Torture Had Zip To Do With Getting Osama Bin Laden
May 4th, 2011 | 23 responses
I believe this is a time to celebrate hard work. ~ Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM
Osama bin Laden had been dead for a mere few hours when the conservative priests took to the media altar to crow that torture had led to the death of the Al Qaeda leader. From all available evidence, that is not correct, but an opportunity to try to rehabilitate the worst president in recent U.S. history was not to be squandered.
The timeline, please:
The administration of George W. Bush used torture — including waterboarding, slamming suspects into walls, slaps, sleep and food deprivation, nudity, insects and threats to rape and otherwise harm female family members — until late 2004 when its denials concerning such techniques were overwhelmed by a trickle of evidence to the contrary that soon grew into a flood.
Concerned with the possible legal culpability of the torturers and their helpmates up the line all the way to the Justice Department, the techniques had been abandoned by the time the president commenced his second term in January 2005. There also had been a presidential election to be concerned with, while the morality of techniques used by the Nazis and Chinese and North Korean communists was never an issue. Nor was the serious damage that had been done to the U.S.’s world standing a concern.
Despite the use of torture, Bin Laden’s trail had grown colder and colder. After all, Bush himself had walked far back from his vow on September 17, 2011 to get him “dead or alive,” while in a sort of coupe de grace to blowing the war in Afghanistan by diverting troops and resources to Iraq, eventually allowed that “I don’t spend that much time on him.”
Meanwhile, a close reading of the remarks of former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, a key torture regime architect, since Bin Laden’s death shows that while he continues to praise torture in the abstract, he has been careful not to say that it lead to his death, while the number of novel interpretations of what the torture program was not seem endless, my favorite being that offered by John McLaughlin, deputy CIA director during the torture era, who says that the U.S. never “set out to torture people.” He opines that it just sort of happened.
As evidence has shown, while waterboarding and other torture techniques on Bush’s orders yielded substantial information, virtually none of it was usable because victims would tell interrogators what they wanted to hear and not what they needed to know.
When the trail began warming up in subsequent years, based in part on information from several terror suspects, it was based on good-old investigative work, including legal interrogation techniques, upgrading the CIA’s intelligence network in Pakistan and a suite of high-tech methods, including satellite surveillance and wiretapping of foreign terror suspects.
The pursuit of Bin Laden was still in low gear when Barack Obama became president, but the information that had been gleaned about a trusted courier who frequented the Bin Laden compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, as well as certain other information, was passed on and Obama ordered a full-court press that resulted in Bin Laden’s death during a Navy SEAL raid on Sunday.
Torture sycophants, however, put one and one together, and although they got three, they crowed that the torture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, among others, had led to the name of the courier.
The bad information was based, in part, on an Associated Press story that was retracted when the wire service became privy to an accurate timeline. This, of course, did nothing to deter the sycophants, including former Justice Department torture justifier John Yoo and Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican who crowed in a tweet, “Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?”
So there you have it: Waterboarding yielded zip, while legal interrogations eventually led to the death of a mass murderer.
THE TIMES FINALLY USES THE T-WORD
The New York Times played paddy cake with using the word torture in connection with American personnel during the Bush era, but jhas been less transparent since then. But this story linking torture to “American forces” is something of a breakthrough.
23 Responses to “Torture Had Zip To Do With Getting Osama Bin Laden”
The correct objects of wrath are people like King who said getting information about bin Laden’s whereabouts was obtained from waterboarding (something I noted on TMV some time ago). Much more pathetic is using that as an excuse to bash Bush (to excess and to dishonesty) once more. Presumably he’s to blame for high motor vehicle fuel prices, too?
[shaking head]
Readers, including most of us who don’t condone torture (“it doesn’t work” = many “false positive” results; that’s in addition to the moral positions against deliberate injury and harm) might like to read the following interview. Much more of note than old Bush-bashing.
http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/04/did-torture-get-the-us-osama-bin-laden/
[...] Torture Had Zip To Do With Getting Osama Bin Laden (themoderatevoice.com) [...]
In addition to all the evidence showing that torture isn’t an effective tool for eliciting useful information, there is the devastating downside of credibility loss for a country that on one hands promotes itself as the ethical and moral standard in the world and on the other hand excludes itelf from that standard when it chooses. The longterm ramifications of such credibility loss can’t be stressed enough. We HAVE to be better than this. People like John Yoo and Dick Cheney are NOT worthy role models for a great country like ours.
I’m opposed to torture for moral reasons, and I think some of the EITs qualify as torture (waterboarding itself I’d say is a gray area, but probably too close for comfort).
However, just because it was wrong and unwise doesn’t mean it must never have produced any useful results. Political arguments necessitate that we never acknowledge that anything good can come from something we think is bad, but in the real world good things can result from the bad. Notice in the White House statements that they say the information came from “many sources” over a long period of time, which is true I’m sure, but they never say that some of those sources weren’t exposed to EITs. It appears, from what I understand, that at least a few of them were–and those were the few that produced the early seeds of information. Just because the information came out after EITs were no longer used does not mean that they didn’t play a role. We have no way of knowing if the information would have come out without the use of EITs to first “break” the informants.
None of this should take away from the recent success. Of course it would be unreasonable to say that just because we rightly condemned and discontinued the use of EITs, we should throw away any confirmed information that might have been initially obtained by their use.
ad–if you don’t mind I am submitting your name to the Smithsonian…so that they rememeber to exhibit your photograph as the last living moderate on earth.
Adelinesdad,
You make a reasonable point, but as one who is also opposed to torture on both moral and legal grounds, I feel compelled to also make a point (but I’ll admit that I am not a legal expert.
The point being that, I believe, in our justice system, evidence obtained illegally (or under duress) is not admissible in court—no matter how heineous the crime.
Having said that, and in this case, if—and a BIG IF—there was already intelligence on the whereabouts of OBL obtained through torture, should we ignore it?
Don’t know…good question.
And, having said all that and with reference to your “because it was wrong and unwise doesn’t mean it must never have produced any useful results,” that comes awfully close to saying that the ends justify the means.
I don’t know, but very thought-provoking…
Dorian:
You acknowledge, albeit indirectly, what a legal tangle this is, one reason that John Yoo’s pretzel logic in finding a legal basis for the use of torture contained elements of truth.
Do we throw the rulebook out if it turns out that credible intelligence on OBL was obtained through extralegal means? Even someone as opposed to torture as myself might be loathe to do that.
And you hit a very big nail on the head in positing the ends-justify-the-means argument, which the more I think about it makes my head want to explode. Allways has, probably always will.
The just make ends meet sometime, but that don’t make it right. And all is relative, since they were not read their Miranda rights.
Thanks for the feedback, Shaun.
Hopefully we’ll get some more reasoned opinions on this whole issue—and I am, not talking about the “lefties evil/Low IQ – righties holier-than-thou/brilliant kind
Don’t worry, Dorian; (should I start a new sentence so it’s easier to read?) I throttled back substantially to give many a chance to understand what’s so plain. (it would hurt to see “obvious”)
What’s also earned and written here also should be: I enjoy the many sudden lefty fans of (to paraphrase not only the many avowed lefties but other lefties like Andrew Sullivan, complete with sniveling and pained or outraged diction) an independently-of-Congress-as-well-as-political-civilian-critics power-exercising President choosing to commit violence and be a warmonger against a private individual without a warrant outside US territory, in a sovereign nation, showing contempt for common conventions and expected normal standards of conduct and decency. (That Liberal Hypocrisy, Again) I chuckle about it.*
And it’s free of the “push-back” nomenclature that is less vicious and vulgar than that what comes from authors and lefty commentators here. I’ve still backed off lately on pushing back…
* Should I add that bin Laden is “food for the fishes” now? [smirk]
Ah…
J. Spencer wrote:
> None of this should take away from the recent success.
Including the gratuitous as well as lowly Bush-bashing…
The point is, it was successful, and we now have CLOSURE.
Nobody cares whether or if torture got the information needed to perform the mission, not only as a matter of bonehead-level logic but because most of us (other than the true far to extreme Right) condone torture (or, also in the far-extreme category, consider this a great example of why we should do this to our enemies).
