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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 1:29:28 PM | To suggest that no Marine, ever has crossed the line, a little or a lot, is to be blind to the facts of combat- clear enough? They have, in course of getting the mission accomplished, done so. In WWII, Korea, Vietnam and in both Gulf Wars- to suggest that it has never happened is fatuous. And after they remain REAL Marines.
I never said that, I said no REAL marine has ever provided me a "blanket of freedom" through unacceptable or unsavory means.
And no, if they have done so with the glee and sadistic abandon you demonstrate regarding such actions as torture then they are NOT real marines.
Such actions only serve to diminish the protections they are supposed to provide not enhance them as they lead to additional abuses by both the enemy, out of vengence, and our own. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:10:55 PM | Mungojoe
An opinion, outside of a court of law that it COULD be legal or at least justifiable doesn't make it legal or justifiable. As I am sure you know, ignorance nor misinterpretation of the law do not constitute a lawful defense.
As we all know that assertion (legality) has since been shown to be self-serving and incorrect.
Strange. Obama seems to have the opposite feelings about the Advocate and the OLC. In fact, he has not stated he will not use EITs but rather that he, like Bush, may, with their input.
"unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance."
http://www.rhr-na.org/resource/complete-text-of-executive-order-on-ensuring-lawful-inte
Mungojoe
You may want to go back and reread what I said rather than applying your own (rather incorrect) interpretation.
Yes I did - again and still, it adds nothing to your flaccid point about trained professionals making mistakes that a field soldier, untrained and unequipped to carry out detailed interrogations would make. ( if one were ever to be in the extremely unlikely scenario where he was processing high value detainees for strategic information in the field rather than have them shipped back to the US post haste so the professionals could conduct a proper interrogation.) | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:39:19 PM |
Yes I did - again and still, it adds nothing to your flaccid point about trained professionals making mistakes that a field soldier, untrained and unequipped to carry out detailed interrogations would make. ( if one were ever to be in the extremely unlikely scenario where he was processing high value detainees for strategic information in the field rather than have them shipped back to the US post haste so the professionals could conduct a proper interrogation.)
Sorry dude but I never said one word about interrogators "making mistakes" amateurish or otherwise. Go back and read it again and look for these particular words to try and figure out what it means:
subtle clues given unconsciously
The questions themselves
repeated questioning
If you're not unable to understand that then perhaps you need some refresher education in human psychology and communication. It is a simple fact that even the most experienced interrogators give away clues to the "interviewee" through those and no thorough, lengthy interrogation, no matter how well planned out, can be conducted that will ever completely avoid them. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 4:47:40 PM | | Oh I can understand but, as a common foot soldier trained to take and hold ground, your forte is not in high level interrogations like the people who have spend decades training and preparing for these sorts of things. For them to convey their intent is akin to you having rust on your rifle. Unthinkable and, grounds to be reassigned at the very least. I would also surmise that high level detainees would not be interviewed by rank amatuers but by the best. You know, guys that don't make errors such as what you describe above. Errors that to them, after all this training, akin to you or I forgetting to check static line routing. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 6:18:28 PM |
I would also surmise that high level detainees would not be interviewed by rank amatuers but by the best. And just how is it determined that someone is even "high-level"?
When they're BUYING prisoners from the Pakistanis ... paying between $3000.00 and $5000.00 per prisoner that they don't even know the names of ... who were not in any way, shape, or form caught on any so-called "battlefield" ... not "bearing arms against our military personnel". So just how do they determine that someone is a so-called "high-level enemy combatant"?
Don't forget that they water boarded that one guy who was nothing more than a sort of "travel agent" for the lowest of ranks. Al Qaeda had been determined that he was mentally unstable and so they never really trusted him with any real information.
Even after the FBI and the CIA determined that the man had nothing to tell, they continued with the torture until he told them what they wanted to know, then later recanted it. Hmmmm ... wasn't he the one who mysteriously ended up dead in a prison cell in Libya? Wasn't it his false confession that they reported to the whole nation and used as grounds to illegally invade a sovereign nation?
And by the "BEST" ... does that mean someone who is going to TORTURE" them? Oh, and BTW ... no need to keep quoting that sorry stuff about only "three" were water boarded and/or tortured. Water boarding is not the only type of "torture" that is illegal. Even though it's already been established that more than "three" were actually water boarded ... a lot more were tortured.
Sooooo ... they put our soldiers through all kinds of training and teach them how to torture (as was apparent in Abu Ghraib prison, because that was not CIA/FBI in those pictures ... eh?), but now you're saying they don't even get the chance to actually do all that stuff to their prisoners ... or in this case the "people they BOUGHT from the Pakistanis"?
