The BBC is having a ball with the Senate committee’s report on interrogation……all too often forgetting to tell us that it is a partisan report produced by the Democratic party…
A scathing Senate report two days earlier said “brutal” methods like waterboarding were ineffective.
While he [John Brennan] was speaking, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the committee that produced the report, was rejecting his arguments on Twitter.
…..and it was an investigation that did not bother to interview anyone from the CIA itself.
Who did the BBC get in to comment? James Rubin, a Clinton era democratic politician, a well known Islamist, Moazzam Begg, who was asked for ‘his thoughts’ on the report, and other democrats. Haven’t heard a single ‘off message’ voice supporting the CIA on the BBC….I’m sure there are one or two somewhere.
The BBC are playing fast and loose with facts…here failing to mention why Bush said terrorists shouldn’t be considered parties to the Geneva Convention…
September 2001: After the 9/11 attacks, President George Bush authorises the capture, detention and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.
February 2002: President Bush signs an executive order which says the Geneva Conventions – which prohibit mutilation, cruel treatment and torture – do not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects.
The reason the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to terrorists is because it says it doesn’t….
Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
A combatant, even one in a militia, can be considered a prisoner of war and be treated in accord with the Geneva Convention but only if some conditions are met…the combatants…
….having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
…. that of carrying arms openly;
…..that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
….And in particular that they treat nationals of the Occupying Power who may have fallen into their hands, according to the provisions of the present Convention.
None of those apply to terrorists or the Taliban.
However…..The BBC’s Jon Sopel bucks the trend and sounds a sceptical note about the Senate committee report..not something you would have got from Mark Mardell:
A whiff of hypocrisy about CIA report?
The really big picture is legacy. In 50 years’ time when the history books are written and children are sitting at their desks in Duluth, Des Moines or Detroit, and turning to the chapter marked “9/11”, what are they going to read? Here are two versions.
On 11 September 2001, the United States came under attack from al-Qaeda terrorists, claiming the lives of 3,000 people when planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania – a war on terror was declared, and those responsible were hunted down and detained, and there were no further attacks on US soil.
Or:
On 11 September 2001, the United States came under attack from al-Qaeda terrorists, claiming the lives of 3,000 people when planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania – a war on terror was declared, but the torture tactics used to hunt down and detain those responsible brought condemnation and America lost its moral authority in the world.
Remember Winston Churchill’s adage that “history is written by the victors”? This is a battle between Bush-era officials and the Obama administration over which narrative of these events should prevail.
A battle between most Democrats, who think that there are NO circumstances EVER when coercive interrogation techniques can be condoned; and most Republicans who say America was under attack, there was intelligence that there could be a second and third wave of attacks and we did whatever we could to prevent that.
But is there just a small whiff of hypocrisy here? What if it had been a Democrat in the White House when America came under attack on that dreadful September day. Would the response have been that different?
I’m sure there were sadists, oddballs and bad people out there. But weren’t the overwhelming majority of CIA operatives at that time just driven by one thing – a patriotic duty to keep America safe, by whatever means?
And this is where it gets uncomfortable. Of course I can sit here at my keyboard and pronounce that torture can never be justified. It is an absolute. I do totally believe that. But what if a child of mine had been kidnapped, and the police arrest the kidnapper, but say to me, “Well we’ve got the guy who took your kid, but despite us asking him really politely where he’s being kept, he’s not telling us… However there are these things called enhanced interrogation techniques – we could give them a go.” Would I say no? I’m really not sure.
Now that’s just something that you would never expect from the BBC….an entirely nuanced piece that suggests, in the circumstances, use of harsh interrogation methods might be justified.
Why interrogators prefer the soft approach
“At no time did the CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques lead to the collection of imminent threat intelligence, such as the hypothetical ticking time bomb,” says the report.
In other words, all that mistreatment, all those hours of waterboarding, of dragging people hooded and shackled, up and down corridors, depriving them of sleep for days on end and subjecting them to white noise, did not actually yield any real information that stopped a terrorist attack.
Here quoting expert British interrogators…..telling us torture doesn’t work…and of course they never use it do they?…because it doesn’t work, does it!….and no hint of gloating and professional rivalry from the Brits…remember these were the ‘experts’ at counter-insurgency warfare…who got their arses kicked whilst the Yanks steamrollered through and wiped out Al Qaeda in Iraq.
So was there a better way for the US government to acquire this information without risking breaking international law and committing a moral outrage?
Yes there was. Talk to almost any trained British army interrogator and they will tell you that in the long run it is the “logical friendly approach” that yields the best results.
An experienced British army interrogator, who questioned high-value Iraqi POWs, says when a detainee is seized, often as a result of a violent struggle or firefight, there is the inevitable shock of capture and the fear of what is going to happen to them.
Often they imagine the worst – remember the Royal Navy sailor who broke down in tears when he and his crew were captured in the Gulf by an Iranian patrol boat and briefly held in 2007.
That sailor was not a high value prisoner…just a ‘callow youth’ way out of his depth. Most of the prisoners, like him, that would react to the soft approach and the slightest pressure are the humblest of recruits probably just there for the money and would know little information of any value.
Curious Gardner doesn’t quote ‘Andy Mcnab’ who tells us that everyone cracks in the end under intense interrogation…just a question of when and trying to hold out long enough to make any information you do have out of date and useless.
Gardner quotes this….
“They are hungry for affection,” says the former interrogator about prisoners he questioned. “Eventually, they will be willing to co-operate in exchange for safety and comfort.”
Gardner thinks such a statement means the interrogator is saying harsh interrogation doesn’t work….but he isn’t really saying that…..the subtext to that comment is that the prisoners are made to feel ‘unsafe and uncomfortable’...and only cooperate when to do so would bring such suffering to an end…in other words…..don’t be nice to them. Gardner reads into things what he wants to see…enhanced interrogation, or torture, doesn’t work when the subtle words of the interrogator suggests it does.
Perhaps the BBC should retrain its journalists so that they don’t have the wool pulled over their eyes…what does he expect the ‘expert’ interrogator to say…‘Yes we torture prisoners’?
Low level, non ideological recruits may well be more susceptible to less rigorous approaches, but then they know very little of value…… the hardcore jihadists are far more radical and determined…and not likely to compromise themselves for a cup of coffee, a cigarette and few kind words….or indeed the suggestion that their cause is hopeless.
The only thing that would work to any degree at all is those good old ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, locking them up out of troubles way or removing them permanently from the battlefield once and for all.
They have confidence that with much of Western media on their side and numerous human rigths organisations and pan handling lawyers advocating on their behalf not much will happen to them…..which is why the CIA used techniques that were intended to break that confidence and make them think that they were beyond help, no Seventh Cavalry coming to the rescue…..to break their defiance and mental resilience.
And as a contrast to Gardner’s one sided view there’s this from the Mail:
Did torture stop UK terror attack? Al-Qaeda terrorist captured in London after CIA spies interrogated Guantanamo Bay detainee
Al Qaeda’s top British terrorist was captured after CIA spies tortured former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, it was claimed today.
Crucial information provided by Mr Begg while he was being held helped identify ‘dirty bomber’ Dhiren Barot who was plotting terror attacks on London, according to the long-awaited publication of a report into CIA torture programmes in the wake of 9/11.
The report claims that drawings by Mr Begg – who claims to have been beaten and deprived of sleep in Guantanamo Bay – helped lead British security services to Barot, who had gone to ground in London.
Begg, a confirmed Islamist extremist who admitted to training in terrorist camps, naturally denies he grassed on his fellow Islamists….
Mr Begg has also reacted furiously to the claim. In a letter to The Independent last night, lawyers for Mr Begg rejected any suggestion that he ‘volunteered or co-operated in the provision of information to any intelligence service’.
They added: ‘Insofar as he was tortured and under extreme and unlawful continuing duress for three-and-a-half years in Bagram and Guantanamo he, as every other individual subject to such treatment, cannot be regarded in any proper sense of the words to have ‘given or provided information’ voluntarily.’
‘……cannot be regarded in any proper sense of the words to have ‘given or provided information’ voluntarily.’
Yep….that’s the point….he was made to talk…not that he did of course!
James Delingpole at Breitbart News website has the correct perspective on this matter as far as I’m concerned. In addition, someone at, I think, the gates of vienna website quite correctly said that the communists were shrieking about torture just as they did during the Viet Nam war. These shriekers are traitors and hopefully they’ll get the Lord Hawhaw treatment. Then jeremy bowen can report about me dancing in the street and handing out sweets to children. Like his fellow muslims do whenever a Christian or a Jew is murdered.
This is just the usual pearl-clutching on the left. No mention of course of drone strikes, which under Obama, have been massively extended. Even to the point where a US citizen was killed and the spokesman for the administration defended this saying that the father was irresponsible.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22633934
As a simple question someone should ask how many children were killed by the CIA while being interrogated and how many children were killed by drones strikes which were personally overseen by Obama who signs off on the secret ‘kill lists’. Enquiring minds want to know.
Senator John McCain is considered an authority on torture as he had a really tough time at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Sadly his experince rattled his brains. I know he had a terrible time but he wasn’t being tortured to get information as they already knew where his plane came from and what his mission was so they were just torturing him because that was the kind of folks they were. Our trainers in the Army assured us that we weren’t expected to hold up under physical torture but to try and hold out long enough not to jeopardise any ongoing operations that we might have details on. By Vietnam we were past all the BS about name, rank and serial number.
Ask yourself if you would betray your comrades or country for a kind word and a coffee as opposed to someone really really seriously hurting you with no foreseeable end in sight. Does anyone remember Orwells room 101. You’d sell out a loved one to avoid something really horrific. I know we’d all like to think we’d hold out against really serious pain which might never end. I’d like to be able to fly or be invisible.
I was training for very sensative duty in Vietnam in 1969. No, I wasn’t James Bond, but I did have the highest security clearance and our work did involve information that you wouldn’t want the enemy to know about. We had a security briefing where we were being prepped to resist disclosing actionable information for as long as we could, but that it was understood that we would break under severe physical torture.
I raised my hand and when recognised asked the Major, “do you mean these people would physically hurt me to get information?”. He was flustered by such a naive question but finally answered “yes”. I said “in that case you better not tell me any more secrets”. Everybody laughed at my joke. The joke was on them. I WASN’T KIDDING. Think of the worst pain you ever had. It might have been a bad burn or a back spasm or kidney stones or for the ladies a really hard childbirth. Think of knowing that would be repeated every 20 minutes forever and then tell me what “secret” you wouldn’t divulge.
Do they want us to believe that the Al Queda guys were some sort of super race that was impervious to pain and deprivation? How stupid does John McCain and his apostles think we are?
Obama (pbuh) said we can’t capture and torture these guys any more because it’s a betrayal of our American values. Now we just wait till they sit down to dinner with their extended families and perhaps a neighbor or two and we disintegrate the lot of them with a hellfire missile. No fear of harsh interrogations taking place. It’s cheaper and we don’t get our hands dirty, but once again, the question arises. How stupid do they think we are?
Answer REALLY REALLY SERIOUSLY NO KIDDING AROUND STUPID
TOO DUMB TO SMACK, STUPID
Begg and all these other folks are alive today to sue governments and walk around with their families. Even the guys still in Gitmo are gaining weight and Learning computer skills and English so they can assist their lawyers in their upcoming lawsuits and get enough to buy and run convenience stores in the US or become permanent guests on BBC in the UK.
Their brethren under our new enlightened and more humane policies just become stains under the rubble of their former homes.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to progress. I just don’t want to be called stupid by my “leaders”.
rant over
So, come on then Dez, if you were head of National Security (and your sole purpose in life was to protect your nation’s people) please tell us all how you would try and get information from captured “terrorists” that would/could keep your peoples safe which might well include stopping a bus load of innocent children being blown to pieces? Come on, tell us?
He’d tickle them, and read them extracts from “Mein Kampf”, with a faux-German accent, for effect..
I am pleased you have replied Old Goat on Dez’s behalf because I am sure he won’t .
Old Goat,
“He’d tickle them, and read them extracts from “Mein Kampf”, with a faux-German accent, for effect..”
I see, so in your world there are only two options, that’s it; either tickle them or pull out their fingernails. Do you carry this principle through to the rest of your life as well? Kids misbehaving? Either read them a Winnie the Pooh story or enforce Rectal Feeding.
The people being tortured weren’t “terrorists”, they were suspects. It didn’t work. It wasn’t “keeping you safe”.
But still, it must be nice for you to have such blind loyalty to the state. And if Jack Straw says everything’s okay then we can all sleep soundly in our beds tonight.
So you would rather that bus load of innocent children be blown up than do anything to prevent it. Thanks, that’s clear then.
I would like to know what the Russians Chinese and Cubans do with their prisoners. They are never mentioned by the media. Just lets hate the US After all they saved us in two world wars Marshal aid saved the Attlee government after WW11 They provide most of the aid around the world but they are still hated by the Left and the BBC.
Fred, only hated when the republicans are or were in office.
And for Chakrabarti, and INBBC friends of Gitmo jihadists-
” 6 Guantanamo detainees transferred to Uruguay were part of al Qaeda’s network, files allege ”
By THOMAS JOSCELYN.
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/12/6_guantanamo_detaine.php#ixzz3LmKUNDxk
For INBBC: the Islamic jihadisation of Britain, continued-
“Army cadets told to avoid wearing military uniform in public amid fears of terror attacks”
By David Collins.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/army-cadets-told-avoid-wearing-4802942?
“…[T]he hardcore jihadists are far more radical and determined…and not likely to compromise themselves for a cup of coffee, a cigarette and few kind words…”
Puts me in mind of:
“You can get more done with a gun and a kind word, than with just a kind word.” — apocryphal quote attributed to Al Capone
The rules of war have huge grey areas. The Hague and Geneva conventions were drawn up more than a century and more than half a century ago. There are no specific rules for fighting an air war and drones were not even dreamed of. Soldiers (mostly) wore uniforms although the Geneva conventions seems to have been unaware of the Partisans and French Resistance who did not.
Similarly with prisoners. Criminals have certain rules about capture, trial, interrogation and rights after capture while P.O.W.s have different rules and rights. A third group of terrorists/’freedom fighters’ who don’t fall into either category, appear to have fallen between the cracks and no rules or rights are in place.
One would have thought that professor of Constitutional Law Obama would have leaped into the discussion about this gap but apparently not.
The BBC paradox.
Torture is bad, but if there is a terrorist attack the BBC will moan that the intelligence services didn’t investigate fully.
Certainly dilemmas abound.
This morning I saw a tweet or blog from the Graun (I think) that posed the stark choice of preventing multiple fatal terrorist atrocity via torture or letting matters take their morally high ground course.
Responses were interesting.
Hard to know who was being honest or not, but many appeared to think losing near and dear but staying civlised would allow widows, widowers, orphans and grieving parents to live full and satisfying lives thereafter.
I have my doubts. I would not wish it on them, or anyone, but returning for reactions if reality sadly strikes their idealistic bubbles may see views revised.
I also see the ‘debate’ being framed, by surprise, in ridiculously simplistic terms. Many armchair commentators are conflating vastly different scenarios under one blob to try and wrap things up neatly.
There are claims it doesn’t work. That it generates Intel that is merely wanted to be heard. Maybe so. However there’s a difference between getting a nugget that can be cross-referenced and build a defence strategy, and getting a confession to keep Clive in fees for a decade.
I do fear authority unchecked. But I also fear a highly selective media estate that serves to weaken those who would protect us whilst serving those who would do harm.
Hope the BBC bunker at W1A is as effective against the law of unintended consequences as it is non-profiled security effectiveness.