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CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations
mrspoonsi sends this news from the BBC:
The CIA carried out "brutal" interrogations of terror suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., a U.S. Senate report has said. The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report said the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation." The interrogation was poorly managed and unreliable, the report said. President Obama has previously said that in his view the techniques amounted to torture. The Senate committee's report runs to more than 6,000 pages, drawing on huge quantities of evidence, but it remains classified and only a 480-page summary (PDF) is being released. Publication had been delayed amid disagreements in Washington over what should be made public.
CIA Director John Brennan has posted a response.
No shit.
Yet, despite common ground with some of the findings of the Committee’s Study, we part ways with the Committee on some key points. Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa’ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.
Just when will the CIA get off its high horse of believing that this program, in its former form, or any newer form, produces value for the American citizen or state as a whole? They need to stop defending this indefensible stance that it's okay as long as the CIA is in charge of capturing, detaining, violating rights, and denying everything it does or has ever done.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
In the US, the powerful can be the most evil scum and commit the most heinous crimes against humanity and will have nothing to fear from "the law" at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The opinion that Nazis committed war crimes is not universal, either.
The entire Bush administration should be prosecuted for war crimes
In fact, it's pretty much SoP. The more rich and powerful you are, the less likely you'll ever be held accountable.
A politician held accountable for crimes he authorized? Never gonna happen.
Same goes for the crooks on Wall Street.
I'm sure it's the same elsewhere -- the old boys network makes sure the people who can do the most damage are shielded from consequences.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I prefer this memo:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/
Part of being the "good guys" means NOT being the "bad guys".
More people die in traffic accidents EVERY YEAR than the "terrorists" have ever killed here. So why give up a morally superior position to "fight" people who pose almost no threat to anyone outside their own countries?
Even if torturing prisoners was "effective," who cares? If something is immoral, good results will never make it moral.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
"I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored."
From a Republican even.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Who doesn't pay? Those responsible for such atrocities. We increasingly live in a society where a few - IE military and intelligence brass, the rich, the police, and corporations and individuals with the money to play the game can do nearly anything with impunity.
This meets the definition of tyranny - arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power - and we live it every day, but most do not see it. The question is, is the natural state of being for humans - people abusing their power over others, or can it be changed and transcended?
Silence is a state of mime.
Where's the oversight? Oh, it was by the same people that oversee the NSA, never mind.
I mean, really.
Queue all the posts of "Why are you surprised! of course they were doing this!"
I wish people would understand that this response is a standard rhetorical technique. You see it happen all the time in various scandals and cover-ups. Essentially the aim is to diffuse the response by delaying it until people can be persuaded not to care.
A few years ago, if someone suggested that the CIA is torturing people, they'd be accused of being unpatriotic and paranoid. As the news starts to come up, defenders change their message to, "Hold on there. There are some unproven allegations, but you should wait until all the evidence is in before getting upset." They drag the whole thing out for years, and when the evidence is in, the defenders say, "Well we knew all of this years ago. Why are you upset now?!"
Lots of things follow this pattern. CIA torture, NSA spying, unethical/illegal actions leading to the financial system meltdown, invading other countries, global climate change, and even Clinton sexually harassing White House interns. It's very often those same three steps: (a) Deny it happened; (b) Admit something happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment; (d) Delay; and finally (e) Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.
It's intentional, and people will keep doing it because it works.
The real heros are the ones that stood up after they had started waterboarding and it just got to the point where they couldn't' handled it any more? No, they aren't heroes. Heroes are the ones that stand up, stop it BEFORE it got to that point. Or if it progressed to the point of no return, quit, and made it as public as they can regardless what their personal consequences are. Heroes don't get to abuse, and then just walk away when it gets too much and still get to be called heroes.
I suppose that you'll also call them victims of terrorism for what they have to live with knowing what they've done too.
I might too, but that doesn't make us right.
No. It's good when the (R | D) team does it. It's only bad when the (D | R) team does it.
Seriously though, wholesale prosecution of everyone in the executive since 2001 is exactly what should happen.
I see.
Terrorizing is bad.
So obviously the solution is more terrorizing.
Anarchy? The powerful are shielded in any form of government ever tried, from tribal warlords to kings and popes to dictators-for-life. That's what it means to be powerful - you get your way, over the protests of others. Power is fairly dilute in the US vs most systems in history, though the gradual accumulation of power in the executive over the past few decades really worries me in that regard.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".
Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.
