the CIA's "every little girls dream" aka: my little torture pony

[lord_casek]

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

 

 

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

 

Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time. A full report on the prison can be seen on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson tonight.

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004.

 

 

 

the jump

[Pet]

The old man said "12 miles outside of the capital of Lithuania, in Vilnius"

The text under the photo says "outside Lithuania"

The article says "outside Vilnius, Lithuania"

 

 

 

sorry, I had to

[lord_casek]

AFP report:

 

Lithuanian horse club was CIA 'black site': report

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jozntpNRCLbTsgMWJ5t0qb0Fzucw

[.hopeless.]

tbh i dont really care.does that make me a bad person? i mean if they are terrorists i could care less,becuase this is still a war and to be completely honest as far as torture goes this isnt so bad.much better than idk cutting fingers off and electrocuting them or some fucked up shit like that.im indifferent on the subject...if it works it works.do what you gotta do.

[lord_casek]

tbh i dont really care.does that make me a bad person? i mean if they are terrorists i could care less,becuase this is still a war and to be completely honest as far as torture goes this isnt so bad.much better than idk cutting fingers off and electrocuting them or some fucked up shit like that.im indifferent on the subject...if it works it works.do what you gotta do.

 

 

Thing is, the CIA has this habit of rounding up people who are not terrorists.

 

Electrocution and cutting off limbs is what they do. They're also fond of battery

acid, insects, water torture, hallucinogens, etc.

 

Yeah, not so bad....it's just a little torture...right? Good thing none of your

relatives were rounded up....but it's harmless and they are terrorists, right?

[.hopeless.]

again this is war and war isnt supposed to be pretty.i support torture to a degree if it works but im not advocating cutting off limbs or anything of that nature,and also not advocating hurting innocents.but shit happens.and i still cant change the way i feel.maybe thats becuase it isnt happening to my family or loved ones idk.but i dont really believe that the military is rounding up civilians and electrocuting them or setting them on fire or some stupid shit like that.chances are if your brought to this place more than likely they have some evidence to believe that you are infact a terrorist otherwise it would be a waste of time to bring you in there and furthermore the techniques they use are things like waterboarding and sleep deprivation,which would definitely suck but it,imo isnt that extreme really.until i see evidence that either A. it isnt working or B.they go into more extreme techniques i could really give a fuck.i know that seems harsh but i just really have no feelings either way..does that make me a bad person?idk thats just how i feel.

[laughslast]

i think it is slightly ignorant when people use the defense of this is war. this is as though the geneva conventions don't exist and the united states is not a signatory. also, war on terrorism is a catch phrase not a congressional declaration.

to add to that this is why the term enemy combatant was created. it is not regulated under the rules of war.

torture has also been shown to produce insufficient data to justify the tactics. changing hearts and minds it does do. it completely turns people against the united states.

 

the united states has used torture for years or at the very least extradited people to other countries. we not only outsource labor but torture, too:scrambled: . it just completely changed in world opinion when you had the us congress publicly debating this to be implemented as sanctioned us policy.

 

but whatever. like you said youre indifferent. you know because the consequences of torturing will never effect you...:rolleyes:

[lord_casek]

again this is war and war isnt supposed to be pretty.i support torture to a degree if it works but im not advocating cutting off limbs or anything of that nature,and also not advocating hurting innocents.but shit happens.and i still cant change the way i feel.maybe thats becuase it isnt happening to my family or loved ones idk.but i dont really believe that the military is rounding up civilians and electrocuting them or setting them on fire or some stupid shit like that.chances are if your brought to this place more than likely they have some evidence to believe that you are infact a terrorist otherwise it would be a waste of time to bring you in there and furthermore the techniques they use are things like waterboarding and sleep deprivation,which would definitely suck but it,imo isnt that extreme really.until i see evidence that either A. it isnt working or B.they go into more extreme techniques i could really give a fuck.i know that seems harsh but i just really have no feelings either way..does that make me a bad person?idk thats just how i feel.

 

You never read Major General Taguba's report, did you?

 

"Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse. "

 

"Having male detainees pose nude while female guards pointed at their genitals; having female detainees exposing themselves to the guards; having detainees perform indecent acts with each other; and guards physically assaulting detainees by beating and dragging them with choker chains."

 

Including incidents of battery acid on metal objects, inserted anally, etc.....

 

 

You really don't know what you're talking about.

 

 

Btw: If you think waterboarding and sleep deprivation aren't torture, I can arrange for a marine trained in those techniques to come

visit you and give you a demonstration. Then you can talk to me about how it's ok.

[.hopeless.]

idk man...that acid stick up the ass sounds horrible..but i still just dont care...sorry guys.i just have no feelings either way.your entitaled to your opinion tho casekim not going to argue with you anymore tho ill probably lose haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

smiles :)

[lord_casek]

idk man...that acid stick up the ass sounds horrible..but i still just dont care...sorry guys.i just have no feelings either way.your entitaled to your opinion tho casekim not going to argue with you anymore tho ill probably lose haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

smiles :)

 

 

It's not an argument, it's a discussion.

 

Yes, you will lose because I will pull out whitepaper after whitepaper evidencing my claims. Not a newspaper story, mind you. Official investigatory reports made by the military, intelligence community, etc.

[.hopeless.]

link me then....seriously.

[lord_casek]

Taguba's report

http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf

 

Too busy to find all the whitepapers atm. Here's an interesting

article from Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6388256/the_secret_file_of_abu_ghraib/

 

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

 

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6527.htm

[lord_casek]

STATUTORY DECLARATION

 

 

 

I, Ali Sh. Abbas (alias Ali Shalal) of full age and an Iraqi citizen do hereby solemnly and sincerely declare as follows:

 

1.

I am 45 years old

 

2.

I now live in Amman, Jordan.

 

3.

I was an Islamic education lecturer in the city of Al-Alamiya, Iraq

 

4.

The purpose of making this statutory declaration is to put on record my torture experience in the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

5.

On the 13th October, 2003 while I was going to prayer in the mosque in Al-Amraya, the American troops arrested me. They tied my hands to the back of my body and put a bag over my head. They took me to a small prison in a U.S. military camp in Al-Amraya.

 

6.

The Commander of this military camp, one Captain Philips told me that he had received an order from his superior to arrest him and he did not know the reasons for my arrest. I was left alone in the prison.

 

7.

After two days, they transferred me to the Abu Ghraib prison. The first thing they did to me was to make a physical examination of my body and abused me. Together with other detainees, we were made to sit on the floor and were dragged to the interrogation room. This so called room is in fact a toilet (approximately 2m by 2m) and was flooded with water and human waste up to my ankle level. I was asked to sit in the filthy water while the American interrogator stood outside the door, with the translator.

 

8.

After the interrogation, I would be removed from the toilet, and before the next detainee is put into the toilet, the guards would urinate into the filthy water in front of the other detainees.

 

9.

The first question they asked me was, "Are you a Sunni or Shiia?" I answered that this is the first time I have been asked this question in my life. I was surprised by this question, as in Iraq there is no such distinction or difference. The American interrogator replied that I must answer directly the questions and not to reply outside the question. He then said that in Iraq there are Sunnis, Shiias and Kurds.

 

10.

The interrogators wore civilian clothes and the translator, an Afro-American wore American army uniform.

 

11.

When I answered that I am an Iraqi Muslim, the interrogator refused to accept my answer and charged me for the following offence:

 

(a) That I am anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.

 

(b) I supported the resistance

 

© I instigated the people to oppose the occupation

 

(d) That I knew the location of Osama bin Ladin

 

I protested and said that Muslims and Jews descended from the same historical family. I said that I could not be in the resistance because I am a disabled person and have an injured hand.

 

12.

The interrogator accused me that I had injured my hand while attacking the American soldiers.

 

13.

The interrogator informed me that they knew that I was an important person in the community and therefore could help them. As an inducement for my cooperation, the interrogator offered medical help for my injured hand.

 

14.

When I did not cooperate, the interrogator asked me whether I considered the American army as "liberator" or "occupier". When I replied that they were occupiers, he lost his temper and threatened me. He told me that I would be sent to Guantanamo Bay where even animals would not be able to survive.

 

15.

They took me to another room and took record of my thumb print, a photo of my eye and a sample of my saliva for DNA analysis. After this procedure, they tagged me by putting a band round my wrist with the following particulars: my name, a number, my religious status and whether I had previous arrest.

 

16.

They then beat me repeatedly and put me in a truck to transfer me to another part of the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

17.

This part of the prison, was in an open space and consisted of five sectors, surrounded by walls and barb wires and was called "Fiji Land". Each sector had five tents and surrounded by barb wires. When I was removed from the truck, the soldiers marked my forehead with the words "Big Fish" in red. All the detainees in this camp are considered "Big Fish". I was located in camp "B".

