Red Cross Torture Report

[Furunculus]

i've flicked thru it, and i've seen people complaining about the techniques which obama graciously admitted his nation has partaken in, and i've been left unconcerned by those revelations.

people like the rest of you guys that get your knickers in a twist over a little waterboarding are precisely the reason why i have no objection to beardy fellows with cemtex and flight plans getting a little rough treatment when caught.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

nevermind

[Furunculus]

Which is that it was a program. Unlike the image of using intense physical coercion as a quick, desperate expedient, the program developed "interrogation plans" to disorient, abuse, dehumanize, and torment individuals over time.

The plan employed the combined, cumulative use of many techniques of medically-monitored physical coercion. Before getting to water-boarding, the captive had already been stripped naked, shackled to ceiling chains keeping him standing so he cannot fall asleep for extended periods, hosed periodically with cold water, slapped around, jammed into boxes, etc. etc. Sleep deprivation is most important.

good, someone put some thought into it, into how to conduct interrogation without it resorting to barbarism.

[Furunculus]

nevermind

what?

[Tribesman]

Well said Alexander

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

what?

I retracted something silly, and Tribesman compliments me.

[Lemur]

Finally, a mainstream news source points out the blindingly obvious, that the SERE techniques used on detainees were duplications of the torture techniques used by the North Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese. About time.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said.

Today, asked how it happened, Bush administration officials are finger-pointing. Some blame the C.I.A., while some former agency officials blame the Justice Department or the White House.

Philip D. Zelikow, who worked on interrogation issues as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005 and 2006, said the flawed decision-making badly served Mr. Bush and the country.

“Competent staff work could have quickly canvassed relevant history, insights from the best law enforcement and military interrogators, and lessons from the painful British and Israeli experience,” Mr. Zelikow said. “Especially in a time of great stress, walking into this minefield, the president was entitled to get the most thoughtful and searching analysis our government could muster.”

-edit-

The Senate Armed Services Committee just released its newly declassified report on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody (PDF warning). Haven't read it yet (and it's hundreds of pages, so I may never get around to it). An interesting tidbit:

On October 2, 2002, Lieutenant Colonel Morgan Banks, the senior Army SERE psychologist warned against using SERE training techniques during interrogations in an email to personnel at GTMO, writing that:

[T]he use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects... When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder... If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain. This will increase the amount of information they tell the interrogator, but it does not mean the information is accurate. In fact, it usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain... Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low. The likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the level of resistance in a detainee is very high... (p. 53).

[Furunculus]

Finally, a mainstream news source points out the blindingly obvious, that the SERE techniques used on detainees were duplications of the torture techniques used by the North Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese. About time.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

They did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program itself had warned in internal memorandums that, morality aside, the methods were ineffective. Nor were most of the officials aware that the former military psychologist who played a central role in persuading C.I.A. officials to use the harsh methods had never conducted a real interrogation, or that the Justice Department lawyer most responsible for declaring the methods legal had idiosyncratic ideas that even the Bush Justice Department would later renounce.

The process was “a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm,” a former C.I.A. official said.

Today, asked how it happened, Bush administration officials are finger-pointing. Some blame the C.I.A., while some former agency officials blame the Justice Department or the White House.

Philip D. Zelikow, who worked on interrogation issues as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005 and 2006, said the flawed decision-making badly served Mr. Bush and the country.

“Competent staff work could have quickly canvassed relevant history, insights from the best law enforcement and military interrogators, and lessons from the painful British and Israeli experience,” Mr. Zelikow said. “Especially in a time of great stress, walking into this minefield, the president was entitled to get the most thoughtful and searching analysis our government could muster.”

-edit-

The Senate Armed Services Committee just released its newly declassified report on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody (PDF warning). Haven't read it yet (and it's hundreds of pages, so I may never get around to it). An interesting tidbit:

On October 2, 2002, Lieutenant Colonel Morgan Banks, the senior Army SERE psychologist warned against using SERE training techniques during interrogations in an email to personnel at GTMO, writing that:

[T]he use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects... When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder... If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain. This will increase the amount of information they tell the interrogator, but it does not mean the information is accurate. In fact, it usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain... Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low. The likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the level of resistance in a detainee is very high... (p. 53).

good read.

certainly gross incompetence involved if they are using ineffective interrogation techniques that were known to be ineffective. if that includes waterboarding so be it.

