I Can Help With The Arithmetic (But Not The Answers)

The Emptywheel highlights a puzzling detail in the OLC 'torture' memos [now picked up by the Times] - Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times!

To which I say, "Huh?"  What happened to KSM folding up like a cheap suitcase, as I would have surely done:

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

"Two and two-and-a-half minutes" versus 183 waterboardings?  Hard to believe they are both correct.  Let's cut to the Emptywheel:

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

Note, the information comes from the CIA IG report which, in the case of Abu Zubaydah, is based on having viewed the torture tapes as well as other materials. So this is presumably a number that was once backed up by video evidence.

The same OLC memo passage explains how the CIA might manage to waterboard these men so many times in one month each (though even with these chilling numbers, the CIA's math doesn't add up).

...where authorized, it may be used for two "sessions" per day of up to two hours. During a session, water may be applied up to six times for ten seconds or longer (but never more than 40 seconds). In a 24-hour period, a detainee may be subjected to up to twelve minutes of water application. See id. at 42.  Additionally, the waterboard may be used on as many as five days during a 30-day approval period.

So: two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you'd need 18 applications in a day.  Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you've waterboarded 90 times--still just half of what they did to KSM.

The CIA wants you to believe waterboarding is effective. Yet somehow, it took them 183 applications of the waterboard in a one month period to get what they claimed was cooperation out of KSM.

I share her bafflement as to the applications but can help with the math.

The May 30 2005 memo she cites is restating, somewhat ambiguously,provisions also cited in the May 10 memo to Rizzo (see p. 26 of the .pdf).  The earlier iteration has a clearer phrasing:

Moreover, during any session the number of individual applications of water lasting 10
seconds or longer may not exceed six.

I very much doubt that the lawyers were attempting to both limit the number of applications to six and prescribe a minimum legal length for each application (I can picture the scene - "Geez, the terrorist was waving the surrender sign after six seconds but the lawyers made us keep going..."); a more plausible interpretation is that there is no direct limit to the number of applications of less than ten seconds.  As long as the maximum length of any one application is les than 40 seconds, there are not more than six applications exceeding ten seconds, and the total time of all applications is less than twelve minutes in one day, the interrogators are in compliance.

Since one day can encompass at most two waterboarding sessions, let's assume that the interrogators allot 6 minutes, or 360 seconds, to a specific session.  The following example would comply with the above guidelines:

6 applications of 30 seconds each totaling 180 seconds plus

20 applications of 9 seconds each totaling 180 seconds for a total of

26 applications totaling 360 seconds.

Over a total of ten sessions, that wold be a maximum number of applications of 260, well below the number cited for KSM.  And it would be easy enough to come to a higher maximum; for example, six applications of 20 seconds and 40 applications of 6 seconds for a total of 46 applications per session would also be compliant.

As background, the New Yorker reported that KSM told the Red Cross he had been waterboarded five times.  If that figure is accurate, that is an average of about 36 applications per session, which could easily fit within the parameters noted above.

Well.  The obvious question for supporters of the Bush approach (OK, that includes me) is, what took so long?  Waterboarding was billed as fast, safe and effective, which was also the story peddled to ABC News as linked above.

And the obvious question for the Bush critics is the same - what took so long?  If this technique is so brutal, how did KSM hold out so long?  And Zubaydah, with 83 applications, was hardly a slouch either.  Christoper Hitchens seems to have fallen apart after one application (although he boldly came back for more, which is the normal reaction to torture, right?) and wrote this about KSM:

I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted. This is because I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the “mastermind” of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. “Hell,” said one, “from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.”)

Malcolm Nance, a former SERE instructor, described waterboarding as torture and expressed his doubts about the KSM endurance story to Hitchens:

Nance doubts very much that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lasted that long under the water treatment (and I am pathetically pleased to hear it).

So the experts seem to misoverestimate the terror this technique inflicts and the supporters overestimate its efficacy.  That should be something for both sides to reflect upon, although I don't think either side will.

UPDATE:  Scott Shane of the Times joins in, red-faced:

A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.

The sentences in the 2005 memo including the number of times the two men were waterboarded appear to be redacted from some copies of the memo but visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers, but a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered the numbers in the memos over the weekend.

Well, the original Times .pdf of the Justice Dept memos was only 57 pages and did not include about half of the May 30 memo in question, including the relevant portion; now the Times is presenting 101 pages.

Comments

[f1guyus]

Sounds to me like we've got the wrong people in the CIA.

[clarice]

As a math test question it beats the two cars traveling to the same spot from opposite directions.