So then why are we wasting time and money training people to do that kind of stuff ... if only the best really get to do the interrogations?
I suppose I see your point though. We already know what happens when you put a bunch of "grunts" in charge. You get all kinds of amateur pictures of people tormenting and torturing prisoners that for the most part were all innocent.
Those are people who supposedly had all kinds of sensitivity training and of course had been water boarded as well (as part of their so-called training). Ya, we see what happens when they're put in charge.
Good to know that only the "best" are used for the full fledged interrogations.
OT ...
Torture is illegal, always has been and as far as we can tell, the current president has no plans of ever proposing that it be legalized. Because we had such an "unlawful" person in charge during the past 8 years, we now have a horrible mess to clean up.
Let's just buckle down and git er done. Bring the criminals to justice, and prosecute to the fullest. We could easily start with the "Shrub" and the "C0ck" and their gang of thugs. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 7:21:38 PM | Cotter
And just how is it determined that someone is even "high-level"?
Good intelligence work and proper interrogations of others. You can verify their imort by keying in names like 'Abu Zubaida' 'Khalid Sheikh Mohammed' and see if they were high value or just water boys however, with a half million hits on the two you can see where some might think they were important in some way.
Cotter
Oh, and BTW ... no need to keep quoting that sorry stuff about only "three" were water boarded and/or tortured. Water boarding is not the only type of "torture" that is illegal.
Don't I know it. Wish the 'do not call list' actually worked.
Cotter
I suppose I see your point though. We already know what happens when you put a bunch of "grunts" in charge. You get all kinds of amateur pictures of people tormenting and torturing prisoners that for the most part were all innocent.
That would be regular army guys like Mungojoe who had a short course in interrogation and, due to bumbling ineffectualness, allowed the detainee to control the event subsequently giving more information away than they get. Unlike career CIA/FBI interrogators who have extensive training and experience and, get results that Obama, Cheny as well as Obama's Intelligence Director all say is valid and, in the latter two's opinion, extremely valuable.
Cotter
Let's just buckle down and git er done. Bring the criminals to justice, and prosecute to the fullest. We could easily start with the "Shrub" and the "C0ck" and their gang of thugs.
Won't happen Cotter. Would have to include all the Dems on the Intelligence committees and in the end, Bush and Cheney wouldn't be prosecuted as the advice they were given was that EIT was not torture. Moving on past 2003 you may have a case though but once again, would have to include the Intelligence committees and I don't think Pelosi has the stomach for that given her recent stressed out press briefing accusing the Obama appointed, Democrat run CIA of lying. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 7:57:08 PM | Oh I can understand but, as a common foot soldier trained to take and hold ground, your forte is not in high level interrogations like the people who have spend decades training and preparing for these sorts of things. For them to convey their intent is akin to you having rust on your rifle. Unthinkable and, grounds to be reassigned at the very least. I would also surmise that high level detainees would not be interviewed by rank amatuers but by the best. You know, guys that don't make errors such as what you describe above. Errors that to them, after all this training, akin to you or I forgetting to check static line routing.
Dude, seriously, you don't think that the tortured detainees thought they were being tortured for a list of the best restaurants in Kabul or Karachi, do you? You don't think they knew what kind of things these guys would like to hear from the moment they pull the board out?
Lets take it down a notch... You don't think the vast majority of detainees knew they were suspected of being terrorists and that those were the kinds of things they would be questioned about? That's your very first clue to what kind of things they would like to hear.
Even after that, everytime a direct question (those are "direct" questions you refer to) is asked, every time the questions focus in on a particular detail (those are follow-up questions, you didn't mention those), everytime you're asked a question "out of the blue" (those are "unbalancing" questions you refer to), you've been given another clue that narrows down the kind of particulars they would like to hear about.
Every detail of your confinement, treatment and interrogation gives you clues to what kind of information the interrogator/torturer would like to hear.
These are not "amateurish mistakes", they are inherent to the communication and the interactions. You do realize that this is about obtaining specific information, not fishing expeditions, (that is why they are planned out as best as possible, so they can hopefully get to that point) and that very fact alone colors the interrogation.
You seem to approach it as if it appears to the the tortured detainee as some random conversation where he has zero clue what kind of information he is being asked for even right up to the moment he gets strapped to the board.
Of course, I don't realy expect you to get all that.
I'm twenty years Army, eight of them Airborne with four tours of the ME, last one during the Gulf War
And I think were starting to get a bit of insight into where the behaviour that got our airborne regiment got shut down comes from. 2 Commando, perhaps? | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 8:22:38 PM | Mungojoe
You don't think they knew what kind of things these guys would like to hear from the moment they pull the board out?
Go back to Mancow's interview. He said that if he had any information he would have given it up.
Mungojoe
Every detail of your confinement, treatment and interrogation gives you clues to what kind of information the interrogator/torturer would like to hear.
I see. So when I am cold, I know they want to know if I am hetrosexual. When the heat is up, if I am Bi or, when the lights are kept on, they wish to hear I am homosexual. I really have to get some examples from you to have this taken as a valid point whatsoever. And then, if this is known that intent and desired information is transmitted, why wouldn't they change the questions, or the questioners or, the procedures? I mean, if they are that stupid, why even bother taking prisoners?
Mungojoe
And I think were starting to get a bit of insight into where the behaviour that got our airborne regiment got shut down comes from.
You and your twelve years of switching from one specialty to another and then finally just dumping your country altogether gives you this insight? Meaningless. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 9:25:03 PM |
Let's just buckle down and git er done. Bring the criminals to justice, and prosecute to the fullest. We could easily start with the "Shrub" and the "C0ck" and their gang of thugs. Won't happen Cotter. Would have to include all the Dems on the Intelligence committees ...
... and in the end, Bush and Cheney wouldn't be prosecuted as the advice they were given was that EIT was not torture. They also had other memos that told them it was "illegal". They chose to ignore those memos, but we all know about "The High Functioning Moron" ... he can't help that he for the past 40 or more years he hasn't been using the brain he was born with ... eh? They could have had advice that the moon was made of green cheese, but that doesn't make it so.
Moving on past 2003 you may have a case though but once again, would have to include the Intelligence committees ... Which would be just fine with me.
Unlike some in here ... I'm not partisan about who is guilty and who might be punished. I just don't care. All I really want is that the ones guilty of promoting it, and implementing it be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest. And I do think that they should start at the top and clean house.
... and I don't think Pelosi has the stomach for that given her recent stressed out press briefing accusing the Obama appointed, Democrat run CIA of lying. If the CIA lied, then they lied.
Who cares what political party they're from or who appointed them? I think all that most people want is that the guilty are brought to justice. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/7/2009 9:38:31 PM | Cotter
First of all, it doesn't matter to me who it would include, but I have a feeling they didn't say all that much about what they were doing. Even if they did, it's not the place for the intelligence committee to run out and blab that crap.
And that is a problem as right now, we only see the memos that help Obama distance his administration from Bush's. And you are incorrect, it is the Intelligence Committee's responsibility to understand what they are bieng told, where it came from and how it got there and finally give it approval or disapproval through further funding or stoppage of same. From what I understand they continued funding these programs and thus, are just as responsible as Bush.
Cotter
They also had other memos that told them it was "illegal". They chose to ignore those memos,
I'm sure they did but, like it or not, he is permitted to pick and choose which advice to take.
Cotter
Which would be just fine with me.
Unlike some in here ... I'm not partisan about who is guilty and who might be punished. I just don't care. All I really want is that the ones guilty of promoting it, and implementing it be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest. And I do think that they should start at the top and clean house.
I totally agree. Clean house however, as many of those who would be doing the prosecuting are just as guilty and that presents a conundrum.
Cotter
If the CIA lied, then they lied.
Who cares what political party they're from or who appointed them? I think all that most people want is that the guilty are brought to justice.
I think so too so, Obama should release all the memos. Not just the ones that serve his party. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/8/2009 6:42:24 AM | Here's a former FBI interrogator -- who interrogated Al Quaeda suspects -- saying categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence, but that it does sell impressionable people on the legitimacy of jihad, on the grounds that a regime that tortures deserves to be attacked.
Former FBI Interrogator Jack Cloonan explains that regular interrogation tactics work well on even the worst terrorists, that there's no such thing as a "ticking timebomb" scenario, and that waterboarding has done much more harm than good. You can also see interviews with Jack Cloonan in the Oscar award-winning documentary, "Taxi to the Darkside."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdNhwFqhyU | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/8/2009 12:25:23 PM | FooledU2x
You can also see interviews with Jack Cloonan in the Oscar award-winning documentary, "Taxi to the Darkside."
Interesting link. Thanks. I wonder FooledU, do you think Cloonan is fairly experienced and has much training or, do you think he just had a week long course in interrogation? Do you think that when he, or any of his fellow interrogators interview some high level suspect that they transmit so much intelligence due to their incompetency that any information they garner is just a sham?
