nerdgirl

As I've written before I think these guys genuinely were operating under a ‘fog of war’ and wanted to do what they were persuaded was best. Two PhD psychologists (not experienced of trained interrogators) James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were largely responsible for filling a knowledge void in CIA with what they were recommending, i.e., use of waterboarding. They were independent contractors selling their ideas. The DOJ lawyers who re-interpreted law to enable the use of waterboarding and other "enhaced interrogation techniques" (which were considered illegal previously) cited Jack Bauer more frequently than the Constitution. If people who are as smart as John Yoo (I may disagree vehemently with his legal and ethical thinking; he's not 'dumb,' however) can be influenced by fictional television, what does that say for the rest of us? No one wants to think that they're influenced by television -- we all want to think that we're independent skeptical thinkers. Do you realize that they don't use it anymore? Do you know who made that decision? Do you realize what was the window of time during which waterboarding was utilized by the CIA? Yes, I heartily support release of additional documents. I suspect the lag is due to (1) lawyers, (2) the tortuous (bad choice of words) declassification process, and (3) the fact of ongoing litigation. I don't see any evidence to suggest that it will show what you suggest. And given the other arguments that have nothing to do with morals or ethics: reciprocity on US service members and deployed civilians, impedance of US foreign policy and national defense goals, and use as propaganda for recruitment of terrorists), there is no strategic or operational advantage to employing waterboarding or “enhanced interrogation” as a euphemism for torture as part of investigatory process. Quite to the contrary, one may argue that such a policy has (strongly) negative strategic and operational repercussions. Why would the Bush administration release all sorts of evidence -- look beyond the unsupported assertions to the evidence and facts -- showing the ineffectiveness of the technique? All the while that a few political appointee lawyers (Yoo & Busbee, mostly) were saying "this is now legal" (it hadn't been before), the DoD was releasing direct evidence (transcripts) and indirect evidence (re-writing doctrine and training materials) that it wasn't. That is fascinating to me! How do we choose which to believe? How do we know what we think we know? First off, you don't know my experience. And it's not about me. I don't invoke myself as authoritative expert. It's part of the fun challenge of SC for me. Second, do the experiences of your friend, which I have no issue with accepting as true - support of the methods you seem to want to enable ... or do they support the experience of the USMC interrogators? It's not clear what the directionality of events is, i.e., which came first -- the bad behavior or the shackling, hooding, and cuffing. To which detainees is he referring? What we do know is that use of traditional interrogation methods, like those outlined in the FMs, with radical, militant Islamists has worked. It worked with Abu Zubayduh -- and he was a *very* bad man. Those traditional interrogation techniques, maligned as "soft," have also worked in a real-world “ticking time-bomb” scenario: "[Jack]Cloonan [32-year FBI veteran, whose experience included counterintelligence, counterterrorism, the Joint Terrorism Task Force] and a New York Police Department detective secured actionable intelligence from a suspect in the foiled millennium-bombing plot in just six hours on December 30, 1999 -- by following FBI procedure, and by encouraging a suspect to pray during his Ramadan fast. The suspect even agreed to place calls to his confederates, which led to their speedy arrests. ... and worked in the real world interrogation of an al Qa’eda member: L'Houssaine Kherchtou, aka “Joe the Moroccan,” who was a member of the alQa'eda cell that bombed the US Embassy in Nairobi. He eventually became the US government's “star witness” in the criminal case. Prayer rugs and figs worked. I'm still curious: how did you come to the conclusion that “The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top.” What do you think is the history of waterboarding in CIA interogation? Maybe you know something I don’t. What studies? Show us, please. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yes. It was an interview on Fox News with former DCI Michael Hayden. As I wrote before and to you directly, I was already aware of Hayden's comments. They were not something I had not seen. He's not specific -- the closest is this: This statement: is contradicted by (1) the statements of those who were there, including those who *were* there. See former FBI interogator Ali Soufan[s testimony *under oath*: Fox News isn't under oath. And the DoD-transcripts released by the Bush administration. It’s also contradicted by (2) chronology. There’s too much contradictory in Hayden’s statements. We have nothing yet that shows anything gained from torture/waterboarding. Sorry. As I wrote, I think these guys genuinely were operating under a ‘fog of war’ and wanted to do what they were persuaded was best. Have you followed the money, as they say, to James Mitchell? He and another were largely responsible for filling a knowledge void in CIA with what they were recommending, i.e., use of waterboarding. Who's pushing the hype? I agree that Cheney is pushing hype. (Imagine if it was another former Vice President who just kept repeating over & over with *no evidence* that global warming was occuring, how would you react?) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thank you. Interesting hypothesis. wiring (aka neural connectivity) influences perspective/political ideology *or* neural connectivity/plasticity through experience --> influences perspective/political ideology? It's like error bars or variance in the mean -- liberals had much larger error bars as far as what was considered acceptable behavior/acceptable choices, whereas as the conservatives had tighter error bars. If I was going to design a rigorous study, I would ask for folks to self-identify on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 = extremely liberal, 5 = moderate, 10 = extremely conservative. I'd also try to incorporate some questions that represent benchmarks, e.g., something lilke the questions in the 4-quadrant political ideologt test. Similarly I would ask for perception of minority to be rated from 1 = Democrats/liberals in extreme minority (

