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An “Intelligence Bonanza” — With Caveat
Feb 16th, 2010 | 13 responses
Neptunus Lex justifiably praises the joint Pakistani-U.S. intelligence operation that snagged the Taliban’s top military commander last week:
US and Pakistani intelligence services scored a major clandestine coup in the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Banadar, a senior Taliban military commander earlier last week[.]
[...]
It’s good to see that the ISI – whose loyalties in the GWOT have always been suspect – is cooperating rather than dragging their feet. It only makes sense after all, the threat to Pakistan should Afghanistan go sideways is existential and the fight in Afghanistan cannot be successfully prosecuted while the Taliban have a safe haven over the Hindu Kush. …
Lex goes on to note that, by acceding to the government’s request for a five-day publishing delay, the New York Times helped to enable an “intelligence bonanza”:
Keeping mum on Baradar’s capture creates the conditions for quite an intelligence bonanza, as his subordinate operatives expose their network through angst-driven chatter. It would be useful to know who leaked the information to the New York Times, back before it had become “widely known in the region”, and when it could have really hurt the effort.
The effort could still be hurt, though — if Baradar’s interrogators decide that personal vengeance is more important than actionable intelligence:
Apparently Baradar has been in custody since last week and is being interrogated by both the Paks and us. (This is why the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group exists.) The ultimate point of fighting the Taliban is to compel them to give up fighting and accept some version of a post-Taliban order in Afghanistan. Torturing Baradar — which the Pakistanis have been known to do — is counterproductive to that effort. If we treat the guy respectfully, in a demonstrated way, it might spur a reconsideration of Taliban goals. I am not counting any chickens, but any hope of a game-changing possibility will be foreclosed upon if we or our allies torture Baradar. Let’s be smart — and true to Obama’s stated principles/executive order. If there was any doubt whatsoever, the Abdulmutallab case proved we don’t need to torture to get good intelligence.
Unfortunately, need to torture and desire to torture are two different things — and the usual suspects are already falling over each other at the probability that Baradar hasn’t been read his Miranda rights (which I will go way, way, way out on a limb here and speculate probably might have something to do with the fact that Baradar was captured in Karachi, not on U.S. soil, and is in Pakistani, not U.S., custody?). Although I can’t be sure why this point excites them so much, I have to assume there is some connection being made between Miranda rights and torture. In other words, the idea is that if Baradar hasn’t been told he has the right to remain silent, that must mean he is being tortured.
For a whole lot of individuals on the right, that is by far the most important thing — much more important than maximizing our chances for getting actionable, reliable, factual information that could lead to the capture of Mullah Omar and/or to preventing future terrorist attacks.
Let’s take a closer look at that last link — to Curt at Flopping Aces. I did a search to see how many times the word “intelligence” appeared. One, in a reader comment, was part of the spelled-out title of Pakistan’s intelligence services (the Directorate for Interservices Intelligence); the other three were all part of quoted material and used to describe a type of official, a type of operation, etc., not in the sense of a specific kind of information.
Here are the sort of points about the capture and interrogation of Baradar that Curt thought essential to tell us:
“Lefty Craniums Explode as Obama Considers Keeping Our Enemy Detained Indefinitely.”
That’s the title of the post. Here is what we get further down:
“Watch as the left heads explode.”
“I’m shocked [Baradar's] lawyer hasn’t been flown via Air Force One yet, but maybe Obama and company are seeing the light?”
Ok, stop laughing. After the beating Holder and Obama took after the asinine decision to Mirandize the crotchbomber maybe they deliberately said “eh, lets just let Pakistan guys interrogate him.”
Okay, let’s not pick on Curt. It’s not like he’s the only one.
Here is Sister Toldjah:
As to the questioning of Mullah Baradar:
The officials said that Pakistan was leading the interrogation of Mullah Baradar, but that Americans were also involved. The conditions of the questioning are unclear. In its first week in office, the Obama administration banned harsh interrogations like waterboarding by Americans, but the Pakistanis have long been known to subject prisoners to brutal questioning.
Sigh. Why can’t the NYT provide factual background on the issue of waterboarding during the Bush administration by noting that it was only used on three high-value terrorist detainees and that the use of it had effectively ceased in 2005?
Hey, look, ma! We only violated half a dozen international and domestic prohibitions on torture on three detainees!
Of course, on one of those detainees, we used waterboarding 83 times, and on another we used it 183 times. Very effective technique, that.
John Hinderaker at Power Line, after “sincerely congratulat[ing] the administration on this accomplishment,” gets to the really important stuff:
We can’t help noting, though: why didn’t they pay for a lawyer and read Baradar his rights? If negotiating with a criminal defense lawyer is the most effective way to get information from a captured terrorist–here, among other things, the authorities are trying to learn the whereabouts of the Taliban’s long-lost leader, Mullah Omar–why didn’t they follow that paradigm with Mr. Baradar?
Daniel Foster at The Corner:
And in contrast to the politicization and counterproductive leaks from the White House surrounding the interrogation of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for instance, the initial questioning of Baradar appears to have been accomplished with relative secrecy, upping the chance it could yield actionable intelligence.
Politicization? What politicization? Who politicized the interrogation of the Christmas Day bomber? Who did that?
Anyway, everyone knows that only “enhanced interrogation techniques” conducted in secret (as opposed to what? Abdulmutallab’s interrogation at twelve noon in Times Square?) yield actionable intelligence. Right?
13 Responses to “An “Intelligence Bonanza” — With Caveat”
Notwithstanding your partisan diatribe, we should all note with great pleasure that the reputed second in charge of the Taliban has been captured, and that we worked with the Pakistanis to make this happen. Kudos to Obama for his success in this matter. This also stands as a point against Thiessen's concern that we were killing instead of capturing high value enemy targets, thus foregoing potential intelligence value from them. Maybe Obama was listening to Thiessen or maybe he made that decision without his input — it matters not a whit. The important point is that his is a success for America.
The conservative blogs you cited were pointing out that Obama did well, in part because he didn't follow the “Miranda and lawyer up” formula on this one. As to waterboarding, why would we do that if the detainee is cooperating? As long as he cooperates nobody is advocating waterboarding him. That's only the way things work in your straw man, not in actual moderate and conservative recommendations.
And might we have transferred him to the Pakistanis to avoid Obama's stated restrictions on interrogations? Why is this not a reasonable question to ask? Maybe Obama has moved beyond his original statements on the matter and we can all celebrate that our President is learning on the job!
Now we don't have all the information on this detainee, and subsequent information could change the perception. But for the moment this looks very good for the US and for Barrack Obama. Why not take what has been earned instead of trying to turn it into an attack on others? As Obama would say, why get all wee wee'd up about a success? All that does is prove the “Lefty Craniums Explode” point made at Flopping Aces.
The conservative blogs you cited were pointing out that Obama did well, in part because he didn't follow the “Miranda and lawyer up” formula on this one.
What's the evidence for that, other than your and those conservative bloggers' pre-existing partisan biases? And what do you even mean by “did well”?
Good job DaMav.
Where ever he went, I'm sure he's double dipping by now.
IMO the reason why Mullah Abdul Ghani Banadar was not given his rights was due to the fact that Eric Holder doesn't have jurisdiction in Pakistan. It sounds like the government of Pakistan is giving us a courtesy by allowing us to interrogate their prisoner. Banadar is their prisoner and neither the Democrats or Republicans have any say in the matter. Therefore taking making this a political issue on either side is just partisanship at it worst.
There are many Me Too blogs on the net on all sides where the Posts are very radical and one sided. TMV is unfortunately unique in that discussion of topics is encouraged from all sides and non-offensive comments are accepted. Differences in opinion on these very partisan blogs are not accepted very well. Taking partisan potshots is par for the game so consider the source, or do as I do don't read them in the first place.
DaMav,
In saying, “This also stands as a point against Thiessen's concern that we were killing instead of capturing high value enemy targets…”, and following up with “Maybe Obama was listening to Thiessen or maybe he made that decision without his input,” you display an open mind and willingness to adapt to the facts, as I recall some of your comments on the Thiessen book. You are to be applauded for that. As to whether he was listening to Thiessen, it seems far more likely that the policy was in place all along.
I do agree wholeheartedly with Kathy that this conflation of Miranda and domestic trials of terrorists (which the Bush Admin did 112 times) with foreign terrorist interrogation is an abominable politicization of an issue that should stand above partisan politics. Where was all this wailing and hand wringing when Bush officials were doing the same thing? The hypocrisy is frightening and clearly political, not practical, in nature. Shame on anyone, R or D, who seeks to politicize national security.
IMO the reason why Mullah Abdul Ghani Banadar was not given his rights was due to the fact that Eric Holder doesn't have jurisdiction in Pakistan. It sounds like the government of Pakistan is giving us a courtesy by allowing us to interrogate their prisoner. Banadar is their prisoner and neither the Democrats or Republicans have any say in the matter.
That is exactly right, New Cat.That's why talk about how Holder or Obama “decided to go a different way this time” and “not mirandize him or lawyer him up” is such a total non sequitur. That's the point I was trying to get across, but I think here you did a better job of expressing what I was trying to say.
I don't care what they do to this guy, just get the info….then kill him.
Fascists don't belong on the planet, and it's perfectly OK to cheat or otherwise destroy and disrupt the electoral process in order to prevent a waterboarding president from being elected.
To support waterboarding is not one of those little disagreement issues. We must purge the very idea from our consciousness, and hate all who would support it mercilessly. If a supporter of waterboarding is lying bleeding under an upturned, burning car, then you have no obligation to help him or her. They are dangerous and don't respect the foundations of society, so why uphold the rules and play nice for them?
“If a supporter of waterboarding is lying bleeding under an upturned, burning car, then you have no obligation to help him or her. They are dangerous and don't respect the foundations of society, so why uphold the rules and play nice for them? They obviously don't want the rules to apply for everyone, which means that the rules are no longer applicable to them.”
Wouldn't you at least shoot them to get them out of their misery and suffering? We don't want to be accused of having the same mindset as the water boarders.
I agree with this completely. The voices who seek to rationalize or minimize the use of torture come from either a place of extreme ignorance or an utter absence of conscience. If they are allowed to set the standards then we might as well be a banana republic and declare all the work and sacrifice of the great Americans of the past to have been for naught.
oh cool, our self-appointed Moral Guardians are engaged in another “Why we Hate”-fest
Ballad of the Most Righteous Opponents of Waterboarding
Fold bend and mutilate them
They dare to be our foes
They're the Other, how evil
They don't recognize our halos
Let them burn up in autos
Our moral ways are clear
May they die horrible deaths
While our morals we revere
You guys are hilarious
I agree with it completely, too, with the sole exception of one word: I would change “hate” to “oppose.” There is more than enough hate in the world, but not nearly enough opposition.
Thanks