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Osama found using Gitmo torture info

Lowpro said:
I disagree wholeheartedly. The torture of KSM is FAR from "merely suspect of having ties" he's so far up in Al-Qaeda's ass. it is to our benefit we know what he knows (probably)

Remember he isn't being tortured for punitive reasons, he (probably) has information we could use and it's important enough to warrant regimens that seem(ed) to include waterboarding.
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I don't really have a problem with what was done to KSM, but we know that many of the people who were locked up for years were innocent, so there seems to be no reason to think that they only tortured people who were "far up in Al-Qaeda's ass".

"...seem(ed) to include waterboarding". Some of the articles linked to earlier in this thread say that KSM was waterboarded 183 times. I don't know where they got that number, but I don't think they would be that specific without a good reason.
 
Fredrik said:
I don't really have a problem with what was done to KSM, but we know that many of the people who were locked up for years were innocent, so there seems to be no reason to think that they only tortured people who were "far up in Al-Qaeda's ass".

"...seem(ed) to include waterboarding". Some of the articles linked to earlier in this thread say that KSM was waterboarded 183 times. I don't know where they got that number, but I don't think they would be that specific without a good reason.
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183 I believe came from a WikiLeaks cable? And as far as innocent people being tortured, I think that's appalling. I also wouldn't dismantle or blame torturing itself for that failure, I'd blame the people who mad ea move on bad intel. Doesn't count against torture though as far as I can tell.
 
TmoonII said:
. . . the people in Gitmo are not innocent . . .
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Front runner in stupidest post of the day contest.

Some are not innocent, some are innocent, and some we just don't know about. Some that were released because we thought they were innocent turned out not to be. Some that were innocent must be really pissed off and have been locked up for years with some truly evil customers learning how not to be innocent.

It is not smart to simplify a complex issue down to sound-byte status.
See network news for examples.
 
Fredrik said:
I don't really have a problem with what was done to KSM, but we know that many of the people who were locked up for years were innocent, so there seems to be no reason to think that they only tortured people who were "far up in Al-Qaeda's ass".

"...seem(ed) to include waterboarding". Some of the articles linked to earlier in this thread say that KSM was waterboarded 183 times. I don't know where they got that number, but I don't think they would be that specific without a good reason.
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Alright here's something I have to take issue with, and it's how people always bring up "torture of innocent people" as an argument against torture.

This is a false argument. Innocent people being tortured doesn't mean torture itself is an ineffective method of interrogation. It means you got the wrong guy and that's a failure of intelligence from somewhere else (maybe a failure of the intelligence you got WHILE torturing someone else, but again that's not the fault of torture and torture only, read my "cake and icecream" argument. People will lie regardless) but I'm trying to address the ability of torture PURELY from the interrogation perspective.

What we seem to know ( I say "seem to know" because I find conflicting stories) is that Al-Libbi was waterboarded in a weeklong regimen where he gave the name and other information of a courier. This information led to identifying the courier which led to finding Osama.

This is an argument that the regimen used, which included waterboarding, worked.

What we NOW NEED is a regimen to test that DOESN'T use waterboarding, and see if we could extract that same information, perhaps sooner or later than previously established.

Why WOULD such a regimen be MORE effective, LESS effective, or JUST AS effective.

I think torture should work simply because people under duress seek to end duress, by providing something to make the duress cease. It can be true, false, anything to end it. That makes sense to me, but I also am not a psychologist (I'm sure there are some that are here)

THEN AGAIN, I think it's Green Berets who are trained to assimilate and befreind potential combatants in order to extract information. They learn the language, culture and customs, and I think that's also effective (and morally responsible too)

Could this method work against KSM/Al-Libbi just as well as waterboarding did? Work better or worse? These are what are important to the argument for torture, as I have said before, moral and ethical values mean nothing to methods, only to the debate over them.
 
fishbob said:
Some are not innocent, some are innocent, and some we just don't know about.
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The truth is [some of] the prisoners don't even know what they are doing is considered terrorism. Even if you explained it to them, their religious beliefs are justification over logic.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
For the record, I looked at the evidence in depth when this torture crap came up in the first place. It wastes resources chasing false answers and doesn't result in any benefit that outweighs the other multiple drawbacks. Claims by Rumsfeld that volumes of actionable information was obtained has never ever been substantiated. It's been years, surely they could reveal by now some of this information and the results. But it's a BIG LIE. There is no such evidence because no such actionable intelligence was elicited from torture except resource wasting wild goose chases.
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It's often instructive when a post receives no reply...
 
Lowpro said:
Alright here's something I have to take issue with, and it's how people always bring up "torture of innocent people" as an argument against torture.
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I wasn't making an argument against torture. (I'm very much against torture, but I don't want to get into that right now). I saw the part of your conversation with johnny karate where he said that it's not OK to torture innocents, and you replied that KSM isn't innocent. That suggested that you think only guilty people were tortured, so it seemed appropriate to mention that this is unlikely.
 
Fredrik said:
I wasn't making an argument against torture. (I'm very much against torture, but I don't want to get into that right now). I saw the part of your conversation with johnny karate where he said that it's not OK to torture innocents, and you replied that KSM isn't innocent. That suggested that you think only guilty people were tortured, so it seemed appropriate to mention that this is unlikely.
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Oh, I didn't intend for you to see it that way. You aren't the first to mention the "innocents being tortured" argument however and I think it still bears being mentioned that it's not an argument against torture as it doesn't address torture at all.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
For the record, I looked at the evidence in depth when this torture crap came up in the first place. It wastes resources chasing false answers and doesn't result in any benefit that outweighs the other multiple drawbacks. Claims by Rumsfeld that volumes of actionable information was obtained has never ever been substantiated. It's been years, surely they could reveal by now some of this information and the results. But it's a BIG LIE. There is no such evidence because no such actionable intelligence was elicited from torture except resource wasting wild goose chases.
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I remember those discussions here and IRL with others.

IIRC the military intelligence professionals would not participate in the interrogations that the CIA were conducting at Gitmo. They flatly refused to be a part of such an unprofessional operation.

The military spends a lot of money and time looking into the best procedures for everything from taking out an enemy position to making a bed. The assumption that they haven't found any method of interrogation that is superior to torture is just insulting.
 
Lowpro said:
Alright here's something I have to take issue with, and it's how people always bring up "torture of innocent people" as an argument against torture.

This is a false argument. Innocent people being tortured doesn't mean torture itself is an ineffective method of interrogation....<snip>
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"Torture of innocent people" (preserving your inexplicable quotation marks) is very much an argument against torture; that torture is an ineffective method of interrogation is quite another, separate argument, and one that has been made in this very thread. I only went so far as to suggest, in my previous post, that it is no more effective than other interrogation methods, which you had already conceded.
 
TheAnachronism said:


"Torture of innocent people" (preserving your inexplicable quotation marks) is very much an argument against torture; that torture is an ineffective method of interrogation is quite another, separate argument, and one that has been made in this very thread. I only went so far as to suggest, in my previous post, that it is no more effective than other interrogation methods, which you had already conceded.
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I haven't conceded to that conclusion. I've only stated that so far KSM and Al-Libbi underwent a regimen that included torture. Both gave congruent information (from sources I've posted, but there's a conflict from other sources so for now I doubt my statement is valid enough for ME) that led to the identification of Osama's courier which led to Osama.

A regimen WITHOUT torture did not yield results.

On the face of it, the evidence stands for itself that a regimen with torture yielded desired results.

This conclusion I also think isn't correct because as far as I can tell, we haven't used a regimen that hasn't included waterboarding, and as I said before there are other methods used by other branches (I brought up the Green Berets methods)

There is no verdict, but that also means anyone who says torture is NOT an effective method doesn't have supporting arguments.
 
Lowpro said:
I haven't conceded to that conclusion.
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what evidence would convince you that torture is no more useful to intelligence professionals than other interrogation methods?

I've only stated that so far KSM and Al-Libbi underwent a regimen that included torture. Both gave congruent information (from sources I've posted, but there's a conflict from other sources so for now I doubt my statement is valid enough for ME) that led to the identification of Osama's courier which led to Osama.
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So, best case scenario we got a hint out of these two guys that there was a courier, but then we got differing tales about that courier, by torturing them? OK, let's see where tha leads us . . .

A regimen WITHOUT torture did not yield results.
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Really? We just sat on that evidence and eventually we found Osama?

