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Soufan: Torture Is "Amateurish Technique"
Ali Soufan, who has participated in interrogations of high-level terror suspects including Abu Zubaydah, is giving a detailed explanation of superior intelligence methods, within the Army field manual, that don't involve torture.
Soufan said that when he used such methods on Zubaydah, they produced actionable intelligence in less than an hour.
As for torture, said Soufan: "This amateurish technique is harmful to our long-term interests. It plays into the enemies playbook."
Soufan made clear: "My interest is not to advocate the prosecution of anyone." Rather, he wants to see us learn from our mistakes.
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Josh
Zachary
All the participants, the enablers, were OK with torture because they're OK with torture. They "got off" on the idea. Especially that bitch Cheney and his boy Bush. They didn't care if they got actionable information. That wasn't the point.
May 13, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's about time someone said it. Torture is the tool for those who don't have the skill or patience needed to gain useful info. It takes years and much government funding to create relationships and networks needed for security purposes. When your goal is to starve the government in order to create a "need" for private contractors, you cut ALL budgets to the bone. And so you exchange experienced people with dreaded legacy costs for up-front savings with long-term consequences.
The thugs who were previously in charge exemplify the type of corrupted capitalists who put our country in the state it's in today. They arrogantly made up their own rules as they pleased, falling back on outdated stereotypes to justify their actions and lay blame on government agencies. This shameless class of entitlement is rampant throughout businesses today. And they have the nerve to call themselves capitalists!
May 13, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the "torture" hearing and it seems like an incredible waste of time. Lindsay Graham regurgitated the same old talking points (i.e. we got effective info, the ticking timebomb scenario) and generally mocked the witnesses and the hearing. Then Whitehouse cut the hearing off saying he had a plane to catch. What was the point of holding this? It was embarassing.
May 13, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
This hearing should be called Sheldon VS. Lindsey, as both Senators Whitehouse and Graham are each eliciting the answers that would support their side of the issue of torture--Senator Whitehouse playing the role of prosecuting attorney, Senator Graham playing the role of defense attorney.
Whitehouse, in my opinion, is representing the rule of law, and is championing that cause masterfully. He pursues the issue admirably--as if there is not a particular political side he is advocating, either you uphold the law or you do not.
Graham, on the other hand, is representing Fox News (he insists on diminishing the seriousness of torture by saying it's all simply about putting a spider in someone's cell.)
It's unfortunate that politics is driving the media dialogue, but that is the inescapable reality of all things that transpire in DC.
May 13, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Senator Graham playing the role of defense attorney."
Since when was ANYONE in the senate or house supposed to be the defending attorney for someone on their "witness stand"?
We saw this with Monica Goodling, where she actually had advocates in Lungren and others, who had no interest in the law, they just wanted their "side" protected, regardless of how badly it broke those laws.
It is their JOB to ask questions for THE PUBLIC, not their special interests, and every time one of them does it, it just makes a farce of the whole system and proves how powerful those special interests really are.
May 13, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is why I have come to recognize that in order to support our representatives in doing their jobs appropriately, 'we' have to be involved so that the 'other' pressures and interests are not the only 'pressures' they feel. I don't like it but for many, they need to feel pressure from the public they serve in order to do what is right for them.
And Senator Graham just kept repeating that all the talk on torture is just a 'difference of opinion'. Well we can all have a 'difference of opinion' and the law still gets applied.
May 13, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree completely.
May 13, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The thing I find more disturbing is that the Republicans consistently use a stupid Hollywood TV show as the underpinning of their argument for torture.
What? Are you serious?
Come on Republicans...a Hollywood show that for all intents and purposes has no footing in reality, and this is what you are going to base your moral soul, and intellectual argument on?
Have you lost your mind?
Seriously, have you lost your sense of reality versus fantasy?
And here is a question...why do the news people let these people slide with their hypocrisy?
wtf is up with the msm?
Why the hell is Jon Stewart the only one who is willing to b*tch slap the entire Republican Cheerleading squad with the truth, but the msm just stares and drools like a bunch of hamfisted, keyboard turning, mouth breathers?
May 13, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Considering the torture Cheney defends was primarily induced to find evidence that we now know never existed, one can only wonder how far they went to get NOTHING except coerced, fabricated confessions.
It also begs the question, were Cheney' henchmen trying to use torture to intimidate NON-prisoners? Apparently they don't realize, the extremists "over there" consider martyrdom a great honor. If that was their strategy, all Cheney accomplished was to increase Al Queda's recruiting outreach.
And then maybe it was just vindictiveness and vengeance, even when they knew there was nothing to gain, they continued under the pretense of looking for that Saddam-Ossama link.
If it was just for simple, bloody revenge, then we obviously have never attained the rule of law and are still ruled by the law of the jungle.
May 13, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Josh's take on this: "tough guy porn."
So many chickenhawks, true character so rare.
May 13, 2009 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good. He's quoting Mathew Alexandar. That guy is the most level headed and best speaker, both because of his credentials and how he is able to explain himself, as to why the U.S. does not need to and should not torture.
May 13, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. Gramm said we made mistakes and waterboarding was a mistake. At least he's not part of the pro-torture, nothing wrong with a little water up somebody's nose crowd.
May 13, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
THE CORE OF THEIR TORTURE ARGUMENT: That if we perform these acts on our soldiers during training, therefore, these acts are not torture. Is the same as saying that if you perform acts(sexual acts) with your wife, then it is okay if you perform those acts on a 13 year old. Since they are both sexual acts, therefore they are both okay. One is a loving act, the other is sexual molestation. Just because an act is okay under condition A, doesnt mean that same act is okay under condition B. This goes to the SERE vs Torture framing that cheney is using as defense.
So, if it is okay for you to perform an act(a killing act) on enemy soldiers, you cannot claim that this makes it okay for you to do the same to 12 of your neighbours. One is serving your country, the other is murder. You cannot claim that since they are both the same act of killing, therefore killing 12 of your neighbours is somehow justified. The same way these torture apologist are using SERE training to justify torture. Like i said, Just because an act is okay under condition A, doesnt mean that same act is okay under condition B.
If you are to follow the cheney logic of: this is done to our soldiers, therefore it is okay. One can use that strain of reasoning to justify practically anything. Think of it. I can always find a condition where something is bound to be legal or even moral, then turn around and say, since it is moral/legal in this situation( A), therefore it is moral/legal under new situation( B) that suits me. I can use that reasoning to justify anything i want to do. Including cheating, stealing, physical assault, killing, harassment, infanticide, genocide, even holocaust.
It is not a ALL YES or ALL NO situation, Otherwise, since boxing or martial arts is okay, therefore is it moral/legal for me to start kicking you around?!?! That is the SERE argument that cheney is advancing. It is ridiculous, offensive, dangerous, and even abominable. Since you can use it to justify any acts on this planet.
May 13, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we all are missing the point here. These techniques are not designed to get accurate information, they are designed to get a detainee to say what the interrogator wants them to say.
The governments that continue to use these techniques (like North Korea), use them for propaganda purposes. I believe that the use of torture by the Bush administration was yet another weapon in the arsenal of its propaganda machine designed to create a fake justification for its foreign policy.
Maybe people aren't afraid of getting the specifics of the torture out in the open. What they are afraid of is the fact that they fell for the propaganda that it produced - hook, line and sinker!
May 13, 2009 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink