The Torture Report

[PassedOut]

After many delays, the US Senate has released its report on the CIA torture program under the previous administration. The NY Times has an article: Senate Torture Report Shows C.I.A. Infighting Over Interrogation Program

 

WASHINGTON — In January 2003, 10 months into the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret prison program, the agency’s chief of interrogations sent an email to colleagues saying that the relentlessly brutal treatment of prisoners was a train wreck “waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens.” He said he had told his bosses he had “serious reservations” about the program and no longer wanted to be associated with it “in any way.”

 

The bitter infighting in the C.I.A. interrogation program was only one symptom of the dysfunction, disorganization, incompetence, greed and deception described in a summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report. In more than 500 pages, the summary, released on Tuesday, paints a devastating picture of an agency that was ill equipped to take on the task of questioning Al Qaeda suspects, bungled the job and then misrepresented the results.

 

On Tuesday morning, the C.I.A. acknowledged problems in the early months of the program but suggested that they had been fixed. “The study as a whole leads the reader to believe that the management shortcomings that marked the initial months persisted throughout the program, which is historically inaccurate,” the agency said.

 

The Senate report is the most sweeping condemnation of the C.I.A. since the Church Committee, led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho, charged the agency in the 1970s with domestic spying, botched assassinations and giving LSD to unwitting subjects, among other misconduct. That report led to a series of new laws and restrictions on C.I.A. activities.

 

The outburst from the chief of interrogations came amid weeks of torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a leading suspect in the bombing of two American embassies and a Navy ship. C.I.A. personnel working on the secret program had split into two camps. On one side were the chief of interrogations and nearly all of the on-the-ground personnel who had been questioning Mr. Nashiri. After two months of harsh questioning, the chief wrote, they believed that the prisoner had “been mainly truthful and is not withholding significant information.”

 

On the other side were James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two former military psychologists who had advised the agency to use waterboarding and other coercive methods. With the support of C.I.A. headquarters, they repeatedly insisted that Mr. Nashiri and other prisoners were still withholding crucial information, and that the application of sufficient pain and disorientation would eventually force them to disclose it. They thought the other faction was “running a ‘sissified’ interrogation program,” the report says.

 

If those questioning Mr. Nashiri just had “the latitude to use the full range of enhanced exploitation and interrogation measures,” including waterboarding, Dr. Jessen wrote, they would be able to get more information. Such treatment, he wrote, after the two previous months of extremely harsh handling of Mr. Nashiri, would produce “the desired level of helplessness.”

 

The agency had evidently forgotten its own conclusion, sent to Congress in 1989, that “inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers,” the report says. The Democratic Senate staff members who studied the post-9/11 program came up with an identical assessment: that waterboarding, wall-slamming, nudity, cold and other ill treatment produced little information of value in preventing terrorism.

 

The report spends little time condemning torture on moral or legal grounds. Instead, it addresses mainly a practical question: Did torture accomplish anything of value? Looking at case after case, the report answers with an unqualified no.

 

In fact, it says, “C.I.A. officers regularly called into question whether the C.I.A.'s enhanced interrogation techniques were effective, assessing that the use of the techniques failed to elicit detainee cooperation or produce accurate intelligence.” Nonetheless, higher-ups ordered that the methods be continued and told Congress, the White House and journalists that they were having great success.

 

Just as striking as that central finding is the detailed account of C.I.A. mismanagement. Both factions in the fight over interrogations, for instance, were led by people with histories that might have been expected to disqualify them.

 

The chief of interrogations, who is not named in the report, was given the job in the fall of 2002 even though the agency’s inspector general had recommended that he be “orally admonished for inappropriate use of interrogation techniques” in a training program in Latin America in the 1980s.

 

And Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen, identified by pseudonyms in the report, had not conducted a single real interrogation. They had helped run a Cold War-era training program for the Air Force in which personnel were given a taste of the harsh treatment they might face if captured by Communist enemies. The program — called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape — had never been intended for use in American interrogations, and involved methods that had produced false confessions when used on American airmen held by the Chinese in the Korean War.

