The Senate’s official report on the use of torture during the Bush Administration is out, and it’s hard to see how it could be worse.
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The big news of this week has to be the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s release of the executive summary of a mammoth 6,700 page report detailing the CIA’s history of using torture against suspected terrorists from 2002 to 2005. It’s not pretty, and in many areas outlines a sort of “worst case scenario” of everything that could go wrong, in fact going wrong. Vox’s Max Fisher summed up the report’s most important findings in four sentences:
(1) CIA torture did not work.
(2) The CIA lied about what it was doing and whether it was working.
(3) The CIA did a terrible job running its torture program.
(4) The CIA also lied about the brutality of its methods.
There’s a lot more in the report as well, particularly a clear debunking of the claim that the use of torture was vital to the successful effort to kill Osama Bin Laden.
In addition, the report outlines the fact that the Bush Administration in general and President Bush in particular was very much in the dark about what was going on between 2002 and 2005. This is pretty interesting; after all if there was one policy subject that you’d think the Bush White House would be on top of it would be their counter-terrorism efforts. But as with Katrina, the Iraq War, and the bailouts, we get the picture again of a President very much out to lunch.
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So where does the nation go from here? Unfortunately President Obama’s decision back in 2009 not to pursue any sort of investigation in these allegations either as a criminal matter or as a “truth and reconciliation” type of project probably precludes any sort of investigation now. And to make matters worse, torture is increasingly becoming a partisan issue with Democrats against it and Republicans for it. In fact this whole report was largely boycotted by Republicans on the Senate’s Intelligence Committee.
Which unfortunately means that when the Republicans get into the White House again, we could see torture return as national policy. Even if though it doesn’t work.
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Well the head of Obama’s CIA says that torture does work. But don’t worry. He threw some unknown underlings under the bus for doing it wrong. The President may want to get his house in order before his allies go off too far down the anti-torture road.
This reminds me of the steroid debate in athletics. The whole ‘PEDs don’t work’ story only lasted so long. Why can’t the reason for not doing something just be, “it’s not right, so we’re not going to do it”?
Mark is correct to say it is not a simple division of politics. Lets first look at the propaganda machine who sells FEAR at its finest. Intelligence gathering takes on many personalities depending on the who is wanting it, the purpose and the urgency. In the most urgent and critical those ordering it up generally end the conversation with “If you get caught we do not know you”…and other cute statements to avoid backlash. I am an old school guy and say “whatever it takes to preserve and protect this nation…without explanation.” This 6,000 pages of garbage has done nothing… Read more »
Besides. Don’t say all dems are agin it and all repubs for it. Feinstein, pelosi, and a whole lot more jumped on that bandwagon too and you know it. Some repubs were agin it too. McCain one of them due to his personal experiences. This is NOT a simple division of politics no matter how hard one wants to make the case to make themselves feel great about themselves.
And I believe anyone will make out of it what they already believe so it will fit. First of all, it is utter nonsense to hold ourselves up as the beacon of truth, light and the american way. It’s bullshit as we’re no different really from any other human or government on the planet. OTOH, that humans do unspeakable stuff to each other is beyond belief. But hey. Tell that to ISIS and those that support them. Crap. Just their tactics as a general supporter if I was would scare me to what they’re capable of doing to me. You… Read more »
Jesse Ventura, a former Navy SEAL has said, “Give me a waterboard and an hour and I will have Dick Cheney confessing to the Sharon Tate murder.” People will confess to anything to make it stop.
Hi John
We that live outside the US as the same question as you.
John, would you care to expound on why this became a partisan opinion study by the democrats (Republicans backed out long ago and it’s still being called “bipartisan”) and it’s being held out as gospel, while the front liners hold on to the claim that meaningful information was gathered, including an avoided attack on Los Angeles?
I’m not John, but despite all appearances I’ll assume your question was asked in good faith and I’ll take a crack at it: Republicans have been loudly promulgating and codifying their version of events for over a decade, and they’re still bleating. We all know—in tiresome, imaginative, self-servingdetail—what they’d like everyone to think the truth is.
Sadly enough this is a good example of torture becoming a partisan issue. The Millennium Plot was stopped, like how they stopped John Gotti, via normal law enforcement methods. Also in terms of ‘front liners’ I would assume you are including agents of the FBI who fight terrorism without resorting to torturing people.