Investigating Torture: Bush Tactics Harmed US National Security
posted by: Aaron Pendell 241 days ago
Evidence of torture, new and old, has landed President Obama in a bit of a quandary. A significant percentage of his supporters are calling for criminal prosecution of Bush officials responsible for apparent war crimes. Meanwhile, the President’s detractors pose numerous counter arguments, recommending against investigating the Bush Administration’s torture policy. Barack Obama is in a tight spot, and his impetus to “look forward, not back” is understandable considering the antagonistic state of political affairs in America. However, as unpleasant as investigations and prosecutions will be domestically, external perspectives need to be considered.
Perhaps the most important foreign perspective worth considering is that of our enemy: Al Qaida. How is the argument over torture within the U.S. perceived by Osama Bin Ladin ? More importantly, how does it impact their recruiting capacity? To a certain extent, we already know the answers.
One extremely informed opinion was published at The Daily Beast last week. Writing under the pseudonym, Matthew Alexander, a 14 year Air Force interrogator offered his assessment in a April 20 post. Responding to Christopher Buckley’s and Michael Mukasey’s criticisms of Obama for releasing the previously classified Office of Legal Council torture memos, Alexander wrote:
Our policy of torture and abuse of prisoners has been Al Qaida’s number one recruiting tool, a point that Buckley does not mention and is also conspicuously absent from former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s argument in the Wall Street Journal. As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse…
In addition to increasing Al Qaida’s pool of recruits, the torturing of detainees has undoubtedly led counter terrorism officials to waste time and resources chasing invented threats. Former Middle East CIA field officer, Robert Baer noted in the May 4 print issue of Time that the Bush Administration selected their techniques from a 1957 paper regarding communist efforts during the Korean War:
The Crucial point, though, is that even the communists suspected that torture can’t be relied on to produce more than false confessions — because people will say anything to make the pain stop. This is the history that Bush officials chose to ignore…
I’d love to know what you think. If you’re able, set aside the moral and legal implications of the Bush Administration’s treatment of captured enemy combatants. Then consider the implications of the above informed commentators, Alexander and Baer; respectively, that torturing our prisoners makes it easier for our enemies to recruit, and that waterboading, specifically, is more likely than not to produce false information from a prisoner. These tactics, then, are quite contradictory to the maintenance of U.S. national security.
Read more: bush, iraq, cia, politics, torture, al qaeda, obama, waterboarding, bush administration, obama administration, torture memos, enemy combatants, war iraq, national security, al qaida, interrogation techniques, false confessions, robert baer
comments
Parilee Cox - "Do the majority of Muslims care about the feelings of anyone? No, they don't, not even their own people. They could be spending their noney on educating their people so they can have a decent life and improve the conditions of their countries. Instead they choose to spend it to teach their brainswashed peopole to be sociopaths and ignorant killers. That is all they are taught. Why are they here? If you can read,you know that they want to take over the world just like Hitler. They need to leave our country. We don't need to be sharing it with people that are intent on destroying us"
Comments like the above are truely pathetic. U really are the IGNORANT one here. Where do u get such hogwash from ??? Which college did u attend to get your education in 'Been brainwashed to this extent against all muslims?? It is words like these from people like u that make muslims want to join the ranks of al qaeda SIMPLY to teach people like u a lesson.
For ur information u hav a completely ridiculous misconception about muslim countries and its people. Your comments are laughable and its so sad that your misconstrued fears of muslims is making u so paranoid and blinding u to the real beauty of Islam and its following. May The LORD guide u and open your eyes to the fact that all humans are HIS Creation and for u to not categorise and demonize an entire nation because of a handful of wrongdoin people. By the way u get TERRORISTS in all religions. Look at Bush he is a Christian
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Nancy H and Jeanne M. Thank the Lord all Americans dont think the way u do. Torture is morally wrong no matter what reason it is used for. Please STOP thinking of your own lives only. Every life is equally important to GOD for HE ALONE is The CREATOR of every single Soul. Only GOD has the right to take lives. Who made bush and israel gods so that they now give themselves the right to take lives by killing and maiming humans simply because they incorrectly suspect WMD. Even if they had weapons of mass destruction what gives bush the right to kill them. Dont America and Israel have weapons of mass destruction too??? Why are they not attacked mercilessly for WMD????? They are doing exactly what they feared Saddam would do to other countries. Proof is attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza. Why are they not seeing as TERRORISTS???? Are they not killing thousands of innocent men, women and children with their weapons???? Why didnt Bush send in a military operation to capture Saddam and make ONLY him answerable for his crimes??? Bush's actions in bombing entire countries show what a merciless murderer he really is. Stop defending his inhumane actions simply because u feel he was protecting u. Believe me when i tell u ONLY GOD can protect u for no man can stop what GOD wills.
