Senate CIA torture report

[RevDisk]

The picture is blatant straw man argument. And even if it wasn't blatantly wrong, which it is, there's a couple issues.

1. Not everyone accused of terrorism is actually a terrorist. A goat herder accused of being a terrorist because his neighbor wanted to collect a bounty is not yet legally considered terrorism. Same with being related to someone. Same with having the same or similar name or face.
2. Not everyone actually a terrorist had anything to do with al Qaeda or 9/11. Hell, not all terrorists are Islamic either.
3. Picture assumes torture is for purpose of gaining information, which this report shows them to be a false assumption.


My biggest issue ignores all that rhetoric. My viewpoint is much more simple. The Gestapo, the NKVD, the Stasi, al Qaeda and ISIS are the enemy. I signed up to turn them into good enemies (ie dead). I never swore an oath to follow their orders. We're supposed to be Americans. Not them. We're supposed to be the ones killing those sorts, not giving them legal immunity and taking their orders.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

“The CIA briefed Congress approximately 30 times” on interrogation, according to six former CIA directors or deputy directors in an article Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal. “The briefings were detailed and graphic and drew reactions that ranged from approval to no objection.”

Are the former directors right? Not according to the Senate report, which claims: “The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.” For example, the report notes that the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee wasn’t briefed about the brutal interrogation techniques until September 2002, a month after they were first used against Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah.

Let’s look at the 2002 complaint. A CIA review of “contemporaneous records” shows that this initial briefing to Sens. Bob Graham and Richard Shelby and Reps. Porter Goss and Nancy Pelosi included “a history of the Zubaydah interrogation, an overview of the material acquired, the resistance techniques Zubaydah had employed, and the reason for deciding to use the enhanced measures,” along with a description of “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.”


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[Balog]

Yawn...

Wake me up if I should ever give a *expletive deleted*it.

Like when they start doing this to those bomb throwing anarchist Tea Party terrorists?

Nah, I'm sure we can trust secretive fed.gov bureaucracies with the literal powers of life and death without any form of effective oversight. I'm sure they'd never hold without charges, torture, and kill anyone who didn't really deserve it, and if they've gotta lie to Congress about what they're doing then oh well.

If you're only ok with the feds doing X if they do it to people you don't like, then you're being shortsighted. You give .gov the power to do something, and it'll be done to you eventually. Jihadists are not an existential threat to fed.gov, but Constitutionalist patriots are. The 9/11 jumper pic is a cute little facebook meme, but this is why I care about keeping the feds in check.

[dogmush]

My biggest issue ignores all that rhetoric. My viewpoint is much more simple. The Gestapo, the NKVD, the Stasi, al Qaeda and ISIS are the enemy. I signed up to turn them into good enemies (ie dead). I never swore an oath to follow their orders. We're supposed to be Americans. Not them. We're supposed to be the ones killing those sorts, not giving them legal immunity and taking their orders.

This. This times a *expletive deleted*ing million..

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

War is inherently immoral. Much better to be good at it and win than lose though. My moms family can explain why


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[Balog]

I am curious though.

Do folks support this solely because they don't think that what is being done is torture? Or because they don't care if "terrorists" get tortured?

[RevDisk]

I am curious though.

Do folks support this solely because they don't think that what is being done is torture? Or because they don't care if "terrorists" get tortured?

I concur with Balog's questions, but would add a couple.

Do you support this because you don't think it's torture?
Do you support this because you think the people being tortured or "enhanced interrogated" are terrorists?
Do you support this because you think torture or "enhanced interrogation" provides critical intelligence information?

I'm actually curious for the answers. In the case of scout26's answer, it was wrong, but it was an answer. I do respect him for giving a candid answer. I suspect he really believed that it was torture (though he did not use the term), but the CIA was torturing actual terrorists and it produced useful information. This is about approximately 98% incorrect.

I can do a more thorough approximation from open sources of how incorrect it is if scout26 wants. Look up the number of official detainees, look up the number released. "Useful information" will be harder to gauge from open sources, but I'll try my best to find a good metric if it exists. I know from not open sources that is low. Mainly because you tend to have 1 Omar the Terrorist, 9 Johnie Jihadi Grunts and 10-40x Billy the Illiterate Goatherder. Omar the Terrorist will often try to pretend to be Billy the Illiterate Goatherders if possible, Johnie Jihadi Grunt (follows orders but zero strategic knowledge, foot soldier at best) if not. So, if you torture them all, you have between 1-5% chance of getting actual information. Statistically, you'll be torturing the equivalent of Billy the Illiterate Goatherder, who could only possibly give you vital strategic intelligence on his goats.

Once in a great moon, you'll get a confirmed Omar such as KSM. By now, he's being tortured for entertainment value, or just incompetence. The amount of useful intel he'd possess within 48 hours of the press conference announcing we snagged KSM is trivial. Historical information would be very useful, but it's not exactly "time sensitive" ticking timebomb 24-style information. The CIA and Bush/Obama administrations did their best to insinuate that the 24-style torture was the routine rather than an absolute statistical anomaly.

I guess it's not quite as cool to admit you're mostly torturing either footsoldiers who tend to know less about their movement than a person that watches CNN regularly or random bystanders snagged for mistaken identity or fraudulent purposes (ie for the bounty, revenge, etc).

[brimic]

I used to be firmly in the 'who gives a crap' camp, especially right after 9/11.
A lot of things have happened since then- Patriot Act, NDAA, militarization of the police....and lets not forget the memos from Holder's office on people who should be looked at potential terrorists- White males, Christians, gun owners, Veterans, and pretty much everyone with political opinions that fall outside either of the two main (non)competing political parties.
The whole 'terrorist hunt' has turned inward.
The whole weight of .gov can easily be turned to crush any form of dissent, and it would be completely legal- what ever merit that word holds anymore.

[MillCreek]

Well said, brimic.  I am of the opinion that what is being done to Johnny Jihad today is the crack in the dam that may end up in what is being done to Joe Smith, American citizen, tomorrow.  If it hasn't been already.

[Ron]

The end does not justify the means.

There unfortunately is no way to have any oversight though. It appears whole sections of bureaucracy operate independently of any of the elected branches of government, regularly.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Does it not strike anyone else as Orwellian the way the left is now trying to pretend that it didn't know about or condone our intelligence activities right after 9/11?  

There was a good article the other day in the Washington Post.  The author is one of the CIA guys who briefed congressional Democrats about this stuff at the time.  Many of the people he briefed back then are the people behind the Senate report today claiming they didn't know anything.  He accuses them of hypocrisy for denouncing today all the of practices they approved back at the time.  

Here's the article:  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/todays-cia-critics-once-urged-the-agency-to-do-anything-to-fight-al-qaeda/2014/12/05/ac418da2-7bda-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html

It's deja vu all over again.  The left did the same thing with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.  It was like someone just flipped a switch, and suddenly all of the Democrats who supported war were against war and had been all along.

[MillCreek]

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/health-care-inc/2014/12/cia-paid-spokane-firm-80m-in-taxpayer-money-to.html?ed=2014-12-10&s=article_du

Huh.  That $ 80 million to develop torture techniques went to a Spokane firm run by two former Air Force psychologists that reverse-engineered the SERE school teachings at Fairchild AFB.

[Ben]

I am curious though.

Do folks support this solely because they don't think that what is being done is torture? Or because they don't care if "terrorists" get tortured?

Which parts are torture? One of the problems is that the definition is vague. I certainly have no expertise as to what qualifies as torture and what doesn't, especially regarding psychological torture.

I know* that if you were to cut a guy's fingers off until he started talking, that's torture.
I know that if you burn a person until they start talking, that's torture.
I know that if you electrocute a person over and over again, that's torture.
I'm not sure if waterboarding is torture - it might be, but it also looks a lot like water survival training.
I'm not sure if the music is torture. While I think that there is acoustic torture, at what point does loud, repetitive music qualify as torture vs enhanced interrogation?
At what point does sleep deprivation become torture?

I can't answer many of these questions. I also don't know to what degree some of these techniques were applied - i.e., at what point did they cross the line from enhanced interrogation to torture? The whole thing is a messy business.

* By "know" I mean that I believe so based on cultural references I'm familiar with.

[Balog]

Which parts are torture? One of the problems is that the definition is vague. I certainly have no expertise as to what qualifies as torture and what doesn't, especially regarding psychological torture.

I know* that if you were to cut a guy's fingers off until he started talking, that's torture.
I know that if you burn a person until they start talking, that's torture.
I know that if you electrocute a person over and over again, that's torture.
I'm not sure if waterboarding is torture - it might be, but it also looks a lot like water survival training.
I'm not sure if the music is torture. While I think that there is acoustic torture, at what point does loud, repetitive music qualify as torture vs enhanced interrogation?
At what point does sleep deprivation become torture?

I can't answer many of these questions. I also don't know to what degree some of these techniques were applied - i.e., at what point did they cross the line from enhanced interrogation to torture? The whole thing is a messy business.

* By "know" I mean that I believe so based on cultural references I'm familiar with.

Rectal feeding?
Stripping someone down and leaving them on a cold concrete floor until they die of hypothermia?

Nudity: In November 2002, a CIA officer "ordered that Gul Rahman be shackled to the wall of his cell in a position that required the detainee to rest on the bare concrete floor. Rahman was wearing only a sweatshirt, as [CIA OFFICER 1] had ordered that Rahman's clothing be removed when he had been judged to be uncooperative during an earlier interrogation.

"The next day, the guards found Gul Rahman's dead body. An internal CIA review and autopsy assessed that Rahman likely died from hypothermia — in part from having been forced to sit on the bare concrete floor without pants."

[Balog]

•Waterboarding: According to the report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — often described as the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks — was waterboarded at least 183 times. This is a technique that simulates drowning, in which the detainee is strapped to a board while water is poured in his mouth and nose.

"During these sessions, KSM ingested a significant amount of water. CIA records state that KSM's 'abdomen was somewhat distended, and he expressed water when the abdomen was pressed.' KSM's gastric contents were so diluted by water that the medical officer present was 'not concerned about regurgitated gastric acid damaging KSM's esophagus.' The officer was, however, concerned about water intoxication and dilution of electrolytes and requested that the interrogators use saline in future waterboarding sessions. The medical officer later wrote ... that KSM was 'ingesting and aspiration [sic] a LOT of water' and that 'n the new technique we are basically doing a series of near drownings.' "

I've broken ribs, and I've also been held under the water until I nearly drowned.

Offered the choice I'd take getting a beating that broke bones over being near drowned every single day.

[Monkeyleg]

Deleted. Dumb post.

[Fitz]

I used to not care about this *expletive deleted*it. But with the focus turning inward, I think it's dangerous not to hold folks accountable.

Especially since it's pretty widely acknowledged that these methods dont measurably increase actionable intel.

[Andiron]

I used to not care about this *expletive deleted*it. But with the focus turning inward, I think it's dangerous not to hold folks accountable.

Especially since it's pretty widely acknowledged that these methods dont measurably increase actionable intel.

And that is the salient point.  If the "enhanced" interrogation doesn't get us anything useful, why skirt the moral/ethical consequences and backlash?

[Fitz]

Does it not strike anyone else as Orwellian the way the left is now trying to pretend that it didn't know about or condone our intelligence activities right after 9/11?  

There was a good article the other day in the Washington Post.  The author is one of the CIA guys who briefed congressional Democrats about this stuff at the time.  Many of the people he briefed back then are the people behind the Senate report today claiming they didn't know anything.  He accuses them of hypocrisy for denouncing today all the of practices they approved back at the time.  

Here's the article:  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/todays-cia-critics-once-urged-the-agency-to-do-anything-to-fight-al-qaeda/2014/12/05/ac418da2-7bda-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html

It's deja vu all over again.  The left did the same thing with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.  It was like someone just flipped a switch, and suddenly all of the Democrats who supported war were against war and had been all along.

