslims. The Muslim employees were the cleaning ladies, the messengers, the porters.

The inevitable insurrection in Algeria was one of the bitterest and bloodiest in modern times. The Algerian FLN used terror tactics both to secure its control over the Muslim population and against the European population. They could not proceed otherwise. France had a modern police force, a modern army and all the weapons. The Algerians had nothing except a few old hunting rifles.

The French police and military made systematic use of executions, torture, collective punishments, forced resettlement and all the military means possible to seek to defeat the insurgency. They failed. The French lost and in 1962 the Algerian nation was reborn.

Significantly, the US Department of Defense screened the film, The Battle of Algiers, which depicts the French Foreign legion systematically employing torture in an attempt to defeat the FLN as part of the briefings of commanders going to Iraq - coincidence?

Algeria quickly became a one party socialist state on an Eastern European model - state monopolies - collectivisation of agriculture - the whole works. The political arm of the state was the Party (the Front de Liberation National) and behind the facade of the Party was the Army who ultimately decided who should be the successful politicians in the Party apparatus.

One party rule wrecked the country. Salafist preaching began in unlicensed mosques and the Algerian poor and unemployed responded massively to the call for volunteers to join the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan.

The Algerians have not forgotten how they won the war of liberation and the Algerian recruits to the Mujahiddin were different because they came from a country which had between 1954 and 1962 fought and won a very bloody civil war against a major power.

The Algerians therefore knew, in a way the Egyptians and Yemenis did not, that victory in a guerilla war against the Soviets was entirely possible.

At the end of the Afghan-Soviet war many of the surviving Algerian ex-mujahiddin returned to Algeria. In contrast to the majority of the population they wore Afghan style clothing, sported beards and turbans and quickly became known as "les afghanis". They set about founding a Taliban-style movement, the FIS or Front Islamique du Salut.

In 1991, with the FLN politically bankrupt, the government called the first multi-party elections since independence. During the elections, the FIS made it plain that if they were elected they would install a "truly Islamic regime" on the Taliban model. The first act of the new National Assembly would be to vote itself out of existence.

On 29th December 1991 the government announced the result of the first round of elections. The FIS had obtained 188 of the 430 seats in the National Assembly in the first round and it was plain that in the run-off for the remainder the FIS would obtain an absolute majority.

The majority of the Algerian people who voted FIS were not voting for Algerian fundamentalism.
Algerians are essentially a western-looking people who consider they have more in common with Europe than with the Middle East. Algerians watch French TV in preference to their own stations and many young people aspire to go and work in Europe. What they were voting for was change. A change from the corrupt one-party rule of the FLN.

The army stepped in, cancelled the elections, dissolved the FIS and announced that it proposed to install a provisional government which would rule by decree.

Algeria's second war had begun: Army versus Salafists. It was horrendously brutal – as all civil wars are – and it is still not over.

Today, the New York Times has an interesting article In Algeria, a tug of war for young minds which is well worth reading.

The story of Algeria illustrates most vividly the folly of the US funding under Reagan of the “Mujahiddin” and its long-term consequences.

It also illustrates that to combat terrorism it is necessary to change heart and minds. That is not done by military means alone, still less by torture.
 

I'd also like to thank mourad for his insights.

It seems to me that American torture has not only failed to saved lives, it has more likely endangered lives.

How that has happened is at this point all too clear. Pretty much our entire recent foreign policy has likely endangered lives, in much the same way.

As a centerpiece, although hardly the only example, the war in Iraq "has convinced many Muslims that the United States is the enemy of Islam and is attacking Muslims, and they have become jihadists as a result of their experience in Iraq".

And who said that? Some peacenik, right? Nope; Robert Grenier, former head of the counter-terrorism center at the CIA as well as the agency's mission manager for the war in Iraq. (LATimes July 25 2007).

And as the single biggest victory for terrorist groups, I'd have to cite our torture. It is the compelling example that America is not what it says, that cannot be trusted. "America says it means well, but take a good look, folks: this is what they do."

Bush likes to spew wonderful and largely fictitious accounts of how his decision to torture prisoners led to this fact that led to this terrorist that led to this victory that led to this foiled terrorist attack.

I suspect the nonfiction account will more likely read that this torture led to these recruits led to this group led to this attack. And hundreds of folks who lived here knew something was going to happen months or even years in advance, but said nothing to prevent it, because they figured America deserved it.