I wonder if anyone has any notions what this is about--it seems watmed over trash from 2006. In the earliest version I believed it was to force Harman to fall in line with her party on intel issues. Now I suspect it's to poison the AIPAC jury--but are the Dems also trying to get her off the intel committee?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/another_coincidence.html

[clarice]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/another_coincidence.html>Harman

[Ignatz]

Christoper Hitchens seems to have fallen apart after one application...

That's because water is zero proof.
He prefers scotch-and-waterboarding.
And toss the board, he'd rather do it on the rocks.

[clarice]

BTW, re the release of the memos, I have two views:
(1) This assures that no one with any brains will ever want to handle interrogations again for the agency. The task will go to those who just like to go thru the motions knowing that under the rules the chance of obtaining any useful information is about zero.
(2) I cannot see any good reason why the Administration overrode the objections of those who know what they're talking about to release these and am inclined to think it's a dog and pony show to control the news cycle and divert attention from other no good stuff they are up to.

[narciso]

Yes, that's sadly the point, Clarice, no good reason, it's the Church/Leahy committee
for the new generation

[MayBee]

Perhaps this is why they decided to stop doing it.

[verner]

Yes Clarice. Quite right.

As for KSM, why not believe him that he was water boarded 5 times?

And if they water boarded KSM 1000 times--bottom line, he is still alive and well without any permanent physical or mental disability--unlike the 3000 who were burned alive on 911. Hey, did the IRC report say he was drooling, or babbling?

And god only knows how many were saved. Of Course, Obama doesn't want us to know that--though both Tenet and Hayden have hinted that the info gathered was vital and substantial. And the proof? Well, we have not been hit again.

I wish someone would read the NYT editorial with the video of Danny Pearl's beheading in the background for youtube. That would put things in the proper light.

[bad]

As for KSM, why not believe him that he was water boarded 5 times?

Why would we believe him? I heard he's a lying, right-winger, Bush lover.

[clarice]

Well, I don't think the Harman matter is completely OT either. By my lights the leftocrats have been trying to force her off the intel committee for three years now. Maxine Waters even took the incredible step of going into Harman's district and campaigning aginst her the last election.

[verner]

Yeah Clarice. For Obama, Harmen is a three-for

He gets Harmon, who he obviously can't stand

He gets the hated Israel Lobby

AND another hit on Alberto Gonzales, and therefore GWB.

Now, my question. Why not release NSA on Pelosi in Syria? Bill Ayers with Chavez? McDermott with Saddam? Ah, nevermind. That would be illegal.

[clarice]

I do think the story is crap though--let me make that clear--But if it is, how can Harman respond except as she has with a denial. She certainly cannot access any NSA taps and as far as I know I can't imagine how there would be a tap of a call between two Californians apparently made in this country.

[Danube of Thought]

""The person believes they are being killed..."

You'd think that after the first 180 or so, they'd tumble to the fact that in fact they're not being killed.

[clarice]

You would, wouldn't you? Ah, well. Some folks are just D U M B.

[verner]

The 180 number is obviously the times they poured water on his face, not the number of sessions.

Watch the Hitchens video, they pour from the milk jug four or five times before he gives up. And he did it again, so by their math, Hitchens was w-bded 10 times...uh huh.

As for the number of times KSM was W-Bded, while he gave info after the first session, they must have had other intel that indicated he knew more.

They are really doing their best to make this look much worse than it actually is, aren't they.

[verner]

This from the SHane Piece:

President Obama plans to visit C.I.A. headquarters Monday and make public remarks to employees, as well as meet privately with officials, an agency spokesman said Sunday night. It will be his first visit to the agency, whose use of harsh interrogation methods he often condemned during the presidential campaign and whose secret prisons he ordered closed on the second full day of his presidency.

Note to Barry, don't shake hands with anybody, and make sure you use bulletproof teleprompters.

[Fresh Air]

Geezus,

If the goddamn Mediacrats would just shut up, our enemies wouldn't know about all our methods. I'm sure every terrorist training school worth its salt has anti-waterboarding class by now. They probably teach the graduates how to request an ACLU lawyer, too.

I loathe these bastards with all my fiber, preening, amoral, useless jerks.

[verner]

OK, let's do the math in terms that the average American will understand.

For every 16 people that KSM murdered on 911, he got a shot of water up his nose.

[Danube of Thought]

For those who didn't see Gen. Hayden on Chris Wallace yesterday, he pointed out that the current director (Leon Panetta) and all four of his immediate predecessors disagreed with the decision to release the memos. Someone also pointed out that not a single intelligence or national security official has publicly defended or supported the disclosure--it's been done exclusively by the political staff.

[memomachine]

Hmmm.

Hey don't look at me.

I was advocating pliers.

[memomachine]

Hmmm.

