Bush administration: 'We tortured Qahtani'

Susan Crawford, a senior member of the Bush Administration and lifelong Republican, has stated that the United States tortured Mohammed al-Qahtani, "the 20th hijacker" suspect of the 9/11 attacks. Because it has been determined that he was tortured, it will be very difficult to prosecute him as any evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible.

The Guardian



This is one more mark against the practices in which the the US has been engaged at Guantanamo. Torture is ineffective, illegal and can prevent proper prosecution of actual criminals.

MSNBC

ABC News

This is excellent.

I linked (on the other two gitmo threads) similar stories.
Hopefully this paves the way for legal action against the USgov. for this monstrosity.

There are a few cases lined up already.

Yes they are boldly admitting to torture here in the final hours of this administration.

I don't know if you happen to watch the Fox television program 24 but the first few episodes the writers have gone out of their way to justify the use of torture in the "ticking time bomb" scenario. In fact Jack Bauer the main character is being brought up on charges by a bunch of pencil necks that "don't understand" how the "real world" works!

The reason I bring it up is I see this highly popular program as a form of propaganda to prepare the American public to approve of Bush & Co actions.

I don't. But you may have a great point there. On Keith Olbermann recently, Bill O'Reilly was named "worst person in the world" for showing a clip of the "ticking time bomb scenario" on 24 to support his position on torture. So it's interesting you mention that.

Olbermann Video

O'Reilly Clip

Is Kiefer Sutherland an operative of some sort?

Oh yeah, Olbermann is right on with that remark, naming O'Reilly "Worst person in the World".

What a MORON!

There are any number of people more deserving of that title than O'Reilly. The title should be changed to "Worst person in Olbermann's world" becasue the man clearly lives in his own reality.

Oh and then we have links like this that remind us that maybe the detainees in Guantanamo weren't so innocent after all:

Pentagon: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism
news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by sos37

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What does this have to do with the OP anyways??

We have lost our moral athourity with this one, How are we going to tell anyone not to torture our soldiers if we sit back and do the same thing.

reply to post by sos37

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Im no left wing apologist by any means... but I think its quite possible that torture is enough to turn innocent people to violence.

I mean imagine you are just a law abiding muslim, minding your own business. Suddenly a bunch of men in black come down on you, put a bag over your head and take you away to a prison. They then repeatedly torture you for information that you don't have and thus can't give. Finally they realise that you're innocent... but by that time they've subjected you to barbaric acts.

What do you do? I have no doubt that I would immediately go and join in arms with the enemy of the state that tortured me. Torture is as much psychological breakdown as it is about pain. That breakdown is incredibly dangerous, as when the individual is released back into the world they are likely to turn their attention and aggression against their captors. Its natural. Once they have nothing left, they have nothing to lose and will be running on pure rage and venom, eager to strike back in revenge.

reply to post by 44soulslayer

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So you're saying torture justifies terrorism? If that's true, then the converse is also true is it not? Terrorism justifies torture.

We know these men are terrorists and have acted in terrorist acts against the U.S., therefore torture is justified, according to your argument.

Look, I'm not saying torture is justified in all cases, but I certainly do not agree with Benevolent Heretic when she says that torture is "ineffective". It most certainly is not ineffective if done right. There is a lot of information to be had from captured terrorists that would keep the U.S. safe.

So if torture is the only means of extracting that information and keeping our citizens safe, are you arguing that we still should not do it and the casulaties that may result from the lack of information gained are just collateral damage?

reply to post by Uniceft17

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Asking someone else not to torture our soldiers isn't going to stop them from doing so. I guarantee you that if someone took one of your love ones and you believe a certain person has knowledge of where that love one is, I bet you would torture him/her till they told you where that love one is. Morality isn't always black and white.

And before you post, flaming me, consider the following:

Let's say a terrorist has kidnapped your daughter and officials have the terrorist in custody. The terrorist says your daughter is tied up and sitting next to a bomb that will go off in 3 hours if his demands aren't met. His demands are completely unreasonable but officials note this terrorist has shown a lack of tolerance to pain and torture.

My question to you, if you haven't already figured it out: How long would you be staying on your high horse of morals if that was YOUR daughter in imminent danger? If officials asked you if you would approve of torturing the terrorist to get the location of your daughter do you really think you would sit back and say "No, I don't believe in torture. My daughter will just have to die unless you can find out some other way to get the info."

I guarantee that the majority of you would give the OK in a heartbeat to have the man tortured, violently if necessary, to retrieve the location of your daughter.

Actually the story claimed that 18 returned to terrorism and 43 were suspected of doing so.

First, if they were released due to lack of evidence, how can the claim be made that they "returned" to terrorism? Second, if someone snatched you off the street, held you illegally for a number of years, torturing you whenever they felt like it, wouldn't that tend to make a terrorist, rather more properly, an enemy of you?. I'm pretty sure I'd be highly annoyed, and would consider myself at war with such people, fully justified to return the favor in any way I could.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Tenet and loads of CIA types (trust me, they're thugs and criminals for the most part, in the job for the thrill of playing in the shadows, with a long history of indulging in murder, torture and playing fast and loose with banking laws, drug laws, and any kind of decent morality: I've had direct experience, close enough to take the warnings seriously) are war criminals and traitors who have violated the Constitution so many times that executing them is simply too easy. They should all be prosecuted, waterboarding as necessary to get their "confession", then they can join Saddam on the gallows, except that that isn't nearly enough punishment for their crimes. Perhaps dumping the lot of them naked into the hands of their worst enemies might do it, but I fear they'd still be killed too quickly.

Sorry if my opinion seems extreme, I'm also a combat veteran who swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution: the past eight years have been deeply insulting to what we fought for (I'm not saying the wars I fought in were justified or right, but the principles that most thought they were fighting for were true and worth upholding) and those who gave their lives to protect an idea. The business/political class of this country have become traitors to the Constitution for the most venal of reasons: mere money.

Bah! words fail me.

Oy! The ticking time-bomb scenario?

The terrorist would be able to resist for 3 hours. Boom!
He could lie and waste precious time while we check out the information.

Torture is NOT reliable AT ALL.



Maybe, but it wouldn't save the daughter.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

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Actually Attorney General nominee Eric Holder is the one using the word torture, if you're interested in being accurate. The debate has been whether or not waterboarding is torture. One group said no, one said yes.
The new group will be taking charge.

Nope. Read the link in the OP.

And what do you base that statement on? Do you know how much information has been gained from the torture of suspects that is beneficial to our national security? I don't, therefore I cannot back up such a statement. I think it's far more correct to say that torture is sometimes reliable AND necessary.

Oh, and in the scenario I gave, I did say that the terrorist showed a weakness to being tortured. In that case, torture of the man would get you the information you needed in time to save your daughter. The only question is whether you're "too good" to take the low road and demand the man be tortured at all.

[edit on 15-1-2009 by sos37]

Exactly- nobody on this site knows what information was obtained, how accurate it was, or what activities it may or may not have prevented.
What we do know is that there have been no attacks on US soil since Sept 11, 2001.

On what I've read. Google "Is torture effective".



Here's another scenario for you. Similar to yours - a terrorist kidnaps a young woman and they catch the guy. He refuses to give any information at all. So, they torture him. Problem is, they only think they have the terrorist. In fact, the terrorist they have is YOU. Still support torture?

Or how about this? The terrorist (unbeknownst to the authorities) is wearing a detonator under his skin that's hooked up to his heartbeat. If his heartbeat goes below or above a certain range, the bomb attached to your daughter explodes. Still wanna torture the guy?

I mean, as long as we're making up scenarios...

But this thread is not about whether or not torture is "right". There are plenty of those on ATS and I haven't participated for a reason. This is about our own government admitting that they tortured and the repercussions of such an admission.

If "I" was the terrorist? Uh, yeah! I'm going to talk because I don't want be tortured, personally.

And by adding a "heartbeat monitor" to the scenario I came up with, all you did was take the possibility of torture out of the picture, effectively giving the officials one less choice to make. If the goal is to save my daughter, then of course I'm not going to recommend torture if he was hooked up to such a device, but the ONLY reason I'm not is because he has changed the rules so that I cannot torture him without killing my daughter.

The moral implications are still there, and I would be all for torturing the terrorist if he had information on my daughter's whereabouts and I daresay that any loving parent would feel the same way.

Lastly, if you did not want to incite discussion about whether torture was right or wrong, then in the future I would invite you not to make statements in your original post like you did with the following:



Because you're opening the door for debate when you do that.