FooledU2x
Former FBI Interrogator Jack Cloonan explains that regular interrogation tactics work well on even the worst terrorists, that there's no such thing as a "ticking timebomb" scenario, and that waterboarding has done much more harm than good.
I wonder if, on September 10th, if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was in custody, would that constitute an actual ticking time bomb event? I think so. Is Cloonan able to forcast the future? If not, then he has been proven wrong by the events of 911.
As well, the FBI and CIA have totally different roles. The FBI seek to aprehend criminals, charge and prosecute them. The CIA, to predict the future and provide intelligence to the Executive.
http://www.slate.com/id/2072266/
While geography represents an obvious difference between the FBI and the CIA—the Bureau takes the homeland, the Agency the rest—it is far from the most important. The FBI is a law enforcement organization that was designed to track down and arrest the crooks that local cops can't. The CIA is an intelligence agency that was designed to tell policy-makers what's really going on in the world. One measures its accomplishment by successful convictions, the other by successful predictions. Both use intelligence to do their jobs, but catching the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby and determining whether Gen. Badenov still has influence with Khrushchev are two very different goals. And because the work is so different, the two agencies differ in how they collect, analyze, act upon, and share intelligence.
In other words, one has a lot of time and the other is not sure how much time, if any, they have to find out the information. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 6:15:26 AM |
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.
No Torture was reported in the gathering of info that Tenet reported to the white house BEFORE 911.
The only thing torture does is piss off future perpetrators into joining radical groups against the torturers and the countries and individuals that support them.
By supporting torture, you're making yourself a target. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 9:32:17 AM | The only thing torture does is piss off future perpetrators into joining radical groups against the torturers and the countries and individuals that support them.
Thank you well said and to back up the claim......
Torture Doesn't Work
by Matthew Alexander
Info RSS Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym for a 14 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. As the leader of an elite interrogations team in Iraq, he conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. He served in three wars and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in 2006. He is the author of How to Break A Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.
AP Photo A former senior interrogator in Iraq says that abusing prisoners results in unreliable information, costs American lives, and it still hasn’t turned up Bin Laden.
There are valid reasons why we haven’t had enough with “torture sanctimony,” as Christopher Buckley puts it in an article in The Daily Beast, and let me start with the most important—it’s going to cost us future American lives in addition to the ones we’ve already lost.
Our policy of torture and abuse of prisoners has been Al Qaida’s number one recruiting tool, a point that Buckley does not mention and is also conspicuously absent from former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s argument in the Wall Street Journal. As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse. But that’s only the past.
When a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.
Somewhere in the world there are other young Muslims who have joined Al Qaida because we tortured and abused prisoners. These men will certainly carry out future attacks against Americans, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even here. And that’s not to mention numerous other Muslims who support Al Qaida, either financially or in other ways, because they are outraged that the United States tortured and abused Muslim prisoners.
In addition, torture and abuse has made us less safe because detainees are less likely to cooperate during interrogations if they don’t trust us. I know from having conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, that when a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.
Former officials who say that we prevented terrorist attacks by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or Abu Zubaydah are possibly intentionally ignorant of the fact that their actions cost us American lives. And let’s not forget the glaring failure in these cases. Torture never convinced either of these men to sell out Osama Bin Laden. And that’s the other lesson I learned in Iraq.
Coercion convinces a detainee to give you the minimum (and often an altered minimum) amount of information. Note that KSM only provided information that was downward from him in the Al Qaida hierarchy. I saw the same results in Iraq. When other interrogators used fear and control to force detainees to provide information, that information, at best, was always downward or lateral in direction. Why? Because a detainee knows that they can sell out the people below them or even future operations and the organization will survive. It’s been over seven years since 9/11 and we have yet to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. He continues to recruit new terrorists, especially with our past policy of torture and abuse as a recruiting tool.So when I look at the squandered opportunity to locate him through KSM or Abu Zubaydah, I see failure.
Contrast that with my interrogation team in Iraq. We used relationship-building approaches, leveraged the best of our American culture (tolerance, cultural understanding, and intellect), and we ultimately found the head of Al Qaida in Iraq by being smarter, not harsher. We captured Al Qaida terrorists, some very high-ranking leaders, who never provided information. But we didn’t resort to torture or abuse because we knew that it would have made us hypocrites to sell out the very principles that we were defending. We also knew that it would cost us the lives of our brothers and sisters in arms, our fellow soldiers. Instead, we used those as opportunities to become better interrogators and then concentrated on other avenues to achieve our mission. We can lose a battle and still win a war.
My extensive experience demonstrates that we can effectively interrogate without using torture and abuse. We do not have to choose between terror and torture. We are Americans and we are smarter and better than that.
Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym for a 14 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. As the leader of an elite interrogations team in Iraq, he conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. He served in three wars and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in 2006. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 9:46:04 AM |
No Torture was reported in the gathering of info that Tenet reported to the white house BEFORE 911.
The only thing torture does is piss off future perpetrators into joining radical groups against the torturers and the countries and individuals that support them.
By supporting torture, you're making yourself a target.
That is possibly the most inane thing I have seen in this entire thread. Of course there was no torture, duh! It was mostly signals intel.
Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym for a 14 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. As the leader of an elite interrogations team in Iraq, he conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. He served in three wars and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in 2006.
Another manufactured winter soldier. | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 10:13:03 AM | FooledU2x
No Torture was reported in the gathering of info that Tenet reported to the white house BEFORE 911.
Of course not, it was all from internet chatter and surveillance. If there is anything to illustrate a ticking time bomb scenario that Clooney said does not exist, this would have been it.
FooledU2x
The only thing torture does is piss off future perpetrators into joining radical groups against the torturers and the countries and individuals that support them.
By supporting torture, you're making yourself a target.
I am not convinced about that. Most countries where Al Qaeda hails from and, operate from carry out worse than EIT hence, it is an almost certainty to them that when they are captured, aggressive methods will be used to gain information. As for pissing future perpetrators off, it seems that EIT wasn't even an issue until our press made it front page news, even though most Americans support torture in many cases.*
So, we have people conducting acts of violence against societies around the world who more than likely expect to be tortured via beatings, electrocution, limbs broken or amputated when captured and now, are angry because our press makes EIT front page news. Seems to me, somebody is using our system against us for propaganda.
I think the main focus should be whether it works or not and, if it within the realm of public acceptance n the US rather than what feigned outrage from scum dictates. We know that 71% of the population approves of it under varying circumstances however, until the memos that Obama has not released that show what information was learned, and, an honest debate between experts in the field rather than sound bites on television interviews is held, we won't know.
* http://people-press.org/report/510/public-remains-divided-over-use-of-torture | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 10:16:57 AM |
Another manufactured winter soldier.
Umm yeah
"Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors... After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration [G.W. Bush administration] has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
-Major General Antonio M. Taguba (USA-Ret.)
Source: Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US
TORTURE
"Torture and abuse cost American lives...I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq...How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans."
-Matthew Alexander, leader of an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006.
Source: Washington Post
"There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process."
-Ali Soufan, FBI supervisory special agent, 1997 - 2005
Source: New York Times
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
-Admiral Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence.
Source: New York Times
"I have been hard pressed to find a situation where anybody can tell me that they've ever encountered the ticking-bomb scenario... a show like 24...makes all of us believe that this is real--it's not. Throw that stuff out, it doesn't happen."
-Jack Cloonan, FBI special agent from 1977 - 2002
Source: Foreign Policy.com
"Anybody with real combat experience understands that torture is counterproductive."
-F. Andy Messing, retired major U.S. Special Forces and director of the National Defense Council
Source: CVT.org
"The difference between us and the enemy is how we treat the enemy."
-Rear. Adm. John Hutson, former Navy lawyer
Source: UPI.com
"Torture does not work."
-Porter Goss, former director of the CIA
Source: USA Today
"Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary."
-David H. Petraeus, Commander, U.S. Central Command
Source: The Washington Post
"Cruelty disfigures our national character. It is incompatible with our constitutional order, with our laws, and with our most prized values ...there is no more fundamental right than to be safe from cruel and inhumane treatment. Where cruelty exists, law does not."
-Alberto Mora, former general counsel of the United States Navy
Source: JFK Library, Profile in courage award acceptance speech
"My approach was what we call a relationship-based approach?far more than just rapport-building. I've never felt any necessity or operational requirement to bring physical, psychological or emotional pressure on a source to win their cooperation. So, following the guidance in the [Army] field manual, I feel unconstrained in my ability to work in the paradigm that I've taught for so many years."
-Colonel Steven Kleinman, U.S. Air Force Reserve, former military interrogator
Source: Senate transcript
"The highest levels of the U.S. military, the Defense Department, and the White House must be held accountable for putting our troops at greater risk and diminishing America's moral authority across the globe."
