Did waterboarding help kill Bin Laden?

Czarcasm · May 4, 2011, 6:49pm

Then why are you posting in this thread at all?

The_Tooth · May 4, 2011, 6:49pm

Your posts.

Nonsense. Nothing in your posts indicate you’re an alien.

Jas09 · May 4, 2011, 6:53pm

Yes, that was mine. That’s the whole point of a consensus - lots and lots of expert opinions that all center around a basic truth. How could one prove a consensus without having a large number of sources?

Anyway, you answered my question above - you have no opinion on this issue, you don’t care to find out the truth and thus develop an opinion, and you’re not really contributing to this discussion at all, just winding people up.

Rand_Rover · May 4, 2011, 7:01pm

And how were those sources selected? And what makes all of the authors experts? And do they all agree on the exact same thing, or are there nuances that must be taken into account (i.e., just because several of them say “torture” or “the use of force” doesn’t necessarily mean they had the exact EITs in mind or would include the EITs in what they are talking about). An inquiry like this is a lot more difficult than people in this thread are making it out to be. Which is why I’m happy leaving it to the people who are tasked with making the determination in real-live situations.

Wrong. I’m trying to fight ignorance. I’m trying to get people to realize that they can’t just read a bunch of bullshit on the internet and then say “well, there you go, torture is innefective, it shouldn’t be used!!” These people are being fairly slow to realize this, as it turns out.

Rand_Rover · May 4, 2011, 7:05pm

To fight ignorance.

Lobohan · May 4, 2011, 7:06pm

No. You’re using your ignorance to fight.

Czarcasm · May 4, 2011, 7:07pm

By refusing all cites while refusing to provide any yourself? Has this rather unique approach ever worked in the past?

Jas09 · May 4, 2011, 7:08pm

Me too. The CIA, FBI, and Army in particular. The leaders of which, in my cite, have all indicated that it is ineffective.

But you’re actually not trying to fight ignorance. You’re trying to expand it by placing “Is torture effective?” into the realm of the unknowable. And then, when asked to contribute to the investigation you say you haven’t actually read the information, have no plans to, and are happy not having an opinion.

Sitting back and saying “I don’t know and therefore neither do you” is not fighting ignorance.

Stranger_On_A_Train · May 4, 2011, 9:38pm

This whole incident and discussion brings to mind a particular scene from Terry Gilliam’s disturbingly prescient Brazil:


                                     INTERVIEWER
                         Mr. Helpmann, what would you say 
                         to those critics who maintain that 
                         the Ministry Of Information has 
                         become too large and unwieldy... ?

                                     HELPMANN
                         David... in a free society 
                         information is the name of the 
                         game. You can't win the game if 
                         you're a man short.

                                     INTERVIEWER
                         And the cost of it all, Deputy 
                         Minister? Seven percent of the 
                         gross national produce...

                                     HELPMANN
                         I understand this concern on behalf 
                         of the tax-payers. People want 
                         value for money and a cost-effective 
                         service.

                                     HELPMANN
                         That is why we always insist on 
                         the principle of Information 
                         Retrieval Charges. These terrorists 
                         are not pulling their weight, and 
                         it's absolutely right and fair 
                         that those found guilty should pay 
                         for their periods of detention and 
                         the Information Retrieval Procedures 
                         used in their interrogation.

                                     INTERVIEWER
                         Do you think that the government 
                         is winning the battle against 
                         terrorists?

                                     HELPMANN
                         On yes. Our morale is much higher 
                         than theirs, we're fielding all 
                         their strokes, running a lot of 
                         them out, and pretty consistently 
                         knocking them for six. I'd say 
                         they're nearly out of the game.

                                     INTERVIEWER
                         But the bombing campaign is now in 
                         its thirteenth year...

                                     HELPMANN
                         Beginner's luck.

We’re all in this together, kid.

Stranger

Rand_Rover · May 4, 2011, 10:51pm

No. I’m trying to show you that it’s a more complicated question than you seem to think it is, and that you can’t pick and choose among biased sources and then think you are qualified to render an opinion.

You still haven’t substantiated your claim that there is a consensus of professional interrogators that EITs are ineffective. Making claims that you can’t substantiate is the height of ignorance.

How have I “refused all cites”? I read the cites from the guy I asked to post cites.

And why should I provide a cite for anything? I haven’t make a claim that needs a cite. As I’ve told you repeatedly and you’ve repeatedly ignored.

We’ve covered this. Certain of those entities have also used EITs at some point, indicating that they at least at some point thought they may be effective in certain circumstances.

No, I’m trying to show how it’s not possible to have an educated opinion on something just through reading news articles and opinion pieces that agree with your pre-conceived position.

Saying I haven’t read the information is a complete mischaracterization of things. And of course I’m happy to not have an opinion.

