Enhanced Interrogation
Posted on January 10th, 2009
by Philip Giraldi |
|
Talk about BS. The Wash Post today featured an article on its front page “Obama Under Pressure on Interrogation Policy,” which claimed that many in the government support the CIA’s continuing to do whatever it takes to get information out of terrorist suspects. It cited the one case of Abu Zubaida where it has been alleged that information obtained after waterboarding produced important intelligence. If one case is all that can be cited after seven years of thuggery, the practice should be ended because it does far more damage to our civil liberties and America’s reputation than it does good. It is also curious to note that in spite of the headline, only one individual is cited by name as supporting the current policy: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Filed under: Uncategorized
This is an appalling entry, seeming to justify torture. Mr. Giraldi could have, with some basic research, ascertained that Zubaydah - http://www.cjr.org/politics/the_forgotten_story_of_abu_zub.php - was, as Ron Suskind noted, a mentally ill man with little operational knowledge whose sickly, depraved torture led authorities to waste time and money trying to extinguish fires that weren’t being lit.
Apparently, later, agents used rational tactic and were able to get valuable information from him that way. In the meanwhile, war crimes committed on this man conceivably led to the delay of the capture of KSM and the further endangerment of our country.
The fact is that we haven’t had a repeat attack since 9/11. And if water boarding a guy like Khalid Mohamamd, ( who also beheaded Daniel Pearl )
contributed to that, great. If it was just Phil Giraldi, Justin Raimando, and their wives and children who will be killed in the next terror attack. ( not to mention their other compatriots ) I’d say fine, knock you yourself out. But that’s not going to be the case.
Mr. Giraldi,
Did you catch the juxtaposition of the Style section article on “24″, in which “Jack Bauer” is under intense criticism for torture in his fictional world, against the front page article that is styled just the opposite–the real president-elect, Obama, under “intense pressure” to continue tactics that raise the spectre of torture?
Makes you wonder if we have to remind the WaPo what’s real and what isn’t. Only in a fictional world is the law upheld rigorously?
Mr. Pearlman what world have you been living in since 9-11? There have been more major terror attacks since 9-11 than before. Or is the standard that we have to be attacked on US mainland? (In which case, Clinton’s record was just as good as Bush’s–no attack since 1993.)
Mr. Pearlman,
We don’t know who will be wrongly killed in the future, but we do know who is being wrongly tortured here in the present.
Simulated drowning, beatings, electrocution, sexual humiliation, and sodomy are not acceptable ways of getting information. Our country is not built on behavior like that, and we do ourselves no services for acting as though it was.
Furthermore, your focus on loss of life is inaccurate because it doesn’t comprehend the totality of life. There is a reason why the adjective most frequently used to describe torture is “dehumanizing”. Both the torturer and the victim “die” in the sense that they have departed from God’s standard for human interaction.
“Simulated drowning, beatings, electrocution, sexual humiliation, and sodomy are not acceptable ways of getting information.”
Progressives and libertarians have made this point quite well, and repeatedly. So this begs the question: What IS acceptable? Instead of pointing out no-nos, how about coming up with some effective solutions and strategies that we CAN use.
http://www.rightklik.net/
Since the military has published an extensive field manual on interrogation and the FBI has entire courses committed to it at Quanitico (none of which involve these sorts of humiliating and outrageous acts), I think “we’re” quite covered on “what we can use.”
But if you really need it, here’s the Army’s manual http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/fm34-52/ And here’s the Army’s description of it http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=9525 (Note, “The new manual, in accordance with Geneva Conventions, explicitly prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and is in complete compliance with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.”)
Good luck with your next interrogation.