Refuting the Self-Fulfilling Torture Prophecy: A Response to Hayden and Mukasey

No timid wimp is former CIA Director Michael Hayden. And he's not reluctant to tell you so. You can find out what a tough guy he really is by reading his opinion piece, written with former Attorney General Michael "Not sure waterboarding is torture" Mukasey in the April 17 Wall Street Journal, defending the use of torture and objecting to the release of the nightmarish memos. We're talking here about "walling", (repeatedly smashing a detainee against a wall), stress positions (hanging a person from the ceiling with feet barely touching the floor -- including a one legged man), sleep deprivation for as long as 11 days, cramped confinement (put in a casket-sized box or smaller -- insects optional), and that medieval favorite, waterboarding.

In fact, it was the torture described in these memos, the existence of secret prisons, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib that endangered the security of the United States. What better tools could there be to inflame and recruit new terrorists and instill hatred for our country throughout the Muslim world and beyond? Still Mukasey and Hayden clearly believe that these techniques should have been used and should be used in the future. They are in favor of torture.

Hayden and Mukasey accuse the no-torture policy of inviting "the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on September 11, 2001." That's a version of history I actually hadn't heard espoused by anyone ever before -- that had the intelligence community not been weakened by timidity and fear, 9/11 might not have happened. All this time I thought it had more to do with the fact that the White House did nothing to follow up on the August 6, 2001 daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." that included the warning that "FBI information... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings..."

The Michaels Hayden and Mukasey assert that "public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them." Certainly the men who served as CIA Director and Attorney General must be aware that the secret of these techniques has been known by anyone who could read a newspaper beginning as long ago as December 26, 2002. That's when Dana Priest and Barton Gellman of the Washington Post reported on "stress and duress" interrogation tactics. Yes, everyone already knew about this dirty secret, and many have long been genuinely repulsed and offended by the attitude of one official who was quoted years ago as saying, "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job."

Hayden and Mukasey express concern that terrorists will ridicule us, when in reality Al Qaeda must be deeply disappointed to have lost one of their best propaganda tools. The disclosure, they say, "will incur the utter contempt of our enemies" and that those capable of monstrous acts such as Daniel Pearl's beheading won't be "shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captures terrorists..." Are we therefore to conclude that the United States should allow the terrorists themselves to set the standard for us -- that since they have shed their humanity and respect for international law, we should do the same? Senator John McCain, a victim of torture, had it right when he said in rejecting the use of such techniques, "It's not about them; it's about us."

Not torturing prisoners is one of the proudest traditions of the United States, one of the features that define us, one that was honored by George Washington when he insisted that the British captives be treated with humanity and one that has long been embodied in our law and international law. General Washington told his troops, "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands."

Hayden and Mukasey claim that critical information regarding terrorists and their attacks were derived from use of these "enhanced techniques" and suggest that anyone on the Congressional committees who heard Hayden's briefings could not conclude otherwise. As one of those who was privy to those briefings, I saw no empirical evidence to prove that assertion. Video tapes that were made of the interrogations have been destroyed. It is public knowledge that the interrogators administering the harshest techniques, pleaded to headquarters to stop, saying that Abu Zubaydah had nothing more to offer. Headquarters said no.

The value of information gained from torture has been outright discredited by the most experienced interrogators. Those experts demonstrated that the standard interview used with Abu Zubaydah before he was whisked away by the CIA to one or more "black sites", elicited significant, solid information to government interrogators. I spoke to an early Zubaydah interrogator who believed the process was going well. Note also that the FBI removed itself entirely from the interrogations after the "enhanced techniques" were introduced.

The authors say that it is a "self-fulfilling prophecy" to assume that using these extraordinary (and likely illegal) methods "disgraced us before the world". And throughout their opinion piece they suggest that rejecting those tactics puts our country in danger. To refute that notion, I turn to the simple but eloquent words of President Obama who said when releasing the memos, "I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already and thing of the past." The president said that withholding them "could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about action taken by the United States."

Now that's my kind of tough guy. I'm glad that Hayden and Mukasey have been replaced by people who have faith in the strength of American values and laws. I believe our country is stronger and safer as a result of ending torture and releasing these memos. Thank you President Barack Obama.

Comments

[moralimperative178]

Rep.Schakowsky's cogent answer to the arrant ,nonsensical rationale given by Hayden and Mukasey for the Cheney/Bush maladminis­tration's(­Cheney was "de-facto" President) torture of detainees is so heartening. Rove and the orher 'ditto-heads' especially at the propoganda fixed news, have described their own country as a 'banana republic'. This is so true, as the Cheney/Bush maladministration made it so with their complete abrogation of American values, and the disgraceful demeaning and debasing of the greatest nation this planet has ever seen. The G.O.P. is,perhaps, the most devious,sinister, conspiratorial and racist political party in the Free World.
Steve Benen has made the most convincing, overwhelming and overpowering argument for the prosecution of those who perpetrated ilegal torture and broke other U.S. laws. Indeed, it is only in 'banana republics' that leaders get away scotch-free after such egregious and unlawful activities.

[cornelison]

These polls about whether it was right or wrong to torture amaze me. Should we take a poll on whether black people should sit at the back of the bus? Should we take a poll on whether it's too expensive to provide a ramp for the handicapped? Should we take a poll on whether injured workers should be fired from their jobs? Should we take a poll on whether a black man has the right to to run for leader of a country?

[Ganapati]

Should we take a poll on wether or not religion should be outlawed?

[pros54]

apart from the polls the other ridiculous arguments of the right include "they were doing it with the best intentions for the country" Bill Kristol from this am). I guess we should also tout the recent spate of family murders and suicide because the people who committed those also were doing it for the best intentions, which in their sick mind was to prevent the children from suferiing.

[bdaved]

When we abuse those in our power and at our mercy it weakens us morally and strengthens our enemies materially. And that serves no one's "best intentions for the country".

[buckaroom]

The fact that the majority of Democrat Party leaders would not have used waterboarding to prevent 9/11 is proof that liberals just do not have the stomach to fight a suicidal, viscious, lunatic enemy like Islamic Jihadist Extremists. I'm glad that I don't live in a high profile target area. I'm expecting another 9/11 sometime during Obama's 2nd administration. When that happens the liberals including Hollywood celebrities, will hold telethons to raise money for the victims, hold candle light vigils, shed tears in front of the TV cameras, organize peace ceremonies and blame Bush.

[kimleehan]

When President Bush was trying to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people, do you or anyone out there remember hearing the president say that the weapons inspectors in Iraq had made 700 inspections at 500 different sites and did'nt find any W.M.D.s. And if you would have heard it would you still have wanted to invade Iraq? Does'nt have much to do with torture except I heard it mentioned that Bush tortured trying to get a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

[freddiefreeloader]

Another 9/11 has already happened but it was'nt here in the U.S. It happened on 3/20/2003.

[Hugh-Gee]

If you're right, that there'll be another 9/11 during Obama's second admin, then he'll have made it four years past the most incompetent president in history.

[bdaved]

Torturing our captives helps our enemies more than it helps us. And it would be right to blame Bush that we have more enemies than we had.

[dsws]

"What better tools could there be to inflame and recruit new terrorists and instill hatred for our country throughout the Muslim world and beyond?"

There we have a big part of the motivation for the torture. These people are very attached to the idea that we're in a total-war struggle with someone (doesn't much matter who), and that the more it's brought to full-fledged open conflict the more likely we are to win. So in their topsy-turvy world, recruiting more people into Al Qaeda is a good thing for the US. The only thing more important to our national security (according to their self-serving fantasies) is making sure their cronies hold absolute power.

They had to use unreliable methods like torture, because nothing else could get detainees to provide "evidence" for the thesis that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

[TruthmongerII]

I hope the POTUS occasionally reads Huffington -- maybe he'll wake up, stop playing politics with a moral issue, and do the right thing. If not, that's why we have regular elections, and impeachment.

[pjburke]

Playing politics by following an order of the court to produce documents as prescribed under a duly enacted law passed by Congress, you mean?

That would be continuance of the Bush-Cheney Constituti­on-trashin­g method. But Obama's an American president... and legitimately elected in a legal election. Unlike Bush & Cheney who the Court merely appointed by Daddy's cronies.

[Javaline]

One single question arises out of this discussion: Who really benefits from torture? Simple - only sadists. They can be the only persons who would derive any benefit from the premeditated harming of another human being. And only those with a predisposition towards sadism could approve of such techniques.

The desire to harm another human comes from a number of sources, the main source being a lack of conscience. Societies enact laws to govern those without conscience, because those with conscience would never consider resorting to inhumane treatment of another person. The exception to that would be in the defense of person or family, such as an inaptly named "insurgent" might resort to when faced with an invading army.

Throughout history we have been held captive by the ideologies of bullies and sociopaths because they are humans who are not hindered by the parameters of conscience. Generation after generation, we have been brainwashed into believing that they alone know how to govern and "control" the masses.

Sadistic behavior is learned behavior and there will always be sadists and their sycophants exerting their "superiority" over the rest of us. But they only succeed if we succumb to their authoritarian mindset. They succeed as long as we accept the concept of compassion as a weakness of character. Only when we consciously decide the harming of other life forms is unacceptable will we move out of the barbaric hole we have dug and grow as a race worthy of the name human.

[buckaroom]

Conservatives are sadists? OMG. The demonizing of Republicans and conservatives has no limits with liberals. So, in demonizing those with a counterviewpoint then liberals must see themselves as the very opposite: compassionate, just, righteous, intelligent, handsome, moral, upstanding, brave, fiesty, passionate, artisitic... My God, liberals are frick'ng saints.

[Seldon]

I find it amusing that we are discussing sadists and you assume that means conservatives. I don't care if it was Republicans, Democrats or Raplh Nader himself, you torture - you deserve to go to jail.

[Ganapati]

Well, if you don't have a problem with torture, what are you, then?
No, really

[dperino]

actually, the real question is why is this post here? if it's to foment opinion then i would think it's misplaced because the majority at HP are flat-out opposed to even the thought of torture. i just see this is stoking the fire of constituents already on one side of the issue and buying into the rhetoric because it confirms and reconfirms a belief. pick a side, they both do it. i can almost understand a blogger arm chairing their screeds, but a politician who's been in office since the later 90s should've been on this long ago.

[J G H]

Public statements by probable defendants if anyone seriously looks at the institutio­nalization of torture rather than a few hapless scapegoats from a reserve unit from an out of the way location. What is political is the opposition to prosecution. After all, in a prosecution, the defendants do get to present their case, something that was strenuously opposed by the Bush administration even for US citizens (anybody remember Jose Padilla). Nixon, said if the President does it, it is not illegal. The new version is that if a Republican does it, it is not a crime, and prosecution is motivated by partisan politics.
President Obama must prosecute at least the leadership or he faces a two fold risk, losing support and destroying his efforts to rebild our reputation in the rest of the world. There is already evidence that torture was used, not to extract information, but to get specific statements in support of the administration;s policy.

[bdaved]

I'm having a hard time getting past that first sentence.

[karela]

Excellent article. Thanks.

[magic3400]

Dear Rep. Jan Schakowsky,

No need to waste your valuable time debating the effectiveness of water boarding, we are well beyond that. Your article points out very clearly the issue at hand, did anyone break the law by torturing those in the care and custody of the United States of America.

All those other issues that Hayden raises are just a diversion and should be ignored. There is no relevance in the argument.

From a legal standpoint, it doesn't matter what the reaction of the CIA will be, because that is not the legal question.

They think we are dumb, that we are like sheep and can't remember the fact as they were laid before us. They think we forgot that Bush ignored the PDB "OBL determined to attack in US" (while on vacation of course).

Just keep doing the work you are doing, ask just one question, "did anybody break the law" and let the answer guide you.

[bobert]

I usually don't comment, but the torture issue has me very upset. So many of the comments (not to mention the MSM stories) keep repeating that we needed to torture these people to get vital information. The problem with that assertion lies in the following:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/report-harsh-interrogatio_n_189817.html

These techniques weren't used as a way to get REAL intel, they were used to try to find a [fake] Al Qaeda- Saddam link.

If you look here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/fbi-werent-the-only-ones_b_190708.html , you see that when various military agencies learned they were allowed/ supposed to torture back in 2002, they said that these "Tier III" techniques only yield false information.

The previous administration KNEW torture only produces false intel, and that's what they wanted-- because they couldn't find any real intel to back up an Iraq/AQ link.

Our government tortured people (who may or may not have done anything wrong) to provide false justification to attack a country that had done nothing to us (Yeah, Saddam was a jerk, but the USA doesn't topple foreign governments preemptively. Or at least they shouldn't.). Never have I felt so ashamed of my country.

People who continue to insist that we had to torture either aren't in possession of all the facts, or they are so blinded by their love of country they can't accept it.

[dsws]

"People who continue to insist that we had to torture either aren't in possession of all the facts, or they are so blinded by their love of country they can't accept it."

Blinded by something, anyway. I suppose we can give them the benefit of the doubt and say it's love of country.

[billw8017]

Well put.

Washington's exhortation went into the army field manuals and were the US contribution to the "Geneva Conventions." Torture is against not only international law but US law. Our founding forebearers knew torture and they despised it for good and practical reasons. Therefore the Bill of Rights provides that people cannot be forced to testify against themselves and against cruel and unusual punishments. Treason is tightly defined to require active participation.

Limits? People died under torture. Different authorities say 25 - 100. Witnesses report people falling ill under sustained interregation and dying after medical neglect. Al Qaida can warn the US has tortured without limits.

And, what was it? Torture as fun and games. Stacking nudes. Attaching dog leashes. Hard metal music. And, of course, waterboarding, isolation, sleep deprivation, and walling -- a little physical stuff to make sure it hurt. Afterward, the victims read the torturers and said anything that seemed to placate them. Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union, the Evil Empire.

[swkidder]

One of the things that puzzles me, and which may not actually be true, is the idea that the rank and file membership of the CIA would resist "sunlight" on the issue of torture. At the moment a considerable percentage of the U.S. public believes the Agency to be populated by barely human psychopaths who eagerly engaged in the delivery of the kind of "enhanced interrogration techniques" that so disgusted the FBI interrogators that they left the building and went home. And yet, when you read further, and dig a little deeper, it's clear that the CIA operatives doing the "hands-on" interrogration were frantically phoning home and telling their management that this was wrong and it didn't work. The "Bad Apples" at the CIA sit right at the top of the tree - yes, Michaels that would be you. It's pretty clear that we had some really sick and twisted people sitting in Executive Offices on either side of the Potomac. Let's open the curtains and let the sunshine in, and let it fall where it must. I'm sure the Michaels can find themselves a nice retirement home in a country with a "non-extradition" relationship with the U.S. In the meantime gentlemen - for the record - what you say is obviously just one more lie, and the repetition of that lie isn't going to magically make it true.

[4G8BU]

I want to know what else was considered. Unlike many on these comments, I would have preferred harsher treatment. The Bush Administration did not go far enough in prosecuting and executing these prisoners. On the clear April 2009, I think the mastermind of 9/11 got off easy.

[emncaity]

So the "mastermind of 9/11" wouldn't have gotten off easy if we'd only tortured more? What supports that conclusion?

What is torture about, for you? Information, or retribution? You are aware that with many of the people we have in custody, there really isn't any solid evidence that they're "terrorists" at all?

As for prosecuting, sure. Let them put on a real defense. And we'll have to show real evidence. I'm all for it.

You realize that everything you say is what any repressive regime in the world would say, including Islamic extremists, including the Taliban, etc.?

[karela]

As John McCain said, it isn't about them. It's about us. Don't be such a coward. Have the courage to stand up for the values that America has always stood for. It isn't easy sticking with our country's principles when the going gets tough, but we come from a long line of tough people who created and settled a great nation without giving up on those ideals. America isn't going to give up on all that we've built here during the last several hundred years. We aren't giving in to the likes of bin Laden and we sure as shootin' aren't giving in to people who are so chicken sh*t that they would throw our beautiful country down the trash heap of becoming yet another "evil empire" because they're so afraid that they can't function as Americans. Americans are tough. Grow a pair!

[cbbuzz]

Jan's evisceration of Mukasey and Hayden is as masterful as it is well-deserved. As BuzzFlash editor Mark Karlin writes today, the torture-authorizing higher-ups are not only guilty of war crimes, but also of Murder One. http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/node/8275

[JanP]

Funny how Obama's own security person said that the interrogations WERE effective btu when Obama's administration put the memo on the Internet, they deleted that part.

It is also known that the interrogations uncovered the plot to hijack an airplane and crash it into the tallest building in LA.

Then along come all the mavens who say "Oh, it isn;t effective."

By the way, anyone want to charge Pelosi with knowing about the interrogations and doing ntohing to stop them?

[MrthnGrl]

They were effective? Is this why it took 183 times of water boarding? Efficiency at its best!

[citizensrus]

"It is also known that the interrogations uncovered the plot to hijack an airplane and crash it into the tallest building in LA."
Not that this is an excuse for torture..as conservatives seem to think..but why should we believe this when the Bush administration made things up as they went along?
As for torture being okay..because it works,..where do conservatives get this argument?
There is such a thing as human rights, law, humane treatment, international law..and for the U.S. ..the constitution.
The Supreme Court far right justices seem to have this same construct..well, if it works, it must be a good idea.
I say ..go start your own country without the morals and ethics and attention to human rights that America is known for..and you can tell us from your authoritarian regime that torture works and restricting freedom works. You can brag about your means to an end. Just because something "works" doesn't make it legitimate or ethical or right.

[emncaity]

It ISN'T effect, dip. First of all, you're oversimplifying the intel that was gotten. Second, you have no idea whether it could have been obtained in a different way. And third, you apparently don't understand the distinction between "torture sometimes results in accurate information" and "torture results in information whose truth is unreliable, and therefore isn't useful." If you extract ONLY the true or approximately true statements made under torture and pony them up later for public display, that's just showmanship, not operational usefulness. If you get two statements out of a hundred that are true, you're wasting time and resources hunting down all those false leads. Also, have you noticed nobody's making the "ticking time bomb" argument much lately? How long was the time bomb gonna tick, 31 days?

None of this, of course, begins to address the question of rightness or wrongness. Unless you're willing to advocate the position that literally anything goes when it comes to getting informatio­n--progres­sive dismemberment, nails pulled out, whatever--then you already think there are limits beyond which we shouldn't go.

[roald]

Time line is wrong. The LA plot was stopped before the torture started.

[bobert]

Of COURSE the security chief said the interrogations were effective. He had to.

(Later in the memo, he says that while it WAS effective, torture is not worth the intel gathered.)

Think of this from the chief's point of view-- he works with a bunch of people complicit in this torture. TO SAVE FACE for these people, he needs to say it was effective. (It's like when a kid brings you his piggy bank to help pay rent, "Thank you so much for your pennies, they really made the difference.")

Saying that torture was effective, but is NOT WORTH IT, and therefore not to be used, is what needs to be said as a first step to healing this issue. If the administration said that past interrogation techniques were ineffective, how many decent Americans would call for prosecution of the ringleaders? Saying it WAS effective implies that it no longer is. It's also a way of saying, "we won't prosecute, but we won't do it anymore." (Whether they are right in doing so is another question all together.)

You know why they had to remove the bit about torture being effective? Because small-minded fools focus on that one line instead of the conclusion of the memo: TORTURE IS NOT WORTH ANY INTEL gained from it.

There's no overarching conspiracy here, they needed to change the memo for public consumption because of partisan talking heads who have no other hobby than to discredit the current administration.