duh - you live on the west coast. It's hardly suitable to treat that as representative of all skydivers. The sense that I've gotten from skydivers from NorCal to the midwest to the East Coast, is that the majority are largely apolitical or only marginally interested in politics. SC is something of a self-selecting group of folks who are interested in politics/guns/religion, who also happen to skydive. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

There’s nothing to forgive. I always welcome questions and challenges. On what do you base your assertion: “The CIA has studied this for years, and they have a graduated set of techniques with waterboarding up at/near the top.” How did you come to that conclusion? What do you think is the history of waterboarding in CIA interogation? Maybe you know something I don’t. What studies? Show us, please. Really? So if actual operators from the CIA state that it doesn’t work, i.e., “err on the CIA’s experience” would you change your mind? That’s your condition. Explicit comments from a couple former CIA operatives who assert that torture is not effective in obtaining intelligence: Former CIA Directorate of Operations (DO), not the analysis side, officer Robert Baer: torture is “bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough.” Larry Johnson, another former CIA officer – operations not analyst – and former deputy director of counterterrorism at the Department of State: “I’m a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways. “What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust - even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming - than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights. “I am not advocating that terrorists be given room service at the Four Seasons. Some sleep deprivation - of the sort mothers of newborns all endure - and spartan living conditions are appropriate. What we must not do is use physical pain or the threat of drowning, as in ‘water-boarding,’ to gain information. Tough, relentless questioning is OK. Torture is not.” A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard has publically acknowledged turning down ideas of ways to create pain as part of interrogation methods who he was deputy DO. If they were effective, would he do that? How about the DIA? LTG Harry E. Soyster, USA (ret) and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), i.e., the Defense Department's lead intelligence agency, & Commanding General of Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM): “If they think these methods ["enhanced interrogation," i.e., torture] work, they're woefully misinformed. Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world.” In light of the 60+ years of operator expertise – from the Marine interrogators to former FBI agent Ali Soufan to the USAF officer who obtained the information that led to the location and killing of al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2006 – that torture, including waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation” methods, are not effective, how do you reconcile that with your own assertion that we should err on the side of those with operational expertise? Are you asserting the that USMC interrogators – the ones whose operational experience is that “…despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them.” aren’t in the real world? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

40%? Really??? How can that be? It's federal income tax. Everyone pays sales tax. (*There are exceptions to sales tax for religious organizations, non-profits, and eductaional institutions ... not sure if there are any individual exemptions for sale tax. Anyone think of one?) A lot of folks who have no federal income tax due do still contribute tax revenue through payroll taxes and FICA. Some may also pay State taxes. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

When the notional question of is there a minority political/ideological view/perspective went through my squishy gray matter, I wondered if there was some available data. While none of these are scientifically conducted/controlled and error bars are likely to be large, by surveying polls on Speakers Corner (i.e., conducting a meta-analysis of sorts) one can observe a pattern: In this poll (January 2009) 43 respondents indicated they were Republican/conservative/right-leaning and 37 respondents indicated they were Democrat/liberal/progressive/left-leaning. In this poll, (also from January 2009), 45 respondents indicated they were Republican/conservative and 23 respondents indicated they were Democrat/liberal. In this poll (from February 2009) 20 respondents indicated they were Republican or conservative (or tend to vote that way) and 17 respondents indicated they were Democrat or liberal/progressive (or tend to vote that way). And the poll in this thread, in which 35 (as I type) identify as or closer to Republican/conservative and 19 identify as or closer to Democrat/liberal. Four data sets. All show the same trend. Those are the only 4 polls that I found that explicitly requested partisan identification. Please let me know of any I missed. ~~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~ The underlying question of how one comes to one's conclusion is the more intellectually provocative one, imo. I might speculate ... but that's all it is at the moment. (And one answer may be in the link [JackC] provided, which I've printed but have yet to read.) Why do those who are conservative-leaning perceive themselves to be in the minority by a substantive amount whereas the liberal-leaning folks are mixed in their perceptions? Then, the operational question is what one does with the information. Just another excuse/rationalization to be an iconoclast for some, perhaps. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Per the chart Jerry posted, I fall in between him and Andy. I’m between you and [TrophyHusband] and between [Amazon] and [BillVon]. That’s an interesting 5-way to be in the middle of. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hypothesis … not theory. (And I know you know better. ) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Ummm ... uh ... *very* good information/actionable intelligence has been obtained using traditional interrogation methods. Actionable intelligence can also be obtained through human intelligence and other methods. I'm not sure what the metrics are for determining that. But by my metric, asking the questions doesn't make you such. Even for asking them insistently. If one (in general) stubbornly refuses to let go of notional ideas only for ideological/partisan reasons, maybe ... I'd rather have the questions asked. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Perhaps the more realistic question is would you be willing to explain to those families why use of an unreliable technique was chosen over the ones that have proven to be more effective? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Actually a fair amount of what was obtained has been released. And it was released during President Bush's second term. What it shows is that waterboarding is not effective. I.e., we didn’t gain. Conversely, bad information was passed along to policy makers. Details: The DefenseLink transcript listing of things Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessed to – from a plot to assassinate former President Carter to a plot to kill Pope John Paul II to the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center – he confessed to everything. Some of the things he claimed to have been responsible would have required him to be in multiple places at the same time. I only somewhat facetiously ask Was he asked if he was on the grassy knoll in Dallas in November 1963? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also compares himself to President George Washington – is that what you mean by “intelligence”? How about the 2nd detainee who the CIA has confirmed was waterboarded: Abu Zubaydah. Of what was cited as useful intelligence gained from Abu Zubaydah, the leading piece that is mentioned – the identity of Ramzi bin al Shibh – was already known. FBI agent Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002, i.e., a month before Abu Zubaydah was even apprehended. Former FBI agent, Mr. Ali Soulan has described, under oath, in some detail, how much information was obtained from Abu Zubaydah initially using traditional interrogation methods: “gave us important actionable intelligence.” And then, once what he calls CIA contractors arrived and began using “enhanced interrogation” methods on Zubaydah, there was no useful, actionable intelligence produced. “Through our interrogation, which was done completely by the book (including advising him of his rights), we obtained a treasure trove of highly significant actionable intelligence. For example, Abu Jandal gave us extensive information on Osama Bin Laden's terror network, structure, leadership, membership, security details, facilities, family, communication methods, travels, training, ammunitions, and weaponry, including a breakdown of what machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-tank missiles they used. He also provided explicit details of the 9/11 plot operatives, and identified many terrorists who we later successfully apprehended. “The information was important for the preparation of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. It also provided an important background to the 9/11 Commission report; it provided a foundation for the trials so far held in Guantanamo Bay; and it also has been invaluable in helping to capture and identify top al Qaeda operatives and thus disrupt plots. “The approach used in these successful interrogations can be called the Informed Interrogation Approach. Until the introduction of the ‘enhanced’ technique, it was the sole approach used by our military, intelligence, and law enforcement community.” Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is the 3rd terrorist suspect on whom the former CIA Director acknowledged “enhanced interrogation” techniques were used including waterboarding. How accurate and useful was the information obtained from al Nashiri? Again from reading the Defenselink transcript, he asserts he made up a long list of al Qa’eda plots and attacks so his captors would stop torturing him, even telling interrogators that Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb. Al Nashiri, in all likelihood, had very useful information. What was lost & how many opportunities were wasted because ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods were used? When the signal to noise ratio becomes so low, it ceases to be effective for anything other than distracting US investigatory efforts. Information obtained through torture by third-party states has produced bad/faulty intel that has been passed on to US policymakers, e.g., Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi. --- -- -- -- --- To be explicit: it’s not about the prisoners/detainees. That’s a red herring that some (not all) folks seem to argue against. It’s about doing what is most effective for US interests. Taken in consideration with the other 3 arguments (reciprocity on US service members, impedance of US foreign policy and national defense goals, and morals/ethics), there is no strategic, operational, or tactical advantage to employing waterboarding or “enhanced interrogation” as a euphemism for torture as part of investigatory process. Quite to the contrary, one may argue that such a policy has (strongly) negative strategic, operational, and tactical repercussions. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Okay. I'll recall that political compass test ... We can take up the Friedman & Chicago Boys issue in another thread.