Condi likes to go on about a world in which planes don't fly into buildings. Which is fine. But imagine a world in which most people would be horrified to discover a group plotting an attack on the U.S., and would do something to stop it.

Bin Laden is now a frail man who gets around only with the help of a lot of people. Afghanis and Pakistanis know where he is at times, perhaps much of the time. Guess why few of them would help us find him. This is just one example, and probably no longer even the best one, of how our torture has endangered lives.

The ticking time bomb fairy tale is much celebrated on '24' and similar fictions. Inthe real world, we are ourselves creating real danger of eventual blowup every time we torture.
 

in other news
Fifteen interrogators and intelligence officials say that in their experience torture is ineffective and counterproductive.
 

Good article,Thank you!
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The new book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer promises details on the "near complete lack of actionable intelligence gained" from torture.
 

An update from Mayer; has torture saved innocent lives? Mayer writes:

During the Bush years, it's been almost impossible to tell. In the absence of government transparency and independent analysis, the public has been asked to simply take the President's word on faith that inhumane treatment has been necessary to stop attacks and save lives.

Increasingly, however, those with access to the inner workings of the Bush administration's counterterrorism program have begun to question those claims . .

In 2006, a scientific advisory group to the US intelligence agencies produced an exhaustive report on interrogation called "Educing Information," which concluded that there was no scientific proof whatsoever that harsh techniques worked. In fact, several of the experts involved in the study described the infliction of physical and psychological cruelty as outmoded, amateurish, and unreliable.

In confidential interviews, several of those with inside information about the NSA's controversial Terrorist Surveillance Program have expressed similar disenchantment. As one of these former officials says of the ultrasecret program so furiously defended by David Addington, chief of staff and former counsel to Vice President Cheney, "It's produced nothing."
 

An update from an Air Force interrogator further illuminates the case:

. . . at least half of our losses and casualties in Iraq have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

So not only does the claim that torture saved lives fail to stand up to examination -- the evidence points the exact opposite direction: torture cost lives. Our torture of prisoners wasn't just non-productive, it was counter-productive -- and hugely so.
 

The Red Cross unequivocally describes what we did at black sites as torture. A recent report published in the New York Review of books has the rundown, for those of you with the stomach for it.

The report concludes: "for all the talk of ticking bombs, very rarely, if ever, have officials been able to point to information gained by interrogating prisoners with 'enhanced techniques' that enabled them to prevent an attack that had reached its 'operational stage' (that is, had gone beyond reconnoitering and planning). Still, widespread perception that such techniques have prevented attacks, actively encouraged by the President and other officials, has been politically essential in letting the administration carry on with these policies."

This is why it's important to explode the myth that torture has saved innocent lives.
 

And another update: although Hollwood says torture led to Bin Laden, the reality is torture led us away from him
 

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Torture is the tool of tyrants.

Bushit himself told us so, when excoriating fellow Torturer-in-Chief Saddam Hussein.

 

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wwwobat kanker serviks
obat vaksin kanker serviks
obat untuk mengatasi kanker serviks
Tumbuhan untuk obat kanker serviks
Obat untuk menyembuhkan kanker serviks
obat untuk penderita kanker serviks
obat tradisional untuk kanker serviks
obat utk kanker serviks
obat untuk kanker serviks
obat tradisional utk kanker serviks
sirsak obat kanker serviks
obat sakit kanker serviks
hello world obat untuk kanker rahim stadium 3
obat herbal kanker rahim stadium 4
obat kanker rahim stadium 1 1
Obat kanker rahim stadium 2
Obat penyakit herpes kelamin pria
 

obat kanker serviks tradisional jawa
obat kanker serviks tradisional jawa sumatera
Obat kanker serviks tradisional sumatera
Obat kanker serviks tradisional kalimantan
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal jawa
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal jawa sumatera
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal sumatera
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku pedalaman
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku pedalaman sumatra
Obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku jawa
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal s
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku minang
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku sunda
Obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku irian
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku dayak
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku kubu
obat tradisional kanker serviks suku
obat kanker serviks tradisional herbal suku bugis
obat herbal herpes genital dompo
obat herbal herpes genital dompo simplex
 

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