 

18.

The living conditions in the camp were very bad. Each tent would have 45 to 50 detainees and the space for each detainee measured only 30cm by 30cm. We had to wait for 2 to 3 hours just to go to the toilets. There was very little water. Each tent was given only 60 litres of water daily to be shared by the detainees. This water was used for drinking and washing and cleaning the wounds after the torture sessions. They would also make us to stand for long hours.

 

19.

Sometimes, as a punishment, no food is given to us. When food is given, breakfast is at 5.00 am, lunch is at 8.00 am and dinner at 1.00 pm. During Ramadhan, they bring food twice daily, first at 12.00 midnight and the second is given during fasting time to make the detainees break the religious duty of fasting.

 

20.

During my captivity in the camp, I was interrogated and tortured twice. Each time I was threatened that I would be sent to Guantanamo Bay prison. During this period, I heard from my fellow detainees that they were tortured by cigarette burns, injected with hallucinating chemicals and had their rectum inserted with various types of instruments, such as wooden sticks and pipes. They would return to the camp, bleeding profusely. Some had their bones broken.

 

21.

In my camp, I saw detainees brought over from a secret prison which I came to know later as being housed in the "Arabian Oil Institute" building, situated in the north of Baghdad. These detainees were badly injured.

 

22.

After one month and just before sunset my number was called and they put a bag over my head and my hands were tied behind my back. My legs were also tied. They then transferred me to a cell.

 

23.

When I was brought to the cell, they asked me in Arabic to strip but when I refused, they tore my clothes and tied me up again. They then dragged me up a flight of stairs and when I could not move, they beat me repeatedly. When I reached the top of the stairs, they tied me to some steel bars. They then threw at me human waste and urinated on me.

 

24.

Next, they put a gun to my head and said that they would execute me there. Another soldier would use a megaphone to shout at me using abusive words and to humiliate me. During this time, I could hear the screams of other detainees being tortured. This went on till the next morning.

 

25.

In the morning, an Israeli stood in front of me and took the bag from my head and told me in Arabic that he was an Israeli had interrogated and tortured detainees in Palestine. He told me that when detainees would not cooperate, they would be killed. He asked me repeatedly for names of resistance fighters. I told him that I do not know any resistance fighters but he would not believe me, and continued to beat me.

 

26.

This Israeli dressed in civilian clothes tortured me by inserting in turn first with a jagged wooden stick into my rectum and then with the barrel of a rifle. I was cut inside and bled profusely. During this time, when any guard walked past me, they would beat me. I had no food for 36 hours.

 

27.

The next morning, the Israeli interrogator came to my cell and tied me to the grill of the cell and he then played the pop song, "By the Rivers of Babylon" by Pop Group Boney M, continuously until the next morning. The effect on me was that I lost my hearing, and I lost my mind. It was very painful and I lost consciousness. I only woke up when the Israeli guard poured water on my head and face. When I regain consciousness, he started beating me again and demanded that I tell him of the names of resistance fighters and what activities that I did against the American soldiers. When I told him that I did not know any resistance fighters, he kicked me many times.

 

28.

I was kept in the cell without clothes for two weeks. During this time, an American guard by the name of "Grainer" accompanied by a Moroccan Jew called Idel Palm ( also known as Abu Hamid) came to my cell and asked me about my bandaged hand which was injured before I was arrested. I told him that I had an operation. He then pulled the bandage which stained with blood from my hand and in doing so, tore the skin and flesh from my hands. I was in great pain and when I asked him for some pain killers, he stepped on my hands and said "this is American pain killer" and laughed at me.

 

29.

On the 15th day of detention, I was given a blanket. I was relieved that some comfort was given to me. As I had no clothes, I made a hole in the centre of the blanket by rubbing the blanket against the wall, and I was able to cover my body. This is how all the prisoners cover their bodies when they were given a blanket.

 

30.

One day, a prisoner walked past my cell and told me that the interrogators want to speed up their investigation and would use more brutal methods of torture to get answers that they want from the prisoners. I was brought to the investigation room, after they put a bag over my head. When I entered the investigation room, they remove the bag from my head to let me see the electrical wires which was attached to an electrical wall socket.

 

31.

