Tortured Detainee Admits He Told Interrogators What They Wanted To Hear

This was last night's news, but it bears repeating. When Dick Cheney or any other torture apologist tries to say that breaking the Geneva Convention helps procure good intelligence, they are lying. Recently released information from the White House adds to the overwhelming evidence that torture does not work, just ask one of the guys they tortured.

From ThinkProgress:

The Bush administration has long justified its use of torture by claiming that it obtained valuable information from torturing 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Late last year, former Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Did it produce the desire results? I think it did.” He explained:

I think, for example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information.

But according to documents released by the Obama administration in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, Cheney was lying. Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to the CIA after withstanding torture:

“I make up stories,” Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA that concerned the location of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“Where is he? I don’t know. Then he torture me,” Mohammed said. “Then I said, ‘Yes, he is in this area.’”

Interrogation experts have always maintained that torture does not work, and actually hinders an investigation because of false information being told to make the pain stop. The very fact that we are having this debate is bad enough, but at least the truth can come out that shows people like Dick Cheney, John Yoo, George Bush and the rest of them are full of it when it comes to fighting terrorism with torture.

Olbermann And Huffington Discuss Cheney's Backtracking

Arianna joins Keith as they talk about Cheney's latest statements concerning torture and interrogations. Cheney has been busy talking quite a lot and the commentators believe, as I do, that the ex-V.P.'s remarks are a sign of revisionist history and possibly even a way to justify his actions before a war crimes tribunal. Of course that tribunal is a ways off, but the court of world public opinion is now open.

A 4th Grader Does A Better Job Than The Traditional Media

Misha Lerner may only be in the fourth grade, but he is years ahead of many who consider themselves professional journalists. Throughout most of this decade, the press was reticent to ask tough questions of Bush Administration officials, especially those who were high up and had been involved with making the United States into a country that tortures, even if the glorious leader denies it. What only a few press credentialed individuals have done, so too has Bethesda, Maryland's young Misha Lerner.

From The Washington Post:

Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

Rice took the question in stride. saying that she was reluctant to criticize Obama, then getting to the heart of the matter.

"Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country," she said. "But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country."

She added: "I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country. September 11 was the worst day of my life in government, watching 3,000 Americans die. . . . Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal, and I hope people understand that we were trying to protect the country."

It's too bad that Misha couldn't do a follow-up question, because not only did Rice lie to Misha about breaking the law, she used the horrible tragedy of September the 11th to reinforce a terrible justification for torturing other human beings. Misha was only two years old when it happened, but I hope he understands (or his parents make mention of it to him) that you can't trust all grown-ups, especially those that have worked for George W. Bush.

Why Are Churchgoers More Likely To Support Torture?

That is the question asked in a recent poll, and reiterated by CNN's Jack Cafferty. He gets quite a few responses that are all over the board but the one I agree with most comes at the 2:35 mark. "All radicalized forms of thinking lack innate tolerance," is a quote that anyone who doubts the findings of the poll should consider. Not all churches (or any house of worship) preach against tolerance but there are plenty that do, and that is one of the many reasons why torture has become accepted by far too many people in our society.

Bush Authorized Torture

Hey Truth and Reconciliation Commission, get a load of this. It turns out that the once great and mighty leader, a.k.a. George W. Bush, had indeed approved of torture and knowingly broke the law. The information about this has been out there for quite some time, but leave it to the blogosphere to take notice of it and make it news.

From The Public Record:

A senior FBI agent stationed in Iraq in 2004 claimed in an e-mail that President George W. Bush signed an executive order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other harsh tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.

The FBI e-mail -- dated May 22, 2004 -- followed disclosures about abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and sought guidance on whether FBI agents in Iraq were obligated to report the U.S. military’s harsh interrogation of inmates when that treatment violated FBI standards but fit within the guidelines of a presidential executive order.

According to the e-mail, Bush’s alleged executive order authorized interrogators to use military dogs, “stress positions,” sleep “management,” loud music and “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.” to extract information from detainees in Iraq, which is considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions ban against cruel and unusual punishments.

Well Senator Leahy, there you go. On the record proof that George Bush willingly broke the law. He thumbed his nose at the rule of law and the rest of the country so that he could be "tough" with Iraqi detainees. Now, we know there's damning proof to at the very least indict Bush for war crimes, but I'm not holding my breath on account of Leahy's ability to actually make ex-President Bush accountable for his crimes.

Ex-Sec. Rice Says President Is Above The Law

Although the ex-Secretary of State tried to word her statement carefully, she failed terribly in her answer to a student concerning torture and her involvement in it. Cenk Uyugr helps publicize the exchange where she pretty much has a Frost/Nixon moment declaring the President is above the law.

Abu Zubaydah Interrogator Speaks Out, "Torture Was Wrong"

Terrorism is bad, really bad. We all get that, whether you were in Lower Manhattan on September 11th or in a crowded Baghdad market where a bicyclist with a bomb detonated himself. Terrorism happens all over the world, and those that seek to terrorize should be stopped and interrogated in order to glean information about what they know about in terms of their organization and future attacks. That would be the basics. How you get that information from them is entirely different story. In the case of FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, it is one hell of an incredible story.

From The American Prospect:

The story of FBI interrogator Ali Soufan plays out like a movie. The son of an immigrant from Lebanon, Soufan, using traditional interrogation methods, gleaned from Abu Zubayda a plot to plant a dirty bomb in the United States and the alias of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He turned the jihadis greatest weapons against them, citing Qu'ranic verses from memory and using his knowledge of Islam to gain the trust of terrorist detainees, then using the trust he had gained to get information that saved American lives. When he discovered that the CIA was planning on torturing Zubayda, his reaction was that of a lawman: "I swear to God," he reportedly said to FBI assistant director for counterterrorism Pasquale D'Amuro, "I'm going to arrest these guys!"

Soufan's courage and respect for American values contrasts sharply with former CIA official Michael Scheuer, who insists that the only way to protect America is through torture and that anyone who believes otherwise is anti-American. This contradicts the CIA Inspector General's own 2004 findings that there is no conclusive information that tortured yielded information that foiled "specific imminent attacks." Scheuer's belief in the power of torture is not empirical, but ideological, just like that of James Mitchell, the former Air Force psychologist who helped design the torture program and who, despite having never interrogated a prisoner a day in his life, told Ali Soufan he had no idea what he was doing.

Soufan knew what he was doing and did it well, for the benefit of millions of American lives. Scheuer and others like him however, let their machismo go to their heads, not only compromising the ability to obtain truthful information, but destroying the credibility of the United States in the world's eyes. Tenet may have been given a medal of freedom by President Bush, but Obama should snatch it back and bestow it upon Mr. Soufan.

Repeat As Needed: "Torture Doesn't Work"

Despite the onslaught of Cheney interviews where he says that we needed to torture use enhanced interrogation to get information out of terrorists, the facts are simply not on the ex-VP's side. All Cheney is trying to do is to cover his ass, and so is every single Bushie coming out of the woodwork now that pushes the false idea that torturing terror suspects gets good information out of them. The reality is, in words a three-year-old can understand is, "nuh-uh."

From McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.[...]

The IG's report is among several indications that the Bush administration's use of abusive interrogation methods was less productive than some former administration officials have claimed.

Even some of those in the military who developed the techniques warned that the information they produced was "less reliable" than that gained by traditional psychological measures, and that using them would produce an "intolerable public and political backlash when discovered," according to a Senate Armed Services Committee report released on Tuesday.

Even with everything that we've learned to date, there is still more classified material out there that government has not released. It has been hinted at that the documents and videos the CIA had destroyed were more horrific than anyone in the outside world has seen to date. With all of this evidence, it leads us back to two simple points, that torture does not work and that those that engage and/or order it should be held accountable for their actions. The United States knew it didn't work back in World War II and we even executed Japanese soldiers at that time who practiced techniques such as waterboarding on our very own troops. There is no reason that our standards should change as a nation that respects the rule of law, whether we are fighting Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito or Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

David Gregory Covers For Bush On Torture, Forgets The Facts In The Process

We know David Gregory hates bloggers. We know he likes to throw soft ball questions for guests that deserve to tell the American people the truth. So I'm still looking for qualities of a credible journalist within the man who's feet are far too small for Tim Russert's shoes. To add insult to injury, as yet another media hack, he is happy to provide a platform for right-wing liars to stand on when it comes to torture and ex-President Bush.

From RawStory:

In a puzzling remark that seems to demonstrate the extent to which the mainstream media tries to "balance" discussions of controversial issues, NBC's David Gregory suggested Thursday that the Bush Administration issued memorandums outlining the torture of detainees out of great respect for the law.

"...Did the Bush administration go out of its way to make sure they were adhering to the law and not crossing over that bridge when it came to getting into torture?" he asked rhetorically.

"At a time when the administration and the President will already be under scrutiny for being tough enough, is this a fight they really want to have?" he remarked earlier. "I would also point you to, if you haven't see this already, the Wall Street Journal editorial page today, which I think raises some really tough points about not only what signal you're sending to the rest of the world, but also to potential terrorists out there, about just what it is that U.S. interrogators would do and not do."