[Tribesman]

I retracted something silly, and Tribesman compliments me.

yes

Reason: Not worth it

Now more to the topic .
That pillock Cheney said he has seen evidence about how the illegal use of torture was good , leaving aside that this is the same prick who claimed he had seen the evidence that proved Saddam still had WMDs and was a good buddy with Al-qaida so isn't exactly reliable .
Is it time to publish all the evidence so people can see for themselves and that way less people will be willing to defend to indefensible , except of course the muppets who will try and defend it no matter what .
It really would be interesting to see how accurate and useful it was given this from Lemurs post....

Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low.

[Vuk]

I think Cheney is kind of cute.

[KukriKhan]

Now more to the topic .
That pillock Cheney said he has seen evidence about how the illegal use of torture was good , leaving aside that this is the same prick who claimed he had seen the evidence that proved Saddam still had WMDs and was a good buddy with Al-qaida so isn't exactly reliable .
Is it time to publish all the evidence so people can see for themselves and that way less people will be willing to defend to indefensible , except of course the muppets who will try and defend it no matter what .
It really would be interesting to see how accurate and useful it was given this from Lemurs post....

Good point. They (Bush, Cheney & Co) were always saying: "If you knew what we knew, you would make the same decision." Now Obama presumeably knows what they knew, and apparently thinks he would have decided differently. Otherwise, why release the memo's?

Looking ahead, I wonder: if charges are ever levied against any of the "deciders", what exact US law will they have alleged to have broken? Conspiracy to... ?

[Lemur]

I can't tell if this guy's intent is to be a torture apologist or what. His logic: By prosecuting torture, you're prosecuting conservatism. Which means that torture = conservatism. I doubt any thoughtful conservatives would agree with him. Anyway:

Criminalizing Conservatism

Many liberals don't just want to defeat conservatives at the polls, they want to send them to jail. Toward that end, they have sometimes tried to criminalize what are essentially policy differences. President Obama hinted at another step in that direction when he said today that he is open to the idea of bringing criminal charges against the Justice Department lawyers who wrote opinions to the effect that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods could legally be used on al Qaeda detainees. Obama said the question was a complicated one, and the decision will ultimately be made by Attorney General Eric Holder.

The idea of prosecuting a lawyer because a wrote a legal analysis with which the current Attorney General disagrees is so outrageous that I can't believe it would be seriously considered. Still, President Obama and his party may achieve another objective by publicly making this kind of threat: deterring Republicans from serving in public life. For many Republicans considering whether to accept an appointment to government office, the prospect that they may be subjected to criminal prosecution if the next administration is Democratic could well tip the balance in favor of remaining in private life.

ONE MORE THING: Is Obama also "open to" criminal investigation and prosecution of the members of the House and Senate leadership and Intelligence committees who were repeatedly briefed on the interrogation tactics that were used by the CIA?

[HoreTore]

I want what he's smoking.

[drone]

Assuming this is true, I'm guessing the interrogators are not going to get off easy either.

Harsh Tactics Readied Before Their Approval

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Intelligence and military officials under the Bush administration began preparing to conduct harsh interrogations long before they were granted legal approval to use such methods -- and weeks before the CIA captured its first high-ranking terrorism suspect, Senate investigators have concluded.

Previously secret memos and interviews show CIA and Pentagon officials exploring ways to break Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees in early 2002, up to eight months before Justice Department lawyers approved the use of waterboarding and nine other harsh methods, investigators found.

The findings are contained in a Senate Armed Services Committee report scheduled for release today that also documents multiple warnings -- from legal and trained interrogation experts -- that the techniques could backfire and might violate U.S. and international law.
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One Army lieutenant colonel who reviewed the program warned in 2002 that coercion "usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain," according to the Senate report. A second official, briefed on plans to use aggressive techniques on detainees, was quoted the same year as asking: "Wouldn't that be illegal?"

...

The report also repeats, but does not confirm, long-held suspicions that the interrogation of Abu Zubaida became coercive before the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo on Aug. 1, 2002, sanctioning the use of 10 escalating techniques, culminating in waterboarding.

The if the timing is correct, Abu Zubaida was tortured before the OLC memo covered the legal backside of the interrogators.


Cheney is right, the enhanced interrogation works. They extracted false confessions from prisoners, just like they are supposed to.

[Lemur]

The reason for repeatedly torturing men who had already given up everything they knew? Apparently it was in hopes of establishing an Al Qaeda/Iraq link. It is true that if you need men to confess to something that does not exist, torture is the best tool possible.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

[Swoosh So]

i've flicked thru it, and i've seen people complaining about the techniques which obama graciously admitted his nation has partaken in, and i've been left unconcerned by those revelations.

people like the rest of you guys that get your knickers in a twist over a little waterboarding are precisely the reason why i have no objection to beardy fellows with cemtex and flight plans getting a little rough treatment when caught.

That makes no sense at all.

[LittleGrizzly]

people like the rest of you guys that get your knickers in a twist over a little waterboarding are precisely the reason why i have no objection to beardy fellows with cemtex and flight plans getting a little rough treatment when caught.

TBH i read this one of two ways...

I support rough treatment (like waterboarding) because people get upset about it... which doesn't make to much sense unless your someone who argues for the sake of winding other people up...

or

I support rough treatment (stuff worse than waterboarding) because people get upset about waterboarding... can take this one of two ways... either your a really big wind up merchant... or you support harsher torture because everyone else supports none at all.. thus to make up for everyone else's moderation you make yourself far more extreme...

I think you were right that it would be terrible to live in a society that approves of torture, guess i should just be more thankful other britons put more thought into the subject...

[Xiahou]

Well, it looks like KSM has gotten a sponsorship deal out of all this.

[KukriKhan]

Well, it looks like KSM has gotten a sponsorship deal out of all this.

I don' care who ya are....

tha's funny!!

-edit-
To the topic: I just want it to be a true statement of fact, like I thought it had been for decades: "We are American. We get tortured sometimes. But we don't torture. Ever. Because torture and individual liberty are incompatible."

I don't give a flying figleaf for the argument that such acts, perpetrated by MY agents, got valuable information quicker, or more actionably than standard interrogations. That's irrelevant to the strangling of the soul of my country that such brutality, performed in my name, wreaks upon us. When I take a life, sure: what does it do to the human I killed, or their family, or society or the world - but also, what did it do to me, the killer (or in this case, the torturer)?

And the folks who put forward the atrocities committed by the enemy (whomsoever today's is) as justification? I can only sadly stare in rheumy-eyed, slack-jawed disbelief at the lack of understanding for the principles that motivated the sacrifices made by our revolutionaries.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

You mean the revolutionaries who tarred and feathered tax collectors?

[KukriKhan]

You mean the revolutionaries who tarred and feathered tax collectors?

Nope, the pencil-necked geeks who wrote words like: "Life, Liberty, and the Pusuit of....".

You know: the representatives of the revolutionaries who tarred and feathered tax collectors.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

And it's citizens under arms torturing people, not our representatives.

[KukriKhan]

And it's citizens under arms torturing people, not our representatives.

Exactly. The rule of law (also known as: the expressed, written, will of the people), prevailing.

Thugs, monsters, and other ne'erdowell violators of that law being found and appropriately punished.

[Devastatin Dave]

The Red Cross's confidential torture report has been leaked, and the full version can be read here (PDF warning). This was never intended as a public document, but rather as a statement to the appropriate authorities in the U.S. government, a way of saying, "We know this much. Now you know what we know."

Needless to say, it is damning.

Uh-hu, I'm sure it was never meant to be leaked!!! Lemur, you are the Kieth Olberman of the backroom.

[Lemur]

Lemur, you are the Kieth Olberman of the backroom.

You and Don C and Vladimir need to form a support group. By all means, when you're incapable of responding to the subject, just start making ad hominems. That'll teach me to be so crass and un-American as to disapprove of state-sponsored torture. (I need to add another bullet to my earlier 6-point torture denial script: 7. You're a librul tool of the Obamessiah, so everything you put forward is invalid, and I don't need to consider or read it.")