 

Yet the program allowed the psychologists to assess their own work — they gave it excellent grades — and to charge a daily rate of $1,800 each, four times the pay of other interrogators, to waterboard detainees. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen later started a company that took over and ran the C.I.A. program from 2005 until it was closed in 2009. The C.I.A. paid it $81 million, plus $1 million to protect the company and its employees from legal liability.

 

Early in the program, the report says, “a junior officer on his first overseas assignment,” who had no experience with prisons or interrogations, was placed in charge of a C.I.A. detention site in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. Other C.I.A. officers had previously proposed that he be stripped of access to classified information because of a “lack of honesty, judgment and maturity.”

 

And on and on.

 

Not much of a surprise that the people involved wanted to suppress the report.

[Winstonm]

As much as it stinks to do so, I think the only reasonable action at this point is for President Obama to issue pardons to all those involved in torture so as to crush all arguments that the actions were legal. By resoundingly criminalizing the actions, necessitating pardons, we can hopefully place a barrier against future action of the same sort.

[mikeh]

What anyone who actually believes in American exceptionalism ought to do is to seek prosecution of those who are criminally responsibe, and I am morally certain that laws were broken....if not US laws, then certainly international laws.

 

However, those 'patriots' who wrap themselves in the flag of American exceptionalism are, from what I can tell, uniformly and massively hypocritical and so nothing will happen.

 

Obama can't afford to do anything without handing the entire federal governance to the rethuglicans in 2016. So no way is he going to do that, even if the idea of Hilary Clinton in the White House is offensive to him (and I am not saying it would be).

 

Plus, the US Supreme Court would almost certainly find some basis for overturning any convictions, since that Court now rarely even pretends to function based on the rule of law, and makes decisions for overtly political purposes.

 

By the way, I am not claiming that other nations, in similar circumstances, would act any differently. Power is power, and in every instance of which I am aware*, there is a massive disconnect between the high-sounding statements of political leaders and the actions of the governments they lead.

 

 

 

* arguably Woodrow Wilson was someone who tried to practice what he preached, but even that is arguable, and indeed the long term impact of his most well-known international positions, other than entry into WWI, can be said to be part of the cause of the middle east issues that bedevil the current century, and much of the last 70 years.

[Aberlour10]

 

 

Not much of a surprise that the people involved wanted to suppress the report.

 

 

From what I read in german media these people are partially successfull because this report is still heavily censored

 

and shows at most "half of the truth"

 

 

 

 

[barmar]

As much as it stinks to do so, I think the only reasonable action at this point is for President Obama to issue pardons to all those involved in torture so as to crush all arguments that the actions were legal. By resoundingly criminalizing the actions, necessitating pardons, we can hopefully place a barrier against future action of the same sort.

Don't they have to be charged, indicted, and convicted first? Or can he issue preemptive pardons?

 

Does the report name names? Who gets charged, the individual "enhanced interrogators", or their superiors who ordered them to take extraordinary measures?

[Winstonm]

Don't they have to be charged, indicted, and convicted first? Or can he issue preemptive pardons?

 

Does the report name names? Who gets charged, the individual "enhanced interrogators", or their superiors who ordered them to take extraordinary measures?

 

Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon prior to criminal charges being filed - so there is precedent.

[PassedOut]

Early on, the CIA figured that torture could only be defended on the grounds that it saved lives. Hence the CIA fabrications explained in this NY Times article: Does Torture Work? The C.I.A.s Claims and What the Committee Found

 

A report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence describes a years-long C.I.A. effort to justify its harsh interrogation tactics. Even before the agency interrogated anyone, the C.I.A.s lawyers wrote in a November 2001 memo that it would be easier to defend against torture allegations if the tactics saved lives. Here are eight cases cited in the report where the C.I.A. made the case that its tactics thwarted plots and led to the capture of terrorists, and how the committee's report undercut those accounts.