Yes, but we're also the country that screams louder than any other country in history by magnitudes about how we are the land of the free, home of the brave, with liberty and justice for all.
Heroes? They aren't heroes! They crawled back home in suburbia crying all the way to their office jobs and got a prescription for Prozac to deal with their PTSD while leaving the prisoners to be tortured and rot in Gitmo. Some heroes. A hero would have gotten a gun and stopped them from being tortured. A hero would have stood up on prime-time television and told the world what they saw in order to get it stopped. Being a hero means risking it all for doing something that believe so strongly in. Asking for a transfer to another division because you can't stand seeing someone tortured isn't not heroic.
The question remains why nobody has been (and likely will be) prosecuted for these war crimes. Sure, a few underlings got a little punishment, but it has been very clear from the early days of the Obama administration that the guys where the buck stopped would never face any prosecution. The parts of the report that have now been published suggest the buck stopped at the CIA top, but from other sources we know that at least Cheney, Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld were so deeply involved they deserve at least some investigation. At least Cheney has been pretty open about his involvement.
So why did this prosecution for war crimes never happen? The most charitable explanation I have been able to come up with is that Obama thought the unrest this would cause in the USA would be unacceptable, but I admit it is a weak explanation.
Oh, and yes, the things described in the report were war crimes. Waterboarding is explicitly mentioned in a UN definition of torture, and after World War II some Japanese soldiers were tried and executed for waterboarding allied soldiers. And that's just the waterboarding.
Yeah, he didn't really strike me as the curious type. But Cheney claims to have known every single detail. I guess he gets off on that stuff.
"Say fellas? You think we can ramp down the shoving of pureed food up prisoners' asses a little bit? The screaming is starting to keep Laura awake at night and somebody keeps stealing the mashed peas out of the White House fridge. Now watch this drive"
http://youtu.be/Z3p9y_OEAdc
You are welcome on my lawn.
As a Brit living in Australia, two of the world's most ardent allies of the USA , I say this: America, you stink. When a friend tells you you stink you'd better wise up and do something about it. Your actions are CAUSING the terrorism that you are seeking so vainly to suppress. The more you oppress, the more people turn against you. I know you have a bit of a thick skull and your thinking processes are limited (as a country, we understand you have trouble walking and chewing gum, but that's OK, intellectual disability we can accept and sympathise with - we are similarly afflicted, truth be told). It's the actions we have a problem with. But now even your friends and allies can see the terrorists' point of view, and have done for some time. Wake up, fix your stupid foreign policies and you know, maybe THAT will sort out terrorism. It's win-win.
We constantly try to convince ourselves and the world that we're supposed to be some sort of role model after which all others should strive to emulate.
.my point.
:|
Time and time again, the evidence tends to show that we can actually be much worse than those countries we love to demonize.
Can you imagine what would happen if another country ( pick one ) started a program like the one we run for snatching up Americans ( or American Allies ) suspected of ties to $scarylabel ?
Perhaps building their own version of Guantanamo and holding them indefinitely without charges, trial or even notification to anyone they were being held at all ?
Everyone here knows exactly what the reaction would be. Drone strikes, commando raids, hell we might even send a Battle Group or three and park them off your coast. Regime change, invasion, air strikes, sanctions, excuse for new war toys testing, etc. etc.
As long as the country in question isn't a major power of course. We love to send in the troops to countries that cannot possibly defend themselves from our mighty war machine. Not so much into the countries that can. See any Russian or Chinese detainees in that lovely detention camp of ours ? Yeah . .
Ever see a bully pick on someone who could kick their ass ? Me either.
Wonder how our war-nuts would handle it if $evil_country started snatching our worldwide intelligence agents ( or just Americans and their Allies at random ) and subjecting them to the same tortu. . . . er. . . . enhanced interrogation techniques that we use. Would be hilarious to hear what insanity would spew forth from our Government about how . . . how . . . EVIL such a thing is. How DARE they do that to an American ?! Resolutions !! Declarations !!! OMGTEHHORROR !! ( Fox News would just implode I think )
To the rest of the world, I would like to apologize for the arrogance, hypocrisy and illogical ideology of our "elected" government. If you have any ideas on how to fix it, we're all ears.
Ah but that's where international treaties and international law come in. If it is a war, then treat the prisoners like prisoners of war.
Not following it because the enemy combatants have not signed it? CONGRATULATIONS, that is literally the Nazi justification for atrocities.
Yes, godwinning, but treating "enemy combatants" inhumanely is ridiculously stupid, shortsighted, and loses the moral high ground.
Generally fighting fire with water or other fire retardants is the preferred method.
It is in the very nature of evil that it "gets results". The entire point of morality is that there are things you will not do even if they are in your interest.
As an American citizen, I do not in any way approve of the use of torture. I am willing to accept the higher risk of death by terrorism, assuming the risk even is higher, in return for the country behaving in a moral fashion. I am willing to trade my safety for doing what is right. No torture, no indefinite detention, no extra-judicial killings.
If I knew a legal way to stop the US from using torture, I would.
We have become the things we always claimed that we opposed in the world.
This was 100% politics and had little to do with much else. Why else release such inflammatory information AGAIN?
...
The really sad part though is that it is highly possible that the release of this report will cost Americans their lives. The world is a dangerous place, but it's stupid to poke the enemy or hand them such a public relations win as this will be. We will be lectured by Iran and North Korea for human rights abuses and you can bet ISIS will be happy to use this to recruit/conscript more help.
(sarcasm)Oh Yea! That's great.. (/sarcasm)
The really sad part is that people get so caught up in petty politics that they can't see that torturing people is immoral and ineffective and that maybe we should consider not fucking torturing people and hold ourselves to a higher standard than "other people are worse than us."
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
terrorists, stop being an idiot. Richard Reid tried to light a shoe bomb and didn't kill anyone, yet let at all of the trouble and hassle EVERYONE who flies has to go through now. It isn't always about death. It's also about our way of life. How much money do you think is being spent to find explosives on persons who fly?
So stop saying "More people are killed by albino left-handed sharks than terrorists because that isn't the point."
No, that's exactly the point. We've completely caved to fear and thrown what little moral standing we had in the world right out the window. We've spent well over a trillion dollars, killed thousands of people directly, tens of thousands indirectly and replaced an evil but fairly contained dictator with a sectarian battlefield. Because we're bad at math and suck at assessing threats. We are a nation cowards, armed to the teeth and afraid of shadows. We are the fucking boogieman.
And before I get shit for it, no I don't think we deserved to be attacked on 9/11 and terrorists are asshats. But that doesn't justify overreacting and it doesn't justify holding people sans due process and torture.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
It's also beside the point.
The people in Guantanamo has not been found guilty of beheadings. Do you really think it's the right thing to torture individuals for something other individuals of the same faith and complexion did at a later date? Can I torture you a little for what Jeffrey Dahmer did?
If anything, torturing prisoners is used as a justification for what's done to hostages by others.
No one has a right to condone inhuman behavior and then act offended when others respond with inhuman behavior. We reap what we sow.
But the blow back undoes any advantage you got. The enemy knows we torture and uses it as a propaganda tool. Ie, the US does a better job of recruiting for Al Qaeda than Al Qaeda does. Also our friends know we torture and then don't want to be around friends so much (not a problem for US because we think "friend" means "does what we ask with no questions"). And it means that all those other countries out there are saying "hey, if US can torture then we can torture too!", or "if US can violate Geneva convention, then we can too!" And when our soldiers get captured, and they will, the enemy will use the same techniques we use or worse.
That's the main reason why so many in politics just wanted to cover all this up. They know it causes problems for the US, but it's ridiculous to pretend it doesn't exist or that anyone eventually freed from Guantanamo is lying when they claim to be tortured. If we don't want blowback from torture then we shouldn't do it.
Remember these are all interrogation methods disallowed by the army. The army knows there would be blowback. But they're ok for the CIA?
Another problem is that the interrogation techniques were not originally designed to get information. They were originally developed to get captured soldiers to admit to false confessions. Then the US used training for our soldiers so that they could attempt to resist such methods. Then ridiculously the CIA adopts those techniques and think that they would work to get useful intelligence. It's BS. If the CIA does know what it is doing then it is not using these enhanced interrogations to get information but for some other motivation (please the boss, please the political base, make it seem like we're doing something, finally have a suitable job for those who flunked the psych exam at Langley, etc).
Now there's this idiotic justification I do hear, not from politicians but the fanboys of one party or the other. That we treat the prisoners better than so many other countries. Dumb. That's like saying you beat your wife less than the neighbor does. Really, do these morons think that the standard of conduct should be "don't be as bad as North Korea"?
Nah. You're confusing cause and effect. They just expect it from God because they'd do it.
... precise surgical removal of heads, on their captive, without applying any anesthesia ...
Now which one is more BRUTAL ???
Even if all the prisoners had been caught red-handed beheading people, that still wouldn't justify torturing them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it