Michael Hayden admits it, finally:
The director of the CIA said Tuesday the agency used waterboarding to interrogate three high level al-Qaeda detainees, including the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Michael Hayden told the Senate intelligence panel that waterboarding was used to glean information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a ‘critical time’ because of worries more attacks were planned against the United States.
That would make Bush a liar. But you already knew that.
myiq2xu
Jack Bauer had to find the nuke-a-lar weapon before it was detonated in Los Angeles.
Zifnab
DO NOT!
Dug Jay
You must not read much or get around a lot, because this has been known for literally months. Now I recognize that things would be a lot better if Khalid SHeik Mohammed had never been waterboarded; after all, who the Hell would really get upset about a few thousand more dead innocents. That’s a conservative estimate of the lives saved by virture of the plots revealed by KSM.
The Moar You Know
Well, then I guess we torture.
Nice to know that the United States has sunk to the level of a third-world banana republic.
Perhaps Bush also has a fridge full of the hearts of his enemies that he eats for strength. Sure wouldn’t suprise me at this point.
Pixie
lol I guess someone should let George Tenet know :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKcUo2xO0cI
“WE Dont torture people””I don’t talk about techniques””we don’t torture”
LOL asshole.
Don
The sad thing is that I doubt the majority of people will fill in the blanks: the chances that they tortured ONLY these people ONLY because they had (presumably based in reality?) fear of an imminent attack is roughly 0.
Which isn’t to say that in other administrations that wouldn’t be possible. The wisest thing I heard out of any talking head on this matter was something on the other of “just declaring that something is illegal and it is forbidden doesn’t mean that sometime, in that pie-in-the-sky imminent mushroom cloud scenario that people like to propose, that it can’t be done. Any of us, presented with an imminent danger to our selves or loved ones, would push past a boundary we’d normally honor. And we’d do it in that moment because it was needed and we’d deal with the repercussions later. And honestly, if it really was a do-or-die decision, we’d be forgiven.”
But an administration that’s defended “the water cure” as not being torture and engaged in denial after denial after denial didn’t just go over the line once in the face of a reasonable fear. They almost certainly did it over and over again, and now that they feel like they can’t stonewall and lie anymore, they’ll cop to an incident that they think we’ll forgive them for and pretend it’s not a pattern.
Sensible people know better. It’s too bad so many people continue to not be sensible when someone says “9/11” to them.
GSD
It’s OK, the GOP has found their new base baseline:
At least we don’t blow up retarded people.
-GSD
Zifnab
A conservative estimate, sure. But if you want to know the real number of lives saved, its closer to ELEVENTY BILLION! Would you let ELEVENTY BILLION people die just so you can spare some baby-eating terrorist a few minutes of discomfort? Yeah, I thought you would. Hippie.
Rick Taylor
No he didn’t. He hasn’t admitted water-boarding constitutes torture. He carefully skated around the issue.
The Moar You Know
Sooo, Dug Jay: I guess you have a clearance. A very high-level clearance, one that lets you be able to speak knowledgably regarding the number of lives saved by these torture sessions. I also suppose you know, in detail, the nature and timing of the plots foiled, and also know the principals involved.
You’d have to, to be able to state with authority regarding “a few thousand more dead innocents. That’s a conservative estimate of the lives saved by virture of the plots revealed by KSM.”
Do you understand that those of us who are not idiots can’t possibly take you seriously when you pull wishful thinking out of your ass and call it fact?
cleek
right.
and the media won’t correct him or call him out, because the media is still calling it “enhanced” or “harsh” interrogation. even the fucking BBC wouldn’t call it “torture”, when they were talking about it tonight. gah!
myiq2xu
All those plots, nobody arrested except a few losers like Jose Padilla and the group in Miami that didn’t have shoes, let alone explosives.
They can’t tell us about all the plots that were prevented because they don’t want the terrorists to know. But don’t they already know?
It reminds me of the “secret” war in Laos. The Vietnamese knew about it, and so did the Laotians.
It was only a secret from the American people.
The difference is there really was a war in Laos.
Wilfred
Meanwhile:
Nice little BE AFRAID love-letter to voters on McCain´s behalf.
I guess the #3 guy they killed was involved in payroll or something, no effect on the ‘improving ability’.
J sub D
For those who claim that waterboarding is not torture, let me do it to you. I get complete amnesty if you drown, though. Now you are in the same boat as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. You’ll be turning in your mother soon enough.
What a bunch of disingenious war criminals! Unfortunately,that is not hyperbole, I meant the war criminal accusation.
Darkness
Heck, if all you wanted to do was save a few hundred thousand innocent lives, waterboarding would have worked wonders… practiced on Donald Rumsfeld, oh, somewhere around the dawning of 2003. And throw Blair and Powell, enablers extraordinaire, in on that swimming lesson too.
HyperIon
yeah, torture. the GOP “love” that dare not speak its name.
Hayden’s argument is that everyone was afraid of the next attack. No ticking bomb. Just the fear of a ticking bomb.
I actually read some idiot winger blogger yesterday who just came out and said it: Jonh McCain is against torture. And you could tell he did not think that was a good thing. I do not recognize my country anymore.
Zifnab
Cheers to that. Maybe we can finally find out where those WMDs are. I think we’ve basically scoured Tikret.
