Did “enhanced interrogation techniques” help us find Osama Bin Laden and destroy al-Qaida? Were they torture? Were they wrong? Yesterday, three former CIA officials grappled with those questions in a forum at the American Enterprise Institute. The discussion was supposed to be about Zero Dark Thirty. But it was really a chance to see in person the thinking of the people who ran and justified the detainee interrogation program. It’s also a chance to examine our own thinking. Do we really understand what the CIA did and why? Was the payoff worth the moral cost? And what can we learn from it?

Former CIA director Michael Hayden led the panel. He was joined by Jose Rodriguez, who ran the agency’s National Clandestine Service, and John Rizzo, who served as the CIA’s chief legal officer. The stories they told, and the reasons they offered, shook up my assumptions about the interrogation program. They might shake up yours, too. Here’s what they said.
The case for torture: Ex-CIA officials explain “enhanced” interrogations. - Slate Magazine

All three panelists trashed the Obama-era conceit that we’re a better country because we’ve scrapped the interrogation program. What we’ve really done, they argued, is replace interrogations with drone strikes. “We have made it so legally difficult and so politically dangerous to capture,” said Hayden, “that it seems, from the outside looking in, that the default option is to take the terrorists off the battlefield in another sort of way.” Rizzo agreed, and he quoted The Godfather to suggest that the new policy is bloody and stupid: “You can’t kill everybody.”

I don't feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies

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He might have instead quoted the old biker slogan:

"Kill 'em all, let God sort it out."


On second thought, he couldn't say that, because the ACLU/FFR morons would be screaming about the God reference.

It is actually more basic than that. If War itself is immoral does it matter what you do in a War?

In general the longer a War goes on the more bestial the combatants become. So you don't care what you do to the Enemy.

The Toture issue falls into a gray area. I likely does not work often and is bad bad for public relations.

By the way a version Water Torture was first used by the US during the Philippine Insurrection in the late 1890s to early 1900s; the Country My Wife is from.

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" We had tested EITs on ourselves. Rodriguez said he quickly accepted the use of EITs in part because “I knew that many of these procedures were applied to our own servicemen. Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers had gone through this.” If these methods were safe and moral to use on Americans, weren’t they safe and moral to use on our enemies?"

This......

But, you cannot compare doing EITs on your own Troops for a limited time and doing the same thing to a Prisoner for an unlimited time.
Also your own Troops know you do not want to harm them.

I remember that they were using the Theme Song from Barney (the Kids Show) in Guantanamo played endlessly. So you can sit someone down and make them listen to a day of that for training Purposes they might say that was bad but safe.

If someone had to listen to that theme song for Months and Months it turns into serious torture.

I actually don't see it as a moral question. It is do the means justify the ends question.

I don't believe any of the Muslim Countries like Pakistan that seem to be are Allies really are; so I they will only once in a while give up any significant intelligence to us.

Even the Israelis are not going to give intelligence to Us unless it they perceive it is a direct help themselves. So we have a limited means to gather intelligence and that does not leave us with many means.

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That theological justification of torture is one of the most bizarre pieces of theological reasoning I have ever run across.

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I believe it was actually Voivode Vladimir, aka the Impaler, who said that about Turkish troops when he could not distinguish the ones loyal to him and those who were his enemies.

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Isn't "theological reasoning" an oxymoron?

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Like the Spanish Inquisition.

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There is a real stretch of the imagination; a Drone Strike in no way compares with or replaces Interrogation/Torture! It sounds to Me like the Person who made that statement has zero clues to what is going on.

It might simply be that the way to combat Terrorist is Terrorism. We can make it sound a little better and call it Counter Terrorism.

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Sure I can. I know it is not harmful is properly done.

That's contrasted with say, flaying or racking.

What is torture?

I pray that isn't true.

That's true of any nation worthy of the name.