Interesting reading, considering that many of us remember the CIA claims at the time they were made. And I note that some of the officials involved are still making the same claims...

[hrothgar]

Interesting reading, considering that many of us remember the CIA claims at the time they were made. And I note that some of the officials involved are still making the same claims...

 

I have been trying to come up with my own internally consistent set of beliefs wrt torture.

I'm having some trouble squaring the circle.

 

This is about as far as I have been able to get:

 

1. I believe torture to be wrong. I don't want to live in a society that practices torture. I believe that groups and individuals who have practiced torture should be handed over to the Hague for war crimes trials. (I also believe that torture is ineffective, but this is a whole 'nother ball of wax)

 

2. I recognize that not all individuals are going to share this belief of mine. Some individuals - with all the best intents - might feel it necessary to commit torture (the ticking bomb scenario is the one brought up most frequently). Who knows, for all I know they might be right and and I might be wrong. However, here is where I draw an absolute line. Any act of torture that does get committed needs to be evaluated openly and transparently. There needs to be a process in place in which any such act gets exposed and information about it is widely disseminated.

 

3. Taking actions to conceal an act of torture should be considered every bit as much of a crime as the act itself.

[kenberg]

I also have been struggling with this. Here are some of my thoughts.

 

1. Not engaging in torture is something that we do for ourselves. Engaging in it makes us less human, however elevated out purpose might be. In my view most moral choices, properly understood, are something that we do for ourselves.

 

2. That being said, there are individuals and groups who have an agenda that we cannot safely ignore.

 

3. Putting 1 and 2 together, I think it is not enough to just say "We won't torture". We have to energetically address what we are going to do, not just what we are not going to do. If this is not self-evident, then imagine the following scenario, not at all fantastic in my opinion: We renounce torture, we really cease this practice, and three or four years down the pike there is another attack on the scale of the 9/11 attack. All gloves will be totally off. This is not because Americans are particularly vicious, some opinions to the contrary I do not believe that to be true. I think it is the nature of humans, not so far from the nature of other animals when threatened. One can advance moral arguments, but against another attack like 9/11 they will fall on deaf ears.

 

4. Life would be simple if we could really believe that torture provided no useful information. I know the report is portrayed as saying that is the case. Me, I don't believe everything I read. People that are not at all supportive of torture and are more informed than I am are very skeptical of that part of the report. Many people are very willing to believe that the C.I.A. did some serious spinning/lying about the effectiveness . I imagine that they did. But to assume that the folks who wrote tis report had no agenda and were simply presenting the truth wherever it fell seems, to me, to be naive. People lie. So new?

 

Bottom line: Dump the torture, do this for our own good. Then accept that we are engaged with a deadly enemy, figure out how we will deal with it. Once we take torture out of the realm of options, this should stimulate some stronger thinking of alternatives.

 

I write as a someone with no direct experience with terrorism. I still get to have an opinion, but it's good to be aware of one's limited experience.

[blackshoe]

To a Muslim terrorist, there can be only two outcomes to Jihad: we infidels all convert to Islam, and submit to Shari'a law, or we all die. We infidels, at least most of the ones I know, are not going to convert to Islam. For the Jihadist, that leaves only one option: we all die (or maybe become slaves, I don't know). For the infidels, there are two counters to that, at least in theory: 1) they all die, or 2) we somehow convince them to change their minds. I confess I would prefer the latter.

 

Unfortunately, I don't see a way forward to that second option. If we do decide it's to be war, though, we should go all out*, quit pussy-footing around, find the terrorists and their associates, and destroy them. And when we're done, no "Marshall Plan" either, at least not for countries that harbor or actively aid the terrorists. It's harsh, yes, but I think the situation calls for harsh. It does not call for torture or any similar actions.

 

* and war should be formally declared by Congress.

 

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

And yet, if we cannot convince the Jihadists to change, what other choice do we have?

 

War to the knife; knife to the hilt.

