Bush-era interrogation may have worked, Obama official says

I think the entire argument about whether or not torture can produce information completely misses the point.

It's like saying "Hey, forced labour actually can increase productivity!"

Slavery wasn't abolished because it didn't work. It was abolished because it's morally wrong.

That wasn't the argument. You said the Constitution didn't prohibit torture. I said it does. International law applies to these prisoners, and it does not allow torture.

I believe the CIA when they say waterboarding helped stop an attack on US soil. You and Obama do not believe the CIA or would rather the CIA did not waterboard. Therefore, it is logical to assume that if the CIA did not waterboard, we would have been attacked and many Americans would be dead. You and Obama must be OK with that. I am not.

Care to examine?

. . . it is logical to assume that if the CIA did not waterboard, we would have been attacked and many Americans would be dead. You and Obama must be OK with that. I am not. . . .

. . . Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. . . .

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

Since these prisoners are not American citizens, they are not entitled to any rights granted under the US Constitution.

I think the entire argument about whether or not torture can produce information completely misses the point.

It's like saying "Hey, forced labour actually can increase productivity!"

Slavery wasn't abolished because it didn't work. It was abolished because it's morally wrong.

..

Since these prisoners are not American citizens, they are not entitled to any rights granted under the US Constitution. ...

"...The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

"We raised our voices in warning to our German people and the world, hoping to awaken Western humanity from the paralysis of will and spirit into which it had fallen. We tried to open their eyes to the horrible danger from Eastern Bolshevism, which had subjected a nation of nearly 200 million people to the terror of the Jews and was preparing an aggressive war against Europe."

--Joseph Goebbels, 1943

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Just remember this , Dick, there can be no freedom when your borders are out of control.

Tell me something,are your principles worth dying for?

Many intelligence officials, including some opposed to the brutal methods, confirm that the program produced information of great value, including tips on early-stage schemes to attack tall buildings on the West Coast and buildings in New York’s financial district and Washington. Interrogation of one Qaeda operative led to tips on finding others, until the leadership of the organization was decimated. Removing from the scene such dedicated and skilled plotters as Mr. Mohammed, or the Indonesian terrorist known as Hambali, almost certainly prevented future attacks.

But which information came from which methods, and whether the same result might have been achieved without the political, legal and moral cost of the torture controversy, is hotly disputed, even inside the intelligence agency.

The Justice Department memorandums released last week illustrate how difficult it can be to assess claims of effectiveness. One 2005 memorandum, for example, asserts that “enhanced techniques” used on Abu Zubaydah and Mr. Mohammed “yielded critical information.”

But the memorandum then lists among Abu Zubaydah’s revelations the identification of Mr. Mohammed and of an alleged radiological bomb plot by Jose Padilla, the American Qaeda associate. Both those disclosures were made long before Abu Zubaydah was subjected to harsh treatment, according to multiple accounts.

On Mr. Mohammed, the record is murkier. The memorandum says that “before the C.I.A. used enhanced techniques,” Mr. Mohammed “resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, ‘Simply noting, ‘Soon, you will know.’ ”

But the same memorandum reveals in a footnote that Mr. Mohammed, captured on March 1, 2003, was waterboarded 183 times that month. That striking number, which would average out to six waterboardings a day, suggests that interrogators did not try a traditional, rapport-building approach for long before escalating to their most extreme tool.

Mr. Obama paid his first visit to the agency this week, and his reference to the interrogation issue made for an awkward moment in which he sounded like a teacher gently correcting his pupils.

“Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes,” he said. “That’s how we learn.”