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Director Brennan: CIA Won't Waterboard Again, Even If Ordered By Future President (msnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MSNBC: CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News in an exclusive interview that his agency will not engage in harsh "enhanced interrogation" practices, including waterboarding, which critics call torture -- even if ordered to by a future president. "I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan said. The CIA used waterboarding and other techniques on terrorist suspects after the 9/11 attacks. But in January 2009, President Obama banned the practices in his first few days in office with an executive order. When asked specifically about waterboarding Brennan could not have been clearer. "Absolutely, I would not agree to having any CIA officer carrying out waterboarding again," he said. Donald Trump is a staunch supporter of torture, saying he would bring back waterboarding and "a hell of a lot worse" to retrieve information from potential terrorists. Ted Cruz says he would "not bring [waterboarding] back in any sort of widespread use" by rank and file soldiers and agents, but as President he would "use whatever enhanced interrogation methods to keep this country safe."
That said, are you thinking that Al Quaeda was following the laws of war
The thing most people fail to realize is that it's not (just) about the "elite" Al Quaeda fighters.
It's about those subsistence-level farmers in the Pakistani village, who see the US troops march through the village and have to make the calculation of whether to tell them that Bin Laden is hiding in that farm house over there, or keep their head down and their mouth shut. - It's about whether the US troops actually march through the village, or whether it's marked as a no-go zone due to the IEDs that locals are putting up to deter "extraordinary rendition" of their relatives to torture centers in midnight raids. - It's about the smuggler in Syria, who's just hoping to get his country back to some semblance of stability, and trying decide which group of fighters to run guns to. Which way does "they're working with the Americans" push him? Does that mean they fight for peace and stability? Or does that mean that they fight for a pro-torture puppet regime? - It's about the 18-year old boy who happened to be born in the wrong village, and is drafted to fight for ISIS. How does he treat American soldiers if he happens to capture some?
The extremists are extremists. But there's a wide swath of people who aren't extremists, but are involved anyway. Which way do these people in the middle swing? How do they act? If America isn't "doing the right thing", why should they? If America tortures because Al Quaeda tortures, what incentive do they have to favor the America-supported side over the Al Quaeda-supported one? Also, revenge is a powerful motivator. If your Uncle Ibrahim was tortured, you're going to be much more likely to go out of your way to abuse the side who did it, even if you didn't have any malice toward them beforehand.
Refusing, rather than carrying out with some enthusiasm and taking pictures, such orders would be a bit of a change in practice; but in the noble land of theory; hasn't it always been the case that military agents are supposed to refuse to carry out unlawful orders(with the obvious practical limits imposed by the fact that most soldiers have access to legal opinion only to the extent that somebody told a JAG to write up a terse summary of the rules of engagement)?
My (admittedly layman's) understanding was that while actually having the issue come up is considered a bad sign(since something has obviously gone badly wrong on the executive or legislative side if the military is being issued unlawful orders); but that while disobeying lawful orders is somewhere between 'disciplinary problem' and 'coup d'etat', depending on how many people are involved and whether they are brought into line internally or not; it is no more a desired outcome for the military to execute an unlawful order than it is for the judiciary to rule according to an unconstitutional law; or the executive to act without legislatively granted authority.
The only real change here is that we have an actually-high-ranked-spook not weaseling around and claiming that waterboarding is just the sort of practical-joking fun that we all did when we joined a frat.
Plame's official CIA job title was "operations officer":
OOs clandestinely [emphasis mine] spot, assess, develop, recruit and handle human sources with access to vital intelligence.
[source].
What's more, she posed as a energy consultant when she traveled abroad. In other words Plame was what in the spy trade is called a "knock" -- No Official Cover. This means that unlike agents who pose as diplomats she was not covered by diplomatic immunity and was potentially liable to legal and other actions taken by target countries. The identities of NOC agents is one of the most sensitive pieces of information there is.
Robert Novak, the columnist who outed Plame, later started the meme that she was a mere analyst. This is a self-serving claim; had he believed that then he wouldn't be guilty of a felony under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Movak was in effect pleading stupidity because the biographic references he admitted using listed a front company as her employer rather than the CIA. In fact in the column in question he correctly identifies her as an "operative", not an "analyst" -- a distinction which he was well aware meant that her job was clandestine.
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