Just to play devil's advocate, if they got a small amount of useful information each time they waterboarded him (or every 3rd or 4th time), but were always convinced that there was yet more information to be had from him, then it would be possible for waterboarding to be effective and still be used 183 times. And presumably, they don't even try to question him after each 10-40 second application.

That said, this is still completely disgusting.

But, but, but, Leader Rush says McCain broke under torture by the NV, so torture works. Funny that Rush left out the part where McCain said he gave them false info to make them stop.

Remarkably Soviet approach in its rigidity.

I am still left wondering, if it doesn't work, why do it? This is an awfully elaborate scheme involving doctors, psychologists and lawyers, if the only purpose is to enable sadism. And yet, the closest we seem to come to evidence that it works is the 911 Commission Report. And even here, we're relying on testimony filtered through the Bush Administration, and little, if any evidence that anything was helpful, even if it was true.

The next question is if it really does work, why would these grand protectors of American safetly limit waterboarding to three people? Heck, if it's not torture, why stop with three people? I'm not convinced we did, but in either case, I think we are due a better explanation.

Leave it to radical leftists to feel tear-filled sympathy for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda operative who masterminded 9/11.

As far as many patriotic Americans are concerned, that piece of human filth will never suffer enough for his monstrous crimes, but liberals are the first to say, "aw, do you have to be so harsh on the guy?"

How typical.

-A

Danp:
I am still left wondering, if it doesn't work, why do it?

Harper's:
Because in the end, you will find that this torture is not about intelligence gathering, or ticking bombs or any other such nonsense. It is a talisman. A talisman of power. A government that can torture and do it with impunity can do anything. No law stands in its way. The very idea of the rule of law crumbles into dust. It means brutal tyranny.

So what are you saying Atanarjuat? It's OK to torture for retribution? And does an asswipe like you get to pick what we do to this person. Besides being completely inconsistant about this issue" why aren't you railing that McVeigh should have been tortured for his crimes" you are a piece of shit. Your the type of person that happily ran the death camps in world war two because you kwow that they deserved it too.

the deviant, sadistic nature of the torturers is a key point that hasn't had anywhere near the attention it deserves. Whether its the diabolical cheney and cheney-like sadists planning and ordering torture, or the "only following orders" deviants implementing the torture, there are serious, serious questions that should be investigated regarding the sanity of these people and the security of society to have them running around loose without being under professional psychiatric care. They are clearly dangerous individuals who are slaves to the point of violating the law to their psychotic fantasies of abusing other human beings.

The torture ordered and acted out should be understood as the objective of these sadistic deviants and the guise of protecting America and Americans a ruse to achieve their objectives. No one involved is in anyway a hero. Swallowing their claims of torturing to protect America is plain ridiculous - Obama and the hoy paloy need to get off of that. It is impossible to "protect" America by violating its law and immorally violating human decency - can't happen.

Gandalf, perhaps you haven't kept up with the OKC bombing trials, but one of the results is that Tim McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

Perhaps you might disagree, but I think that death is arguably more harsh -- and terminal -- than torture.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on the other hand, is still very much among the living, and he should be thanking Allah every second that he's still breathing no matter how much he's been waterboarded. It's plainly obvious that he should have been executed years ago for his hideous crimes that led to the death of so many of our countrymen (I'm assuming you're an American).

True, he was charged with war crimes early last year, but now that we have an Arab-genuflecting teleprompter for a President, I suspect that KSM will be instead be exonerated and soon released from custody because of this misguided focus on how he was treated during his detention.

-A

I am still left wondering, if it doesn't work, why do it? - Danp

Main Entry:
sa·dism Listen to the pronunciation of sadism
Pronunciation:
\ˈs�-ˌdi-zəm, ˈsa-\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
International Scientific Vocabulary, from Marquis de Sade
Date: 1888

1: a sexual perversion in which gratification is obtained by the infliction of physical or mental pain on others (as on a love object) — compare masochism

2 a: delight in cruelty b: excessive cruelty

I don't know about the "love object" part but number two will suffice. Just because the torturers are doing their business under the guise of protecting "national security" doesn't mean they aren't just sick SOB's who found a job that matches their inner nature.

They do it because they like to do it.

Thank you, Steve.

I was under the delusion that Bush's team of monsters only used waterboarding as a last resort.

Obviously not.

In wars past, Iraqi troops surrendered to us because they didn't believe the tales they were told that we would torture them and we were cruel merciless bastards. How many of our men in uniform will die because every "enemy" fights us to the death now? How many deaths will torture have caused instead of saved? Do the "tough guys" really love the troops more?

Atanarjuat:

Tim McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] will never suffer enough for his monstrous crimes

he was charged with war crimes early last year

But I have to applaud you, Atanarjuat, for at least having the honesty to admit that your support for torture stems not from some misguided theory as to how it's the "only way" to get critical information, but rather from a childish and sadistic need to assert your worth by savaging someone else.

Believe it or not A(which by the way I believe stands for Ahole} I'm OK with the death sentence for people convicted of horendous crimes. But the point is the death penalty is not torture which is against the law. We don't get to pick and choose the laws we want to follow and not follow. {Like torturing people} Oh I'm wondering at what age did you stop pulling the wings off insects and blowing up frogs with firecrackers A ?

Whenever you see A post about anything you can now know that he is a torture freak and a worthless excuse for a human being. He'd torture someone to the end of time because it makes him feel good.

It helps to cut down the comment clutter. Ignore the depraved.

Good one Pluege.........

So do we know if there is a special class the CIA experts take to hone their torture skills? Or is it just OJT(on the job training)?

It's good to know that we only torture bad people who deserve it, but I always thought that an eternity in Hell was enough punishment for anyone.

In that case, the only consideration is effectiveness. We've seen interrogators and victims come forward to say that torture is ineffective in getting good intelligence. Much as I'd like to see bad people suffer, I'll leave that to The Almighty. I want good intel, and if it comes from bonbons and blowjobs, set 'em up.

Just this Sunday morning FOX is busy asking this same question.

The conclusion, per Former CIA Director under Dubya, is that waterboarding absolutely works at getting intelligence and that if all these medical professionals and lawyers say it ain't torture, then it must not be.

GREAT! Because I was worried about how do get good "intelligence" from the right wing radicals that are a threat to our national security. Certainly these same people won't have any objections when we start waterboarding their base.

I googled Del Capslock's quote from Harper's. I think it worth reading it in context. It's from a short blog post by Scott Horton. It left me wondering if we're out of the woods yet.

Yup, torture works and all those folks that confessed to being witches in Medieval Europe and again in Massachussetts really WERE devil worshippers. (Man, this topic really brings out sadistic idiots doesn't it.)

The latest info on KSM is that the government got NOTHING useful once the torture started. He wasn't a key figure, just a travel agent, and they'd already gotten everything useful out of him in fairly short order with ordinary interrogation techniques.

In fact, torture created negative utility - the government wasted huge amounts of resources running around checking any bit of bullshit he'd desperately scream out to try and stop the torture.

One fallacy of stupid people is that more information is always better. It isn't. A small amount of relevant and reliable information is of far more utility than vast amounts of garbage. Even if there's a pearl in the garbage somewhere you are likely to waste so much time going down blind alleys you'd be better off dumping the crap and going back to good, old fashioned intel and police work.

Some goes for wire tapping, BTW. More is NOT better.

Arm chair warriors!

As others have noted above, torture is always about the torturer, not the tortured. Torture has nothing to do with obtaining info. That's a red herring thrown out by the torturers to get good people diverted into inane discussions about the quality of the info.

I thought that apart from the unpleasentness, a big part of the torture in waterboarding was the fear of drowning.

After the first 10 of 50 times, the subject is probably thinking that this will suck again, but that he's not going to drown, so what's the point in going on for 183 times (apart from the sadism)?

Note the 183 times IN A MONTH. Assuming the full 31 days they subjected him to this 6 times a DAY. (More if the "good christians" took Sunday off to pray.)

I've almost drowned a few times (comes with the territory if you grow up on islands and like to play in the big waves). It took a while to get over the shock and the water in places you really don't want it to be. I can't imagine the condition my nasal passages, lungs, and brain would be afer multiple sessions in a day, let alone day after day for weeks.

And if you subject someone who already had a fairly tenuous hold on reality?

Yeah - sadism pure and simple. There is no excuse or forgiveness for those who enabled these acts OR those who carried them out. The medical personnel who oversaw the interrogations are particularly worthy of investigation, trial, and if found guilty - execution.

183? I don't believe that count for a moment. A person boarded that many times would be a drooling imbecile long before it went to triple figures. It's not the fear of drowning that pulverizes the brain, it's the actual drowning. Ask anyone who has drowned.

