Levin's investigators, armed with subpoena power, uncovered what appears to be a much more pervasive pattern of abuse that has previously been acknowledged by Defense officials.Even though these were military operations, I'm sure UNRR will seek a way to blame it on the CIA for not keeping torture secret enough...
The report fills in some detail on the history of interrogation techniques at Gitmo. They were requested by Gitmo's intelligence chief on October 11, 2002 and approved by Sec. Donald Rumsfeld less than a month later. In January of 2003, official Navy SERE trainers arrived at Guantanamo Bay to train interrogators in their methods.
The report describes some confusion among military lawyers, who assumed that Rumsfeld's authorization of the rough techniques in Gitmo meant that they were also the approved techniques for prisoners in Afhganistan. And it quotes a lawyer for a Special Missions Unit - an elite, secret counterterrorism squad - as saying that Rumsfeld's approval of the techniques provided the best legal argument for his soldiers' use of them in the battlefield. SERE instructors were shipped to Iraq to help other top-secret units learn to interrogate suspects.
Though some top generals wrote formal objections to the rough techniques, they were ignored by the chain of command, according to the report. Abu Ghraib, in particular, is portrayed as a heaven for interrogators and a cesspool for prisoners being regularly abused and subject to beatings. Warnings from military psychologists that the techniques were counterproductive were not heeded.
Since the CIA doesn't operate within some laws, that justifies the Bush administration's authorization of these interrogations, and we need not concern ourselves with the legalities. Or so the tortured logic goes.
"Even though these were military operations, I'm sure UNRR will seek a way to blame it on the CIA for not keeping torture secret enough.."
ReplyDeleteWrong. I'm against having the military use questionable interrogation tactics. Rumsfeld's policies were a terrible idea. My criteria for the possible use of torture are very specific.
> My criteria for the possible use of torture are very specific.
ReplyDeleteIf every time we get new information on these war crimes you're going to come back with: "I only think torture should be secret, illegal, and rare" then why do you bother defending anything the Bush administration did?
1) We knew about it long before he and Cheney left office, ergo it was not "kept secret enough."
2) The memos tried to pass the torture techniques as officially legal, which you don't think they should be.
3) Even outside the case of KSM and Zubaydah who were waterboarded a combined 200+ times over a period of months, these techniques were not rare. This Senate report here says as much.
So again, if what the U.S. did here are definite war crimes that fail all your criteria, why defend it?
And why defend any torture at all since your criteria is it should be so secret we never find out about it? If you're defending known torture, then it's already failed your criteria--hence arguing with you is a useless endeavor, because you can prove anything from a contradiction.
"If every time we get new information on these war crimes you're going to come back with: "I only think torture should be secret, illegal, and rare" then why do you bother defending anything the Bush administration did?"
ReplyDeleteBecause some of their actions are defensible. Just because I disagree with the way they went about it, doesn't mean that every single thing they did was incorrect.
1) true
2) true. I think the attempt to legalize some methods that I believe are clearly torture, and others that are possibly torture, was a bad idea and caused more harm then good.
3) KSM & Zubaydah fall into the category where I think torture is justified. So how much or how long they were tortured is irrelevant
"So again, if what the U.S. did here are definite war crimes that fail all your criteria, why defend it?"
Just because actions were mistaken doesn't make them war crimes.
"And why defend any torture at all since your criteria is it should be so secret we never find out about it?"
The most important criteria is the category of person that is subject to torture. Secrecy is preferable because it minimizes many of the negative effects. But if we have a KSM in custody, then I support torturing him if necessary, whether it is possible to keep it secret or not.
"If you're defending known torture, then it's already failed your criteria"
No, it means it was carried out in a way that was less than ideal. You can support something in principle, and disagree with aspects of its application in practice.