The Tortured Logic of the Torture Fans
By Larry Johnson on April 26, 2009 at 1:10 AM in Current Affairs, Intelligence, MSNBC, Media Bias, Media Handling of Story, Torture
(bumped up from Friday evening)
Although Keith Olbermann has become something of an insufferable boor, he is finally on to something that I would pay money to watch but under specific conditions. First, check out Keith’s challenge:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
But here’s where I differ with Olbermann’s challenge. Sean Hannity should not have a choice of when or where.
If Sean has a choice or voice it cannot be torture. If he gets to choose how long to last it is really nothing more than a form of sadomasochism. Once he speaks the safe word the madan stops whipping his ass with her black leather whip.
Let’s review the definition of torture from the international treaty:
the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. . .
It is more than the mere act of “inflicting” pain or suffering. People like me who received training in interrogation resistance program at a U.S. Government military or intelligence facility have experienced some of the methods of torture firsthand. We have been waterboarded, forced into stress positions, crammed into claustrophobic inducing cabinets and deprived of sleep. However, just because you have gone thru a SERE (i.e., Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) program does not therefore qualify you as an expert to decide that waterboarding is not torture.
Why? Because the people who participate in these programs do so willingly and their release from captivity is not dependent on divulging specific information the interrogators/torturers want. You have a choice. You can even choose to drop out. The training is for a fixed period. Why? Because the physicians who oversee the training know that sustained exposure can inflict physical and psychological damage that can render a soldier or spy unable to do their job.
None of the suspected terrorists snatched up by U.S. authorities and subsequently strapped down and waterboarded had a choice. They were under the full and complete control of their captors. When you are under the physical control of someone else who can do what they want when they want to you then you have the sufficient and necessary condition for what transforms an exercise involving sleep deprivation from a training event into torture.
And let’s put to bed once and for all the lie that the only way to protect America from the threat of terrorism is to rely on torture. Did you read the extraordinary op-ed by former FBI Agent Ali Soufan? Agent Soufan actually did interrogate several of the radical Islamists. We must hear him and pay attention to what he knows from experience. This appeared in the Thursday edition of the New York Times:
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
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. . . .
One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him. . . .
The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)
As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.
I suppose the crazies like Cheney, Limbaugh and Hannity will continue to delude themselves into believing that torture is okay and that it is the only solution. Far be it from them to actually have any first hand experience or trust the words of people who have actually been on the frontlines.
But isn’t that typical of Cheney? The coward avoiding serving in Vietnam. He preferred that others go in his stead. But as an arm chair warrior he is one ferocious motherfucker.
I would really like to see folks like Cheney or Hannity picked up against their will and taken to an undisclosed location. Once there they would be waterboarded, sleep-deprived, smacked around, shoved into cramped spaces and forced to cohabitate with an insect of my choice. But they won’t get to choose when to call it a halt. I will decide that. It will all be my decision.
At that point do you think they might reconsider their views on what constitutes torture?
by Ronald Scott
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