Present in the room was the Moroccan Jew, Idel Palm, the Israeli interrogator, two Americans one known as "Davies" and the other "Federick" and two others. They all wore civilian clothes, except the Americans who wore army uniforms. Idel Palm told me in Arabic that unless I cooperated, this would be my last chance to stay alive. I told him that I do not know anything about the resistance. The bag was then placed over my head again, and left alone for a long time. During this time, I heard several screams and cries from detainees who were being tortured.

 

32.

The interrogators returned and forcefully placed me on top of a carton box containing can food. They then connected the wires to my fingers and ordered me to stretch my hand out horizontally, and switched on the electric power. As the electric current entered my whole body, I felt as if my eyes were being forced out and sparks flying out. My teeth were clattering violently and my legs shaking violently as well. My whole body was shaking all over.

 

33.

I was electrocuted on three separate sessions. On the first two sessions, I was electrocuted twice, each time lasting few minutes. On the last session, as I was being electrocuted, I accidentally bit my tongue and was bleeding from the mouth. They stop the electrocution and a doctor was called to attend to me. I was lying down on the floor. The doctor poured some water into my mouth and used his feet to force open my mouth. He then remarked, "There is nothing serious, continue!" Then he left the room. However, the guard stopped the electrocution as I was bleeding profusely from my mouth and blood was all over my blanket and body. But they continued to beat me. After some time, they stopped beating me and took me back to my cell.

 

34.

Throughout the time of my torture, the interrogators would take photographs.

 

35.

I was then left alone in my cell for 49 days. During this period of detention, they stopped torturing me. At the end of the 49th day, I was transferred back to the camp, in tent C and remained there for another 45 days. I was informed by a prisoner that he over heard some guards saying that I was wrongly arrested and that I would be released.

 

36.

I was released in the beginning of March 2004. I was put into a truck and taken to a highway and then thrown out. A passing car stopped and took me home.

 

37.

As a result of this experience, I decided to establish an association to assist all torture victims, with the help of twelve other tortured victims.

 

38.

I feel very sad that I have to remember and relive this horrible experience again and again, and I hope that the Malaysian people will answer our call for help. God willing.

 

And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true and by virtue of the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1960.

[.hopeless.]

i only read the rolling stones one.the rape was too much.i can understand to a degree when torture is used to gather information but this seems more like they were just having fun...i dont agree with this kind of actions. when i say i agree with torture i mean when it is used to gather information not to just fuck with their minds or to hurt them...and never to the extent to which these people went.

[lord_casek]

i only read the rolling stones one.the rape was too much.i can understand to a degree when torture is used to gather information but this seems more like they were just having fun...i dont agree with this kind of actions. when i say i agree with torture i mean when it is used to gather information not to just fuck with their minds or to hurt them...and never to the extent to which these people went.

 

 

It's well known that torture can't pull good intelligence. I can guarantee you that they can have you admitting to killing Lincoln, Kennedy, and MLK while you were harboring jihadi's in your ice cave located on Mars....

[Decyferon]

Torture just shouldn't happen, you will not get credible evidence from torture, someone will say anything they think you want to hear to stop it unless they are very well trained in not cracking under torture, in which case it is pointless then because they won't crack.

 

Yes these people are suspected terrorists, some of them ARE terrorists but we should just treat them as any other convict of a crime, through proper legal process.

[.hopeless.]

i guess you have a point.people under duress will more than likely lie to avoid further torture which i never really took into consideration i guess...i still find it hard to feel sorry for these people idk why but i am more inclined to believe that torture isnt the best option...do what works i guess.

[Decyferon]

there are a lot of innocent people that have been taken illegally and subjected to this, if they torture one person and that person just gives up names under duress then they get the people that the first one named then you have a lot of people that don't know nothing being tortured, abused and given no legal consideration.

[lord_casek]

i guess you have a point.people under duress will more than likely lie to avoid further torture which i never really took into consideration i guess...i still find it hard to feel sorry for these people idk why but i am more inclined to believe that torture isnt the best option...do what works i guess.

 

 

You would probably fight for your country/countrymen if a foreign invader came in all

supanigga like. For instance, if the Chinese PLA landed ground forces here, on our soil.

You, I, and about 299,999,999 other U.S. citizens would fight with whatever means we

could muster.

 

These people are doing the same thing. They don't want us over there for a ton of reasons.

Mostly blowback from previous operations.

 

Granted, there are bad people there. People who want to see the U.S. crumble. Newsflash!

There are people here who want the same thing. People who are our elected leaders/

 

There's a book by Zbigniew Brzezinski titled "The Grand Chessboard". I would suggest reading that.

