CIA Tapes

[Ddrak]

People here have to have opinions on this. Was the CIA wrong in destroying them? Who has legitimate access to these tapes? How do checks and balances apply?

The only thing I can say for sure was it really wasn't particularly smart in a political sense for the CIA to destroy the tapes if they didn't want the whole thing to explode, even if they did have the right to destroy them despite their being material evidence in ongoing investigations.

Dd

[Kulaf]

The better question is......what crime if any was commited in destroying the tapes?

My answer would be none......as far as I can tell.

[Trollbait]

If the CIA felt they had to destroy those tapes then the public really does not want to know what was on them.....really they don't.

[Partha]

Forget all about the fact that a federal judge told them not to destroy anything while he's got a case pending before him and they did it anyways. The government is always Good and Will Protect You, even if they have to break the law and ignore two of three 'co-equal' branches of government to do it.

[Trollbait]

The government is always Good and Will Protect You,

The foundation of liberalism.

I would have thought you would be happy that the CIA is bold enough to nanny you.


Personally I think they should go to jail.

[Arathena]

If the CIA felt they had to destroy those tapes then the public really does not want to know what was on them.....really they don't.

Doesn't matter. I don't enjoy it when they clean the neighbor's septic tank, but it sure beats holding a rose in front of my face to mask the scent of raw sewage running down the street.

In government by law, expedience does not excuse contempt of the governmental body. The executive is intended to be a repository of responsibility and accountability. They've fucked up. Repeatedly. Time for the other half of responsibility to take its course. Crimes involved in the CIA tapes involve, at the least, contempt of court, contempt of Congress, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Probably a half a dozen more, and that's without even mentioning the evidence of the felonies that the tapes likely documented.

Not that it matters. It's just more evidence that every current Democrat and Republican politician and political appointee over the age of 40 needs to be forced into retirement. In a gulag.

[Partha]

The government is always Good and Will Protect You,

The foundation of liberalism.

I would have thought you would be happy that the CIA is bold enough to nanny you.


Personally I think they should go to jail.

Foundation of liberalism? Don't think so, unless the definition of 'liberalism' changed a couple of years ago.

A couple of months ago, Dean Barnett, writing on Hugh Hewitt's Townhall blog, wrote a post (which I started to write about back then but never finished) which expressed the mindset that lies at the core of the Bush movement (emphasis added):


The most important thing any conservative writer can do today is convince people who think that we’re perfectly safe that we’re not. Personally, I desperately want to reach those who think once Bush leaves office, the republic will be safe. I badly want to communicate with the vast majority of Americans who are benignly indifferent to politics and convince them of the peril we face. I doubt there’s a way of knowing how successful I am at these things - I’m pretty sure progress in such matters is measured in inches, not miles. Anyway, I'm trying.


Barnett says that his goal is to "convince people who think that we’re perfectly safe that we’re not." But nobody thinks we're "perfectly safe." Nothing in life is "perfectly safe." Perfect safety is an illusion, something that is wasteful to pursue, and when pursued to the exclusion of all else, creates a tragically worthless, paralyzed way of life. On a political level, pursuit of "perfect safety" as the paramount goal is precisely what produces tyranny, since one will be motivated by that value system to vest as much power as possible in the government, without limits, in exchange for the promise of maximum protection.

That is the mindset being used to justify endless expansions of presidential power and a radical abandonment of our country's values. Eliminating all risk of the Terrorist Threat is what matters, and nothing else can stand in its way. Hence, torture, indefinite detention, warrantless eavesdropping -- the whole array of authoritarian powers sought by this administration -- are justified because none of the abstract principles and values that are destroyed by vesting such powers matter when placed next to the scary prospect that The Terrorists will kill us. That is the precise opposite of the American ethos, but -- as the President's remarks this week illustrate, appropriately voiced when our country legalized torture and indefinite detention -- it is the predominant mindset under which the country is being governed.

[Klast Brell]

/puts on non partisan hat/
Trying to walk the fine line here without adding in anything pushing an agenda. From the perspective of the holder of those tapes they had to be destroyed to prevent a public relations nightmare. Regardless of the legal status of the acts captured on those tapes, displaying them publicly would have destroyed the careers of many people. Furthermore, the actions shown on the tapes would make uncomfortable viewing for people not familiar with the process of interrogation and would prejudice global opinion against the U.S.
/Removes non partisan hat/

[Trollbait]

Very true, Klast.

They did what they had to do to protect the Agency and the country.

They did it knowing that what they were doing was illegal and they know they are now going to have to pay the piper.

As they should.

[Embar Angylwrath]

The CIA Director was following the long hallowed code of Duty, Honor, Country, My Own Ass.

[Trollbait]

The CIA Director was following the long hallowed code of Duty, Honor, Country, My Own Ass.

/cokespit

[Partha]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opini ... ref=slogin

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

[...]

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton served as chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 commission.

Extra butter?

[Flunkie]

Regardless of the legal status of the acts captured on those tapes, displaying them publicly would have destroyed the careers of many people. Furthermore, the actions shown on the tapes would make uncomfortable viewing for people not familiar with the process of interrogation and would prejudice global opinion against the U.S.

I don't know that it would have destroyed careers, although it would have inflamed everyone from the Bush haters in America to the Islamic nuts all over the world. If they start whining about a cartoon of muhammed or a teddy bear named after him, you can bet they would have rioted over scenes of torture. The Bush haters don't care about anything except for another reason to hate Bush publicly.

The interesting thing about Water Boarding is that it is currently used as training in the survival evasion resistance and escape school for various segments of the military and has been for decades. The way I heard it they wrap a towel around your head and pour water on it for a minute or several. The CIA claims they got the info they wanted in 35 seconds on the first try. So it seems like knowing you won't actually be hurt makes you somewhat immune to it or trainees are way tougher than the prisoners. A former SERES instructor in my unit told me that because he was training to be an instructor, they not only doused him with water for longer than normal, they jabbed him and punched him in the gut while they were doing it. What they do today is probably a lot more refined as he was an instructor back at the end of Viet Nam. Water Boarding is nothing more than a scare tactic and worthless if you know ahead of time that you aren't really going to get hurt. It's probably pretty well known now, so it's probably not effective now that everyone in the world has heard about it.

Real torture is the true story of what happened to the Snowman in Falcon and the Snowman. The Mexican police picked up the Snowman in Mexico City and knew he was up to no good. But he wouldn't talk during interrogation, so two of the officers took a dump on the same toilette and they submerged the Snowman head first until he did talk (which didn't take long). Now that is torture!

[Klast Brell]

Sadly the U.S. once considered it torture.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation ... id=1356870

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

"The soldier who participated in water torture in January 1968 was court-martialed within one month after the photos appeared in The Washington Post, and he was drummed out of the Army," recounted Darius Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College.

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

[Lurker]

Flunkie, You don't need to be a Bush hater to be against America engaging in state sponsored torture.

Waterboarding is torture. We used to know that as a country.

And as tough as military training is, including training intended to prepare troops to resist torture (gee... i wonder why they include waterboarding in that), there is a world of difference between a training exercise and the real thing.

[Fetten]

Waterboarding is torture. We used to know that as a country.

As far as waterboarding is concerned, your first article is sensationalized and the second is very general. As far as there being a world of difference in training and the real thing, well in this case not really. In SERE training and the interrogations the waterboarding is most likely identical.

Having experienced it myself this is how it's done.
You've already been questioned for a period of time and probably smacked around some. Your answers aren't making the cut and your interrogators want more. You're strapped to a board at chest, waist and knees and laid out level or with your head below your feet. A towel is put over your face to keep your head from moving and you're told when your ready to talk to tap your feet or hands. The water is poured into your face at a steady rate and flow that covers your mouth and nose. Your natural instinct is to hold your breath as long as you can although I did hear some guys say they tried to swallow as much of the water as they could. In either case your going to run out of breath and it becomes a fight to keep the water out and letting the interrogators know you've had enough. When they think you've had enough and your not just faking the water stops and you answer. Maybe you get more maybe you don't.

The only way pint after pint of water is going to fill your lungs is if you have already expired on the board or you're unconscious. When a small amount of water hits the airway, you first choke and the body tries to expel the water by coughing. If a bit more enters the epigilitos closes the airway and air exchange is halted and suffocation begins. If the water is aspirated and the water reaches the aveoli suffocation is inevitable anyway since saltwater draws blood into the lungs and freshwater halts the lung function. Hypoxia, acidosis and edema begin and advanced life saving techniques need to be applied. Yes you do feel like you're drowning because you feel the water pouring over your face and you desperately want to get air and can't. Yes it is possible to actually drown with this method although not likely and not intended if those applying it want answers. It's a very psychological tool whether in training or interrogation.

I don't condone it and don't believe it has a place or need to be used. I find it especially disturbing that it was something we trained against and used ourselves. I think if they wanted to use our own training as a basis there were plenty of non physically harmful methods that could have been used. I also agree that the tapes needed to be destroyed

[Partha]

I want to see the 'waterboarding isn't torture' crowd make a public plea to overturn Yukio Asano's conviction.

[Ddrak]

Waterboarding is no different to holding someone's face underwater for longer and longer untl they answer your questions, or any other suffocation/drowning exercise. Of course it's torture - it's a very real physical threat that can lead to very real physical damage to a person.

Fetten's description was excellent. The only thing I disagree with is the destruction of the tapes. If your nation commits a crime that may be embarrassing then covering it up isn't the solution. If you teach your kids to own up and say sorry when they make a mistake rather than lie and dissemble, why do you not hold your nation to the same standards?

Dd

[Fetten]

to clarify I onlt agree that the tapes be destroyed so that there was no possibility of them being leaked to the media.
It's a disturbing thing to watch and probably would be as inflammatory as the Abu Ghraib photos.

Those that did the waterboarding should be held accountable.

[Klast Brell]

I was putting myself in the shoes of the CIA when I said the tapes needed to be destroyed. The thing is the tapes needed to be destroyed the same way that any criminal feels the evidence of their crimes needs to be destroyed.