Butch, your post at 11:42 am confuses KSM with Abu Zubaydah. Ron Suskind's book The One Percent Doctrine, and other sources, claim that Zubaydah's role in Al Qaeda was exaggerated and that he was mentally unstable.

KSM on the other hand, was being sought by the U.S. long before Sept 11, 2001 and was specifically suspected of having a role in both the attacks of that day and a number of terrorist incidents both before and after that one. Among other things he was thought even before his capture to have provided financing to his nephew Ramzi Yousef for the 1993 WTC bombing and to have had a role the murder of Daniel Pearl.

Huh?, @13:01 brings up the question which has bugged me too, ever since I first saw those numbers.

When the issue of torture was first mentioned (by NYT, IIRC), the right freaked out totally. Treason! If the bad guys know what techniques we use to interrogate them, they'll be able to prepare themselves for them!

But what is repeated waterboarding, if not a preparation for the next "exercise"? If training for how to withstand the "persuasion" via waterboarding is at all effective, then those two guys had more than enough training to withstand anything.

One way or another, the technique is useless as the means of getting useful info. However, it must have greatly enhanced the solitary sex life of the torturers...

Has anyone asked himself/herself whether what we are told about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is true? Whether the person who allegedly admitted to have planned 9/11 is at all KSM or only someone impersonating him or even no one at all, just a secretary of the Justice Department who types a memo? Has anyone asked himself/herself whether the entire debate about "waterboarding" is a hoax, aimed at deflecting the debate? Are you people so gullible that what the US government is issuing in its reports is taken at face value? Haven't you noticed that the US government is lying, lying, lying?

In the great torture debate we always justify it by the so called successes but what about the failures. Has anyone thought about the people who were not terrorist and were water boarded and abused up to those 50 to 100 times? No one wants to think of them. That sad final scene in the movie the Ox Bow Incident keeps playing in my head.

"...What kind of sadist thinks, "We didn't get the information we wanted after torturing him 182 times, but maybe once more will do the trick"?..."

Exactly the point!! That is the beset argument for why those who did the torturing should be prosecuted. It should demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that this technique was used to punish...not gather information. That those doing it were sadists and completely despicable...not dedicated government employees thinking about the good of the country. No one is that stupid.

They knew what they were doing and why and any 'medical professionals' taking part should never see the light of day again outside of a prison cell. We are horrified at the casualness of the DoJ and Eric Holder/Obama on their treatment of this issue. I hope they release the names of all those involved so they are forever stricken from being considered human.

To set the record straight, McCain volunteered all the information asked for to "avoid" being tortured. Was appearing in propaganda films 4wks after his capture...er...surender....according to other prisoners. Made sure the NV knew his dad was an important Admiral so he would get better treatment as one who was more 'valuable'. His principle character trait is the ability to manipulate his situation.

"...Leave it to radical leftists to feel tear-filled sympathy for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda operative who masterminded 9/11.

As far as many patriotic Americans are concerned, that piece of human filth will never suffer enough for his monstrous crimes, but liberals are the first to say, "aw, do you have to be so harsh on the guy?"

How typical.

-A
Posted by: Atanarjuat on April 19, 2009 at 8:42 AM |

"Up yours. Since when did humanists and those against torture become "radical leftists". You mean like George Washington who, after reports that the British had burned innocent people alive in a locked church and were torturing captive revolutionary fighters demanded that no American torture British troops. Is it "radical leftists" who penned the constitution and the bill of rights?

By your definition most Americans would be "radical leftists" or could it be that you represent the Nazi mentality, the less than zero human being whose mentality got millions of Jews exterminated in the ovens because they were scum and deserved everything they got. I can't begin to tell you how loathsome your 'opinion' is nor how stupid and ignorant your use of the term "radical leftist' makes you. Say hi to your uncle dad for us.

clearly, this torture was not for information, but rather the rapturous tickle it provided the torturers. and shouldn't these torturers need to register, as any sexual predator does, when they return to our neighborhoods?

Taanstaafl @2:34 PM - right, brain fart there. Trying to read two articles and type too. (Strong coffee).

And exlibra - by all accounts Zubaydah is now a drooling idiot and become one shortly after the torture started.

People torture because it increases the flow of blood to their genitals. Atanjuar favors it for the same reason snuff porn exists. Vicarious gratification.