Let me ask you this: when structuring related party debt that you want to be respected as debt for U.S. federal income tax purposes, are you OK with allowing the debt to PIK indefinitely or would you require a minimum current cash pay rate? Well, which one? Or are you happy not having an opinion?

Actually, it is.

GIGObuster · May 4, 2011, 11:39pm

No, because the cites do show that even if you can point at experts that could have used torture, it is still the exception rather than the rule. If the consensus was the other way, then the manuals and most experts would say otherwise.

matt · May 5, 2011, 12:49am

If you wish to dispute the cites you have read, it’s generally a good idea to go into detail about why you dispute them. Quote the parts that are disputable, or challengable, or self-contradictory. If necessary, provide a counter-cite. Simply dismissing the cite without any elaboration won’t do.

Rand_Rover · May 5, 2011, 12:58am

OK. I hereby quote the whole cite posted by Lobohan. Nowhere in that cite does it support the claim that there is a consensus of professional interrogators that EITs are ineffective.

Whack-a-Mole · May 5, 2011, 1:03am

You asked for a cite that there is a consensus that torture is ineffectual as a means to gather intelligence. We have not provided a single cite that definitively says, “torture is ineffectual, everyone says so” because there is probably no such thing.

We have however provided cites that the FBI thinks so, that the CIA KUBARK manual said so, that the Army Field Guide says so, that (what scientific inquiry to this) says so. We have also included cites from Napoleon saying it is a shitty way to get intelligence. We have provided cites that the Nazi’s “master interrogator” utterly eschewed using force. I’ll add more just below.

Bottom line though is that sounds like a consensus. “Consensus” does not mean “everyone” thinks so but means most people who matter think so. CIA, FBI, the Army, Napoleon, Nazis…pretty much all on the same page. Where is your counterbalance to that?

I’m not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me – both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn’t work.

<snip>

I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

<snip>

I know the counter-argument well – that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that’s not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

<snip>

We’re told that our only options are to persist in carrying out torture or to face another terrorist attack. But there truly is a better way to carry out interrogations – and a way to get out of this false choice between torture and terror.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242_pf.html

And…(bolding mine)

But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I’m repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods (“Too Nice for Our Own Good” was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week’s trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I’ve heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians “really know how to get these things done.” I’ve heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I’ve heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria – and they lost that war anyway. “Liberals,” argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, “have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective.” But it’s also true that “realists,” whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else.

By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was “not nice,” he says. “But we did not physically abuse them.” Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet – as he remembers saying to the “desperate and honorable officers” who wanted him to move faster --** “if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy’s genitals, he’s going to tell you just about anything,” which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn’t know “any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea.”**

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

And…(bolding mine)

“At the end of the day, it’s very easy to distinguish between the right thing and the wrong thing to do. If you do the wrong thing, you’re not going to get any positive payoff from it and it’s going to be of at some great cost,” Jacobs said. “We get much more information if we treat people properly.”

<snip>

“You need to be aggressive to get the information you want, but if you treat people inhumanely, they’re just going to tell you what they think you want to hear,” he said. “They’ll do anything just to get the mistreatment to stop, so you get nothing from mistreatment.”

Speaking of his experiences, Jacobs said he has had the best success by being decent to people.

<snip>

“When I was in Vietnam, we were given the most intelligence, the best intelligence and had the most success with captors if we gave them cigarettes, medical care, food (and) water. Almost always, you get the best success from treating people properly,” Jacobs said.

SOURCE: Jack Jacobs, Retired Army Colonel, Medal of Honor Recipient for actions in Vietnam plus 2 Silver Stars, 3 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts (speaking to MSNBC)

And…(bolding mine)

In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation.

“The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information,” retired Air Force Col. Steven M. Kleinman, a former military-interrogation instructor, wrote in the Intelligence Science Board report. “In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that ‘compliance’ carries the same connotation as ‘meaningful cooperation.”‘

In short: Slam someone up against the wall, keep him awake for days, lock him naked in a cell and slap his face enough, and he will probably say something. That doesn’t necessarily make it true.

SOURCE: Torture is Most Likely Very Effective - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board

As to your predilection to calling torture “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” note that waterboarding it torture.

Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself, says US advisor

Malcolm Nance, an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence, publicly denounced the practice. He revealed that waterboarding is used in training at the US Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in San Diego, and claimed to have witnessed and supervised “hundreds” of waterboarding exercises. Although these last only a few minutes and take place under medical supervision, he concluded that “waterboarding is a torture technique – period”.

SOURCE: Waterboarding is torture - I did it myself, says US advisor | The Independent | The Independent

{{Who is Malcolm Nance that we should care?}}

Malcolm Wrightson Nance is a former U.S. Navy Senior Chief, SERE instructor, and expert in prisoners of war and terrorist hostage survival techniques.[1][2] He also has recognized the Iraq insurgency, Jihadist tactics and Al Qaeda’s global organization. Since his retirement from the United States Navy, Nance has served as an independent security consultant and author.

A 26-year veteran of the US intelligence community, Nance is a frequent guest analyst on Fox News. He served as the chief consultant at Real World Rescue in 2000.[3] In 2004 Nance was working as a security consultant in Iraq.[4][5] In 2006 Nance was consulting over Australian security.[6]

He is also notable for testifying before the U.S. Congress about the use of “extended interrogation techniques”.[1][2]

SOURCE: Malcolm Nance - Wikipedia

You have claimed we are only looking at biased sources and finding the info we want to find. The cites above include people who are decidedly not squishy, bleeding heart types. These are guys who have been there and done that. Guys who have been at the pointy end of the sword. Guys with experiences that would probably give most people nightmares.

We have shown the consensus and shown it from credible sources. Where are your cites that even begin to stack up to what we have shown in this thread?

newcomer · May 5, 2011, 1:53am

So, if I understand the protocol correctly, the link from OP is now considered an official cite for “torture works” claim?

Makes you wonder about ANY cite…

Lobohan · May 5, 2011, 1:55am

You don’t.

Whack-a-Mole · May 5, 2011, 2:31am

FWIW Rand Rover one of my cites above was from Jack Jacobs. Here is his Medal of Honor citation (slightly edited):

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Capt. Jacobs (then 1st Lt.), Infantry, distinguished himself while serving as assistant battalion advisor, 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The 2d Battalion was advancing to contact when it came under intense heavy machine gun and mortar fire from a Viet Cong battalion positioned in well fortified bunkers. As the 2d Battalion deployed into attack formation its advance was halted by devastating fire. Capt. Jacobs, with the command element of the lead company, called for and directed air strikes on the enemy positions to facilitate a renewed attack. Due to the intensity of the enemy fire and heavy casualties to the command group, including the company commander, the attack stopped and the friendly troops became disorganized. Although wounded by mortar fragments, Capt. Jacobs assumed command of the allied company, ordered a withdrawal from the exposed position and established a defensive perimeter. Despite profuse bleeding from head wounds which impaired his vision, Capt. Jacobs, with complete disregard for his safety, returned under intense fire to evacuate a seriously wounded advisor to the safety of a wooded area where he administered lifesaving first aid. He then returned through heavy automatic weapons fire to evacuate the wounded company commander. Capt. Jacobs made repeated trips across the fire-swept open rice paddies evacuating wounded and their weapons. On 3 separate occasions, Capt. Jacobs contacted and drove off Viet Cong squads who were searching for allied wounded and weapons, single-handedly killing 3 and wounding several others. His gallant actions and extraordinary heroism saved the lives of 1 U.S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers. Through his effort the allied company was restored to an effective fighting unit and prevented defeat of the friendly forces by a strong and determined enemy. Capt. Jacobs, by his gallantry and bravery in action in the highest traditions of the military service, has reflected great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

SOURCE: http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/vietnam-a-l.html

Fucking bleeding heart liberal pussy who is unwilling to torture people. :rolleyes:

tomndebb · May 5, 2011, 2:10pm

This is trolling. You have picked a topic on which to pretend controversyt and have simply chosen to ignore all evidence against your position while refusing to provide any support for it, yet continuing the “discussion.”
(I realize that you are simply going to pretend, à la Glenn Beck, that you are just seeking an answer that has not been provided, but like Glen Beck’s tirades, that is transparently false.)
If you have actual testimony that torture is a reliable and effective method of garnering information, provide it.

Otherwise, you will stop it, now.

[ /Moderating ]

Evil_Captor · May 5, 2011, 4:34pm

Well that was the result of deliberate lying on the Bush administration’s part, not a mistake made due to faulty intel obtained via torture. Remember, Bush KNEW that the reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger were forgeries, but that did not stop him from making that claim in his state of the union speech. All that can be said of the bad intel from torture is that it was useful additional cover for the Bush Admin as they started their illegal war.

Rand_Rover · May 5, 2011, 9:34pm

If I ever make the claim that “torture” is a reliable and effective method of garnering information, then I will support that claim. That is not the claim I have made in this thread. I have explained my position repeatedly and in very clear and simple terms. Yet you and others still don’t seem to understand it.

But you win. I will no longer participate in this thread. No doubt you and others will think it’s because I have no answer to your cites and am therefore tucking tail and running, but that’s not the case–you think my participation is trolling, so I won’t participate.

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Torture is Most Likely Very Effective Great Debates	226	19746	May 4, 2009
To torture or not to torture Great Debates	92	5772	April 23, 2009
Is there any proof torture works? Great Debates	139	8581	January 12, 2008
Does torture work? Great Debates	89	2548	June 27, 2005
Torture, for fun and profit. Great Debates	79	5464	February 10, 2009

Did waterboarding help kill Bin Laden?

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