-Lawrence Korb, former Naval intelligence officer and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration
Source: Article co-written by John Halpin, Center for American Progress
"Cover-Up of Abu Ghraib Torture Puts Troops at Risk"
GUANTANAMO
Listen to Brandon Neely speak about his experiences as a guard at Guantanamo and as a soldier in Iraq. The interview was made possible by the Human Rights Show and Amnesty International Local Group 23 in Houston, TX.
"I'd like to see it shut down...I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."
-Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Source: Miami Herald
"If it were up to me I would close Guantánamo not tomorrow but this afternoon...Essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system...and it's causing us far more damage than any good we get from it."
-Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State
Source: Reuters
"I came to this job thinking that Guantánamo Bay should be closed."
-Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
Source: Reuters
"It gives us a very, very bad name, not just internationally. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how we can hold someone, pick someone up, particularly someone who might be an American citizen--even if they were caught somewhere abroad--acting against American interests, and hold them without ever giving them an opportunity to appear before a magistrate."
-James A. Baker III, former U.S. Secretary of State
Source: LA Times
"We absolutely got the wrong people."
-Michael Scheuer, a CIA agent who headed the agency's Osama bin Laden unit until 1999
Source: "Innocence Ignored at Guantanamo" by Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald, Ferbruary 23, 2006
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 10:29:11 AM | Hey here's a few more......
Top Interrogators Declare Torture Ineffective in Intelligence Gathering
NEW YORK—Fifteen former interrogators and intelligence officials with more than 350 years collective field experience have declared that torture is an “unlawful, ineffective and counterproductive†way to gather intelligence, in a statement of principles released today.
The group of former interrogators and intelligence officials released a set of principles to guide effective interrogation practices at the conclusion of a meeting convened by Human Rights First last week in Washington. The meeting participants served with the CIA, the FBI and the U.S. military.
The principles are based on the interrogators and intelligence officials’ experiences of what works and what does not in the field. Interrogation techniques that do not resort to torture yield more complete and accurate intelligence, they say. The principles call for the creation of a well-defined single standard of conduct in interrogation and detention practices across all U.S. agencies. At stake is the loss of critical intelligence and time, as well as the United States’ reputation abroad and its credibility in demanding the humane treatment of captured Americans.
The full text of the principles and brief bios of its signers follow below.
The group gathered together in Washington last week for two days to discuss the most effective ways to obtain timely and credible information from suspected terrorists and other individuals who threaten the security of the United States, during which time they also met with Presidential campaign advisors and Members of Congress to discuss these issues.
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Summer, 2008
The principles below were developed by 15 individuals who served as senior interrogators, interviewers and intelligence officials in the United States military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The group met at a forum hosted by Human Rights First on June 17 and 18, 2008, in Washington, D.C. to discuss the most effective ways to obtain timely and credible information from suspected terrorists and other individuals who threaten the security of the United States.
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We believe:
1. Non-coercive, traditional, rapport-based interviewing approaches provide the best possibility for obtaining accurate and complete intelligence.
2. Torture and other inhumane and abusive interview techniques are unlawful, ineffective and counterproductive. We reject them unconditionally.
3. The use of torture and other inhumane and abusive treatment results in false and misleading information, loss of critical intelligence, and has caused serious damage to the reputation and standing of the United States. The use of such techniques also facilitates enemy recruitment, misdirects or wastes scarce resources, and deprives the United States of the standing to demand humane treatment of captured Americans.
4. There must be a single well-defined standard of conduct across all U.S. agencies to govern the detention and interrogation of people anywhere in U.S. custody, consistent with our values as a nation.
5. There is no conflict between adhering to our nation’s essential values, including respect for inherent human dignity, and our ability to obtain the information we need to protect the nation.
Signed by:
Frank Anderson
Frank Anderson worked for the CIA from 1968 until 1995. He served three tours of duty in the Middle East as an agency station chief, headed the Afghan Task Force (1987-1989), and was chief of the Near East Division. He now runs a consulting practice that focuses on the Middle East.
Jack Cloonan
Jack Cloonan served as a special agent with the FBI from 1977 to 2002. He began investigating Al Qaeda in the early 1990’s and served as a special agent for the Bureau's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 2002.
Colonel (Ret.) Stuart A. Herrington, US Army
Stu Herrington served thirty years as an Army intelligence officer, specializing in human intelligence/counterintelligence. He has extensive interrogation experience from service in Vietnam, Panama, and Operation Desert Storm. He has traveled to Guantanamo and Iraq at the behest of the Army to evaluate detainee exploitation operations, and he recently taught a three-day seminar on humane interrogation practices to the Army’s 201st MI Battalion, Interrogation, during its activation at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.