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To Ronald T thanks please tell me how your world sees a group of US soldiers headed by Mr....., rape a 5 yrs old Iraqi girl not only that they killed her and both parents etc, what would u prefer beheaded only or to be raped, killed +most if not all your family how does it look when an invaded power like us brings its army to your house infront of u rape your 5 yrs girl etc, by the way it is in the news and a us court found him guilty, another story is us give israel all destructing weapons in the world includind prohibited ones and it knows it will kill innocent palastine and use veto in un so israel cant be punished. yesterday the us foreign & obama sec. apologised for 100s of killing by us bombors, your agent in afghanistan asked us to stop bombing as the afghan patients is wearing out the pity these r not allowed in your media cnn etc, i call you to watsh the gazeera in english. is there in your world a preferance in the way one is killed whether beheaded, phosphorous bombs,plane without a pilot, clustered bombs in civilian area shal i continue. years back us bombed a sudanese factory near my sister's home, i wish u were there to see for yourself the terror in my sisters children, i assure u we know the facory it was for medicine we know the owner he owns private hospitals etc he has nothing to do with politics or terror he's a footballman. thanks again & i pray for you and the blurring in your eyes.
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To Ronald T, I agree that beheading of Daneal Pearl was a crime & bombing of bombay was another big one, but again i say you r wrong to blame islam for it. you should blame the that human or group. a lot of christian as individual or in group do wrong acts but i do not blame the religion for that because beleive me that these above deeds u mentioned were wrong and not only that but the doer will be punished very harsh. wrong doers, killers etc is in every religion not specific to muslims or islam.
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There is no excuse for Al Quada or the taliban imposing their will on us or any human. If I go to a country that has a law that says I can't pray to any God other than the one the country wants for me, I can choose to stay away. Few countries have these laws as part of their basic rights. I think some people will always find fault in what is a basic right.
We have laws in the US and once we were attacked by those who want to punish us for our belief system, they became our enemy. Fear of them continuing to attack and
demand their rights be greater than ours is something we must approach. I am afraid of anyone who imposes or legislates their religious beliefs on me.
If attacked, I will support attacking back.
In this statement I say if anyone plots against us they MUST be stopped and we have a right to know if they are in the middle of a plot plan.
We are at war and those that hurt us, hurt me. Islam is not the only religion and their demands that we allow them to attack us is not what I consider fair or right. Our support of Israel, Jews or Catholics or agnostics is our right...but it is not our right to tell another person how to think, until they harm us.
9/11 was an attack on our country..there is no excuse for what was done to us. If Islam can't live in a world with those that do not believe they are purer or better than I am, than I want them stopped. If Catholics don;t want to have an abortion, they shouldn't have one.
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"I'd give the devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIaL0b5RBTg
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"I'd give the devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIaL0b5RBTg
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Jeannie and Nancy H.:
Since you both seem to feel the ends justifies the means, let's waterboard you, and you can tell us if it's torture or not. However, I suspect you'll both pee your pants before it even started. I also suspect that you are both 'god-fearing' christians, too.
Simpletons.
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I suppose you Bush haters would just as soon let the terrorists do as they wish after all we deserved it and shouldn't have retaliated. Even tho the rules in all the wars were to NOT torture, IT did happen and frequently and none of the ones responsible were tried and hung for it, with the exception of horrific mutilations and the like. It was WAR! So you will spend our taxpayer money to twist and turn every wrong just to get revenge on a man you hated from day one because he was Republican, Christian and believed in righting a wrong! Unfortunately he didn't do so good with Iraq other than get rid of a tyrant who surely at one time did have weapons of mass destruction, we gave them years to rid their country of them probably in Syria anyway. If you must go after someone, go after the men who came back from Iraq with news there was. After all let's see Hilary, Clinton and about half the Senate believed these men also and they were pushing the wagon right along with Bush and Co. So if ya go after anyone, go after them all, ones who stood in front of the the TV cameras and said "We believe Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" They all did, but when shit hit the fan then it was "get Bush" we didn't say it, even tho it is on film. Bush is a scape goat, can't say about Cheney, he wasn't exactly likeable! As for Guantanamo Bay, get over it and move on or we will never have a future.
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if you think back toWWI, WWII and the Vietnam War we were tortured big time.. no one was put on the butcher block for doing that.. not only did they do it we did it too... it's the nature of the beast when it comes to war Now all of sudden the rules of the game are going to change.. OH that's right it's who is in charge of the rules that makes the difference silly me I forgot! I don't agree with Torture I don't think it's right, but the thing of it is.. it's been goingon FOREVER more than we will ever know.. and now someone else is in charge of the game board and has new rules.. well, I like my freedom I don't know about anyone else..and I would put my life on the line and do unthinkable things to keep America free... how about YOU?
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