"They probably teach the graduates how to request an ACLU lawyer, too."

Actually I think they do teach terrorists on how to manipulate national laws and use the media.

[verner]

Indeed they do Memomachine. If I remember correctly, the first thing KSM did was laugh, then ask for a lawyer.

[Danube of Thought]

Re the NYTimes editorial, Hayden flatly pronounced its assertion that Zubayda's important information was all given up pre-waterbboarding. According to Hayden, it was only after the waterboard that Zubayda gave them information that led to the arrest of Ramzi Sheikh al-what's-his-name. So who you gonna believe?

Brother--if they'd told me during SERE that if I ever got captured that was the absolute limit of what the enemy would do to me, I'd have been one very bold and happy camper.

[Rockfish]

Tom,

You ask, "If this technique is so brutal, how did KSM hold out so long?" The answer is simple: he didn't hold out that long.

People don't get tortured until they give up all they know, they get tortured until their interrogators think they've given up all they know. That's a very important difference, because the interrogators don't know the extent of their subject's knowledge.

It's been widely reported that most of what KSM said under torture was fabricated as he said whatever he thought his interrogators wanted to hear so they'd stop torturing him. (The same was reportedly true of Abu Zubaydah.) He was alomost certainly "broken" long before the torture stopped.

[verner]

Hey DOT, have you noticed how they've moved the goalposts over the SERE argument?

The CIA used more water on real terrorists!

[Ignatz]

It's been widely reported that most of what KSM said under torture was fabricated as he said whatever he thought his interrogators wanted to hear so they'd stop torturing him. (The same was reportedly true of Abu Zubaydah.) He was alomost certainly "broken" long before the torture stopped.

Semantic nonsense. One could more reasonably say:

"Most of what KSM said during interrogation was fabricated, as he's a liar, and he said whatever his interrogators wanted to hear so they'd stop interrogating him."

Criminals routinely tell cops whatever they want to hear just to get them to stop asking them. Does that make sitting at a precinct table with your lawyer in the chair next to you 'torture' and are they therefore 'broken'?

[verner]

Of course some of what KSM said was a lie....DUH.

The trouble with the hate America crowd's argument is, however, that not ALL of what KSM told was a lie.

Face it. It WORKED. It saved lives. Deal with it.

[Topsecretk9]

Clarice

Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a “completed crime,” a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said.

Wouldn't this be stupid Brenda Morris and Welch? Hmmm

[matt]

actually we've got it all wrong. What they were referring to, actually, was wakeboarding. KSM went out 180 times in Guantanamo Bay and just couldn't handle it anymore. He was getting sunburned and water went up his nose and after 2-3 hours/day he was tuckered out. It's all been a terrible misunderstanding.

[Rockfish]

Ignatz,

You're missing my point. Tom's question assumed that KSM was waterboarded 183 times because that's how long it took to break him. This is almost certainly not true. That means there is no basis for Tom's conclusion that waterboarding must not be as horrific as people say.

[Rockfish]

verner:

In fact there is no evidence that our resort to torture foiled a single plot or saved a single life. FBI director Robert Mueller has publicly said that it has not done so. The pro-torture argument rests entirely on the uncorroborated and self-serving statements of Bush administration officials who have dirty hands and have repeatedly lied to us.

[cathyf]

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

There's what it says and what you think it says. Using the waterboard X times "in the interrogation" of Y could mean waterboarding Y X times. Or it could mean that they waterboarded each other some number of times (Z times). Which would mean that they waterboarded Y (X-Z) times.

The report clearly states that the interrogators were waterboarding each other (they broke after an average of 14 seconds.) If KSM was a particularly difficult nut to crack, it may be that they waterboarded him once or twice, then started doing research on each other to make the waterboarding more effective. They realized that they needed to waterboard him for a lot longer than was typical, so they needed to collect data -- the data we had was from decades of SERE training and fraternity hazing (ok, the SERE data was going to be higher quality than the frat boy data...)

Hamsher has one theory that fits the numbers, TM another. Here's a third way to make the math work: they waterboarded him twice the typical maximum needed. He didn't break either time. Then they waterboarded him however long was the SERE student record. Then they waterboarded each other 100 times in the process of figuring out a safe procedure for waterboarding for 2 minutes. Then they waterboarded him for 2 minutes, and he didn't break. So then they waterboarded each other another 78 times developing a safe 3-minute protocol. And KSM broke after 2 minutes 40 seconds.

There you go, it all adds up. They waterboarded KSM 5 times, just like he said. And they "used the waterboard 183 times that month" just like the report said.

[Dave]

How many times did they show him a baby butterfly?

