Vanity Fair: Tortured Reasoning...have any attacks on America been disrupted?

[laststeamtrain]

Tortured Reasoning
George W. Bush defended harsh interrogations by pointing to intelligence breakthroughs, but a surprising number of counterterrorist officials say that, apart from being wrong, torture just doesn’t work. Delving into two high-profile cases, David Rose exposes the tactical costs of prisoner abuse.
by David Rose WEB EXCLUSIVE December 16, 2008

By the last days of March 2002, more than six months after 9/11, President George W. Bush’s promise “to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act” was starting to sound a little hollow. True, Afghanistan had been invaded and the Taliban toppled from power. But Osama bin Laden had vanished from the caves of Tora Bora, and none of his key al-Qaeda lieutenants were in U.S. captivity. Intelligence about what the terrorists might be planning next was almost nonexistent. “The panic in the executive branch was palpable,” recalls Mike Scheuer, the former C.I.A. official who set up and ran the agency’s Alec Station, the unit devoted to tracking bin Laden.

<snip>

In an interview in London in April 2008, I remind F.B.I. director Robert Mueller of the attacks planned against targets on American soil since 9/11 that his agents have disrupted: for example, a plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and another to wreak mayhem at army recruiting centers and synagogues in and around Torrance, California. These and other homegrown conspiracies were foiled by regular police work. The F.B.I. learned of the Fort Dix plot from an informant at a local mosque, while the Torrance cell was rounded up when cops probed the backgrounds of two of its members after they allegedly robbed a local gas station.

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

<more>

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?currentPage=4

[Richardo]

1. Here's MY take - from this time last year:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2468176&mesg_id=2468176

Torture has not prevented a single attack on America. How do I know this?

Because if it had, the Administration and their media toolbox would have shouted it from the rooftops the MINUTE they got the information.

Forget all the generic "Torture has prevented attacks" claims from the White House, the CIA and Pentagon. I call 'Bullshit'. If torture had foiled ONE bona-fide plan to attack American targets, this Administration would have been all OVER the news trumpeting the success that very day. The RW scream machine would have gone into high gear. Rush, Hannity and O'Reilly would have come all over themselves.

Look at the hype surrounding the Miami goofballs, the JFK airport pizza delivery man 'plot', and that poor stupid bastard Jose Padilla. If the Bush gang thinks they have something on you, FOX, Blitzer and the rest of the stenographers in the media will have in it every American living room by dinner time.

Torture has not prevented one attack. Bank it.

[tblue]

2. Have any attacks on America been CAUSED by our use of “enhanced techniques”?

That is the question. When you torture people, their families, friends, and fellow countrymen aren't generally too happy about it.

[lxlxlxl]

3. The flip side of the argument (Increased Attacks in the rest of the world)

It's funny how this argument goes -- There hasn't been an attack (except 911) since 911. DUH.

Reality check though - Terrorism ALL OVER THE WORLD has increased, but somehow that fact is meaningless.We have a more distributed Al Qaeda and rely more on the international community for help tracking these idiots. Strike one against American power.

American power also relys on politicial/economic stability around the world,so when bombs go off in London and Mumbai then there is an effect on American pwoer- Strike two.

I could go on, but that would be a waste of time. This whole "he kept us safe" is such bullshit, tell that to Iraq/Afghan vets/families. Tell that to people in London or Mumbai or Madrid. Jesus these people are so oblivious to the rest of the world...

THEY HAVENT ATTACKED US HERE, SO THEY ATTACKED OTHER PEOPLE SOMEWHERE ELSE AND WE DONT CARE.

That's what I hear.

[aquart]

4. So far as America goes, our terrorists are the victims of their own success.

Any terrorist strike that doesn't kill more than 3,000 people is going to look like a failure. Now it may be fun to plan to kill more than 3,000 people...but it just ain't that easy to do. Look at Mumbai. They were going for it. Only got hundreds. THEY MESSED UP. Months of training, arms, reconnaisance...still only hundreds.

Problem is, the 3,000 was a fluke. They never expected the buildings to pancake. That's why they had all those other planes in the air, too. They were hoping to get a large number of kills and lots of confusion by having LOTS of planes hit.

My sister's standard response after 9/11, when the terror alerts were sounding constantly (anytime the administration didn't want us to look at what they were doing) was to say, "Uh huh. Where are the car bombs?" You gotta wonder how many terrorist cells there are in a nation that hasn't had ONE car bomb.