RSA
Okay, so I robbed a few banks a few years ago. But I really needed the money back then. I haven’t done it lately, so just shut up about it. It’s over and done with.
FNWA
John,
It’s not torture, it’s a dunk in the water. Get it straight, will you?
Xenos
Yeah, that is the ticket, a little enhanced dampness, some intense humidity, that is all…
Xanthippas
You are correct that it’s a “conservative” estimate, meaning one so-called conservatives rely on to justify torture. The “reality” estimate is quite possibly closer to zero. Though the measure of actual dead as a result of torture, at least the kind the produces evidence that’s used to justify a war before the U.N., is somewhat easier to measure.
srv
Does Georgetown have an ombudsman?
Dug Jay
The views of most in this thread appear to be well captured by this comment:
Jay C
Brilliant cite, DJ: instead of your usual “rebuttal” to the rejoinders to your comments – insulting the other commenters – you find a third-party quote to insult them with! Hey, whoaaaa – progress!!
But it still doesn’t answer the question we posed: how exactly do you know exactly how many “innocent lives were saved” by the US’ use of waterboarding?
Inquiring minds want to know….
Perry Como
Dug Jay, did you hear that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
You fools never learn.
Jake
Of course not dear chap. We sentence them to the electric chair. I mean, we’re not brutes.
RSA
Let’s see if I understand the logic: It’s okay to torture someone if there’s a guarantee that it will save thousands of lives. That’s a nice utilitarian view, if it can be justified. So, where’s that guarantee? Do we just believe those who carried out the torture? They really don’t have much credibility at this point.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
wwaaaayyy too late… but…
if we’re Anti-American, why would we care about the country’s soul?
And, if I’m wrong about the properties of our national soul, then what is our national soul?
Odd, I thought our national soul was founded on being incredibly humane even to the people that would seek to destroy us at all corners of the earth. I thought that was the source of the good will we keep getting from our friends…
I’d lurv to know.
Delia
Well, apparently we waterboard crazy ones, though. Remember Abu Zubaydah? One of the dread Number 3’s of Al Qaeda? He was one of the ones the CIA captured and Georgie needed info from him to prove how many dastardly plots against the good ol’ USA he’d stopped. Only trouble was, Abu wasn’t Number 3; he was just a gofer and he was certifiable. Only way to get scary plots out of him was to torture him, so Georgie ordered it up.
Abu Zubaydah
TenguPhule
Corrected.
When Iran broadcasts torture of American forces, be sure Dug Jay to cheer for Iran as you hit on the soon to be widow of the subject on screen.
TenguPhule
Fixed for accuracy.
Torture by the state saves nobody and harms everybody.
incontrolados
We always have.
You mean like the UK?
Oh, and who do you think taught the banana types the primo techniques?
Delia
Golly, you mean like this?
School of The Americas Watch
DougJ
Don’t any of you clowns watch “24”?
incontrolados
Yes, and all the ones trained in Texas.
I just wish all the outraged people could get it into their heads that the U.S. has tortured and trained those who torture for a very long time. Recognizing that one fact could help move the ‘debate’ forward.
While some say, “We don’t torture,” we should require that it STOP. The ‘do as I say not as I do’ hypocrisy works about as well as with the rest of the world as it does with children.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Hate to break into this fact-free blog with simple history, but…no, you’re wrong.
Bush’s “We do not torture” was from 2005. Even if you call the three waterboarding incidents “torture,” we hadn’t waterboarded anyone since 2002. So no, it was not a lie in 2005.
incontrolados
So he meant we don’t always torture?
Delia
Or possibly we’re not torturing right this minute. Unless, of course, you count the torturing of sentences and meaning.
srv
You sir, are a torturous pretard.
Zuzu
Quick, get Patterico over here to run a scenario.
Librarian
OK, so when do the trials start?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
I do not smoke. I did ten years ago. So for me to say, “I do not smoke” is a completely accurate and true statement.
Problems?
Magnus
“I am not a war-criminal. I am not war-criminaling right now.”
-Attributed to Former US President George W. Bush, Haag, 2012.
TenguPhule
Torture was illegal then.
Still illegal now, despite the Bush Junta’s best attempts.
So quite trying to parse it out and accept that you support a tyrant and deserve to share the fate of his victims.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
That’s not the argument. The argument was whether Bush was lying in 2005. Which he obviously wasn’t. Try to keep up.
There’s nothing to parse. I’ve disproved the whole thesis of this post. It’s gone. You should also look up the definition of a tyrant.
Obviously, this makes you so angry that you want me to “share the fate” that you say no one should ever face. Sounds like you have a hypocrisy problem.
Zuzu
Right. Let’s consider the context:
~~~The Senate has passed legislation banning torture, but the Bush administration is seeking an exemption for the CIA spy agency.
“We do not torture and therefore we’re working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it more possible to do our job,” Mr Bush said. ~~~
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4415132.stm
Congress is considering a ban on torture. You argue that such a ban is unnecessary because “We do not torture.” You are suggesting, then, that you can be trusted not to torture because …. what, you used to but don’t anymore?
Don’t think so.
Zuzu
Yes, it depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
TenguPhule
Wrong fate.
You’re in the ‘line them up to be shot’ fate queue.
I don’t believe in torture.
I do believe in firing squads.
TenguPhule
Oh he was, do try and catch up. He’s been lying for several years now. And now destroying the evidence as fast as he can.