Saturday, April 18, 2009
Torture brutalizes the torturers, too.
Unless they have already been so brutalized that they qualified for senior positions in the CIA.
The first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against a prisoner from Al Qaeda was ordered by senior Central Intelligence Agency officials despite the belief of interrogators that the prisoner had already told them all he knew, according to former intelligence officials and a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum.So counterproductive methods were ordered, based on overblown assumptions, by those who didn't believe the people who knew what they were doing. It would make perfect sense if they were looking for a "true confession" for a show trial. However, based on the laws of the United States, it was a crime. President Obama should start collecting resignations because these people are not protecting our country.
The escalation to especially brutal interrogation tactics against the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, including confining him in boxes and slamming him against the wall, was ordered by officials at C.I.A. headquarters based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance, interviews and a review of newly released documents show.
Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said.
Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.”
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