What did torture accomplish
Bush and company did not want to extract truths to stop terrorist attacks. They STOPPED that extraction process in order to switch to obtaining false confessions for political purposes - to "justify" war against Iraq
From www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103421778:
What you're describing is taking techniques that U.S. military personnel had been trained to resist ... [and] using those very techniques on the people the U.S. was detaining in Iraq?
Exactly, and I think a key point that your listeners need to understand, so they can grasp the gravity of the situation, is that the primary objective of that approach to interrogation was not truth … but somebody's political truth. In the Korean War, they actually compelled some of our pilots to admit to dropping chemical weapons on cities and so forth, when in fact that didn't happen. Now, that stands in stark contrast to intelligence interrogation, where the overriding objective is provide timely, accurate, reliable, comprehensive intelligence.
So, what does this all mean?
What was really accomplished by Bush/Cheney's go-ahead to torture prisoners? US lost access to terror suspects which hampered the war against terrorism, captured US soldiers faced increased probability of being tortured, and they got false confessions to use as political propaganda. In "Republican World", that desirable outcome completely justifies the consequences.
Washington Post
One of those present said that when asked, the CIA officers acknowledged that some foreign intelligence agencies had refused, for example, to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in any eventual torture of those suspects. Sources said that Jones shared these concerns and that, as a former military officer, he worried that any use of harsh interrogations by the United States could make it more likely that American soldiers in captivity would be subjected to similar tactics.
So, to recap
The FBI was getting actionable intelligence from Zubaydah by using legal interrogation techniques. The Bush Administration ordered illegal torture, because they wanted immediate propaganda. At this point, Zubaydah stopped giving actionable intelligence - which is consistent with what is known about the value of torturing human beings. After that, torture was stopped, legal interrogation resumed, and Zubaydah returned to giving up actionable intelligence.
Bush's quest for good propaganda hampered the quest for actionable intelligence to stop terror attacks. And was illegal, to complement the immorality of it.
FireDogLake post
NY Times article
From www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103421778:
What you're describing is taking techniques that U.S. military personnel had been trained to resist ... [and] using those very techniques on the people the U.S. was detaining in Iraq?
Exactly, and I think a key point that your listeners need to understand, so they can grasp the gravity of the situation, is that the primary objective of that approach to interrogation was not truth … but somebody's political truth. In the Korean War, they actually compelled some of our pilots to admit to dropping chemical weapons on cities and so forth, when in fact that didn't happen. Now, that stands in stark contrast to intelligence interrogation, where the overriding objective is provide timely, accurate, reliable, comprehensive intelligence.
So, what does this all mean?
What was really accomplished by Bush/Cheney's go-ahead to torture prisoners? US lost access to terror suspects which hampered the war against terrorism, captured US soldiers faced increased probability of being tortured, and they got false confessions to use as political propaganda. In "Republican World", that desirable outcome completely justifies the consequences.
Washington Post
One of those present said that when asked, the CIA officers acknowledged that some foreign intelligence agencies had refused, for example, to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in any eventual torture of those suspects. Sources said that Jones shared these concerns and that, as a former military officer, he worried that any use of harsh interrogations by the United States could make it more likely that American soldiers in captivity would be subjected to similar tactics.
So, to recap
The FBI was getting actionable intelligence from Zubaydah by using legal interrogation techniques. The Bush Administration ordered illegal torture, because they wanted immediate propaganda. At this point, Zubaydah stopped giving actionable intelligence - which is consistent with what is known about the value of torturing human beings. After that, torture was stopped, legal interrogation resumed, and Zubaydah returned to giving up actionable intelligence.
Bush's quest for good propaganda hampered the quest for actionable intelligence to stop terror attacks. And was illegal, to complement the immorality of it.
FireDogLake post
NY Times article
posted by zblog at
8:35 PM
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