Torture Works
Via Radley, the dots now officially connect:
“While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq,†Army psychiatrist Maj. Paul Burney is quoted in the Senate report as saying about Guantánamo. “The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link … there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.â€
So techniques created to produce false confessions, derived from Communist and fascist torture programs, were used by the Bush Administration to produce false confessions. The New York Times tells us that top officials did not know the history of the techniques they were approving, which would make the happy convergence of method and aim beginner’s luck.
Comment by Professor Coldheart —
April 22, 2009 @ 9:27 am
“Well, Mr. President, I, uh, don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir.”
Comment by Derek Copold —
April 22, 2009 @ 9:56 am
Now THAT is worth getting angry over.
Comment by Seward —
April 22, 2009 @ 10:23 am
It is predictable – and sad – that one of the main practical arguments against torture – namely that it makes the person experiencing torture prone to confabulation – turned out to be accurate.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 22, 2009 @ 10:43 am
Sadly, this will only persuade Iraq War apologists that torture is a good thing.
Comment by Seward —
April 22, 2009 @ 10:54 am
If the Civil War is any sort of precedent, the Iraq war will be a source of controversy until long after our grandchildren are dead.
Comment by ed —
April 22, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Kruggs is correct. This is evil.
Comment by Derek Copold —
April 22, 2009 @ 11:25 am
The Spanish-American War is a better comparison.
Comment by Doctor Memory —
April 22, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
Jesus. I’d vomit, but there’s nothing left.
Comment by Nell —
April 22, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
This is what torture is for.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 22, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
That’s excellent, Nell. One wonders why we haven’t invited you to blog here y – oh right!
Comment by joe from Lowell —
April 22, 2009 @ 1:56 pm
We already know that the White House pressured the CIA analysts to provide the conclusions they wanted. Why wouldn’t they similarly pressure the field operatives?
Because they’re so concerned about being given only quality intel?
Comment by joe from Lowell —
April 22, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
The Matthew Yglesias link in the blogroll goes to his dead Atlantic page.
Comment by Gary Farber —
April 23, 2009 @ 2:01 am
“So techniques created to produce false confessions, derived from Communist and fascist torture programs, were used by the Bush Administration to produce false confessions.”
Seems wrong. If false confessions usefully limking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein had been produced, don’t you think Cheney, et al, would have been shouting them from every platform in the land?
Mind, that they tried, and engaged in such torture, is horrific and utterly criminal, and immoral. But I’m not seeing the grounds to believe they succeeded.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 23, 2009 @ 7:21 am
I’m pretty sure that, contemporaneously, there was talk of KSM, among others, implicating Saddam in AQ support.
Comment by barrisj —
April 23, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
“If false confessions usefully limking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein had been produced, don’t you think Cheney, et al, would have been shouting them from every platform in the land?”
Well, actually, “confessions” tortured out of Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi were singled out by Boosh in an October 7, 2002 speech, where he asserted that “…Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses”; and, of course, let us not forget Colin Powell’s ignoble performance at the UN in February, 2003, when he cited “intel” (via al-Libi torture) that “a senior terrorist operative…” had told US authorities that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two al-Qaeda operatives in the use of “chemical or biological weapons”, and that these statements were “…based upon solid intelligence…from human sources”.
Read Jane Mayer’s “Dark Side” and Ron Suskind’s “One percent doctrine” for more information on how “confessions” from tortured prisoners was inserted into speech after speech by Cheney, Boosh, et al.
Comment by Eric Martin —
April 27, 2009 @ 6:18 pm
FWIW: what barrisj said is according to my recollection as well.