[hrothgar]

To a Muslim terrorist, there can be only two outcomes to Jihad: we infidels all convert to Islam, and submit to Shari'a law, or we all die. We infidels, at least most of the ones I know, are not going to convert to Islam. For the Jihadist, that leaves only one option: we all die (or maybe become slaves, I don't know). For the infidels, there are two counters to that, at least in theory: 1) they all die, or 2) we somehow convince them to change their minds. I confess I would prefer the latter.

 

Unfortunately, I don't see a way forward to that second option. If we do decide it's to be war, though, we should go all out*, quit pussy-footing around, find the terrorists and their associates, and destroy them. And when we're done, no "Marshall Plan" either, at least not for countries that harbor or actively aid the terrorists. It's harsh, yes, but I think the situation calls for harsh. It does not call for torture or any similar actions.

 

* and war should be formally declared by Congress.

 

 

And yet, if we cannot convince the Jihadists to change, what other choice do we have?

 

This is an incredibly simplistic and inaccurate view of the world which suffers from all the usual flaws of the manichean mind set.

 

The set of "Muslim terrorists" isn't constant. People drift in and out of this set all the time.

Some individuals get radicalized. Others loose their faith.

 

I understand the desire to "destroy all the bad people". Hell, if we had any hope of identifying who they are, we might even be able to do so.

However, I don't think that all the terrorists are going to be nice enough to line up in nice neat rows waiting for us to kill them.

 

So sadly, we're going to need to come up with some better options, which means trying to identify why people get radicalized and addressing the root causes of these.

 

But wait, that would require taxes and foreign aid and treaties and ***** like that which is antithetical to your ideology...

[mycroft]

Which version of Islam? Which interpretation of Shar'ia Law? Realize that for all the boogieman discussion, almost 100% of "muslim terrorism" is aimed at other muslims (as is, of course, an awful lot of first world terrorism, even if it's called "precision strikes").

 

I see a third option: ignore them. In 30, 40 years after we stop rattling the hornet's nest, there won't be enough of them to shake a stick at, and they definitely won't be "over here". If we had stopped rattling the hornet's nest 30, 40 years ago, it would have calmed down by now.

 

If you want me worried about terrorists, call me when the 10-year rolling average terrorist deaths per year approaches that for lightning strikes. Or automobile fatalities per *month*. We don't seem to care more about those than "learn how not to be stupid".

 

(I know, I know, there isn't money in that).

[nige1]

Another problem is that our Ministry of Truth (in collusion with our Ministry of Peace) find it hard to distinguish "Freedom-fighters" from "Terrorists". In Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria..., jihadists have been our long-term allies. We've funded, armed, and trained al-Quaeda type organisations, consistently, with the possible exception of a couple of brief interludes (9/11 and 7/7).

[blackshoe]

Which version of Islam? Which interpretation of Shar'ia Law? Realize that for all the boogieman discussion, almost 100% of "muslim terrorism" is aimed at other muslims (as is, of course, an awful lot of first world terrorism, even if it's called "precision strikes").

Which ones? Don't know. Don't care. Nobody gets to tell me what religion to profess. As for your "almost 100%" yeah, a lot of it is. So what? That doesn't lessen my … antipathy for terrorism directed at us.

 

I have never claimed, and never will, that we are lily-white in all of this.

 

I see a third option: ignore them. In 30, 40 years after we stop rattling the hornet's nest, there won't be enough of them to shake a stick at, and they definitely won't be "over here". If we had stopped rattling the hornet's nest 30, 40 years ago, it would have calmed down by now.

Maybe. Kind of hard to ignore two big airplanes knocking down a couple of skyscrapers and killing more than 3000 people, though. Still, I'm willing to try it - up to a point.

[Trinidad]

Kind of hard to ignore two big airplanes knocking down a couple of skyscrapers and killing more than 3000 people, though.

Hard, yes, extremely hard even, but not impossible... if it is the wiser thing to do.

