Cheney vs. Obama on Water Boarding

[Anne]

There are very effective non-physical interview techniques.

It takes time and a lot of skill.

The human body adjusts to the worst of physical pain once it is applied too frequently. That makes the physical option ineffective.

It is, however, the easiest, and, by far, the one favored by the lazy, inept interviewer.

Too often favored by those bent on revenge (rather than gathering intelligence) and those with inadequate training who are pressured for instant results.

When time is short, IMO, it would put a different slant on the matter.

[followsthewolf]

The problem is that the quality of the information is severely compromised. Whatever is yielded under physical duress is always suspect as to its validity. In short, when someone is physically tortured, he/she will tell you what he/she thinks you want to hear, in order to halt the interrogation. Additionally, when the human body is subject to enormous stress (pain), the brain (as a protective measure) will no longer register the full severity of the injury. Hence, physical pain becomes moot.

On the other hand, when the subject is convinced the interrogators are honorable and keep their word, the interview is much more successful. That is how the most important information gleaned from those at Guantanamo was obtained.

[Henry Hawk]

again, I leave it to those who are experts in this field....there job is to extract information that could be harmful to the country....IF, they feel, that waterboarding is the best way to get vital information, then, as a last means, they should.

I don't believe we are just torturing people as a means of punishment...or for kicks.....and I'm sure, they know all about what is the best way to do their job....or they would not have a job too long, if I was the POTUS anyway.

Job ONE, is to keep America/Americans SAFE!..

[followsthewolf]

The experts agree with me.

A senior interrogator wrote this:

"Somewhere in the world there are other young Muslims who have joined Al Qaida because we tortured and abused prisoners. These men will certainly carry out future attacks against Americans, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even here. And that's not to mention numerous other Muslims who support Al Qaida, either financially or in other ways, because they are outraged that the United States tortured and abused Muslim prisoners.

"In addition, torture and abuse has made us less safe because detainees are less likely to cooperate during interrogations if they don't trust us. I know from having conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, that when a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.

"Former officials who say that we prevented terrorist attacks by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or Abu Zubaydah are possibly intentionally ignorant of the fact that their actions cost us American lives. And let's not forget the glaring failure in these cases. Torture never convinced either of these men to sell out Osama Bin Laden. And that's the other lesson I learned in Iraq.

"Coercion convinces a detainee to give you the minimum (and often an altered minimum) amount of information. Note that KSM only provided information that was downward from him in the Al Qaida hierarchy. I saw the same results in Iraq. When other interrogators used fear and control to force detainees to provide information, that information, at best, was always downward or lateral in direction. Why? Because a detainee knows that they can sell out the people below them or even future operations and the organization will survive. It's been over seven years since 9/11 and we have yet to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. He continues to recruit new terrorists, especially with our past policy of torture and abuse as a recruiting tool.So when I look at the squandered opportunity to locate him through KSM or Abu Zubaydah, I see failure.

"Contrast that with my interrogation team in Iraq. We used relationship-building approaches, leveraged the best of our American culture (tolerance, cultural understanding, and intellect), and we ultimately found the head of Al Qaida in Iraq by being smarter, not harsher. We captured Al Qaida terrorists, some very high-ranking leaders, who never provided information. But we didn't resort to torture or abuse because we knew that it would have made us hypocrites to sell out the very principles that we were defending. We also knew that it would cost us the lives of our brothers and sisters in arms, our fellow soldiers. Instead, we used those as opportunities to become better interrogators and then concentrated on other avenues to achieve our mission. We can lose a battle and still win a war.

"My extensive experience demonstrates that we can effectively interrogate without using torture and abuse. We do not have to choose between terror and torture. We are Americans and we are smarter and better than that."

[Palehorse]

Humanity will never learn on this subject. The Inquisition should have taught us that torture just makes the victims say anything to make it stop; and usually it is not true at all. A lot of witches were burned using this method too, and I have yet to see a single one flying around on a broom. . .

The survival instinct makes the victim tell their handlers whatever they want to hear in order to stop the abuse. The information obtained using these methods are unreliable at best and certainly nothing to base life risking decisions upon. Then there is the morality issue to be dealt with.

Yeah, maybe some of them do cut the heads off of innocent Americans in captivity. But when we torture them are we any better than they are? NO!

This country needs to maintain the high moral ground in all things, including the execution of war. Anything less that that makes us terrorists ourselves!

[Doc]

Isn't the point of waterboarding to make the person being "questioned" NOT feel good? I have mixed feelings about it but certainly making someone "feel good" isn't effective. Troll,or anyone else who cares to answer, what kind of interrogation tactics would you endorse?

Nancy Pelosi fights back against news reports that she was briefed on the torture of CIA prisoners in 2002:

In her first public comments on the matter since an intelligence report contradicted her recollections, Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters today that she was never told about the fact that waterboarding had been used on a terrorist suspect, even though terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded a month before she was briefed on the subject in Sept. 2002.

"The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed," Pelosi said, reading from a prepared statement. "Those briefing me in Sept. 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information."

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/05/pelosi-cia-lied-about-waterboarding

Give her a breat it only took her to weeks to remember

I guess it took her a week to dispose of the evidence that she new damn good and well what was going on in the trenches. This whole babe in the woods routine that the Dems are putting on is growing old. That might work for Obama considering that he was in politics a whole 5 minutes before he went for the big un but the other Dems were in power through it all and had a hand in everything. They knew; she knew.