[R@ndomH3ro]

reading is for nerds

[yanan]

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[viperface]

WHOOPS

accidental bumpski. In case people want to discuss I guess

 

I might post something here later myself

[Fist 666]

supanigga l

 

 

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

 

hopeless: check out FEAR UP HARSH. its a quick simple read that you might relate to more than the intel reports.

[george jetson]

its not like westerners (innocent ones) weren't having their heads cut off then put on the local tv networks for the world to see. shit happens TO EVERYBODY! not just innocent arabs who are mistaken for terrorists. everywhere from israel/palestine to sri lanka to the congo to northern ireland (back inthe day at least) does this shit happen. terrorism is done by ALL races, and in all cases does someone innocent gets hurt.

 

im more worried about the 50,000 people that die in the united states every year from car accidents than i am about the 150 innocent arabs who faced sleep deprivation and water torture.

[Mercer]

Torture has been proven by every scientific study focused on it to not produce better results in intelligence gathering.

The information gathered is not any more accurate than if torture was not used.

Torture is only useful for forcing a confession, not gathering information.

That is a proven fact.

 

If you feel like lowering our own standards as a super power to match those of small groups of hillbillies from dickwater Arabia that's cool.

Some of us feel like as a country we should honor our laws and treaties and hold ourselves to some sort of standard.

Torture is wrong and useless, plain and simple.

[Decyferon]

its not like westerners (innocent ones) weren't having their heads cut off then put on the local tv networks for the world to see. shit happens TO EVERYBODY! not just innocent arabs who are mistaken for terrorists. everywhere from israel/palestine to sri lanka to the congo to northern ireland (back inthe day at least) does this shit happen. terrorism is done by ALL races, and in all cases does someone innocent gets hurt.

 

im more worried about the 50,000 people that die in the united states every year from car accidents than i am about the 150 innocent arabs who faced sleep deprivation and water torture.

 

The people chopping off westerners heads are not a countries military that is governed by the rules of combat and by the rules of international law, this is why they are terrorists.

 

You cannot judge a superpower like America with those terrorists because we have rules that we have to live by, they do not. If you lower the stance on torture you are then no better than a terrorist and torture never provides solid info.

[christo-f]

Torture has been proven by every scientific study focused on it to not produce better results in intelligence gathering.

The information gathered is not any more accurate than if torture was not used.

Torture is only useful for forcing a confession, not gathering information.

That is a proven fact.

 

If you feel like lowering our own standards as a super power to match those of small groups of hillbillies from dickwater Arabia that's cool.

Some of us feel like as a country we should honor our laws and treaties and hold ourselves to some sort of standard.

Torture is wrong and useless, plain and simple.

 

Any chance you could show us some of those scientific studies?

[christo-f]

This is not a scientifically based or peer reviewed study but it does come from some one with quite a good deal of experience in intelligence gathering. The author is also a proud, patriotic US citizen.

 

 

 

Torture and the U.S. Intelligence Failure

 

 

 

 

 

The Obama administration published a series of memoranda on torture issued under the Bush administration. The memoranda, most of which dated from the period after 9/11, authorized measures including depriving prisoners of solid food, having them stand shackled and in uncomfortable positions, leaving them in cold cells with inadequate clothing, slapping their heads and/or abdomens, and telling them that their families might be harmed if they didn’t cooperate with their interrogators.

 

On the scale of human cruelty, these actions do not rise anywhere near the top. At the same time, anyone who thinks that being placed without food in a freezing cell subject to random mild beatings — all while being told that your family might be joining you — isn’t agonizing clearly lacks imagination. The treatment of detainees could have been worse. It was terrible nonetheless.

 

Torture and the Intelligence Gap

 

But torture is meant to be terrible, and we must judge the torturer in the context of his own desperation. In the wake of 9/11, anyone who wasn’t terrified was not in touch with reality. We know several people who now are quite blasé about 9/11. Unfortunately for them, we knew them in the months after, and they were not nearly as composed then as they are now.

 

Sept. 11 was terrifying for one main reason: We had little idea about al Qaeda’s capabilities. It was a very reasonable assumption that other al Qaeda cells were operating in the United States and that any day might bring follow-on attacks. (Especially given the group’s reputation for one-two attacks.) We still remember our first flight after 9/11, looking at our fellow passengers, planning what we would do if one of them moved. Every time a passenger visited the lavatory, one could see the tensions soar.

 

And while Sept. 11 was frightening enough, there were ample fears that al Qaeda had secured a “suitcase bomb” and that a nuclear attack on a major U.S. city could come at any moment. For individuals, such an attack was simply another possibility. We remember staying at a hotel in Washington close to the White House and realizing that we were at ground zero — and imagining what the next moment might be like. For the government, however, the problem was having scraps of intelligence indicating that al Qaeda might have a nuclear weapon, but not having any way of telling whether those scraps had any value. The president and vice president accordingly were continually kept at different locations, and not for any frivolous reason.

 

This lack of intelligence led directly to the most extreme fears, which in turn led to extreme measures. Washington simply did not know very much about al Qaeda and its capabilities and intentions in the United States. A lack of knowledge forces people to think of worst-case scenarios. In the absence of intelligence to the contrary after 9/11, the only reasonable assumption was that al Qaeda was planning more — and perhaps worse — attacks.

 

Collecting intelligence rapidly became the highest national priority. Given the genuine and reasonable fears, no action in pursuit of intelligence was out of the question, so long as it promised quick answers. This led to the authorization of torture, among other things. Torture offered a rapid means to accumulate intelligence, or at least — given the time lag on other means — it was something that had to be tried.

 

Torture and the Moral Question

 

And this raises the moral question. The United States is a moral project: its Declaration of Independence and Constitution state that. The president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. The Constitution does not speak to the question of torture of non-citizens, but it implies an abhorrence of rights violations (at least for citizens). But the Declaration of Independence contains the phrase, “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” This indicates that world opinion matters.

 

At the same time, the president is sworn to protect the Constitution. In practical terms, this means protecting the physical security of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Protecting the principles of the declaration and the Constitution are meaningless without regime preservation and defending the nation.

 

While this all makes for an interesting seminar in political philosophy, presidents — and others who have taken the same oath — do not have the luxury of the contemplative life. They must act on their oaths, and inaction is an action. Former U.S. President George W. Bush knew that he did not know the threat, and that in order to carry out his oath, he needed very rapidly to find out the threat. He could not know that torture would work, but he clearly did not feel that he had the right to avoid it.

 

Consider this example. Assume you knew that a certain individual knew the location of a nuclear device planted in an American city. The device would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, but the individual refused to divulge the information. Would anyone who had sworn the oath have the right not to torture the individual? Torture might or might not work, but either way, would it be moral to protect the individual’s rights while allowing hundreds of thousands to die? It would seem that in this case, torture is a moral imperative; the rights of the one with the information cannot transcend the life of a city.

 

Torture in the Real World

 

But here is the problem: You would not find yourself in this situation. Knowing a bomb had been planted, knowing who knew that the bomb had been planted, and needing only to apply torture to extract this information is not how the real world works. Post-9/11, the United States knew much less about the extent of the threat from al Qaeda. This hypothetical sort of torture was not the issue.

 

Discrete information was not needed, but situational awareness. The United States did not know what it needed to know, it did not know who was of value and who wasn’t, and it did not know how much time it had. Torture thus was not a precise solution to a specific problem: It became an intelligence-gathering technique. The nature of the problem the United States faced forced it into indiscriminate intelligence gathering. When you don’t know what you need to know, you cast a wide net. And when torture is included in the mix, it is cast wide as well. In such a case, you know you will be following many false leads — and when you carry torture with you, you will be torturing people with little to tell you. Moreover, torture applied by anyone other than well-trained, experienced personnel (who are in exceptionally short supply) will only compound these problems, and make the practice less productive.

 

Defenders of torture frequently seem to believe that the person in custody is known to have valuable information, and that this information must be forced out of him. His possession of the information is proof of his guilt. The problem is that unless you have excellent intelligence to begin with, you will become engaged in developing baseline intelligence, and the person you are torturing may well know nothing at all. Torture thus becomes not only a waste of time and a violation of decency, it actually undermines good intelligence. After a while, scooping up suspects in a dragnet and trying to extract intelligence becomes a substitute for competent intelligence techniques — and can potentially blind the intelligence service. This is especially true as people will tell you what they think you want to hear to make torture stop.

 

Critics of torture, on the other hand, seem to assume the torture was brutality for the sake of brutality instead of a desperate attempt to get some clarity on what might well have been a catastrophic outcome. The critics also cannot know the extent to which the use of torture actually prevented follow-on attacks. They assume that to the extent that torture was useful, it was not essential; that there were other ways to find out what was needed. In the long run, they might have been correct. But neither they, nor anyone else, had the right to assume in late 2001 that there was a long run. One of the things that wasn’t known was how much time there was.