Why he reads the editorial pages of the Journal, I don't know. It would be like turning on Rush Limbaugh and Hannity simultaneously for unbiased news coverage. Gregory reads the wingnut talking points as if it were some sort of truth, when all Bush's people are trying to do is make excuses for breaking the law. Perhaps Gregory should start by reading the reports coming out of the Senate and the Red Cross if he wanted to learn how to expel truth instead of spin for the Republican party.

Even Boehner Admits Bush Administration Tortured

While John Boehner came out to trash the Obama Administration for disclosing the Bush memos outlining how authorities should torture alleged terrorists, he let his personal views on the "techniques" slip. Being a member of the GOP, most of his statements today were seriously misguided and harmful to having an open government in our country. Nevertheless, at least he affirmed that what Bush and his cronies did was torture.

From The Huffington Post:

While cable news outlets and major newspapers continue to use euphemisms such as "harsh interrogation tactics" to describe the Bush administration's approach to intelligence gathering, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) used a more succinct term Thursday: "torture."

"Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director," Boehner said at a press conference in the Capitol.

Of course the press on hand had to follow up and Boehner's spokesman tried to walk back the comments:

Regarding the Boehner's use of the T-word, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel writes, "It is clear from the context that Boehner was simply using liberals' verbiage to describe these interrogation techniques. The United States does not torture.

Nice try Michael. Someone in a position like Boehner's should know the difference between the truth and a GOP talking point. Perhaps it was a subconscious slip but at least it was evidence that Boehner could tell at least one truth among the empty partisan rhetoric that came out of his mouth today.

Bush Catches Rove Lying About "Benefits" Of Torture

It may not have been on purpose but even the ex-President can disprove the pathological liar that is Karl Rove.

From DailyKos:

Over the past couple of days, Karl Rove and Fox News have offered a new argument in defense of the Bush administration’s torture policies.

Now, they say, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) yielded intelligence that led to the disruption of an al Qaeda plot to attack the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower (which both Bush and Rove called the Liberty Tower, for some reason). There’s just one problem with Rove’s new story: it couldn’t possibly be true.

As Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate, the Los Angeles attack was foiled in February of 2002. KSM was not captured until March of 2003, however — more than a year later.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that timeline is impossible. Perhaps appropriately, then, here’s a video of George W. Bush — in his own words — proving that Karl Rove and Fox News are lying about torture:

I know, Karl Rove, blatant lying about the Bush White House, who da thunk?

Time To Indict Condi Rice For Torture

Jay Bybee, John Yoo and other senior Bush Administration figures have already been fingered for their roles in making torture "legal" for the government. Whether they had written the memos or passed them along, they played a part in shaming our once proud nation by committing those despicable acts. Cheney has been called out before too, but for the most part the upper echelon of Bush's people have not been touched. Now though, it looks like former Secretary of State Rice had intimate knowledge and approval of, torturing terrorist suspects.

From RawStory:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The CIA first sought in May 2002 to use harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding on terror suspects, and was given key early approval by then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a US Senate intelligence document said.

The agency got the green light to use the near-drowning technique on July 26, 2002, when attorney general John Ashcroft concluded "that the use of waterboarding was lawful," the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a detailed timeline of the "war on terrorism" interrogations released Wednesday.

Nine days earlier, the panel said, citing Central Intelligence Agency records, Rice had met with then-director George Tenet and "advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," the agency's first high-value Al-Qaeda detainee, pending Justice Department approval.

Though Rice was the first of the inner circle to approve of torturing suspects, Ashcroft, Cheney and Gonzales were all there with her on this from the beginning. Since we have this declassified report out in the open, the only and natural next step is for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor and draw up charges for every single man and woman that decided to spit on the honor of our country and disregard the basic tenets of decency and morality for humankind.

CATO Analyst Embarrasses Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly was looking for a torture-apologist to back up Dick Cheney and his neo-con friends, but he didn't find that in Army Captain and CATO Institute analyst David Rittgers.

When A Lie Is A Lie Is A Lie

Paul Begala and Ari Fleischer went on Anderson Cooper yesterday to talk about torture. Begala and Cooper were pretty much on the same page, saying that torture is bad, and that the evidence of what the Bush Administration approved of consists of torture. Therefore, we need to take action against the torturers in our midst. When asked about whether Bush was lying about us not torturing, Begala had the easy, truthful answer to give. Fleischer on the other hand, couldn't stop defending his old, indefensible boss.