Nancy Pelosi is a liar, and a cheat, and a loon, and a treasonist. The press will defend her, the left will give her a pass, and she will just keep lying and being the same ol tired classless quack she has always been.

Meanwhile those evil republicans must be squashed right??????? LOLOLOL What a joke!

[followsthewolf]

For those who have trouble staying on point and understanding the posts:

1. IT DOESN'T PROVIDE RELIABLE INTEL -- PEOPLE SAY WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR WHEN THEY ARE PHYSICALLY COERCED.  THE MORE THEY FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES, THE LESS RELIABLE.

2. SPINNING IT TO TAKE A SHOT AT PELOSI DOES NOT CHANGE THE RESULTS. IT ONLY MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER POLITICALLY. THAT HAS BEEN THE PROBLEM ALL ALONG. POLITICS GOT MIXED INTO IT FROM THE START.

3. WATERBOARDING AS AN "INTERVIEW TECHNIQUE" GOES BACK TO THE INQUISITION. iT HAS BEEN USED FOR CENTURIES WITH THE SAME FAILURES. iT WAS DECLARED A WAR CRIME BY THE U.S. BACK IN WW II. IN FACT, WE TRIED SOME JAPANESE FOR USING THE TECHNIQUE AND SENTENCED THEM TO 15 YEARS IN PRISON FOR USING IT. IT WAS USED IN VIET NAM BEFORE WE OUTLAWED IT FOR HUMANITARIAN REASONS AND BECAUSE IT WAS BEING USED ON OUR POW'S (I.E. JOHN MCCAIN) BY THE NORTH VIETNAMESE.

It is rare for me to shout, but it seems we walk all around the subject and never get to the core of the matter since we are guilty of the same error that our government makes -- we make it a political football and don't allow the real experts to decide. And by "real experts" I absolutely do not mean the CIA.

[Henry Hawk]

FTW, your article you posted about interogations, has, (are you ready for this)....shined a new light in my perspective of interrogation techniques....I have read a couple of other articles by Matthew Alexander, the senior interrogator....

although I do not 100% agree that there is no place for a more physical style of interrogations on certain individuals...I think we should leave these options open and to be used under high ranking authority, but only as last resorts.  I personally agree and like the methods that Alexander utilized.  I have a great deal of respect for him, based upon my reading on him.  I agree that we should always take the high road...but, I also respect those whose soul intent was to keep Americans SAFE....because that IS job number one.

[followsthewolf]

Way back (more years than I want to count) my AFSC was that oxymoron most civilians know as "military intelligence."

In strictly anecdotal evidence terms from my perspective, that type of stress application never yielded anything but erroneous info.

In years of casual conversation with interrogators on various levels since then, they agreed almost unanimously.

They also agreed that those who were gung-ho to use it were the guys who wanted to Brasso their ammo so they could climb the career ladder.

[The Troll]

  Ann, torture is not the American way.  If you have read as many book on war as I have.  Torture doesn't get a thing that can be trusted.  Look at what the Japs did to our boys in world war II.  The Koreans to our boys in that war, the same in Nam.  They beat and beat and beat them and our boys told they anything the enemy wanted to hear.  They would go back to their cells and dream of more stories to tell the enemy.  False stories.  Finally the Korean's found that if they wanted the truth, they were real nice, gave them extra food, nice a nice place to sleep, a pat on the back.  We had some of our own men turn into rats and ratted the other men and our country with everything they knew.  It's a fact.

  Torture does not work and the people who want to do it, need to feel what is like.  Ever cops who use pepper spray, has to be sprayed in the face, to know how it feels.  If you want to do it, you need to know how it feel too.  The Troll.

[Anne]

You are right, we are better than that. However, (that dreaded word again) I won't guarantee what I would or would not do in a situation if one of my children or grandchildren were in danger and I needed information.

[The Troll]

Ann,  we live in one of the freest countries in the world.  We came over from Euorpe  to be free from the King and the class system.  Our people fought hardships, we fought of the British, we fought hunger, desease.  We're a bunch of tough sonavabitches who won't  kiss ass.  If anyone thinks I am going to lay in a fedal positon and shake and cry, you have taken this guy all wrong.  But I won't beat a person while he is tied up and beat him to a bloody pulp to get false information.  You can.

  If I was in the army again, to day and I took a raghead taliban enemy on the battlefield and no one was a round, I would expend one round of ball amunition into that bastard.  No torture, no courts and no terrorist.  I was talking to Navy Seal who served over there.  I ask what he thought of the people.  He said that he didn't have much to do with them.  He was told who was the bad guys were and he took them out.  No problems.    Somebody say amem.   The Troll

The Troll.

[Anne]

Troll, boy are you ever going to be in trouble with the aclu, no miranda, no civil rights, no due process,tsk tsk.  Seriously, I am pretty much a non violent type person, but don't threaten my family. I probably won't go after someone unless I can prevent my family being seriously hurt on purpose. I would/will if possible use all legal avenues but I would protect my family. Maybe when they catch these guys they have all the time in the world to get info out of them. I don't know, that is up to the military or whoever to decide.