Side note: aside from what’s now being said to be common commando or Special Ops tactics of shooting “targeted” people if there’s no ease or guarantee of capture alive (nobody cares about all the other people that are simply in the way or making trouble for our people doing missions like these), bin Laden wasn’t just a terrorist but effectively (legally?) an illegal combatant in war (it could be said) and has no same rights as regular, legitimate enemy combatants (those pesky rules of war). Informed people probably have already thought of that older term, “francs-tireurs” (as well as “partisans” and “saboteurs,” etc.). Add to it that this was outside the USA, where the laws and rules are different than here. (Really informed readers know that’s why the terrorist on the aircraft to Detroit deserves US-style treatment, because he was caught here in the USA — this is the inverse of bin Laden)
DLS wrote incorrectly (when interrupted and rushed just now):
“[M]ost of us (other than the true far to extreme Right) condone torture (or, also in the far-extreme category, consider this a great example of why we should do this to our enemies).”
CORRECTION:
“[M]ost of us (other than the true far to extreme Right) do not condone torture (or, also in the far-extreme category, consider this a great example of why we should do this to our enemies).”
DLS,
Hey bud. Since you mentioned my name for some still-not-undertsood reason and with words that this low IQ libdem can not even begin to fathom, let me just say, bud, you should really stop talking to those worms at Arlington National Cementery. They are plainly giving you some bad advice, bud.
Dorian:
That is why I took care to say confirmed information. For example, If a murder suspect admits under duress that he is guilty and that he was collaborating with several other individuals in the plot, and then those individuals are found and they confirm that the suspect was involved in the plot, that is now confirmed information, and I don’t think that would be thrown out because the original information was obtained illegally (although I’m also not a legal expert). In this case, the alias of the courier was given, and then presumably the information was confirmed by other means, such as by finding and tracking the suspected courier.
So, I wouldn’t say there is ever a time where one should discard information that we have confirmed to be true just because the lead came from unjust means. I’m not even sure it would be possible. How do you tell an intelligence officer to forget something and not act on it?
I don’t think it is “ends justify the means”, it’s just saying that the means (torture) may have contributed the ends (killing OBL), but that doesn’t necessarily justify the means. ETA: In fact, that’s my point: The ends don’t justify the means, but the means are still the means.
As for Arlington, that issue was closed in September 2009.
Enough already with the weirdness and worse.
Hey bud (DLS,that is). No, that issue will not be closed until you apologize and retract your heineous remarks, which you just proudly and smugly recalled with your
“‘food for the fishes’ [smirk]” snark.
That’s all I have to say to you, bud, until and unless you bring the issue up again or address me in some condescending way.
Compris?
adelinesdad:
Thanks for your reply and for explaining your original comments.
Hi all, please read the commenters rules below very thoroughly. We have a new commenting system that allows us to delete and ban. All of you here know the rules, most of you keep them well, and some few of you here have been warned numerous times for a long time. There will be no more warnings. Read the rules closely. As I’ve mentioned many times, there are millions of places on the internet for commenters to carry on with incivility and insult toward others. TMV isnt one of them. However, there is no dearth of places where people can bait and be snide and insulting to one another. So, it is clear that all can be more than accomodated in that. Just not here at TMV.
thanks,
archangel /dr.e
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So Shaun, correct me I’m wrong, but where in your article is there proof, or even evidence, that torture had nothing to do with the death of bin Laden?
I don’t think we have enough of the picture at this time to make that claim.
Barky:
Five minutes on the Internet will give you all the links and proof that you need.
(Skip to bottom for the best link)
Actually, Shaun, the more interesting things related to research on the topic (you gave no evidence, much less proof in what you wrote) are more subtle as well as more properly general at the same time, such as at this oft-foreign site:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-unwelcome-return-of-the-torture-debate/238222/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/torture-opponents-were-right/238387/
or here at the creaky, leaky, badly ailing, lib Dem flagship:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/politics/04torture.html
while this is what we should be seeing from many liberals who profess (often ridiculously inflated) Big Deal Torture Abhorrence, but we won’t:
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/87909/obama-osama-bin-laden-torture-guantanamo-bay
(I wonder what the New Republic might say about deficit and debt reduction. No Bush-bashing, no mindless spending-defense, just calling spenders to account?)
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