Pierre Joly
Pierre Joly has more than 39 years of military intelligence experience. He currently serves as the Vice President of Phoenix Consulting Group where he leads more than 350 employees involved in providing human intelligence training to members of the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies of the United States. Immediately before joining Phoenix he served as the Chief of Controlled Operations at DIA from 2005- 2006 and the Chief of Operations for the Iraq Survey Group in Baghdad from 2003-2004.
Brigadier General (Ret.) David Irvine, US Army
General Irvine enlisted in the 96th Infantry Division, United States Army Reserve, in 1962. He received a direct commission in 1967 as a strategic intelligence officer. He maintained a faculty assignment for 18 years with the Sixth U.S. Army Intelligence School, and taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law to soldiers, Marines, and airmen. He retired in 2002, and his last assignment was Deputy Commander for the 96th Regional Readiness Command. General Irvine served 4 terms as a Republican legislator in the Utah House of Representatives, has served as a congressional chief of staff, and served as a commissioner on the Utah Public Utilities Commission.
Steven M. Kleinman
Steve Kleinman is an active duty intelligence officer who has twenty-five years of operational and leadership experience in human intelligence, special survival training, and special operations. He has served as a case officer, as a strategic debriefer, and as an interrogator during Operations JUST CAUSE, DESERT STORM, and IRAQI FREEDOM. He previously served as the DoD Senior Intelligence Officer for Special Survival Training and is currently assigned as the Reserve Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance at the Air Force Special Operations Command. As an independent consultant, his engagements have included serving as a senior advisor to the Intelligence Science Board's Study on Educing Information and as a member of the faculty for the U.S. Army Behavioral Science Consulting Team Course.
Dr. George Mandel
Dr. George Mandel, born in Berlin, Germany, came to the US in 1937. He was inducted into the U.S. Army in 1944, and after basic training was transferred to Camp Ritchie, MD, for training in military interrogation because of his knowledge of German. He was then transferred to P.O. Box 1142, outside of Washington, D.C. where he conducted interrogation of German scientists brought to this country as prisoners of war. After a brief stint at Fort Strong, outside of Boston, he returned to 1142 to continue his previous work in military intelligence until the end of the War in Europe. After discharge in 1946 he returned briefly to 1142, and then entered graduate school at Yale University, specializing in organic chemistry. After receiving his Ph.D. he began his career in biochemical pharmacology, at George Washington University School of Medicine, starting as Research Associate in 1949, and promotion to the ranks to Professor. He became chairman of the Department of Pharmacology in 1960, stepped down from that position in 1996 and currently is working there as Professor of Pharmacology & Physiology. His research work has been in drug metabolism, cancer chemotherapy and carcinogenesis.
Joe Navarro
For 25 years, Joe Navarro worked as an FBI special agent in the area of counterintelligence and behavioral assessment. A founding member of the National Security Division’s Behavioral Analysis Program, he is on the adjunct faculty at Saint Leo University and the University of Tampa and remains a consultant to the intelligence community. Mr. Navarro is the author of a number of books about interviewing techniques and practice including Advanced Interviewing which he co-wrote with Jack Schafer and Hunting Terrorists: A Look at the Psycopathology of Terror. He currently teaches the Advanced Terrorism Interview course at the FBI.
Torin Nelson
Torin Nelson is a veteran Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Specialist and interrogator with 16-years of experience working with military and government agencies. He has worked in major theaters of operation in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Nelson has worked in tactical and strategic environments, both as a soldier and civilian advisor. Primary assignments include the 66th Military Intelligence and 300th Military Intelligence Brigades. He has also worked for the US Army Intelligence Center, Southern European Task Force (SETAF), the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA, later DTRA), Combined Joint Task Force 170 (later CJTF-Gitmo), CFLCC (Iraq), CJTF-76 (later -82/-101) (Afghanistan), NATO (IFOR, SFOR, and ISAF), as well as numerous military to military joint training exercises. Mr. Nelson is one of the founding members at the Society for Professional Human Intelligence (SPHI). He is currently working in the Middle East as a senior interrogator and mentor.
William Quinn
William Quinn served in the United States Army from 2001 to 2006 as a human intelligence collector, interrogator, and Korean linguist. He was deployed to Iraq from February 2005 to February 2006 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was stationed at Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper. Will is currently studying International Politics and Security Studies at Georgetown University and is a cadet in Army ROTC.
Buck Revell
Mr. Revell served a 30-year career (1964-1994) in the FBI as a Special Agent and senior executive. From 1980 until 1991, Mr. Revell served in FBI Headquarters first as Assistant Director in charge of Criminal Investigations (including terrorism); then as Associate Deputy Director he was in charge of the Investigative, Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and International programs of the Bureau (1985-91). In September 1987, Mr. Revell was placed in charge of a joint FBI/CIA/U.S. military operation (Operation Goldenrod) which led to the first apprehension overseas of an international terrorist. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Revell served as an officer and aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving active duty in 1964 as a Captain. He currently serves as the President of an international business and security consulting group based in Dallas.
Ken Robinson
Ken Robinson served a twenty-year career in a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic assignments including Ranger, Special Forces, and clandestine special operations units. His experience includes service with the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. Ken has extensive experience in CIA and Israeli interrogation methods and is a member of the U.S. Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
Roger Ruthberg
Roger Ruthberg served as an interrogator in the U.S. Army for 22 years. He conducted interrogation and counterintelligence operations during Operations Desert Storm, Joint Endeavor, and Iraqi Freedom. He currently works as an instructor in debriefing operations on contract to the Department of Defense.
Haviland Smith
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA case officer and Station Chief who served for 26 years. He served in East and West Europe and in the Middle East. He also served for three years as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff at the Agency, as well as a tour as Executive Assistant to the DDCI.
Lieutenant General (Ret.) Harry E. Soyster, USA
Lieutenant General Soyster served as Director, Defense Intelligence Agency during DESERT SHIELD/STORM. He also served as Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army, Commanding General, U.S. Army, Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command and in the Joint Reconnaissance Center, Joint Chiefs of Staff. In Vietnam he was an operations officer in a field artillery battalion. Upon retirement he was VP for International Operations with Military Professional Resources Incorporated and returned to government as a Special Assistant to the SEC ARMY for WWII 60th Anniversary Commemorations completed in 2006.
Gee I guess none of thease people have any experience? | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 12:05:39 PM | In KSM's case, it DID work, and even if it hadn't, who cares? He should have been dancing at the end of a rope already. He got off light, he's still alive- Danny Pearl, not so much.
Do you really not understand that water boarding was used only after all other methods failed and only on 3...THREE...high value persons who by virtue of their standing and job descriptions within AQ had intel we knew would be very valuable?
And do you further not understand that every aspect of it was closely monitored and approved at the highest levels? And that includes Pelosi?
Do you really think in those briefings that CIA not only told Pelosi and her other democrat colleagues what was done AS WELL as what the results of those methods were, what intel was gained and if it was any good? Do you think she was not keenly interested in that? And if, as you say, it didn't work, why did Pelosi and the others continue funding the program if they thought it was not only torture but ineffectual? Surely they could have made that determination from those briefings, yes? Why would they continue putting money in to a failed program? Maybe because it wasn't a failed program?
I guess those that know do, and those that don't cut and paste.
Let me tell you how it didn't go:
Interrogator: "Come on in Hajji, nice to meet you, I'm John. Have a seat. I'll be your interrogator while you are our 'guest'. That gentlemen there with the bucket of water is Steve, he'll be helping us out today ok? Let's get started"
Hajji: "ok, infidel pig"
Do you really think they just cut to the chase like that and on every single detainee? Get real.  | |
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 12:19:16 PM |
I guess those that know do, and those that don't cut and paste.
I will take the experience of those professionals over yours anyday.Get real.
Let me tell you how it didn't go:
Interrogator: "Come on in Hajji, nice to meet you, I'm John. Have a seat. I'll be your interrogator while you are our 'guest'. That gentlemen there with the bucket of water is Steve, he'll be helping us out today ok? Let's get started"
Hajji: "ok, infidel pig"
That's a nice little fantasy world your living in.
"I have been hard pressed to find a situation where anybody can tell me that they've ever encountered the ticking-bomb scenario... a show like 24...makes all of us believe that this is real--it's not. Throw that stuff out, it doesn't happen."
-Jack Cloonan, FBI special agent from 1977 - 2002
Source: Foreign Policy.com
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 12:25:42 PM | And all we got here is inexperienced idiots trying to claim torture worked.
Interesting isn't it? I provide intelligence officer's,CIA,FBI,military including gen petraeus all saying Torture does not work and the best response you get is a fantasy scenario and a jab at cut and paste.
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| Right wing radio host gets waterboarded for 7 seconds. Admits it is torture
Posted: 6/9/2009 12:27:02 PM | You might want to re read that, apparently you have no clue as to what I am saying.
Do you really think how I described above was how those interrogations went? Really? Just, "get in here and lay down on this board Hajji, NOW!"
LOL, is that what you think happened to each and every detainee???  | |
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