The CIA has destroyed interrogation tapes, news agencies are reporting. According to MSNBC:
"WASHINGTON - The CIA destroyed videotapes it made in 2002 of the interrogations of two top terror suspects because it was afraid that keeping them "posed a security risk," Director Michael Hayden told agency employees."
That security risk is alleged to be the identity of CIA agents and operatives:
"In his message to agency workers, Hayden said that House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committee leaders had been informed of the existence of the tapes and the CIA's intention to destroy them to protect the identities of the questioners."
Because with all of our modern day technology, there is no other way to protect the questioner's identities other than destroying the tapes altogether. Riiight.
It would have nothing to do with the fact that questionable interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were being used. Or the fact that people are coming forward and admitting that suspects were "confessing" to crimes only because they were being tortured."Current and former intelligence officials told NBC News' Robert Windrem that one of the videos included the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, the person in charge of al-Qaida's training camps and the group's first major leader to be captured."[...]"Dec. 7: Abu Zubaydah says the only reason he gave up certain information during an interrogation was because he was being tortured, according to transcripts obtained by NBC News. NBC's Bob Windrem reports.MSNBC"
Be sure to watch the video on the linked page. Perhaps one of these days we will see a copy of one of these videos on YouTube, under "Operatives Gone Wild!"
It is my opinion, however, that the tapes will never surface - not legally anyway - and the CIA will never be held responsible for torturing suspects, nor will the suspects ever get anything for having been tortured, and confessing under said torture.
This administration's use of tactics as torture - like the infamous London Tower - is just proof that we, as a nation are behaving badly. Worse yet, this bad behavior is all being defended so we can continue to behave badly - start wars, increase Xenophobia, and take over the world.
3 comments:
Voice of America is the predominant "white noise" in my monm's house!!!
They are crying about human right's abuse in Iran!
I declare: my human right has not been abused in the past few days.
I have been listening to people in buses, taxis, lineups nag at Ahmadinejad, swear at him, curse IRI ... and no police has been around to arrest and "execute" the discontent people.
I have been going out, dressed far less conservatively than before, my scarf falling off of my head in a symposium in tehran U. I have not be arrested, nor disqualified!
"Waterboarding Has Its Benefits"
Tortured “repugnant” arguments.
By Deroy Murdock
November 5, 2007
http://preview.tinyurl.com/23duds
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjNkYmU2NWVlOWE4MTU5MjhiOGNmMWUwMjdjZjU2ZjA
{SNIP}
[...]
Imagine how many innocent people these six Islamo-fascists (and perhaps others) would have murdered, had interrogators left KSM unwaterboarded and his secrets unuttered.
[...]
Meanwhile, President Bush is deeply deluded if he thinks opposing waterboarding will buy him any goodwill among the domestic and international Left, who hate him immeasurably. More quickly than the average Capitol Hill flip flop, Democrats who scream against waterboarding today will skin Bush alive if, God forbid, there is another major terror strike here on his watch.
“He didn’t keep us safe,” they will moan. “Why didn’t he stop this?” they will bellow. Instantly forgotten will be Bush’s very dangerous concessions to his domestic critics. His approval of the CIA’s 2006 request to ban waterboarding will give Bush absolutely zero protection if today’s soft-on-terror Democrats become tomorrow’s post-attack hawks. They will pick him apart like a hummingbird.
This is all the more reason for President Bush to reinstate waterboarding, proudly and publicly, so America can get the information we need to prevent Muslim-fanatic mass murder and win the Global War on Terror.
Appropriately enough, waterboarding is not used on American citizens suspected of tax evasion, sexual harassment, or bank robbery. Waterboarding is used on foreign Islamic-extremist terrorists, captured abroad, who would love nothing more than to blast innocent men, women, and children into small, bloody pieces. Some of them already have done so.
Waterboarding has worked quickly, causing at least one well-known subject to break down and identify at least six other high-profile, highly bloodthirsty associates before they could commit further mass murder beyond the 3,192 people they already killed and the 7,715 they already wounded.
Though clearly uncomfortable, waterboarding loosens lips without causing permanent physical injuries (and unlikely even temporary ones). If terrorists suffer long-term nightmares about waterboarding, better that than more Americans crying themselves to sleep after their loved ones have been shredded by bombs or baked in skyscrapers.
In short, there is nothing “repugnant” about waterboarding.
{SNIP}
"From the Right: Torture Part Two"
by Greg Meves
November 14th, 2007
http://modernfederalist.com/?p=67
{SNIP}
[...]
This is not your typical torture story, however. Ahmed Belbacha has been pursuing legal action to keep himself INSIDE Guantanamo Bay. Now, I found this absolutely hilarious because top Democrat after top Democrat has come out against Guantanamo Bay and American treatment of prisoners. We must be doing something right (or wrong) if the terrorists want to stay. Mr. Belbacha does not want to be sent back to Algeria because, get this, he is afraid of being tortured!
This story was almost too much for me to handle when I first heard about it. Prisoners complain about the way they are treated, despite the fact that many are gaining significant amounts of weight, and Democrats believe them. But when faced with being returned to their own country, they suddenly do not mind the hospitality of the United States Marine Corps.[...]
{SNIP}
Naj, I hope you have been celebrating to your heart's content!
Edgewise, just curious - but what is the point of posting these snippets? If it is to show the opinions of the right wingers, I am already well aware of what our government, and right wing supporters have to say about torture....If not....then what?
I am also well aware that torture has been proven time and time again to be an inefficient tool for preventing acts of terrorism, or gaining honest testimony.
I am also well versed in the Geneva Convention which forbids the use of torture by its signatories - regardless if the enemy combatant is a signatory.
What is your opinion on the matter?
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