The USA Has Used Waterboarding

[shadron]

So all this fuss is about running a little water up the noses of only three terrorists?

The procedure is useless now because the enemy is trained for it, and without the element of surprise, it's not effective - because it isn't torture.

Kallsop, Ocelot referred earlier in this thread to a forum thread at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717. I would recommend you read it; especially read the responses to questions after the main exposition.

IMHO, having read that, the points are that the author would rather have his hand smashed with a sledge than go through waterboarding again, that his training was to no avail in preventing the torture (his word), and that there is no effective way to train for that kind of assault on his being. I'd like to see what evidence you have for your presumtions.

 

[The Atheist]

Just out of interest, how many of the pro-torture crowd would agree to use torture in the following circumstances on US citizens?

A kidnapper refusing to divulge where a kidnapped child is being held.
A murderer refusing to name an accomplice.
A bank robber refusing to divulge where the next raid is going to take place.

If not, please state why.

 

[The Atheist]

Good timing for this article.

How the information gathered by waterboarding can be used to seek the death penalty.

 

[Ocelot]

The point I was making was that he did give up information, under waterboarding, that was instrumental in capturing other terrorists?

That's a very cogent point. Could you help me in verifying this. All my google fu has been able to confirm is that under waterboarding he confessed to many crimes including the murder of Daniel Pearce. I have not been able to find that he gave verifiable information which confirms his link to the crimes much less that he gave information which lead to the capture of other terrorists.

Now I'm not calling you a liar. I'm sure you have good reason for your assertion and would simply like to look at the specifics myself.

Prior to reading whatever you have in store for me I have a few thoughts. How good is our information that it was intelligence from KSM's interrogation that lead to these captures? A perfectly acceptable interrogation technique is to encourage interviewees to believe that their accomplices have given information. Without seeing the source of your information I don't know if this is applicable but could these subsequent terrorists have been captured from other intelligence and the KSM story given as disinformation to be used in subsequent interrogations.

Secondly even if we accept that the intelligence in question did come from KSM, we have only demonstrated that intelligence gained under enhanced interrogation techniques is in one incidence accurate. This is not equivalent to demonstrating that such techniques provide reliable information. My horoscopes are occasionally accurate but that doesn't mean that they are reliable. It has been suggested that KSM used his capture to spread disinformation of his own. Punctuating that with accurate information could merely be part of his disinformation strategy.

Would results have been any different using more acceptable interrogation techniques?

Finally a blunt answer to a blunt question. If I accept that torture does work. If I accept that in a particular hypothetical instance it is the only way to save lives that are certainly going to be lost otherwise will I accept torture. No I don't. I tell you why.

The law of unintended consequences.

The hypothetical situation above deliberately circumvents nasty grey areas present in real life. In all likelihood we don't know that someone will be harmed if we don't torture. We don't know that the harm will be prevented if we do torture. The grey areas of real life present situations like "Are we prepared to kill one person if doing so will reduce the chance of four people dying from 50% to 25%."

That aside it is the unintended consequences that cannot be eliminated from the hypothetical situation. What does torturing do to me and the society which permits it? We become torturers. What unintended harm does that do? not only does it introduce a valid slippery slope argument against torture but with this specific example, the recruiting sergeants for the terrorists find their arguments about the evil oppressive western regimes are legitimised. We help fuel further terrorism.

Your example of the woman who will sleep with you for a Million Dollars illustrates the situation perfectly. When she agrees to the first proposition it establishes what she is - thereafter we're just haggling over price. I'm not prepared to establish that I'm a torturer in any situation and in doing so I not only avoid the question of where otherwise to draw the line I don't invite being treated like a torturer.

 

[BPSCG]

I have not been able to find that he gave verifiable information which confirms his link to the crimes much less that he gave information which lead to the capture of other terrorists.

Now I'm not calling you a liar. I'm sure you have good reason for your assertion and would simply like to look at the specifics myself.

Thank you. In this kind of debate, the word "liar" gets thrown around too easily.
Link:

Terrorists who KSM ratted out include: Majid Khan, Hambali, Rusman “Gun Gun” Gunawan, Yazid Suffat, Jose Padilla, and Iyman Faris.

Majid Khan (of whom no photo is readily available) was a Jemaah Islamiyah bagman. Knowing that Khan already was in CIA custody, KSM told Americans that Khan delivered money to an agent named Zubair. KSM may have thought the CIA knew this. But they found this information brand new. Khan confirmed this to his own interrogators and furnished them Zubair’s physical description and his contact number. He, in turn, was captured in June 2003.​

As with other Jemaah Islamiyah members, Riduan bin Isomuddin uses just one name. Better known as Hambali, this terrorist was the lead liaison between JI and al Qaeda from 2000 until his 2003 arrest. Along the way, Hambali arranged the first Bali nightclub bombing on October 12, 2002. It injured 209 and slaughtered 202, including 89 Australians and seven Americans. Hambali led the bombings of 30 churches across Indonesia in 2000 during Christmas Eve services (17 dead) and helped finance the August 5, 2003, Jakarta Marriott Hotel attack that killed 11 and wounded 150.​

KSM identified Rusman “Gun Gun” Gunawan, Hambali’s brother. As President Bush explained, “Hambali’s brother was soon captured in Pakistan, and, in turn, led us to a cell of 17 Southeast Asian ‘J-I’ [Jemaah Islamiyah] operatives.” A Jakarta court in October 2004 found “Gun Gun” guilty of sending JI $30,000, some of which funded the Marriott attack. This crime cost “Gun Gun” four years behind bars.​

KSM told interrogators about a Malaysian JI militant named Yazid Suffat. He knew Suffat was in U.S. custody and assumed American officials knew about his efforts to help al Qaeda develop biological weapons. “In fact,” President Bush explained September 6, “we did not know about Yazid’s role in al Qaeda’s anthrax program.”​

KSM’s revelations under questioning, coupled with the interrogation of Suffat, helped Americans capture two of Suffat’s chief assistants and disrupt this potentially lethal WMD project.​

KSM pointed interrogators to Jose Padilla, the so-called “dirty bomber” who converted to Islam and also assumed the name Abdullah al-Muhajir. KSM supervised Padilla and allegedly assigned him, among other things, to find materials for a radiological device and to locate apartment buildings that could be blown up by filling rental units with natural gas, then igniting them with timers.​

Padilla, 35, formerly of Chicago’s Latin Disciples gang, is expected to go on trial in Miami federal court in January. His indictment does not include the earlier “dirty bomb” charges.​

KSM told American officials about Iyman Faris. The 37-year-old Kashmir native became an American citizen in December 1999, CNN reports. He worked as a truck driver and moonlighted for al Qaeda. He procured some 2,000 sleeping bags for use in al Qaeda’s training camps while visiting Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2000-2001. He delivered cash, cell phones, and plane tickets to al Qaeda contacts. On the home front, Faris conspired to sabotage a train in Washington, D.C., inspected the Brooklyn Bridge for vulnerabilities, and began seeking acetylene torches to sever the span’s suspension cables and plunge it 119 feet into New York’s East River.​

On May 1, 2003, Faris pleaded guilty to providing material support to al Qaeda and conspiring to do so. He currently is serving a 20-year jail sentence for these crimes.​

Prior to reading whatever you have in store for me I have a few thoughts. How good is our information that it was intelligence from KSM's interrogation that lead to these captures?

I don't know. Obviously, the general public isn't going to know the full story behind all this for many, many years.

A perfectly acceptable interrogation technique is to encourage interviewees to believe that their accomplices have given information. Without seeing the source of your information I don't know if this is applicable but could these subsequent terrorists have been captured from other intelligence and the KSM story given as disinformation to be used in subsequent interrogations.

As you can see above, in a couple of instances, KSM thought he was giving old information when in fact he was giving new and material info. And elsewhere in the linked article (or maybe the article I originally linked to that got back to this one - I forget), it was mentioned that KSM was a very stubborn prisoner, refusing utterly to cooperate with interrogators, chanting Koranic verses at them, etc. So it sounds like they did try other interrogation techniques, and waterboarded him only when they failed.

Secondly even if we accept that the intelligence in question did come from KSM, we have only demonstrated that intelligence gained under enhanced interrogation techniques is in one incidence accurate.

That's correct. But it's sufficient to prove false the allegation that "torture doesn't work," in the same way that producing just one live tyrannosaurus would prove false the allegation that dinosaurs are extinct.

This is not equivalent to demonstrating that such techniques provide reliable information.

Modify that to read, "...not equivalent to demonstrating that such techniques always provide reliable information," and I will agree. But no interrogation technique does that. If there were one, I would be completely opposed to torture.

My horoscopes are occasionally accurate but that doesn't mean that they are reliable.

Also correct. The problem with your horoscopes, though, is that when they are correct, they are so vague as to be useless ("...culivating good relations with your fellow workers will pay off...") or, when specific, are simply wrong. In other words, horoscopes never provide genuinely useful information; waterboarding, as we have seen, does.

It has been suggested that KSM used his capture to spread disinformation of his own. Punctuating that with accurate information could merely be part of his disinformation strategy.

Perhaps. I have my doubts about his signed confession where he confessed to everything including the Lincoln assasination and bribing Sonny Liston to take a dive in his second fight with Muhammad Ali. And (derailing here), I don't see how anything he said under duress could possibly be admissible in his forthcoming trial.

The hypothetical situation above deliberately circumvents nasty grey areas present in real life. In all likelihood we don't know that someone will be harmed if we don't torture. We don't know that the harm will be prevented if we do torture. The grey areas of real life present situations like "Are we prepared to kill one person if doing so will reduce the chance of four people dying from 50% to 25%."

Who said anything about killing a suspect? The next suspect who talks after being killed will be the first.

That aside it is the unintended consequences that cannot be eliminated from the hypothetical situation. What does torturing do to me and the society which permits it? We become torturers. What unintended harm does that do? not only does it introduce a valid slippery slope argument against torture

I've addressed this before. I agree, torture is a horrible thing, and nobody is the better man for having done it to someone. That is why there has to be a very clear line stating when it is acceptable and when it is not; it's too morally fraught to be left to the whim of the interrogator, and if we're supposed to be a nation of laws rather than of men, those who sit in judgment of the torturer must be bound by the law, not their personal prejudices for or against torture. When dealing with savages, we must beware not to become savages ourselves. But we must also beware that we don't allow our principles to be used as weapons against us. It's one thing to die in defense of one's principles; it's something else entirely to die because of them (as a Supreme Court justice once said, in another age, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."). When dealing with savages, we must fight them with every ounce of our being, but must beware not to become savages ourselves; our laws are there to see to it that we do not, even as we do terrible things to protect ourselves. The law, which says what is acceptable and what is not, protects us from that slippery slope.

but with this specific example, the recruiting sergeants for the terrorists find their arguments about the evil oppressive western regimes are legitimised. We help fuel further terrorism.

I have never bought that argument. Voltaire famously said, "To the wicked, everything serves as pretext." September 11 happened long before KSM was waterboarded. Nobody who died in the Madrid or London bombings had anything to do with waterboarding, nor did anyone in the Bali bombing in Indonesia.

Your example of the woman who will sleep with you for a Million Dollars illustrates the situation perfectly. When she agrees to the first proposition it establishes what she is - thereafter we're just haggling over price. I'm not prepared to establish that I'm a torturer in any situation and in doing so I not only avoid the question of where otherwise to draw the line I don't invite being treated like a torturer.

Would you kill someone who was trying to kill a loved one? Would you kill someone who was trying to kill you? If you answer yes, then does that make you a killer? Does that make you morally culpable?

These people are trying to kill you, and me, and everyone else who does not subscribe to their perverted vision of what the world should be.

 

[Ocelot]

Firstly thank you for the information heralding the successes of Torture. It goes some way to demonstrating your point. However not quite enough for my liking.

Secondly even if we accept that the intelligence in question did come from KSM, we have only demonstrated that intelligence gained under enhanced interrogation techniques is in one incidence accurate.

That's correct. But it's sufficient to prove false the allegation that "torture doesn't work," in the same way that producing just one live tyrannosaurus would prove false the allegation that dinosaurs are extinct.

No it's not. One psychic predicting one set of lottery numbers does not prove that psychic powers work. To prove that you have to prove reliability. The baseline being that which is possible by chance alone.

To prove that waterboarding does work you have to prove that it is reliable. In this case the baseline is the best available non-torture techniques.

This is not equivalent to demonstrating that such techniques provide reliable information.

Modify that to read, "...not equivalent to demonstrating that such techniques always provide reliable information," and I will agree. But no interrogation technique does that. If there were one, I would be completely opposed to torture.

Agree with yourself all you like. What I said stands. It's a logical truth whether you choose to agree with it or not. That in one instance information was accurate does not demonstrate that the process which generates it is reliable. For that we need access to the full range of information generated and to compare its level of accuracy with that obtained by the best available alternative techniques.

Those who criticise these enhanced interrogation techniques do not say that they never provide accurate information. They say that they provide information which is not reliable.

My horoscopes are occasionally accurate but that doesn't mean that they are reliable.

Also correct. The problem with your horoscopes, though, is that when they are correct, they are so vague as to be useless ("...culivating good relations with your fellow workers will pay off...") or, when specific, are simply wrong. In other words, horoscopes never provide genuinely useful information; waterboarding, as we have seen, does.

Sometimes horoscopes by pure chance will be specific and correct. The reasons they are not reliable is not their frequent vagueness, it is the frequency with which they are wrong.

That is important. We have seen evidence that waterboarding produces at least occasional results. What we have not seen is how often the intelligence gained is wrong. Which of those results would have been achieved without waterboarding, how much wrong information would have been generated without waterborading and what further results would have been achieved if resources hadn't been misdirected by disinformation generated by detainees anxious to escape further water treatment.

We have seen, which is beneficial to your point, that KSM failed to cooperate in any way prior to waterboarding. What we have not seen is what interrogation techniques were actually used prior to that. Did they try for example a sympathetic ear and a game of chess.

Like the psychic trumpeting their anecdotes as proof positive that the cynical debunkers have been proven wrong you are simply mistaken. You have one part of that which is necessary to prove your point but it very far from the whole enchilada.

 

[Crossbow]

Using torture to find avert future crimes is the sort of thing that often works quite well in various movies and TV shows. Just put the electrodes on him, push the button to give him a few good jolts, and he soon tells you where the bomb is. Then the hero promptly runs out, finds the bomb, and manages to defuse it just a few clicks short of boom! And then, all is right with the world.

However, it seldom, if ever, works that way in the real world.

According to the way the USA currently uses torture, it will only be applied when there is an imminent danger of sort and the information needed cannot be determined by any other method except through torture, and it has to have Presidential approval.

Soooo, here is approximately the course of events before the USA uses torture again:

First, one has to get a good idea of what, when, and where is about to happen in order to meet the imminent danger stipulation (and getting such advance information is often difficult).

Second, one has to identify at least one person who know the actual details of what is about to happen (so that the right person can be tortured).

Third, one has to apprehend the right person (which means that one has to have a good idea of where he is so that he can be picked up). And by the way, apprehending such a person is often a time consuming and rather dangerous exercise (to say the least).

Fourth, after the person in question has been apprehended, he has to be taken to the torture facility (the USA probably does not have too many of these places around the world, so this step could take at least a couple of hours).

Fifth, the torture team needs to be briefed on what is to happen and the person who is to be tortured (so that they know what to ask). This step could take at least a couple of hours too, but it may be possible to expedite it by do it concurrently with the above steps.

Sixth, the Office of the Attorney General needs to review the data for the torture justification, then write a finding in support of the torture, and then the Attorney General needs to sign off on the torture justification. All this paperwork will require at least a couple of hours to complete.

Seventh, the President needs to be briefed on the torture justification then formally approve of the torture as recommended by the Office of the Attorney General (which would take at least another hour or two).

Eighth, and finally, the torture can be done.

Ninth, assuming that the torture goes well and is very quick, then extracted data has be disseminated to the appropriate parties.

Tenth, the appropriate parties have to figure out just what to do with the data they are provided. It may be something rather simple, or may be something rather complex: such a determination cannot be made in advance.

Whew! Quite a bit of work to obtain data that will have a shelf life of only a few hours at the most. If the 9/11 case is any guide, there were probably only two or three people who knew the nitty-gritty details, and that data was only valid for a few hours before the actual attack.

Therefore, I expect that even if torture is only used in the most limited of circumstances, and even if the torture works extremely well at extracting the information needed, that by the time the above process is completed, the information collected will be of little to no value.

Further, when the USA engages in torture, for whatever reason, it is breaking its own laws and treaty obligations which makes is much harder for the USA to prosecute others who engage in torture.