Looks like it might have worked....


On the role of interrogation:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Can you confirm that it was as a result of water boarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after Bin Laden?
LEON PANETTA: Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information and that was true here… It's a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got… I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I'm also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: So finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques -- which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years -- that includes water boarding?
LEON PANETTA: That's correct.



Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2011/05/03/panetta-public-likely-to-see-obl-picture/#ixzz1LPC9Lwhw

Enchanced interrogation techniques includes waterboarding. That doesn't mean waterboarding was used.

Notice how the question and answer were written. Statements in the form of a subject and predicate plainly show set membership. Dogs are part of the mammal family, or in a more direct analogy to the form of sentence above, when we say Mammals we're including dogs. But of course we're not including only dogs, we're including cats, rats, you name it.

So yeah, no, nobody said we used _actually_ used waterboarding. (but of course the wink of an eye might suggest something else)

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It also doe not mean that the same info could not have been obtained with out torture. I believe a FBI interrogator obtained valuable info from one of OBL's drivers by offering some sugar free cookies. From most of what I have read and heard, torture is the tool of those who are not very good at interrogation.

Also, it is some what difficult to take the moral high road when you are doing the same that you are complaining about.

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enhanced interrogation technique # 1

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No way to know whether it worked. Panetta's answer was cryptic, but that last comment seems to say that at least one person involved in the investigation was waterboarded. Assuming that to be true, the only thing that can really be said is that the waterboarding did not damage the investigation enough to prevent them from finding and killing bin Laden.

Assuming it was effective, I guess that makes the case for using any type of torture if you never expect to use the information in court?

How many times does it not work?

Torture and a smiley...

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Years ago I had the chance to ask a fellow who had worked with 'truth serum' if it really worked. He said you would have to define 'worked'.

He said it would make people talk, bot 90% of what they said was just plain lies. So now you really had nothing useful and you were one day down in your attempts to find out anything.

He said a feeling of hopelessness mixed with a powerless feeling would push people to hold back when asked about things they knew about because it restored their feelings of power. Therefore it was all in asking the right questions. In short, if they clamed up when asked a question you knew the question you had just asked was on the right track.

As far as needing the info fast... Well, how fast is fast enough? If you think that an attack is coming soon then if your subject knows it really is coming soon there is nothing, as in NOTHING, you will be able to do to get any information out of them since they know time is on their side and not yours.

His opinion was constant vigilance is the only solution.

Sugar free cookies <---- good one!

That's what the FBI guy said. IIRC, the prisoner was diabetic, or something.

Waterboarding isn't torture. Neither is wearing ladies undies on the head, having a mean looking dog bark at you, or having a girl point and giggle and your genitalia.

Be that as it may, the euphemism, "enhanced interrogation" covers a whole array, of which waterboarding is one tool in the box. Panetta answered the question cleverly and purposefully -- sounding definitive but giving zero content. Good for him.

Depends on how you define "torture." One dictionary defines torture as "a : anguish of body or mind : agony b : something that causes agony or pain..." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/torture I'd say that waterboarding fits that definition.

I agree, he managed to say absolutely nothing.

Deja vu of old torture, not torture threads.