Interesting counter-hypothesis. I think I can think of way to get some data on that easily. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

There's really nothing to ruin.

I suspect you're not alone: hence the "closer to" and conservative and liberal portions. As I responded to Andy & Jerry, please recognize that the clause after the hyphen is equally important as the clause before the hypen. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Andy, Jerry, and others (cuz I'm confident you're out there ) who want to invoke an "I'm a moderate" position: Please pick one and recognize that the clause after the hyphen is equally important as the clause before the hypen. Alternatively, another option to exercise, like many voting experiences, is to abstain. Thank you. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur - multiple ones. I find ethnographic surveys fascinating & illuminating w/r/t policy. One of the folks who works for me is currently working on a survey of cognitive scientists w/r/t their views on security. The biggest issue he's dealing with is how to define who/what work counts as "cognitive science." Molecular biologist who deals with model systems of central nervous system - in? Computer scientist designing AI protocols for future UAVs - out? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Because my psychic powers were not working to anticipate what options you would be expecting. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I would hypothesize that the underlying idea you're suugesting (at least as I'm understanding it) is correct. And while I can suggest a more robust method, e.g., go through & code against some standard or measure (like some of the media studies have tried to do) responses in randomly selected threads, unless NSF, etc is offering a grant/contract I'm not going to that much effort. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for that comment. That's a variable that I couldn't figure out how to control for in the poll. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Every once in a while someone makes an assertion of which political/ideological view/perspective is in the minority. What do you think? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

That's because ice cream sales cause murder. LOL - literally. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Your comment spurred a mental exercise … can the quote mean/suggest/imply the inverse of what the speaker likely intended? Just my changing cues, i.e., what I inserted in blue, one can read it as a Workers of the World Unite anthem, which is I doubt what Rev Rogers intended. “You cannot legislate the poor (proletariat) into freedom by legislating the wealthy (bourgeoisie) out of freedom. What one person (in the bourgeoisie) receives without working for, another person (in the proletariat) must work for without receiving. The government (of the bourgeoisie) cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else (in the proletariat). When half of the people (those in the bourgeoisie) get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half (those in the proletariat) is going to take care of them, and when the other half (in the proletariat) gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.” Revolution! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The only person I see making that claim is BikerBabe. A few others have made that claim … but you’re correct, purely asserted claims should be challenged. Claim: the techniques included in the SERE manual were based on torture methods the Soviets and North Koreans used against US service members. Use of waterboarding and other stress positions in SERE training is to train to resist torture that was used to elicit false confessions. It was not intended as an instructional manual for interrogation. What does one have to support that claim? When the Communists used those techniques they obtained *false confessions* that were used for propaganda: “… Chinese Communist interrogators had produced false confessions from captured American pilots not with some kind of sinister ‘brainwashing’ but with crude tactics: shackling the Americans to force them to stand for hours, keeping them in cold cells, disrupting their sleep and limiting access to food and hygiene. “‘The Communists do not look upon these assaults as ‘torture,’” one 1956 study concluded [primary reference plus discussion below – nerdgirl] ‘But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.’ “Worse, the study found that under such abusive treatment, a prisoner became ‘malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.’ [i.e., they lie; false confessions are not good intelligence – nerdgirl]” Mimicking ineffective Communist techniques: that’s on what the use of waterboarding is based. The methods didn’t generate good intelligence; they caused victims to confess to anything, which was what the Communists wanted. That propaganda was used against us; the impetus to incorporate those techniques was to develop defensive measures in US service members. Not to train US interrogators. That “1956 study” was based on the underlying work used to develop the US defensive measures to resist torture, i.e., portions of the original USAF SERE program. That study, “Communist Interrogation and Indoctrination of Enemies of the State,” has been commonly incorrectly identified as being from the Annals of Neurology and Psychology.” It’s not. There is no such journal. There is an Annals of Neurology, but publication began in 1977. It’s from the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. I.e., this is illustrative of the depth and precision on which I’m relying for evidence to (1) base my argument, (2) reliance on primary sources, and (3) Open-Source (OSINT) rocks!