It Doesn't Hold Water
You have to admit, it's difficult for even a bleeding heart liberal like me to take the side of a scumbag who helped plan the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After all, what is there to pity about a fat, hirsute slob like Khalid Sheik Mohammed? And, don't get me wrong: I'd never take the side of such a barely-human hair ball and am not now.
But according the NY Times, KSM was waterboarded 183 times, exactly 100 times more often than a four year-old Department of Justice memorandum reported. I guess the "1" accidentally got left out.
It's been gone into by better minds and writers than I how very important, vital even, it is for the United States to observe the rule of law, to show that we are better than the terrorists, that we can remain as relentless and determined as they without resorting to lawless ruthlessness.
That we are not above the Geneva Convention, in that the Geneva Convention is not a quaint document, as Alberto Gonzales once referred to it, in observing and respecting basic human rights because they are timeless regardless of what war template we're using.
It's also been said that the United States, in dealing with even the most serious national security threats, needs to consider that the illegal tactics we'd (until recently, thanks to President Obama. Why would Mr. Obama feel the need to ban torture if the Bush administration had already allegedly done so?) been using on our prisoners and detainees can also be used on captured American troops.
These are not original considerations.
But consider, also, what we'd gotten in exchange after selling our collective soul. KSM gave us shit instead of actionable intelligence. The CIA has never come close to apprehending anyone remotely connected to 9/11 that we've been able to convict as a result of KSM's "confessions." Mohammed played us for the fools we were, knowing that as long as he told them something, anything, they'd stop the torture and go running off where ever he sent them.
Torture such as waterboarding is indefensible but when you get nothing in the way of actual information that can enhance national security, that's twice as much it doesn't hold water.
posted by jurassicpork @ Monday, April 20, 2009
8 comments
8 Comments:
So, you guys are basically paying for political/social content and when you finally get it, you ignore it?
So, do I upload new pictures of my grandson, my kitchen or my living room? Because those posts are getting the bigger responses.
All this talk about IF we tortured... Why does the fact that people we detained were out and out murdered never come up- and that was the official conclusion of our own military! People beaten to death whose organs were "pulpified." People we caused to have "heart attacks." Not to mention all those we sent out of town for others to do our dirty work...
Your average American (save Jack Bauer) can't stomach to hear it- I mean admit it.
This was torture and vengeance, not interrogation.
"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19)
We're not very good Christian, are we?
What really amazes me about all of this is the fact that the Bu'ushist torture program was deliberately designed to produce sh*t instead of actionable intelligence.
The SERE program, recall, was intended to teach US military personnel to resist Soviet-designed torture methods. The Bu'ushists reverse-engineered the SERE methods, thereby introducing Soviet torture techniques into the arsenal of US "interrogators"...
...who, exactly like their Soviet counterparts, were given the task of validating an established policy (in this case, the official view that al-Qaeda and thus 9/11 were "linked" to Saddam, thereby buttressing the case for a preordained war), rather than producing reliable intelligence.
Soviet-style torture is a superb way to produce false confessions. It's not much use other than that. Any any "interrogation" method that is used 183 times is obviously ineffective as anything other than a means of satisfying some prurient interest.
BTW, JP -- I think the responses to your more personal posts reflect the fact that people earnestly sympathize with your situation. I hope things get radically better for you soon.
William:What really amazes me about all of this is the fact that the Bu'ushist torture program was deliberately designed to produce sh*t instead of actionable intelligence.KSM bears the responsibility for 911? I'm supposed to believe the narrative provided by the most corrosive and corrupt administration in history? Fuck That! I can't/don't believe any word(s) coming from the Bush administration. Hell,one can reasonably deduce that the administration used such ineffectual tactics to cover their own tracks. 911 was a godsend to the former administration.
William:What really amazes me about all of this is the fact that the Bu'ushist torture program was deliberately designed to produce sh*t instead of actionable intelligence.KSM bears the responsibility for 911? I'm supposed to believe the narrative provided by the most corrosive and corrupt administration in history? Fuck That! I can't/don't believe any word(s) coming from the Bush administration. Hell,one can reasonably deduce that the administration used such ineffectual tactics to cover their own tracks. 911 was a godsend to the former administration.
William is right. Anything that has to be used 183 times is certainly not what I'd call a reliable avenue, certainly nothing that I'd call efficacious.
(Personal aside to Mr. Grigg: Things have looked up, thanks to kind readers and supporters such as you.)
No, KSM is not wholly responsible for 9/11, but it's undeniable that he was one of ther planners. As such, I have no sympathy for him but my lack of sympathy doesn't mean I can't speak out against the torture he'd undergone at the hands of the CIA, some of whom being, if anything, at least as cruel and crazy as the terrorists they torture.
Why did I only know appreciate the title?
Wicked good.
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