"CIA spy calls waterboarding necessary but torture"

[[R-MOD]Saobh]

Surfs up

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline."

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Kiriakou said the feeling in the months after the 9/11 attacks was that interrogators did not have the time to delve into the agency's bag of other interrogation tricks.

"Those tricks of the trade require a great deal of time -- much of the time -- and we didn't have that luxury. We were afraid that there was another major attack coming," he said.

Kiriakou says he did not know that the interrogation of Zubaydah was being secretly recorded by the CIA and had no idea the tapes had been destroyed.
Now retired, Kiriakou, who declined to use the enhanced interrogation techniques, says he has come to believe that water boarding is torture but that perhaps the circumstances warranted it.

"Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the waterboarding technique," Kiriakou told ABC News. "And I struggle with it."

But he says the urgency in the wake of 9/ll led to a desire to do everything possible to get actionable intelligence.

That began with Abu Zubaydah's capture following a series of raids in which Kiriakou co-led a team of CIA officers, FBI agents, a Port Authority police officer named Tom McHale and Pakistani police, including a SWAT team.

And, in the case of Abu Zubayda, it ended with waterboarding.

"What happens if we don't waterboard a person, and we don't get that nugget of information, and there's an attack," Kiriakou said. "I would have trouble forgiving myself."

The former intelligence officer says the interrogators' activities were carefully directed from Langley, Va., each step of the way.
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Read the rest here (also a video of the interview which I strongly recommend)

[[R-DEV]Masaq]

This has been up for three hours now and no-one's even touched it. Interesting, and good to see. Whilst the religious debate has been going on for a while in the off-topic forums for a while now, I'm not sure this kind of subject is one that's necessarily a good thing to discuss in here. Will leave it open for now.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

I'll keep an eye on this one Masaq, I think we could keep this healthy (I guess I'll just have to do my studying before the exam tomorrow...)

As I see it, there are three issues here.

1) Is waterboarding torture? I think yes.

2) Is torture ever justifiable? I think yes. If you had a choice between torturing one man or allowing an entire continent to perish, I think you'd have to be a very radical deontologist to disagree.

3) Should we have laws accepting the use of torture at certain times? I think not. I think that torture should be used exceedingly sparingly. I think it is healthy that we as a society punish it whenever it is found out. It means that its use will only be employed when it is so very important that decent men will place themselves in great personal legal risk to conduct the torture.

I think that if Jack Bauer needed the coordinates of the suitcase nuke, no law would stop him from torturing the person with that knowledge.

But I think that if we have laws allowing for waterboarding under any circumstances, its use will become much more widespread than is acceptable. For instance, applying waterboarding to hundreds of prisoners deemed "illegal combatants" because their rebel group is not recognized by the USA.

[TheOldDog]

Its no secret that torture was outsourced by the US to other countries. However I think that you will find that most fair minded people do not mind any number of unfair things being done if the reason is good enough.

The problem comes when someone wants to deny what it is, declare it didn't happen, and conceal it 10 layers deep simply because its easier than dealing with issues that should be more public. The public deserves some measure of knowledge about what is being done in its name, not just told to roll over and go back to sleep because all bases are covered.

Bury it deep enough and all possible independent checks and balances cease to exist. Its no longer a case of what a fair minded person may think if given facts, its whatever the people with power care to do with what they are given and who they answer to.

[SiN|ScarFace]

"We do not torture" yea ok.

Is waterboarding torture? Absolutely. The reason the administration will never say waterboarding is torture is because they use it on people and have said over and over, the U.S.A. does not torture people.

Even if we openly defined it as torture, they would just rendition people to places that do. “If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt,” former CIA agent Bob Baer

We lost the image of having the moral high ground long ago. People have been, are, and will continue to be tortured directly and or by proxy for the purposes of U.S. intelligence gathering, which is wrong.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

@Dog: My concern is that when presented clearly with the option, the masses will choose to allow wide-scale torture in the name of security. I prefer it that they retain their irrational deontological extremes of morality. Their idea that "torture is always abhorrent". That way it will only be carried out when the torturer believes that the torture is so important as to risk their freedom, and the perceptions of the public and of history.

@Scarface: "which is wrong". Always? No matter what?

[[uBp]Irish]

personally, and i feel really screwed up for saying this, but when it is people like this that have information that could potentially save the lives of not only soldiers, in the terms of maybe an ambush or location of a weapon cache, or the lives of civilians, with the case of if there is going to be another attack, torture is totally justified.

I dont know what, but i hate it when i see people crying about torturying Alli Achmed or some Major in the Iraqi military because its inhuman if that information might just save them from their husband or wife getting killed in another World Trade Center or Pentagon. If we didnt torture people how much information do you think we would get? This war is going on already long enough, and i'm pretty sure it would go on alot longer if we dont get the information we need from certain high-risk targets.

I have no problem with the idea that the CIA might be torturing people if it's for the right cause. I mean shoot, i might seem like a total right wing republican putting that much faith in my government, but then again, besides God, who else am I going to put my faith in. My father was in the military, and i'm going to be in the military as well. Bush will be my Boss, and even if he's totally making an idiot of myself, he's still going to be my boss. Certain things i think are justified if it's going to save lifes, and torture is one of them.

[SiN|ScarFace]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]Wasteland

@Scarface: "which is wrong". Always? No matter what?

It is always wrong to torture people, but does that stop anyone? It's wrong to kill people, but does that stop anyone? Does an order make killing right? Absolutely not.

People love to debate things like this saying what if, what if, what if, and those what ifs are things like what if it could prevent an attack ect? When really what people should be concerned with is, what made someone want to attack you in the first place. There is always a reason, and it's not for some stupid reason like they hate our freedom. People would rather condone torture than understand why you are in a situation where that thought should even cross your mind.

To sit here and act like the USA or anyone who claims they don't torture is morally above those we would torture would be ignorant. We are no better than they, we just pretend to be while they admit it. We foster the illusion that we are a moral and just group of people, we are all human and have the same flaws. We are just more sophisticated and slick about how we do things and lie.

Ever notice how certain people are always a victim, or get seemingly screwed often and they can not understand why, while others never seem to have these problems? The same applies to nations and groups of people, those who get f-ed and those who do not. It's how one chooses to live their life, what morals and principals they adhere to that determines this.

[[R-MOD]Wasteland]

You completely dodged my question.

It's fine to suggest that we should focus more on *why* they wish to attack us.

But when somebody throws a punch at me I don't stop to think about why they did that or how my behavior led to this. Sure, I'll think about that later. But first I have to finish kicking their ass and keeping them from doing the same to me.

So I ask my question again.

Are there ever situations where torture is justifiable?

[SiN|ScarFace]

Originally Posted by [R-MOD]Wasteland

You completely dodged my question.

It's fine to suggest that we should focus more on *why* they wish to attack us.

But when somebody throws a punch at me I don't stop to think about why they did that or how my behavior led to this. Sure, I'll think about that later. But first I have to finish kicking their ass and keeping them from doing the same to me.

So I ask my question again.

Are there ever situations where torture is justifiable?

I didn't dodge the question, you asked is it always WRONG? Yes it is always wrong.

Is it justifiable, as in is it ever right to do it? NO. Are there situations where it would be USEFUL to subject a person to torture? Absolutely yes, but it will still be absolutely morally WRONG. Thats my point, you can't ever make torture morally right, or ok. If you do it, you have crossed a moral line and if thats ok in YOUR OWN MIND, then so be it, but you have wronged.

Getting cold cocked in the face for no apparent reason would not justify getting mid-evil on that persons ass, BUT punching their teeth out in retaliation would be, one for one, self defense, self preservation ect IMO would be justified. Now say if this person had not yet hit you and you over heard their friend predicting that was going to happen, would you torture that person to get the when and where from them? Even in that situation it is not right, two wrongs.... But that kind of information would obviously be useful to you.

You can't claim to be moral and just and then commit acts you deplore as being morally wrong, yet people do it all the time which makes them hypocrites.