Originally Posted by
Columcille
The article has preconceived notions.
Difficult for an article to do much of anything. ***uming you meant the author has preconceived notions, don't we all?
But I find it odd that you consider the piece to be preconceived, considering that his opinions are postconceived in the light of the more than 300 interrogations he committed in Iraq.
It is not reporting, it is an opinion piece.
Was there any claim otherwise?
As such, giving up Bin Laden is practically impossible, since even Bin Laden was highly trained by the CIA during the war against Russia in Afganistan.
I don't know what you're saying "as such" to. Could you clarify what you mean in the transition from "opinion piece" to "giving up bin Laden"?
As soon as a high man is captured, I am sure Bin Laden does not stick to any place long enough, nor would he hang out with people that have not been tested. Can you imagine if we were to try to get an operative inside his organization? Can you imagine a CIA operative that purposefully terrorizes people just so he can get in the good graces of Bin Laden? How unethical would that be?
Indeed, that scenario you imagined would be unethical. I don't see what it has to do with anything we're talking about.
I think the interrogator is naive in his own abilities about soft interrogation methods.
He's not the only interrogator to report such. In any case, I consider someone who actually conducted interrogations, and was successful at them, to be a greater authority on the topic than your imagination.
I'd be very interested in reading Matthew Alexander's book, How to Break a Terrorist. He seems to know what he's talking about.
The Abu Graib incident was not part of interrogation methods that was alluded to in recruitment
What do you mean "alluded to in recruitment"? Whose recruitment?
it was soldiers that uploaded that information online.
Again with blaming the whistle-****ers. I'm honestly baffled.
So attributing one thing to terror acts by the US that have not been leaked to bad soldiers doing something unrelated to interrogations and stating it was acts of terror is another thing entirely. Those bad soldiers were investigated and punished because what they did was unlawful,
No. Those "bad soldiers" were scapegoated for the very practices that were approved at the highest levels of the US government.
Stress positions, exploitation of religious prohibitions, phobias, sexual humiliation, hypothermia, beatings, isolation...these were all approved as official policy.
(Yes, I am aware that the soldiers at Abu Ghraib went overboard, beyond what was authorized, particularly in the area of the sexual humiliation.)
the interrogators were not.
Sorry, I'm not following you. What interrogators are you referring to?
I do not think the man in the article was privy to such information, but was only ***uming what he does not know.
You're not at all "***uming what you don't know", are you? You're siding with what you think and deduce rather than on the testimony of those directly involved. Again, I would have hoped for better from a military man.
I do not think the National Interest is the most reliable source.
Whatever the leanings of that particular magazine, the article in question was simply a guest contribution by one of the most qualified and experienced people who could possibly speak to the subject.
Official DOD, CIA, and Homeland Security documents that have been decl***ified are more important for the discussion.
Great. Do you want to go through those?
How about starting here, from the unanimous findings of the bipartisan Senate report:The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.
-Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody (
pdf), December 2008