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CIA Refused To Evaluate Efficacy Of Torture

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 11:19:02 AM EST
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While torture apologists like Stuart Taylor and, sadly, Obama Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, "know" that torture worked, it turns out the CIA never evaluated the efficacy of its torture techniques:

The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects for nearly seven years without seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003. That year, the agency's inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about waterboarding and other methods, and recommended a study by outside experts on whether they worked.

[More...]

Stuart Taylor, along with his Newsweek accomplice Evan Thomas, famously urged President Obama to do what Dick Cheney did on torture. What is it about these people? Are they so afraid that they insist on the United States following them into depravity and war crimes? Of course today they, like much of the Village, excuse a policy of war crimes - but when it came to private conduct of President Clinton, they wanted the President removed from office. There has been no contrast more demonstrative of the utter depravity and banality of the Media than this.

Speaking for me only

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    CIA Refused To Evaluate Efficacy Of Torture | 9 comments (9 topical)

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    ITA (5.00 / 2) (#1)
    by mugshot on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 11:37:10 AM EST
    I agree so much with the Clinton point. Why isn't anyone bringing this up?

    Clinton almost got impeached for lying about sex and the Republicans and the Village wanted his head on a pike.

     They all drooled at the thought of brining the full force of the state crashing down onto his head and released semi-pornographic accounts of his affair with Lewinsky to the public. Just so they could embarrass and humiliate him and his family.

    But now the Republicans and the Village are concerned about being a 'Banana Republic'!!! Yeah, cause war crimes are nothing and blowjobs are everything.

    The Republicans and the media are a joke.

    Sadists (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by pluege on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 12:15:42 PM EST
    What is it about these people? Are they so afraid that they insist on the United States following them into depravity and war crimes?

    I think it is irrefutable that torture supporters are sadists. There is no other rational explanation. What else would drive these people to risk breaking the law and war crimes for something that professionals evaluate as counter productive to the goal of obtaining information.

    And don't even think about the mental state of the lowly torturer whose daily job it is to day in and day out inflict excruciating pain and near-death trauma on their fellow human beings. Is that someone who should really be walking around without the guidance of a mental health professional.

    Its well known and obvious that America is an excessively violent society. But people are foolish to not think what it means to have the violently insane, people that under another guise of violence would be classified as criminally insane, walking the streets unsupervised.

    At minimum (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 02:06:29 PM EST
    torture apologists have no ability to put themselves in hypothetical situations.

    They equate torture to the training CIA go through.  There is nothing the same about the two, other than the methods used.

    One example of where context means everything.

    [ Parent ]

    i believe this was a point made (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by cpinva on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 12:20:08 PM EST
    There has been no contrast more demonstrative of the utter depravity and banality of the Media than this.

    about most of the nuremburg defendents: real monsters tend to look banal, rather than having horns coming out of their heads.

    of course, torture has always been effective, if, by effective, you mean getting the person to say what you want to hear. it worked during the middle ages, when people, under the duress of torture, "admitted" to being witches, casting spells, etc.

    if you mean effective as in getting actual true information, then no, not so much. as we've seen in recent days, truth wasn't merely a casualty of war, it never even participated, as the bush administration demanded that the cia, etc. extract confessions linking (where there were no links) al-queda and saddam.

    surely that must be a worse crime than a blowjob? shouldn't it?

    There are two kinds of people... (5.00 / 2) (#4)
    by oldpro on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 01:27:19 PM EST
    those who approve of torture and those who don't.

    That's the simplest way to look at it.... (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Jerrymcl89 on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 02:48:02 PM EST
    ... and if you are opposed to waterboarding people even if it is an effective method of interrogation, that's really all you need. But, presumably, if you support waterboarding on any grounds other than desire to inflict pain on the "bad guys", you would think you'd be interested in evaluating whether it actually works or not.

    [ Parent ]
    Would it make more sense (none / 0) (#5)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 01:56:46 PM EST

    Would it make more sense to evaluate the quality of the intel gathered?  Since the interogation methods in question were used only on a very few in dividuals, it would seem that the data set is too small to make judgments about the general applicability or utility of those methods.

    In a word: no. (none / 0) (#8)
    by Anne on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 04:56:38 PM EST
    Because that's ends-justify-the-means territory, isn't it?

    And since you don't even get to the ends without using the means, what do you do when the "quality of the intel" is terrible?  Say "oops?"

    I don't need a data set to know that torture is wrong, and those who keep trying to find a way to legitimize it are headed down the wrong path, in my opinion.

    [ Parent ]

    From Thursdays' Countdown (none / 0) (#9)
    by Dark Avenger on Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 05:22:22 PM EST
    Would you believe this gentleman, AAA, even though unlike you he didn't serve in the USN?

    OLBERMANN:  And we turn now to Matthew Alexander, former U.S. Air Force interrogator, author of "How to Break a Terrorist."  Mr. Alexander is using that pseudonym for security reasons.

    Thanks again for your time tonight, sir.

    MATTHEW ALEXANDER, FMR. U.S. AIR FORCE INTERROGATOR:  Thanks for having me again, Keith.

    OLBERMANN:  If Zubaydah gave up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Jose Padilla during non-torture interrogation, why?  Even just theoretically, morals aside, what would the premise be to start torturing him?

    ALEXANDER:  Well, there is no premise to do that.  And let`s remember, that Ali Soufan is an FBI agent, was probably one of the more qualified people to conduct that interrogation.  The FBI has years of experience doing criminal investigations, and doing interrogations of criminal gangs.  And al Qaeda is organized like a criminal gang.  And so, the FBI was particularly suited to conduct those interrogations.

    OLBERMANN:  But Mr. Soufan also wrote today that the torture of Zubaydah failed because it shut the FBI out of the process, and interrogators were denied access to an FBI colleague who he describes as knowing more about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed than anybody in the government.  How colossal was that mistake?

    ALEXANDER:  Huge, colossal mistake.  You know, interrogation is a team effort.  There`s analysts involve, there`s intelligence officers, that support interrogators and they are absolutely critical to the mission.  When we hunted down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, it was analysts who gave us the support that allowed us to conduct effective interrogations to get there.

    .............................

    OLBERMANN:  Last point, something struck me about the way this has been defended.  You know, we stopped the Library Tower plot in L.A. by enhanced interrogation.  And it turns out Mr. Bush claimed he stopped the plot in February 2002, long before there even was enhanced interrogation.  These irrational answers, these easily disproved defenses--do they not strike you as exactly the kind of desperate, "I`ll say anything to make it stop" stuff that you get from people who are being tortured?

    ALEXANDER:  Exactly.  If you have to do something, again, 183 times, you`re obviously not getting good information.  And let`s not forget that the object of every interrogation is to move up the ladder, not down.  And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, when he was waterboarded, routinely moved people down the ladder or lateral, but he never gave up the ultimate objective of those interrogations, and that was Osama bin Laden.  And so, that is a glaring failure on the part of those interrogations to yield vital intelligence.

    OLBERMANN:  Of course, assumes that that was the ultimate goal.  Maybe it wasn`t.  Who knows?



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    CIA Refused To Evaluate Efficacy Of Torture | 9 comments (9 topical)

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