To move away from the personal flailings of patrons too busy or too threatened by primary evidence to read the content of the thread, a blogger sums up the legal and constitutional ramifications quite nicely:

The Western anathema on torture began as a way to ensure the survival of truth. And that is the root of the West's entire legal and constitutional system. Remove a secure way to discover the truth—or create a system that can manufacture it or render it indistinguishable from lies—and the entire system unravels. That's why in the West suspects are innocent before being found guilty; and that's why in the West even those captured in wartime have long been accorded protection from forced confessions. Because it creates a world where truth is always the last priority and power is always the first.

This is not a policy difference. It is a foundational element of Western civilization.

[Strike For The South]

I agree Kurki.

If we are forced to lower ourselves to torture, we become no better than the men who attacked us. America is a great experiment and sometimes experiments fail.

While I am a fan of realpolitik I do hold to some truths and one of them is getting away from this tribal show of power. Maybe it works for Mossad but not for us.

Every war America has fought in the 20th century has been sold to the public as us saving some poor souls under the thumb of some powerful despot as he tortured, maimed, and killed them. I'm not so naive as to believe this but I would like to be so naive as to believe that Americans treat there enemies the way we do our criminals. At least.

There is no honor in this.

[Kadagar_AV]

There are 3 reasons why the US treatment of their prisoners is wrong.

A) The information you get from torture is worth very little.

B) What you do to others, others do to you. You have just set the standards for what it is ok to do to US militarymen caught in combat.

C) It's just plain wrong and barbaric. When I did my military time they drilled us HARD about what we could and could not to do POWs. I'm sad the US doesnt live up to the standard set by themselves.

[Lemur]

Maybe it works for Mossad but not for us.

Actually, waterboarding was ruled illegal for Mossad. A long time ago. Organizations that have deemed waterboarding to be acceptable "enhanced interrogation": North Korea, the Khmer Rouge, the Schutzstaffel, the Gestapo, Imperial Japan and (probably the originators of the technique) the Inquisition.

Here's a description of how Torquemada rolled:

The patient was placed on an escalera or potro - a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder. It slanted so that the head was lower than the feet and, at the lower end was a depression in which the head sank, while an iron band around the forehead or throat kept it immovable. A bostezo, or iron prong, distended the mouth, a toca, or strip of linen, was thrust down the throat to conduct water trickling slowly from a jarra or jar, holding usually a little more than a quart. The patient gasped and felt he was suffocating, and at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight.

I suppose the torture apologists will have some rationalization as to why this was unacceptable for the Inquisition, but perfectly legitimate for an Imperial Presidency. Frankly, I find the never-ending parade of excuses more pathetic (in the classic sense of πάθος) than irritating.

I say lay it all out, and let justice do what must be done. From what I've been reading, there are some Dems who managed to get briefed on this program; Nancy Pelosi, Bob Graham, John Rockefeller and Jane Harman were all "read in" as they say, and they raised no objections. Damn them for the weak, ugly little creatures they are.

It suits some Org patrons to turn this into yet another left/right food fight. This diminishes the subject, removes any need to think critically and generally serves the purpose of turning a fundamental question about our Republic into a cable news shouting head match. Again, pathetic in the classical sense.

The President does not swear on a Bible to keep the children safe. He does not swear that he will kill all evil-doers before they can harm us. He swears to protect the Constitution. We are supposed to be a country of laws, not men. The plain truth is that the executive branch usurped the place of Congress (which has the exclusive right to determine the treatment of "captures," according to our founding document), ignored our domestic laws, ignored several treaties to which we are signatory, and hared off on a blatantly illegal torture fest.

If President 44 says we mustn't look back, the hell with him. If Dick Cheney thinks protecting lives is more important than protecting everything that makes America America, the hell with him. The hell with all of them.

-edit-

It's truly heartening to see that at least one talking head on Fox News still has a moral compass (warning, F-bomb).

[Banquo's Ghost]

Marvellous, dignified and eloquent post Lemur.

I cannot post my part in this thread, as I feel such repugnance for some views expressed here, I would be unable to maintain the necessary balance I am charged with. But thank you for your spirited and concisely argued defence of what is right.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Wow, I'm starting to really like Shephard Smith.