I know you don't think that. Even if we start with your assumptions, we used other interrogation techniques and evidence gathering by professional intelligence officers over years to fill in the substantial gaps. And that is if you assume that torture led to the initial hints.

On the face of it, the evidence stands for itself that a regimen with torture yielded desired results.
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No, even if we give it the benefit of the doubt, and then some, the evidence stands for itself that a regimen with torture led to tenuous leads that intelligence officers had to spend years working in the field to make useful.

This conclusion I also think isn't correct because as far as I can tell, we haven't used a regimen that hasn't included waterboarding, and as I said before there are other methods used by other branches (I brought up the Green Berets methods)

There is no verdict, but that also means anyone who says torture is NOT an effective method doesn't have supporting arguments.
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Well, if you ignore all the evidence that shows that our own military intelligence professionals prefer other methods because they produce more actionable intelligence, well yeah that makes sense.

Am I wasting my time here or will this you actually look into what intelligence professionals actually say about the efficacy of torture? Do we really have to have this conversation all over again? Damn it gets tiring . . .
 
Lowpro said:
A regimen WITHOUT torture did not yield results.
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This is nothing more than post hoc reasoning, and it's not even very transparent. Just because two events follow one another sequentially, it does not mean that one plays a causal role in the result of the other. Undoubtedly, there were many people who prayed that Osama would be killed. Shall we then conclude that prayer is a reliable method of fighting terrorism?
 
Cainkane1 said:
Waterboarding a bad guy to save the lives of innocent people is fine with me. There is no permanent injury.
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Got proof?

Is going utterly mad not permanent harm?

Waterboarding is more useful for brainwashing than for interrogation.
 
Lowpro said:
A regimen WITHOUT torture did not yield results.
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We have only hearsay evidence for that, and that provided by some of the least competent drongos ever to lead a nation at war.

For a historical precedent on the efficacy of torture, there were, in Massachuesetts, dozens of people who gave adequate information under torture that they were successfully tried, convicted and burned at the stake as witches.

On the face of it, the evidence stands for itself that a regimen with torture yielded desired results. The results that the merry morons needed to justify further erosions of our rights and to justify the invasion of Iraq, with the subsequent damage to the intelligence-gathering effort in Afghanistan that could have led to an earlier arrest or elimination of ObL.
 
headscratcher4 said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/torture-may-have-slowed-h_n_858642.html

Argument: torture may have slowed the investigation.
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What's interesting in that article is this http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf

This paper I think is much more interesting than most replies here =\

Really? We just sat on that evidence and eventually we found Osama?

I know you don't think that. Even if we start with your assumptions, we used other interrogation techniques and evidence gathering by professional intelligence officers over years to fill in the substantial gaps. And that is if you assume that torture led to the initial hints.
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No and I have never insinuated this before. I said a regimen of interrogation that DID include waterboarding. This also means they used other methods, though I don't know what they are. I assume coercion was used, perhaps "good cop bad cop" but I don't know, and I don't know that you know either. If you do provide information please.

How bout a different phrase of the question. In an attempt to extract information that you know a particular party knows (KSM was a member of Al-Qaeda, so it can be assumed that he knew others in Al-Qaeda, I think this is a safe assumption so we don't have to consider if he's truly innocent) what method(s) work best. So far with KSM it required a long-term regimen, with many methods including EIT's which included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. KSM provided information, some reliable, some not.

Al-Libbi gets waterboarded and a week later provides congruent information.

Both instances used waterboarding so as IATS said, post-hoc (and I realize the fallacy, which is the whole point of the damned thread tho) waterboarding as part of the regimen led to the intel we needed.

The question is, if you exclude waterboarding and other EIT's that are considered torture (is sleep deprivation/solitary confinement also?) what are predicted results of getting the information you need.

It's NOT a simple answer which is why I think it's not so easy to say torture works or doesn't work. Torture works, we're all sure it does, but does it work better, worse, as well as any other method? Does interrogation benefit from torture in a long term regimen (as to exclude the "ticking bomb" idea).

IATS also mentioned prayer in an attempt to hang a lantern on post-hoc reasoning. They aren't the same. Torture has a methodology involved that affects reality. Incantation does not. It would be foolish to draw correlation between this superstition, and torture does not fall into that realm.

But I know what you meant.
 
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