Senate Report Findings: Harsh Interrogations Ineffective

Capture, Abuse, Enhance, or Torture: Take Your Pick — Still Doesn't Work

Setting the scene for this updated post is from a top notch former FBI interrogator, Mr. Ali Soufan.

He is the man who broke Abu Zubaydah, who gave up the name of KSM, which later led to his capture. Mr. Soufan got the information through standard, non-enhanced (torture) interrogation techniques.  

The film "Zero Dark Thirty" (in military lingo that phrase means the time sometime late at night but before dawn) opens with the words “Based on Firsthand Accounts of Actual Events.” But the filmmakers immediately pass fiction off as history, when a character named Ammar is tortured and afterward, it’s implied, gives up information that leads to Osama bin-Laden.

Ammar is a composite character who bears a strong resemblance to a real-life terrorist, Ammar al-Baluchi. In both the film and real life he was a relative of bin-Laden’s lieutenant, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). But the CIA has repeatedly said that only three detainees were ever water boarded. The real Mr. Baluchi was not among them, and he didn’t give up information that led to bin-Laden. In fact, torture led us away from bin-Laden.

Further, the long-awaited Senate report, a 6,000-page document, still has not been released to the public. In fact is was adopted by Democrats over the objections of most of the committee’s Republican members (most of whom like most other GOPers advocate and condone and support torture).

The outcome about that report reflects the level of partisan friction that continues to surround the CIA’s use of water boarding and other severe interrogation (the so-called 'enhanced' techniques) even some four years after they were banned.

All the while Congress sits on his hands hoping the matter will just go away (that is until the next war and high-value detainees end up on our custody).

This is a key part to keep in mind:

It could be months, if not years, before the public gets even a partial glimpse of the report or its 20 findings and conclusions.

Professional interrogators, those who are loyal to the country, their own training, the nation's values and principles, and their education, training and skills, who know torture does not work, were never asked about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of torture, because people like former President Bush and VP Cheney, and many others in office at the time, plainly did not want to hear the truth about what the pros would say: Torture does not work, it never has, and it never will.

Reinforcing the Argument that Torture Does Not Work

They approved and advocated torture saying it works ...

This man knows torture does not work ...

John McCain released March 14, 1973 from Hanoi, North Vietnam as POW

Update on the topic and film (Zero Dark Thirty) kinda of showing that torture works and led to bin-Laden.

Headlines from the story:  McCain says torture scene in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ inaccurate in leading to Osama bin Laden.

“Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) not provide us with key leads on bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information,” McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed up McCain’s assessment that water boarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.

Yet the "torture works crowd" won't trust or accept the facts — they prefer the TV Show 24 model — one that says and shows that torture works. Torture does not, it never has, and it never will. (BTW: I am a huge fan of  "24..." but, it's TV, a show, it is not real).

A look back at recent history is very timely right now. Cite:  In his book, "Decision Points," former President George W. Bush recounts being asked by the CIA whether it could proceed with water boarding of KSM, who Bush said was suspected of knowing about still-pending terrorist plots against the United States. Mr. Bush writes that his reply to them was "Damn right." He further states that he would make the same decision again to save lives.

Mr. Bush previously had acknowledged endorsing what he described as the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation techniques — a term meant to encompass irregular, and harsh coercive methods — after Justice Department and other top aides assured him they were legal (the so-called John Yoo secret memo written from the White House OLC).

Even former Vice President Dick Cheney once said, "I was a big supporter of water boarding."

The Bush Justice Department later repudiated some of the underlying legal analysis for the CIA effort, but Mr. Bush still told an interviewer a week before leaving the White House that, "I firmly reject the word torture."

I surmise he would say that because to him torture was not torture because of that secret memo from John Yoo and approved by others in the DOJtold Mr. Bush is was legal.

It mattered not that the actions were unlawful, illegal, and a war crimes and had been for decades.

My summary: Why Americans do not demand justice in this matter is beyond my comprehension. However, it does show the power of the office and power of slick politics by powerful people in powerful positions (positions of trust in the country). 

Imagine what that means for you if they suspected you of being a terrorist and decided to follow that "Bush model." 

The bottom line: When does a legal opinon supercede written law?