 

The U.S. Intelligence Failure

 

The endless argument over torture, the posturing of both critics and defenders, misses the crucial point. The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.

 

That failure was rooted in a range of miscalculations over time. There was the public belief that the end of the Cold War meant the United States didn’t need a major intelligence effort, a point made by the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan. There were the intelligence people who regarded Afghanistan as old news. There was the Torricelli amendment that made recruiting people with ties to terrorist groups illegal without special approval. There were the Middle East experts who could not understand that al Qaeda was fundamentally different from anything seen before. The list of the guilty is endless, and ultimately includes the American people, who always seem to believe that the view of the world as a dangerous place is something made up by contractors and bureaucrats.

 

Bush was handed an impossible situation on Sept. 11, after just nine months in office. The country demanded protection, and given the intelligence shambles he inherited, he reacted about as well or badly as anyone else might have in the situation. He used the tools he had, and hoped they were good enough.

 

The problem with torture — as with other exceptional measures — is that it is useful, at best, in extraordinary situations. The problem with all such techniques in the hands of bureaucracies is that the extraordinary in due course becomes the routine, and torture as a desperate stopgap measure becomes a routine part of the intelligence interrogator’s tool kit.

 

At a certain point, the emergency was over. U.S. intelligence had focused itself and had developed an increasingly coherent picture of al Qaeda, with the aid of allied Muslim intelligence agencies, and was able to start taking a toll on al Qaeda. The war had become routinized, and extraordinary measures were no longer essential. But the routinization of the extraordinary is the built-in danger of bureaucracy, and what began as a response to unprecedented dangers became part of the process. Bush had an opportunity to move beyond the emergency. He didn’t.

 

If you know that an individual is loaded with information, torture can be a useful tool. But if you have so much intelligence that you already know enough to identify the individual is loaded with information, then you have come pretty close to winning the intelligence war. That’s not when you use torture. That’s when you simply point out to the prisoner that, “for you the war is over.” You lay out all you already know and how much you know about him. That is as demoralizing as freezing in a cell — and helps your interrogators keep their balance.

 

U.S. President Barack Obama has handled this issue in the style to which we have become accustomed, and which is as practical a solution as possible. He has published the memos authorizing torture to make this entirely a Bush administration problem while refusing to prosecute anyone associated with torture, keeping the issue from becoming overly divisive. Good politics perhaps, but not something that deals with the fundamental question.

 

The fundamental question remains unanswered, and may remain unanswered. When a president takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” what are the limits on his obligation? We take the oath for granted. But it should be considered carefully by anyone entering this debate, particularly for presidents.

[Mercer]

Any chance you could show us some of those scientific studies?

 

No, most of what I've learned on the subject came from following this in the media and watching documentaries and a few articles here and there.

It's just a common belief held by most experts in this field who pointed to flaws in specific intel data collected by these means throughout history.

Basically from what I gathered, someone under duress in a torture situation is no more likely to tell you the truth.

While you can force them to say anything you want them to, if you don't have any intelligence and enter

the situation without already knowing the answers then try to force it from them they have no motivation to tell the truth.

Either way they will be tortured if they tell you bullshit or tell you facts, it doesn't matter.

 

 

Lets say I had you on a water board and asked who your 3rd grade teacher was (for example).

You could say anything to me, most likely whatever you thought I'd be most inclined to believe, but not the truth.

If I don't know the answer, and cannot confirm your statement, the intelligence is useless.

If I do know the answer why would I need to break international laws in the first place to torture you.

Sure, I'd get my S&M rocks off if I were a torture freak, some of the more inbread public may support it

as being a good punishment for the alleged bad bad man, but the intelligence I gathered would be useless.

[christo-f]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to do a scientific study on something like torture.

 

Mainly because conducting your own experiments would be considered unethical behaviour and most likely illegal. Doing a review of case studies may give you a pretty decent understanding but getting full and open access to the torture employed, the information gained and the accuracy of that information is going to be impossible without access to highly classified material. If the researcher does gain access to that material he/she would more than likely be taking part in an internal study for uses of intelligence organisations themselves and the study would also be considered classified and not available to the public.

 

 

The best thing I've ever come across is what I've posted above. The logic train of an experienced professional on the subject.