 

But the Bush administration never even considered whether ignoring would be wiser. (And I am not claiming that a Clinton or Obama administration would have.) "Ignoring" is just not part of the American mindset. Revenge is. And revenge is rarely wise...

 

Rik

[barmar]

I have been trying to come up with my own internally consistent set of beliefs wrt torture.

I'm having some trouble squaring the circle.

 

This is about as far as I have been able to get:

 

1. I believe torture to be wrong. I don't want to live in a society that practices torture. I believe that groups and individuals who have practiced torture should be handed over to the Hague for war crimes trials. (I also believe that torture is ineffective, but this is a whole 'nother ball of wax)

 

2. I recognize that not all individuals are going to share this belief of mine. Some individuals - with all the best intents - might feel it necessary to commit torture (the ticking bomb scenario is the one brought up most frequently). Who knows, for all I know they might be right and and I might be wrong. However, here is where I draw an absolute line. Any act of torture that does get committed needs to be evaluated openly and transparently. There needs to be a process in place in which any such act gets exposed and information about it is widely disseminated.

 

3. Taking actions to conceal an act of torture should be considered every bit as much of a crime as the act itself.

I'd like to think the same way. But I'm also reminded of Jack Nicholson's speech in "A Few Good Men". It's really easy to bean an idealist when you're not actually involved in protecting the country. Or Jack Bauer in "24" -- if the country were ever threatened to the extent shown in that show, we'd like to hope that there's someone willing to do whatever it takes to save us.

 

Transparency seems like a good idea, until you realize that most of the people reading and hearing about it are not in a position to understand all the ramifications. This is the reason why a representative democracy is better than a full democracy -- the theory is that you elect smart people and trust them to understand and do the right thing for you. We shouldn't have to see how the sausage is made.

 

But the paradox is that without transparency, there's no way to know whether they're actually doing the right thing. Power corrupts, and we need watchdogs telling us if that's happening. That's the responsibility of the press, but it's also made up of people who are likely to be biased, so it's hard to know who to believe there.

 

The world really is too complicated, there are no easy answers.

[blackshoe]

Hard, yes, extremely hard even, but not impossible... if it is the wiser thing to do.

 

But the Bush administration never even considered whether ignoring would be wiser. (And I am not claiming that a Clinton or Obama administration would have.) "Ignoring" is just not part of the American mindset. Revenge is. And revenge is rarely wise...

Yeah, we're all about revenge. And we're the world's bad guy. Everybody else is purely innocent. :rolleyes:

[blackshoe]

"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

 

Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides?"

 

--From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

[Trinidad]

Yeah, we're all about revenge. And we're the world's bad guy. Everybody else is purely innocent. :rolleyes:

Nobody said anything like it. When I am in the US, I sing the Star Spangled Banner with my hand on my heart. I actually sang it this morning to my kids during breakfast.

 

I will never forget when the Twin Towers were hit and how undescribably horrible I felt. At the time I was living in Sweden, but we had recently moved from the USA where we were all American (just not US citizens): we lived American, we spoke American (we still do), we thaught American, we did American.

 

And I also remember the second thing I felt: "Oh s--t! There is no way they (the US) are going to let this go. Afghanistan is dead... and I hope it will be limited to that... and hate against the USA will only increase."

 

The question was not about who is naughty and good. After all, Abdul from Kabul was just as naughty and good as Bob from New York City. (And now, they are both dead.) The question was: "What would be the wise thing to do in the long term interest of the USA?". I am convinced that ignoring it, frightfully difficult, would have been better... for the USA.

 

Rik

[kenberg]

I'd like to think the same way. But I'm also reminded of Jack Nicholson's speech in "A Few Good Men". It's really easy to bean an idealist when you're not actually involved in protecting the country. Or Jack Bauer in "24" -- if the country were ever threatened to the extent shown in that show, we'd like to hope that there's someone willing to do whatever it takes to save us.