[verner]

I repeat rockfish, just because SOME of the info KSM and A-Z gave was incorrect and intentionally misleading (and was that the stuff they gave before aggressive interrogation, or after?) does not mean that ALL was incorrect.

David Rose was writing for VF, an outlet known to be extremely hostile to the Bush Administration. Hayden and Tenet say otherwise. You can always find unnamed sources to say anything you like. Graydon Carter has published some of the most unbelievable irresponsible conspiracy minded crap in his pages--the stuff blaming Ledeen for the Niger yellow Cake docs comes quickly to mind. Pardon me if I'm not impressed by your link.

And I'll compound that by saying that Obama is not releasing redacted portions that state WHAT THEY FOUND OUT. Why? Do you actually mean to say that if he could REALLY make the Bushies look bad, he wouldn't? DREAM ON.

In the end, the proof lies in the Pudding. WE HAVE NOT BEEN HIT AGAIN.

And if it took pouring water on KSM's face 183 times, so be it. It's the least that he deserves for all the suffering he's caused. Remember the people in the Twin Towers as they slowly roasted to death, and as smoke filled their lungs. Now that's real suffocation!

The only people who look badly on America because the security and lives of our people depended on making three--count em, three--of history's worst mass murderers getting w-bded, are people who hate us anyway, and turn a blind eye to Castro and all their other little pet totalitarian dictators.

It is UTTER GARBAGE to say that these procedures were used either routinely, or gratuitously. And they never will be.

It's all about politics. People like you could give a shit if thousands of Americans die, as long as you make your pathetic little points.

Well Screw You.It's easy to be principled when other people's innocent children are being killed. Stand by your argument as long as you're willing to put yourself, and everyone you love right in the middle of ground zero the next time they hit us.

[Soylent Red]

As far as I'm concerned, the numbers are irrelevant. He's responsible for the planning of 9/11, and that should get him some special dispensation.

I won't be happy until they waterboard him before every meal, every day, for the rest of his useless life. And twice on Sundays.

[clarice]

I don't know TS--In the first place its hearsay--some unnamed intel officials telling what some unnamed DoJ officials said. But as it involved a Congresswoman, you might be right that Brenda and Welch were involved.

[Rockfish]

verner,

Apparently it's time to adjust the meds. You're unhinged.

[Rocco]

Rockfish

A deranged lunatic has kidnapped your young child and strapped a bomb to his/her chest set to go off in 24 hours. The lunatic is captured by the authorities yet refuses to disclose the location of your child. Should this lowlife be tortured to disclose the location of your loved one before the bomb explodes? Tick...tick...tick...

[Rockfish]

Rocco,

The ticking time bomb scenario exists only in episodes of "24". There wasn't any ticking time bomb to justify any of the torture Gorge Bush authorized, so hypothetical ticking time bomb scenarios are irrelevant.

Most of us can imagine doing all manner of things to save our children, and in extreme desperation we might even torture. But that doesn't make torture legal, nor does it make torture a reliable means of securing actionable intelligence. Your hypothetical merely illustrates that if we're sufficiently desperate we'll do things that are wrong and stupid. And the need to resort to baseless hypotheticals illustrates how difficult it is to defend the reality of what we've done.

[clarice]

Thanks for playing Rockfish..Can you tell us why all three of the former CIA directors and the present director opposed the release of these memos and why The Won overruled them?

[verner]

Hey rockfish, why don't you show a little outrage over this!

The report said the human rights violations in Venezuela included unlawful killings, disappearances reportedly involving security forces, torture and abuse of detainees, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary arrests and detentions and attacks on the independent media.

Read more: "New Reports Condemn Human Rights Violations in Cuba, Venezuela" - http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/April/200704051355461xeneerg4.133242e-02.html#ixzz0DEquGuXl&A

Rocco, he's quoting David Rose's VF article. And if you'll notice, he's conceding all points. He would rather that the CIA agents charged with interrogating the murderous bastards do so without the cover of law, and risk jail time. But he doesn't say that he doesn't want them to ever do it! LOL

He's dealing with hypotheticals, we're dealing with reality.

As for "if we're sufficiently desperate", how on earth could we know unless we have intel in the first place. I mean, how do these idiots expect us ever to find out? They don't want us to use electronic surveillance, and all prisoners have a right to ACLU lawyers, hot chocolate and fuzzy slippers!

Should we remember that 911 was followed by the bombings in Spain and 77 in London?

How's this for desperate--they killed 3,000 people and even now have told us that they plan to do it again! Only Bigger!

I'm sensing desperation alright. The type you feel when you step into a puddle and realize you're about to be up to your neck in quick sand.

[Rocco]

"Recently, Israeli security officials confronted a ticking-bomb situation. Several days before Yom Kippur, they received credible information that a suicide bomber was planning to blow himself up in a crowded synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish year. After a gun battle in which an Israeli soldier was killed, the commander of the terrorist cell in Nablus was captured. Interrogation led to the location of the suicide bomb in a Tel Aviv apartment. Israel denies that it uses torture and I am aware of no evidence that it did so to extract life-saving information in this case."

Alan Dershowitz

[clarice]

Doesn't Shane concede that there were TWO leakers? The paper had one version with redactions and Firedog Lake had one without them..
Why would the same person be handing out TWO versions of the same file?

Why would FDL be given a file with fewer redactions than the NYT?

It shouldn't take a genius to track down these leaks if anyone cared.

[verner]

Ad Hominem already?

You're a rather poor sport rockfish.

Clarice, why bother asking. Don't you know they're all liars (even though they know what the top secret secret stuff is that Obama has, you know, the stuff that he won't leak to the NYTs!)

[Tom Maguire]

Tom's question assumed that KSM was waterboarded 183 times because that's how long it took to break him. This is almost certainly not true. That means there is no basis for Tom's conclusion that waterboarding must not be as horrific as people say.

First, I guess it is hardly news that people tell a mix of truth and lies under interrogation.

Secondly, I question "no basis". We have an expert claiming that waterboarding is torture and very much doubting that KSM lasted two minutes. Yet he apparently endured five sessions and 183 dousings.

Rockfish squares the circle by postulating, with no basis, that KSM cracked early and most (almost all?) of the subsequent effort was in vain. Sure, maybe - I certainly can't prove anything.

But maybe the CIA interrogators actually have a clue as to what they are doing and kept after KSM because they kept getting more intel.

Put another way, if the last four sessions with KSM were gratuitous, how come Zubadayah didn't get five sessions?

Well. The concept that people "break" is a convenient fiction anyway. As I recall from reading about McCain, more typical is that a person cracks, gives up some info, then has a morale rally and clams up until the next time someone beats some more truth and lies out of them.

I would guess that they had lots of questions on a lot of different topics for KSM.

[narciso]

let sme see if I can put it in terms,
Rockfish, even a fool like you can understand. He was responsible for conducting an operation, where people had to chose, between being burned alive in a
pyre of melted steel, and having their bones
crack when they hit the pavement. So he probably consumed more water than usual, although not at the clubs in the Phillipines
and Quatar, where he practiced taquiya. And it was only the fortuotous effort of the passengers on Flight 93, that made it possible for the people on Capitol Hill, not to have to make that Hobson's choice, And he had been the planner for many other operations including the thwarted attack on the iconic Library Tower in L.A. Frankly, he got off easy.

On the other point, is this America anymore,
where someone can dangle some anonymous allegation, presumedly from a NSA file, to try to topple some congresswoman whoactually
has a clue about what's going on the world,
not Nijab Nancy & Jalabaya Jay Rockefeller, who actually have Salafi and Baathist on their speed dial. While the DHS ever on the lookout for "manmade disasters' casts a weary eye on our fighting soldiers, sailors
and airman, and our preachers, and their supporters

[cathyf]

I find the most interesting statistic being the one that the CIA interrogators broke after an average of 14 seconds of waterboarding. Some "torture" there -- they used something that they had already used on each other!

I'm not sure which is more amazing -- the utter fatuity of people like Rockfish who claim that we had a "resort to torture" or the handwringers like Hamsher who repeat and amplify their "outraged" silliness with a straight face.

[MayBee]

good point, clarice.

[clarice]

Thanks, MayBee.

And if I'm right that there were TWO leakers distributing two slightly different versions of the same document(the difference being the amount of redaction), doesn't this suggest coordination? And if there is coordination doesn't this suggest we are not really dealing with some rogue operation?

[Rockfish]

clarice,

You asked "why all three of the former CIA directors and the present director opposed the release of these memos". That's a very simple question. The disclosure of the torture memos makes abundantly clear that the CIA engaged in torture. The CIA would prefer that this be kept secret.

[Rockfish]

Tom,

You say:

"Rockfish squares the circle by postulating, with no basis, that KSM cracked early and most (almost all?) of the subsequent effort was in vain. Sure, maybe - I certainly can't prove anything."

Your admission that you "can't prove anything" establishes that you have no basis to say that it took 183 sessions to break KSM. He "endured" 183 sessions in the sense that he survived them, but you have no basis to say it took 183 sessions to make him talk. Torture doesn't end when the victim runs out of truth, it ends when the torturers conclude that he's run out of truth. Since they don't know the extent of the victim's knowledge they don't know when to stop.

Since you have no basis to say that KSM "endured" 183 sessions of waterboarding, you similarly have no basis to suggest that waterboarding isn't as horrific as it's universally said to be. On that subject I'd take the word of this guy, who (according to your commenters) apparently hates America.

[Sue]

Well, truly, forgive me for not giving two shits whether KSM was waterboarded once or one thousand times. He is still breathing. That is more than you can say for Daniel Pearl and approximately 3000 people going about their everyday lives on sunny morning in September.

Besides, this thread involves math and I hate math as much as I hate KSM.

[Sue]

Rockfish,

So how do you square the KSM said he was waterboarded 5 times? You think he got some water on his brain and forgot about the other 178 times?

[Sue]

And I want the board to take note that I actually did some math in my previous post. ::grin::

[Rockfish]

Sue,

I have no idea how to square what we've been told KSM said with what DOJ says we did. I hope at some point that all the facts will come out.

[Sue]

Well, I really and truly don't care what the # was. I suspect the politics of this will make for some dazzling headlines. Beyond that, I'm hunkering down because the next attack is now inevitable.

[Rockfish]

Sue,

I have no sympathy for KSM, but this isn't about him -- it's about us. Torture is un-American, and our resort to it has done us great harm. (For example, you should consider this authoritative contention that our infamous detainee and interrogation practices are responsible for hundreds or perhaps thousands of dead American soldiers and Marines.) From that perspective it's irrelevant that KSM deserves no sympathy.

[Sue]

Rockfish,

It's about you, not me. I don't think waterboarding is torture. Harsh interrogation, but not torture. From my perspective it's irrelevant what was done to KSM, in my name.

[Jane]

There has never been anything inside of me that believes waterboarding is torture, any more than listening to Rockfish is torture.

What a wimpy country we have become - the angry-spit-spewing left demands that we turn the other cheek when it comes to Muslim terrorists, but wants to label as terrorists the people who protect us, and those who believe in God, or freedom.

I continue to believe that the left has no idea what they are advocating. Otherwise I would be forced to believe that a group of people have been so collectively brainwashed that they have to be stopped - and the thought of that is simply heartbreaking.

[clarice]

I see. And you think the claim that revealing methods and means will not seriously hamper furture operations as those four lying thieves (including Panetta) claim, huh?

[clarice]

Sorry--my last post was to Rockfish

[Jane]

Hey Sue,

I didn't see your post before I posted mine. I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking this whole waterboarding-is-torture stuff is something the left made up for political advantage. They certainly would waterboard Dick Cheney if they had the chance.

I've never seen any outrage on the left for what was done to Danny Pearl. Not one word.

[Rockfish]

Sue,

Waterboarding has been torture since it was employed in the Spanish Inquisition. We have prosecuted it as a war crime, and we have court-martialed American servicemen who engaged in it. Whatever your own personal view, waterboarding unambiguously is and always has been torture.

[Rockfish]

clarice,

I don't believe it will hamper future operations to reveal the illegal interrogation methods we no longer employ. Legal methods work better anyway.

[verner]

Don't you know Jane, Danny deserved it. And we deserved 911, which was really done by the JOOOOS and George Bush--just ask Rosie and Rockfish.

[daddy]

I'm still interested in gutless Richard Armitage's statement that as number 2 in the State Department he was unaware we were waterboarding. It certainly seems like something that should be relatively easy to track down whether he was at any of the many meetings where the topic was discussed. Simply googling "Bob Woodward and waterboarding" I come upon the following from Newser Posted Apr 10, 08 3:16 PM CDT in US

Source: AP Photo/Kenneth Lambert, file
(Newser) – Senior White House officials explicitly approved interrogation technique details in several meetings beginning in 2002, sources tell ABC. It was previously known that the CIA drafted a “Golden Shield” memo approving highly specific tactics for use on al-Qaeda detainees, but that top officials—including Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld—personally condoned the policy, on multiple occasions, is a new revelation."

Any sleuths out there better at this than I that might be able to track this down in one of Woodward's Bush Admin books, or via some other method? I ask because it seems he only talks to Al Jazeera reporters nowadays, and I doubt they are going to give him the sort of hard scruitiny the bum so richly deserves. And is no beat reporter
in DC even mildly interested in asking Colin Powell whether Armitage is telling the truth, or are those two still only interested in covering each others butts?

[Rockfish]

Jane,

In addition to assessing policy options on the strong-weak axis, you should also assess them on the smart-stupid axis. There is no evidence that torture has made us better off and abundant evidence that it has made us worse off. To paraphrase Talleyrand, it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.

[clarice]

Perhaps Rockfish you might cite where we prosecuted anyone for waterboarding anyone.
Here's a bit from the story which may help us see who's involved in the leak:

From the CQ story:
"It’s the deepest kind of corruption,” said a recently retired longtime national security official who was closely involved in AIPAC investigation, “which was years in the making.

“It’s a story about the corruption of government — not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption.”

My guess--David Szady a grossly incompetent head of the FBI's CI operation who now runs a martial arts entertainment operation.

[Sue]

Rockfish,

Then we should stop using it in SERE training. Or prosecute the trainers using it on our own forces.

Jane,

It is nothing more than the left looking for something to get Bush/Cheney with. If Bush had released CIA memos from the Clinton era, we would be appalled at what Clinton turned a blind eye to, or presumably we would be. I doubt I could get all that worked up over Clinton and renditions, then or now.

[verner]

Daddy, if Colin knew, so did Armitage.

Liar Liar pants on fire.

And good find, as usual.

[Rockfish]

clarice,

Here is a scholarly paper (.pdf) on the treatment of waterboarding in American courts.

[clarice]

Rockfish, I do hope you'll forgive me if I regard the opinion of the four most recent CIA heads over that of this Cloonan fellow from Washington Monthly.

**
Armitage in 2002 was already heavily engaged in perfidy. I can't imagine this took up ALL his time so that he was unaware of the extreme efforts we were engaged in to protect the asses of Americans, even worthless ones who like himself would perfidiously turn around and attack the guardians.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/10/richard_armitage_and_the_quiet.html

[Rockfish]

Sue,

SERE instructor Malcolm Nance squarely rejects your claim that waterboarding isn't torture. He specifically rejects your argument that it can't be torture because we train people to resist it.

[Rockfish]

clarice,

"[T]his Cloonan fellow from Washington Monthly" is a 25-year veteran of the FBI who was a special agent with the Bureau's bin Laden unit from 1996 until 2002.

[Sue]

Rockfish,

You can type all day long, and I will tell you all day long. I. DON'T. CARE. You will not change my mind, I will not change yours. But even you will admit that the release of the document was political, won't you?

[clarice]

Rockfish, Have you ever heard "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"? I skimmed thru the "scholarly" article you cited to find out that the only cases I could see were war crimes tribunals against those who employed these techniques against legitimate prisoners of war.

Now when we are talking about waterboarding of people like KSM we are not talking about POWs, we are not talking about people entitled to the same treatment under the Geneva Conventions. I really have no intention of starting at ground zero with your education on this issue.I suggest you start by studying what Yoo said because unlike this "scholar" you are so enraptured by (a) he knows what he's talking about and (b) he had actual responsibilities and had to make decisions in real time about not theoretical matters.

[bad]

Clarice, does the Harmon news mean Harmon is the congressional delegation member mentioned in the WaPo article who was inadvertantly wiretapped by the NSA?

[Jane]

It is nothing more than the left looking for something to get Bush/Cheney with.

Exactly. And Rockfish et al would be jumping all over themselves to endorse waterboarding if President Obama found it useful. Of course he would only use it on domestic terrorists - because those overseas contingent guys are simply misunderstood.

[laura]

Rockfish,

To think that our use of waterboarding would somehow actually cause a terrorist want to be to become an actual terrorist is pure fantasy. The horror tales told by the left about the US hegemonic demonic empire have more to do with recruiting enemies than waterboarding KSM could ever have done.

Since this administration believes all those tales they will do whatever to continue to propagate and embellish them. The hate America crowd will stop at nothing to make sure we are viewed as a rotting corpse of a superpower due for our comeuppance.

[Ignatz]

We have prosecuted it as a war crime, and we have court-martialed American servicemen who engaged in it. Whatever your own personal view, waterboarding unambiguously is and always has been torture.

Well, there is waterboarding and then there is waterboarding.
We prosecuted a Japanese officer for it who was also prosecuted for other unambiguous war crimes including murder, so we can safely assume he did not employ a doctor with a stopwatch, nor disallow any water to enter the lungs.
The two courts martial were a $50 fine in the Spanish American War and a discharge in Viet Nam, both cases being unauthorized uses by enlisted soldiers on the field of battle.

SERE instructor Malcolm Nance squarely rejects your claim that waterboarding isn't torture.

OK, I see your appeal to authority and raise you.
SERE waterboarding participants on this board who have endured it reject your claim that waterboarding is torture.

[MayBee]

Jane and Sue, I agree with you both wholeheartedly.

Rockfish, nobody has been prosecuted soley for waterboarding.

I would love some USAttorney to begin torture proceedings against SERE instructors. That would be AMAZING.

[Sue]

with the Bureau's bin Laden unit from 1996 until 2002.

Ahh...at the height of bin Laden's rampages. Now we know why.

