"We tortured an insane man"

[merh]

"We tortured an insane man"
The author of "The One Percent Doctrine," Ron Suskind, talks about what the U.S. really got out of Abu Zubaydah and why waterboarding doesn't make America safer.
By Alex Koppelman

Sep. 07, 2006 | Harsh interrogation works -- that's the argument President Bush made on Wednesday even as he announced that al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah and 13 other alleged al-Qaida operatives will be transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial. Acknowledging for the first time the existence of secret CIA prisons where the 14 men had been held, Bush claimed that the extreme interrogation techniques used on Zubaydah, whom he called "a senior terrorist leader," and others in the "war on terror," were justified. Bush said that Zubaydah, under the pressure of what Bush referred to as the CIA's "alternative set of procedures," had given up information that proved vital to the United States.

But Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind paints a more complicated picture of Zubaydah. In one of the most hotly discussed sections of his book "The One-Percent Doctrine," Suskind reveals that at least one top FBI analyst considered Zubaydah an "insane, certifiable, split personality" and that he was mainly responsible only for logistics like travel arrangements. According to Suskind's reporting, the interrogation methods used on Zubaydah -- waterboarding and sleep deprivation, among others -- only yielded information about plots that did not exist.

Salon spoke with Suskind about how the Bush administration has tended to oversell Zubaydah's significance and why sophisticated "soft" interrogation techniques have been the most effective.

What did you think of the president's speech?

Well, I don't think that the president contradicted anything that's in the book. I say in the book that we did get some things of value from Abu Zubaydah. We found out that "Muktar" -- the brain, that's what it means in Arabic -- was Khalid Sheik Mohammed. That was valuable for a short period of time for us. We were then able to go through the SIGINT , the electronic dispatches over the years, and say, "OK, that's who 'Muktar' is." Zubaydah, of course, is showing up on signal intelligence as Zubaydah.

(snip)

More at Salon

* admits to secret prisons and is attempting to pass legislation that will insist that terrorism suspects cannot use Geneva Convention protections to file lawsuits against US personnel in US courts. The Pentagon admits to the use of torture when issuing the list of treatment that "will be banned" and yet, the these thugs are allowed to continue ruining our nation.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2065331&mesg_id=2069401



Not.In.My.Name. :cry:

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. For their war crimes

They should have to submit at least once to each and every torture that they approved and allowed to happen, including flying them to a country that hates them where they will be punished/tortured even more.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate these asswipes!!!????!!!??? :grr:

Am with you on this, merh. Not. In. My. Name. :cry:

[merh]

4. I can't call that they be treated as they have treated others

that would put me on their level, slimmy and vindictive.

I can call for justice, that they be tried for their war crimes and sentenced accordingly.

I can pray that God forgives me the hate that I have in my heart and that when they do meet him, they ask for forgiveness for their sins, realizing that they have violated his laws and have sinned against tens of thousands while taking his name in vein.

[merh]

17. kick

:kick:

[Heidi]

2. Not in my name.

:kick:ed and recommended.

[merh]

7. .

thank you :hug:

[Heidi]

9. It's the worst sort of bullying, in my view.

It breaks my heart.

:hug: to you, too, gf.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Not in my name either merh! n/t

[xchrom]

5. kicked, recommended and not in my name as well.

[KayLaw]

6. Human monsters!

Rot in Hell.

[havocmom]

8. The insane torturing the insane

Not in my name either.

Most REAL INTEL people know torture is no ticket to the truth. Hurt people and they tend to tell you what they think you want to hear, wether they know it or not.

[merh]

10. That is what it seems to amount to.

God help us.

[Stand and Fight]

11. I don't get how we read the articles for free...

It says to "Click on the Sponsor Logo"... Where the hell is that???

[mogster]

12. Hi merh!

A vote, a kick and a huggie :-) :hug:

Good post!

[merh]

15. Hello my friend

it's been a long time and I am so glad to see you :hug:

I hope you are well :loveya:

[mogster]

19. I'm OK, merh

Lot's of work, but too much politics to focus, lol.
Hope you are as well :-)

[merh]

21. .

:hug:

[specimenfred1984]

13. Another Article on Torture

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0514-05.htm

------ Torture at Abu Ghraib Followed CIA's Manual

...The CIA's discovery of psychological torture was a counterintuitive breakthrough -- indeed, the first real revolution in this cruel science since the 17th century. The old physical approach required interrogators to inflict pain, usually by crude beatings that often produced heightened resistance or unreliable information. Under the CIA's new psychological paradigm, however, interrogators used two essential methods to achieve their goals.

In the first stage, interrogators employ the simple, nonviolent techniques of hooding or sleep deprivation to disorient the subject; sometimes sexual humiliation is used as well.

Once the subject is disoriented, interrogators move on to a second stage with simple, self-inflicted discomfort such as standing for hours with arms extended. In this phase, the idea is to make victims feel responsible for their own pain and thus induce them to alleviate it by capitulating to the interrogator's power. In his statement on reforms at Abu Ghraib last week, General Geoffrey Miller, former chief of the Guantanamo detention center and now prison commander in Iraq, offered an unwitting summary of this two-phase torture. "We will no longer, in any circumstances, hood any of the detainees," the general said. "We will no longer use stress positions in any of our interrogations. And we will no longer use sleep deprivation in any of our interrogations."

Although seemingly less brutal, no-touch torture leaves deep psychological scars. The victims often need long treatment to recover from trauma far more crippling than physical pain. The perpetrators can suffer a dangerous expansion of ego, leading to cruelty and lasting emotional problems. -------

[merh]

16. thank you for posting that article.

a belated welcome to DU, too.

[lonestarnot]

14. Not in my name!

[merh]

18. kick

:kick:

[DemReadingDU]

20. K&R

[merh]

22. kick

:kick: