This torture story is still going on, hasn't even begun. I was shocked over the weekend to find how many people here on dkos don't believe anything should be done (update: if you don't believe, read comments below). I truly, sincerely hope that they simply don't understand. Perhaps they could read my previous diary on my analysis of the 2nd torture memo. Perhaps they are changing their minds.
To me the most disturbing news is that many Americans still support torture. I can only believe the polls:
Please, tell me it's not true and that I've mis-interpreted these polls.
I've never watched 24, but I've heard that it worships torture. Now the torturer in the story is coming home to be prosecuted. Maybe this is true? Do people still believe that torture works? It doesn't...
The biggest criticism I've seen of investigating this torture is that Obama doesn't have the time to do it. It will draw away from other "more important" matters, like health care, immigration reform, etc. Well, I don't care. Torture is so atrocious, so abhorrent that it must be investigated. And, I don't believe that Obama can't "walk and chew gum" as they say. Political capital is not a finite resource. It is not subject to some law of conservation of energy. It grows, when there is more outrage, when there is more popular pressure, there is more political capital, more to spend, more can be done. This can be done and the other things can be done, as well. It will reinforce all of the policies. We already see how it re-inforces the movements for civil liberties against illegal wiretaps.
On Sunday, I wrote that the #2 Torture memo, by Steven Bradbury, allows the CIA to torture anyone up to 72 times a day, five days a month. That's 360 times. Read it here. So why are people surprised that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. Once is enough to "break" anyone, said a former SERE psychologist (thanks Valtin).
psychologically the waterboard produced capitulation and compliance with instructor demands 100% of the time
But what does it mean to break someone? It means that they will do anything to avoid further torture. They will say anything. They will make up anything. We are lucky that torture victim John McCain agrees.
I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear.
But torture does not produce intelligence.
In fact, the problem of torture does not stem from the prisoner who has information; it stems from the prisoner who doesn't. Such a person is also likely to lie, to say anything, often convincingly. The torture of the informed may generate no more lies than normal interrogation, but the torture of the ignorant and innocent overwhelms investigators with misleading information. In these cases, nothing is indeed preferable to anything. Anything needs to be verified, and the CIA's own 1963 interrogation manual explains that "a time-consuming delay results" -- hardly useful when every moment matters.
So why was it used?
...
Some would have us believe that we should not investigate. Elizabeth de la Vega thinks that opening a grand jury would prevent more truth from coming out. I don't know. This is details beyond me. All I know is that the people responsible must be held accountable. And I was asked in the last few days, who? Who should be held accountable?
The CIA operatives that actually laid hands on the prisoners?
Yes.
We should probably include the medical and psychiatric professionals who provided guidance.
Yes.
What about the prison guards who transferred the prisoners from cells to interrogation rooms?
If they knew what was happening, yes.
Then there's the lawyers who wrote the memos (and their superiors).
Yes.
And the CIA higher ups who asked for the memos.
Yes.
And the clerks and administrators to both.
If they knew what was happening, and facilitated it, yes.
Would any of those listed so far have done any of this on their own, without Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez and others of their circle?
It doesn't matter. They were complicit, they assisted, they made it happen. They had their choice, to refuse, to quit, to do the right thing. They made their choice. Now they must face the consequences.
What if you agree? You can help do something, at least starting off: buhdydharma has a good list. Here is another action diary by jcc2455. Please help MoveOn as well.