[MayBee]

Obama will, of political necessity, not waterboard. And we may see that it was of limited utility.

But President Obama, if God forbid something like another 9/11 happens - or if he finds our men close to finding BinLaden, will authorize another form of harsh interrogation. And nobody will give two shakes of a rat's tail, because it will magically be just different enough.

[clarice]

bad, I don't know and can't remember the details of tht story.

******

rockfish:""[T]his Cloonan fellow from Washington Monthly" is a 25-year veteran of the FBI who was a special agent with the Bureau's bin Laden unit from 1996 until 2002."

The FBI's CI operation during that period of time looks like the Three Stooges. Again, I suggest you read Gertz on the subject.

[Sue]

But President Obama, if God forbid something like another 9/11 happens - or if he finds our men close to finding BinLaden, will authorize another form of harsh interrogation.

Oh hell no, he'll send them to a country that practices real torture and then use plausible deniability when it comes to light. See Clinton. At least Bush had the balls to own it.

[Rick Ballard]

C'mon folks, surely we can agree that recursive sophistry in defense of sedition is no vice. Rockfish obviously "feels" and "believes" deeply. Focusing on the shallowness of the lack of thought process used in deriving those feelings and beliefs is pretty cruel. If it were sentient, you might be accused of torture...

[Rockfish]

clarice,

As the Supreme Court confirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions extends to all detainees, even if they aren't POWs. Torture is also prohibited by the Convention Against Torture of 1984, to which the United States is a signatory, and by the War Crimes Act of 1996, neither of which is limited to POWs.

Under the Geneva Conventions, the International Committee of the Red Cross is empowered to monitor compliance with (among other things) international prohibitions against torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment. The ICRC has unequivocally concluded that our use of waterboarding and other brutal techniques constituted torture.

This is not a close question.

[Sue]

The ICRC has unequivocally concluded that our use of waterboarding and other brutal techniques constituted torture.

Now if we could just get them to unequivocally conclude that chopping a person's head off is brutal, we'd be in business. Or how about gouging out the eyes and chopping off the balls of our dead service people? I. Don't. Care. if KSM was waterboarded 1x or 1,000x.

[Rockfish]

Ignatz,

The techniques modeled at SERE are illegal -- the creators of SERE expressly said so. Perhaps you mean to suggest that waterboarding is "merely" cruel and inhuman, but it is undoubtedly a war crime.

[MayBee]

Rockfish- we should prosecute the SERE trainers. America is a better country than that, don't you think?

[Rockfish]

Sue,

If you don't care if what we did constitutes torture, why do you keep insisting that it doesn't?

[verner]

Catherine H. on Fox just reported that Hayden told her that 60% of our intel on A-Q was gained from ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.

And Obama just called them a mistake.

[Rockfish]

MayBee,

On the SERE issue I once again encourage people to read SERE instructor Malcolm Nance.

[MayBee]

I asked you for your opinion, Rockfish. Don't you think America is a better, safer country when we don't torture?
Do you think we should prosecute the people responsible for SERE?

[verner]

My suggestion, just ignore this creep.

He's not doing anything but parroting the left line of BS.

He has nothing to back his lame assertions up, and we have the direct testimony of the last CIA director--a guy who was selected because he was acceptable to both parties, and considered very non-partisan.

4 CIA directors said that the release was a mistake, including 2 that were dem appointees.

And Hayden has absolutely no reason to lie, since the interrogations in question didn't occur on his watch.

This rockfish character keeps a lame blog that nobody visits. Not a single comment on any of his silly musings. he's just trolling and stirring up crap.

We've heard it all before.

[verner]

Who gives a crap about Nance. We have people on this board who have been waterboarded, and think you're full of it.

[Rockfish]

To all:

I came across Tom's post and wished to respond to a specific point. It wasn't my intention to piss in anyone's punchbowl, and I've tried to be substantive, but since what I take to be regular commenters are up in arms I'll bow out.

Sorry for the intrusion.

[verner]

I've tried to be substantive

Ummm You haven't been

[ben]

"If you don't care if what we did constitutes torture, why do you keep insisting that it doesn't?"

Rockfish, I could ask you the same question, waterboarding is not torture, so why insist that it is? Let me answer the question, you don't give a damm about torture, this is a manufactured issue, your whole purpose with all your despicable posts is for some kind of political gain, retribution against GWB, etc. Like all leftist hypocrites you are "worried" about torture, but ignore people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. Please spare us your fake concerns, your true colors are flashing in bright neon.

[ben]

"....and I've tried to be substantive,....."

Oh well, better luck next time, maybe have some own ideas instead of the Daily Kos talking points would be a good start.