Nadler Calls For Bybee Impeachment

Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler spoke out yesterday for the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee. Bybee has become infamous for having written out the "legal" doctrine that authorized hundreds of acts of torture by agents of the United States government, sanctioned by the Bush Administration. This is one man that should definitely not be adjudicating from the bench of any court, even one's with kangaroos.

From The Huffington Post:

"He ought to be impeached," Nadler said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law."[...]

"Any special prosecutor on torture would have to look at the authors of those torture memos," said Nadler. "And certainly you have real grounds to impeach him once the special prosecutor took a good look at that. I think there ought to be an impeachment inquiry looked at in any event. Which should happen first, I'm not sure."[...]

"He should be a target. Yoo should be a target. There are a number of targets," said Nadler, referring to for Bush administration counsel John Yoo, who also authorized torture and is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Bybee, noted Nadler, "is the only one who's a federal court judge now."

Nadler dismissed Obama's call to look forward rather than backward, arguing that the United States is obligated to investigate whether crimes were committed. "This whole call of looking forward rather than backwards -- you can't say that. The fact is, if crimes were committed, we are duty-bound under our law, we must -- the United States must investigate torture if it happened in America. That's the law. And the fact is, the law specifically says that instructions from higher officials is not an excuse. And we are obligated to investigate and, if indicated, to prosecute. The failure to at least investigate would be a violation of law," he said.

I couldn't agree more. We need to prosecute Bybee, Yoo and every last one of them that was inside the Bush White House and approved these unholy, unethical and illegal acts. If we have to start with Bybee and work our way up, so be it. The important thing is that we do it, and quickly, so that Bush (and maybe even Cheney) is still alive when he goes to jail for his war crimes.

Like Schumer Says: Investigate Torture

It is always encouraging to hear a notably moderate Democratic senator say something that a lefty like me agrees with, especially when it comes to the practice of torture committed by the Bush Administration. It's even better when the senator is my own, senior Senator Chuck Schumer. Schumer called on the new Department of Justice under Eric Holder to do something about the damning Red Cross report.

From RawStory:

In light of the startling revelations that came to light this week with the publishing of a Red Cross report, which documented in gruesome detail interrogation practices such as suffocation by water, beating by collar and prolonged nudity, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that he would support a Department of Justice investigation into the reported torture.

"President Obama said he doesn‘t want to spend all his time looking back. Fair enough. But he has also said egregious violations should be prosecuted," said Schumer, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The most logical, best place to start is the Justice Department. They haven‘t said if they are going to do it or not ... If they won‘t do it, someone else is going to have to do it. But they should be given the first crack."

That is the tough talk we need to hear. Of course tough action needs to immediately follow, but that is a good start. Schumer is an important man in the senate and what he says carries a considerable amount of weight. I must say that Chuck has been trending to left as of late. Perhaps it is for his upcoming re-election, but I'll take it on an issue as important as this. Justice will find George Bush and his fellow criminals, one way or another.

More Evidence That Torture Doesn't Work

Republicans love the myth that fictional character Jack Bauer mirrors what happens in the real world of fighting back against international terrorists. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. Investigators who have procured information from these people have already said that it doesn't work, but now we have even more evidence that waterboarding fails to help dismantle terror plots. In fact, it can lead to false information that wastes valuable time of our law enforcement capabilities.

From The Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

The Post's article goes on to detail the story of Abu Zubaida and highlights the failings of using torture on captured al-Qaeda members. The facts are out there and anyone out there that still believes what they watch on "24" as truth needs to wake up. This isn't about being weak with those that wish to attack and kill Americans, it is about being smart, something the United States failed to do under eight years of George Bush.

Contrary To The LA Times Assertion, We Will Not Continue To Torture*

The LA Times made big headlines on Sunday when they proclaimed that the Obama Administration would continue the practice of extraordinary rendition. Perhaps though, they may have wanted to go beyond their unnamed source and talk to Leon Panetta, who will head the CIA and oversee the Agency's practices. At least Sen. Dianne Feinstein had the wherewithall to ask that pertinent question at his confirmation hearing.



Update: I put the asterisk up there, because apparently Leon Panetta got ahead of himself, and retracted his statement you see above.

U.N. Investigator: We Must Prosecute Bush And Cheney

Just adding a little more pressure so that ex-President Bush and ex-V.P. Cheney be brought to justice for their (alleged) war crimes:

Rachel Maddow Goes Over Obama's Second Day

Just like the first day....oh, what a day it was: