torture

Eager to fabricate some tough-guy credentials, Senator Richard Burr couldn't stop himself from rushing into the breach, exclaiming to the media that torture was an essential ingredient in killing Osama bin Laden. A few days later, John McCain called bullshit, declaring that torture played no role in finding bin Laden. Today, Leon Panetta lays out the facts even more clearly, explaining that torture actually led to false information that delayed finding bin Laden.

Senator Burr is either a grandstanding opportunist, a simple liar, or so badly misinformed as to be criminally negligent in doing his job.

I vote for all three.

John McCain: Torture did not lead to bin Laden.

Richard Burr: If we had not used enhanced interrogation,
we would not have come to yesterday's actions.

The NY Times article further contradicts Burr's assertion:

... two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier’s identity.

Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said in a phone interview Tuesday, that coercive techniques “didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.” He said that while some of his colleagues defended the measures, “everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

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MSNBC on Tuesday reported that Senator Burr said the death of Osama Bin Laden was a direct result of enhanced interrogations (aka torture). Burr once again is caught misrepresenting the facts to justify another of his failed policy positions.

From MSNBC:

“The information that eventually led us to this compound was the direct result of enhanced interrogations; one can conclude if we had not used enhanced interrogations, we would not have come to yesterday's action,” US Senator Richard Burr in a telephone interview with CNBC.

The facts don’t back up Sen. Burr’s statement. The evidence suggests a key piece of intelligence, the first link in the chain of information that led to bin Laden wasn't retrieved through torture. In other words, torture failed to produce it.

Playing to the base instincts of the base:

“The information that eventually led us to this compound was the direct result of enhanced interrogations; one can conclude if we had not used enhanced interrogations, we would not have come to yesterday's action,” US Senator Richard Burr in a telephone interview with CNBC.

Aside from the shameful act of using this information to enhance his political standing, Senator Burr has also demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he doesn't possess the discretion to be briefed on intelligence matters.

It's become more or less common knowledge that US forces have been using music as an operational tool for some time now, and I've begun seeing lists of the songs that are being used either to inflict pain, to demoralize, or to just generally disorient various people in various sorts of situations.

There are others, wiser than I, who will opine as to the questions of efficacy and the moral issues surrounding these kinds of operations; I will opine, instead, as to the quality of the songs used.

Frankly, had anyone asked, I could have put the torturers onto much better musical choices, just by selecting from my own "My Music" folder--which left me thinking: "hey, it's the weekend...why not do exactly that?"

Got any psychological warfare mission planned for the weekend? Expecting to have to direct amplified sound at an angry mob in a defensive maneuver Saturday night? Planning a Halloween haunted house that goes a bit...fuurther?

Come along with me then, soldier, and I'll provide you a playlist that should do the trick in almost any foreseeable emergency.

When last we met, Gentle Reader, it was to work through a series of legal precedents and statute law; the goal of the exercise being to determine if we could or could not define waterboarding as torture.

We have the kind assistance of Professor Jeffrey Addicott, who has provided us with his written testimony from his recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a personal interview, where he walked me through some of his thinking on the matter.

Today we’re going to take a look at the precedent that he has used to reach the conclusion that waterboarding is not torture.

It’s also possible that the analysis may result in the discovery of a bit of common ground...but as I noted in Part One, it’s common ground that neither one of us might have seen coming.

This is one of the most astonishing "debates" I have witnessed during my lifetime. A former vice president of the United States has chosen to make his call for the continued torture of prisoners the apparent centerpiece of his public legacy. A newly elected president of the United States is forced to make a major national policy address defending his refusal to countenance torture, and his commitment to the rule of law.

The email from Robert Mihaly was intriguing. His sculpture exhibit at the Bryan Student Center at Duke titled “A Pantheon of Modern Gods” included the “Angel of Depleted Uranium.” Robert offered to share the proceeds of the sale of “Angel…” with Veterans for Peace, and invited a phone call.

After a conversation, I went to see his exhibit, and had my socks blown off.

Robert’s exhibit had already been extended a month, but not without a measure of controversy. The Depleted Uranium “Angel” was cited by the NRC, not as a hazard, in its lead container, but with accompanying information about the documented hazards in use as armaments and armor.

When Mihaly learned of this challenge, he contacted the ACLU. Duke backed off, deciding that the ACLU was more fearsome than the NRC.

I volunteered to help Robert close his exhibit, and we met for lunch at his home in north Durham.