Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial
I was out of pocket for a few days visiting the folks in Alabama and missed commenting on a few stories. Most notable among these was Friday's announcement that five Guantanamo Bay detainees, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be tried in New York. This one's a real head scratcher, in that I see no upside and lots of downside. First, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 16, 2009 13:23
The Neuroscience of “Enhanced Interrogation”
Wired reports that studies show that "enhanced interrogation", far from being a reliable source of information, can actually make someone less of an intelligence asset because the stress involved changes the biochemistry of the brain:“There is a vast literature on the effects of extreme stress on motivation, mood and memory, using both animals and humans,” writes Shane O’Mara, a stress ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 22, 2009 11:23
How Torture Undermines National Security
Via Patrick Appel, former FBI counterintelligence agent Asha Rangappa explains how the use of torture can undermine the United States' ability to both obtain information and recruit double agents.A second and arguably more important goal of the FBI is to persuade some of these people, or "targets," to change sides and share the information they have about their own governments ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 4, 2009 13:23
Hillary Clinton’s Congo Blow-Up
Hillary Clinton chewed out a Congolese student for asking what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a public policy issue: ABC's Kirit Radia: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "You want me to tell you what ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 11, 2009 07:32
How the FBI Broke Saddam
James Gordon Meek has a very interesting two-part story on how FBI Special Agent George Piro successfully interrogated Saddam Hussein. Shockingly, it does not involve waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, nudity, or German shephards. The FBI prides itself on “rapport-based” interrogations that have a high success rate for yielding confessions from the likes of 1993 World trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 28, 2009 07:51
Overstatement of the Day – Torture Edition
"It appears that waterboarding - a torture technique popularized by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - has been picked up overseas." - Andrew Sullivan Now, look, I'm opposed to torturing suspected terrorists. But the United States Government waterboarded a grand total of three of them during the Bush-Cheney tenure. So let's not pretend it was somehow a favorite pastime of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 10, 2009 11:20
Ted Rall: Obama Should Resign
It's been years since I've quoted Ted Rall here. He hasn't appeared in a post title since September 2005's "Rall: Charities are for Suckers." The man's eminently quotable, if in a train wreck sort of way, but constantly pointing out that some commentators are crazy attention whores really doesn't advance the debate much. But you've got to hand it to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 30, 2009 07:22
Levin: Cheney Lying About CIA Memos
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin claims that former Vice-President Dick Cheney is lying when he claims that classified CIA memos show that Bush Administration ordered torture/enhanced interrogation techniques produced actionable intelligence that saved American lives. Levin, speaking at the Foreign Policy Association's annual dinner in Washington on Wednesday, said an investigation by his committee into detainee abuse ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 29, 2009 14:19
Alexander vs. Cheney on Interrogation
The video embedded below features arguments presented by Dick Cheney in favor of torture (or, if you prefer, "enhanced interrogation techniques"), which are ably demolished by Matthew Alexander, a former member of the United States Air Force who served as an Interrogator in Iraq. He was part of a task force charged with determining the location of Abu Zarqawi.There's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 27, 2009 22:53
White House Lawyers vs. Military Lawyers on Torture
One thing that's also worth noting in the debate over the Bush Administration's torture program is that while the Office of Legal Counsel did sign off on the techniques used (with memos so bad that the lawyers in question are soon to be under investigation for a breach of their professional duties), the fact remains that the Administration also sought ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2009 09:35
Preventative Detention
Hilzoy pronounces herself "happy as a clam" with President Obama's speech yesterday on national security issues, with one glaring exception: But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2009 08:20
SERE Training and Torture
One distressing meme that has spread with respect to the idea that because some of the techniques employed against captives in American detention camps are the same as those used in SERE training, these techniques must somehow "not be torture." This is not a well-founded assertion. For those making that claim, I would highly recommend that they review ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2009 01:01
Quote of the Day – Torture Trials Edition
"Well, conservative, conshmervative - even Karl Rove would pay good money to see Pelosi handcuffed to Dick Cheney." - Kate McMillan responding to news that the then-Minority Whip and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was briefed on the use of "enhanced interogation techniques" in the fall of 2002 and "gave it her stamp of approval." And, no, the fact ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 8, 2009 08:28
We’re Not the Khmer Rouge!
Richard Fernandez laments that, "History will probably remember the Guantanamo Bay prison for longer than the already forgotten Prison S-21, where up to 20,000 people were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge." As for me, I prefer being held to a higher set of standards than Pol Pot. I mean, of course we're better than some of the most evil ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 3, 2009 07:49
UN Demands Torture Prosecutions
Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, proclaimed yesterday that the United States must prosecute the lawyers who drew up the torture memos and that if we fail to do so it is the duty of other states to step in and bring charges. In my New Atlanticist piece, "UN: United States Must Prosecute Torture Lawyers," I wonder how ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 25, 2009 11:28
