Philip Mudd: Sitting Across from KSM Was Useful So Waterboarding Him 183 Times Was Too

[kpete]

Do Americans, and their representatives in lawmaking bodies, want their security services to interrogate prisoners using these tactics? Do they believe these tactics represent American values?

If the answer is “no,” the question of whether the tactics are successful becomes moot. Let’s assume, for the moment, that we all accepted as fact that the tactics were hugely successful in eliciting valuable intelligence. Would this then change the argument? I hope not: If you want to judge that these programs aren’t appropriate for a democratic society, that judgment shouldn’t come with a sliding scale. So why waste time on the question of the program’s utility? Why pretend that the answer would sway those who believe America should never again return to the tactics the CIA used?

As an intelligence officer who was at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center during the early 2000s, and was once its deputy director, my views of this debate are not complex, and they won’t be changed by this report. The al Qaeda prisoners we held at CIA facilities helped us understand the adversary. A lot? A little? Somewhere in between? Outside observers can debate it, but it’s hard to argue that sitting across from the most senior leaders of your adversary, over a long period of time, isn’t helpful to understanding how they think and act. It is.

This judgment, though, is as irrelevant today as it will be the day this Senate report appears in public.
One of America’s top analysts lays out the defense for torture efficacy this way:

“Sitting across from the most senior leaders of your adversary [is] helpful to understanding how they think and act.”

Therefore,

Torture is useful.

much more & links:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/03/16/philip-mudd-sitting-down-with-ksm-was-useful-so-waterboarding-him-183-times-was-too/

[Autumn]

1. I can see where sitting across from someone over a long period of time would help

one to understand them. But I'm still convinced, morally that fucking "drowning" one over and over again is just fucking wrong and cruel.

[CJCRANE]

2. You can get just as much information

by offering a cup of tea or coffee (and other small treats) as with harsh interrogations according to the account of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator. I've also read that this was the approach used at the interrogations before the Nuremberg trials.