The guy who was the chief counsel for the agency tells all about that in his book. Those mother *expletive deleted*ers KNEW what was going on, were briefed, and approved.

Then backpedaled.

[Waitone]

Months ago a story came out the CIA was busted spying on Feinstein and her staffers.  Claim was made computers were compromised, etc ostensibly to learn what the committee was creating.  Now the story floated is Feinstein just had her revenge.  Hell hath no fury like a senator pissed, or some such.

[MechAg94]

The guy who was the chief counsel for the agency tells all about that in his book. Those mother *expletive deleted*ers KNEW what was going on, were briefed, and approved.

Then backpedaled.

I don't have time to look up names, but have't some of these politicians been guilty of letting out classified info to the press that damaged our non-torture spying efforts in the recent past? 

[MechAg94]

I am curious though.

Do folks support this solely because they don't think that what is being done is torture? Or because they don't care if "terrorists" get tortured?

I think a better question is what is your ideal standard of behavior?  If you were king, what rules would you set?  what is your plan today?  No time travel or do overs.  What would you change today?

[roo_ster]

I used to not care about this *expletive deleted*it. But with the focus turning inward, I think it's dangerous not to hold folks accountable.

Especially since it's pretty widely acknowledged that these methods dont measurably increase actionable intel.

Agree with the first sentence. 

US gov't would use such against US citizens if US gov't felt threatened--without hesitation.  Note, I did not write, "If American citizens are threatened."  I believe that such methods were used after 9-11 not to get hot intel, but to to demonstrate that the US gov't was serious about terrorism.  The target was primarily American citizens, who the US gov't needs to have faith in US gov't.  Very much like the TSA and airport security kabuki.  "How serious are we?  Serious enough to (not) torture the ever-loving *expletive deleted*it out of Al Queda bad guys!"

Also, I think that if there ever is a Really Big Mass Casualty Event, the American public will insist that torture be used.  And then after the American public cooled, the MSM blamed America for it, and the Democrats saw a political opportunity, the pendulum would swing back toward the anti-torture position.  Men are fickle.

Disagree with the second sentence.

Oh, I am quite ready to believe that CIA and/or another gov't agency managed to get bupkis after using these methods.  This is the gov't that managed to bankrupt a whorehouse.  Halfwit crack whores manage to make a profit selling poon, but not the US Govt.  But those sorts of techniques certainly can provide good data, especially when you have 2+ likely suspects to work with.  The strong argument against torture is the moral, Christian "It is evil to intentionaly harm someone who is no immediate threat," argument.  The weak argument is the pragmatic, "It doesn't work," argument.

Tom Kratman both has a pragmatic approach to the practical use of torture for intel as well as a broader definition than most.  TK's definition of torture in interesting.  He defines torture to include everything one usually thinks of, but posits that even the implied threat of vigorous interrogation is itself torture.  Pretty much any time you have a helpless subject who knows that he is powerless and that his captors hold the power of life and death over him, there is torture involved.

[Fitz]

Sorry. I should clarify.

It doesn't produce actionable intel when employed by people on a power trip... people who are looking to deliver intel at any cost for career, not accuracy... people who are stupid... people who just want to get free reign to hurt others and dont care about methodology and utility... people who are incompetent... people who are jealous of operators and their glory and want to stick it to the bad guys too... people who want accolades for producing intel that gets the next 9/11 guys...



So , it doesn't produce actionable intel for: basically everyone.

Humanity sucks. In general, it's full of selfish, weak, idiotic aholes. Folks who ENJOY conducting torture, rather than actually using it to extract good intel.

It's probably possible, but I don't forsee torture being effective under any incarnation of the US government i can envision. We simply suck too much.

[Balog]

I think a better question is what is your ideal standard of behavior?  If you were king, what rules would you set?  what is your plan today?  No time travel or do overs.  What would you change today?

Aside from eliminating all gun and drug laws? Legalizing home distillation?

Not getting in wars for no goddamn reason? When war is needed utterly destroying our enemies and then colonizing their land? Restoring a code of honor and then enforcing it? Rejecting some things as unconscionable regardless of theoretical efficacy?