 

Transparency seems like a good idea, until you realize that most of the people reading and hearing about it are not in a position to understand all the ramifications. This is the reason why a representative democracy is better than a full democracy -- the theory is that you elect smart people and trust them to understand and do the right thing for you. We shouldn't have to see how the sausage is made.

 

But the paradox is that without transparency, there's no way to know whether they're actually doing the right thing. Power corrupts, and we need watchdogs telling us if that's happening. That's the responsibility of the press, but it's also made up of people who are likely to be biased, so it's hard to know who to believe there.

 

The world really is too complicated, there are no easy answers.

 

 

I have often had an urge to bean an idealist, I am glad to hear that it is easy.

Yes, I make typos too.

My favorite quote on idealism comes from the knight, or maybe it was his squire, in The Seventh Seal, reflecting on the Crusades: "It was so stupid only an idealist could have thought of it."

 

OK, I will now have my coffee and get serious, but the thought of beaning an idealist was a good way to start the day.

[kenberg]

Nobody said anything like it. When I am in the US, I sing the Star Spangled Banner with my hand on my heart. I actually sang it this morning to my kids during breakfast.

 

I will never forget when the Twin Towers were hit and how undescribably horrible I felt. At the time I was living in Sweden, but we had recently moved from the USA where we were all American (just not US citizens): we lived American, we spoke American (we still do), we thaught American, we did American.

 

And I also remember the second thing I felt: "Oh s--t! There is no way they (the US) are going to let this go. Afghanistan is dead... and I hope it will be limited to that... and hate against the USA will only increase."

 

The question was not about who is naughty and good. After all, Abdul from Kabul was just as naughty and good as Bob from New York City. (And now, they are both dead.) The question was: "What would be the wise thing to do in the long term interest of the USA?". I am convinced that ignoring it, frightfully difficult, would have been better... for the USA.

 

Rik

 

 

I don't have any great interest in being either loved or hated by people I don't know. I do insist, however, that they do not hi-jack out planes and fly those planes into our buildings. I suppose, when someone does such a thing, we could just laugh it off and say boys will be boys, just ignore them and they will stop, but it doesn't seem like a good plan.

[billw55]

I don't have any great interest in being either loved or hated by people I don't know. I do insist, however, that they do not hi-jack out planes and fly those planes into our buildings. I suppose, when someone does such a thing, we could just laugh it off and say boys will be boys, just ignore them and they will stop, but it doesn't seem like a good plan.

Agree. With people who would do such a thing, it is a mortal certainty that they will do it again as long as they retain the ability to do so. Removing that ability is essential.

 

I suppose the extent to which we have done that is debatable. But ignoring it isn't on my list.

 

 

[PassedOut]

I don't have any great interest in being either loved or hated by people I don't know. I do insist, however, that they do not hi-jack our planes and fly those planes into our buildings.

In my opinion the US should respond directly to an attack. In the case of bin Laden, we should have gone after him relentlessly and come right back when the job was done.

 

However, that does not mean that we should blind ourselves to the fact that US actions enrage people to the point that they feel the need to attack even at the cost of their own lives. We can be sure that if the US were on the receiving end of similar actions, there would be many men here who would retaliate at all costs too.

 

It is a good idea to think through the long-term implications of military actions and of supporting autocratic regimes. One of the things I like about Obama is that he can't be pushed into thoughtless military reactions. I know that to some folks that trait makes him seem like a weak president, but those folks are wrong.

[hrothgar]

It is a good idea to think through the long-term implications of military actions and of supporting autocratic regimes. One of the things I like about Obama is that he can't be pushed into thoughtless military reactions. I know that to some folks that trait makes him seem like a weak president, but those folks are wrong.

 

Obama's response to ISIS is making me question this.

[mikeh]

"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

 

Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides?"

 

--From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

 

Seriously? You really think that aphorisms by a writer of science fiction should be seen as guiding principles?

 

Heinlein's ideas, as usually uttered by his character Lazurus Long, appealed to me greatly when I was in my late teens, but I've grown up since then.