Architect Of CIA's Torture Program Says It Went Too Far

[alp227]

Source: NPR

One of the architects of the CIA's torture program for the accused 9/11 terrorists testified today in a Guantánamo Bay courtroom that he eventually came to believe those torture techniques had gone too far and verged on breaking the law.

Testifying publicly under oath for the first time as part of a pre-trial hearing for the criminal case against five accused 9/11 terrorists, psychologist and interrogator James Mitchell spoke specifically and graphically about one prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded more than 80 times at a CIA site overseas. He has been held at Guantánamo for more than 13 years and has never been charged with a crime.

According to Mitchell's testimony, he thought they'd gotten all the information they could from Zubaydah, who had agreed to cooperate. Mitchell wanted the waterboarding to stop and helped draft a message to CIA headquarters saying, "the intensity of the pressure applied to him thus far approaches the legal limit" and that Zubaydah's mental state was deteriorating dangerously.

He said the CIA told them to keep going because Zubaydah might still be withholding valuable information about an imminent U.S. attack. In Mitchell's words, "they were absolutely convinced he had something cooking." Mitchell says he agreed to waterboard Zubaydah just one more time, but he wanted a senior CIA official to come see in person what it looked like. A senior CIA official did attend that waterboarding, during which — Mitchell testified — Zubaydah was having involuntary body spasms and was crying. Mitchell said he and others in the room became tearful.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/798561799/architect-of-cias-torture-program-says-it-went-too-far

[sakabatou]

1. Why did we even green light a torture program?!

[90-percent]

3. GWB Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.

After a few years or maybe after 2008? Cheney said "of course i ordered the torture, torture works and I'd do it again."

Sadistic imbeciles. The lot of them.

(from memory, some info may be incorrect, paraphrasing and date.)

-90% Jimmy

[Warpy]

4. Sadists love torture

We know it doesn't work. We know it's counterproductive, the person being tortured saying anything just to get it to stop. We know how silly that "ticking bomb" scenario is because the person being tortured knows when the bomb will go off and that it will stop then and has no need to share the information.

Sadists will always want to torture people, it's how they're put together, whether they're CIA bosses or Christian "end times" bullies. We had laws and treaties to rein them in and make them turn to history and fiction to get their sick thrills. Frightened men after 9/11 thought we didn't need those laws. They were wrong.

[UpInArms]

6. I put some of that horrifying history in my post below

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2422656

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Wow, and well, he's out there on a limb, but

glad he is fessing up. Not sure how 80 times would be necessary, or might yield a different result from the 79th time? But hey, the interrogators for some reason thought so.

[UpInArms]

5. I hate Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo with every fiber of my being

The Torture Memos, 10 Years Later

On February 7, 2002 -- ten years ago to the day, tomorrow -- President George W. Bush signed a brief memorandum titled "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees." The caption was a cruel irony, an Orwellian bit of business, because what the memo authorized and directed was the formal abandonment of America's commitment to key provisions of the Geneva Convention. This was the day, a milestone on the road to Abu Ghraib: that marked our descent into torture -- the day, many would still say, that we lost part of our soul.

Drafted by men like John Yoo, and pushed along by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the February 7 memo was sent to all of the key players of the Bush Administration involved in the early days of the War on Terror. All the architects and functionaries who would play a role in one of the darker moments in American legal history were in on it. Vice President Dick Cheney. Attorney General John Aschroft. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld. CIA Director George Tenet. David Addington. They all got the note. And then they acted upon it.

When we talk today of the "torture memos," most of us think about the later memoranda, like the infamous "Bybee Memo" of August 1, 2002, which authorized the use of torture against terror law detainees. But those later pronouncements of policy, in one way or another, were all based upon the perversion of law and logic contained in the February 7 memo. Once America crossed the line 10 years ago, the memoranda that followed, to a large extent, were merely evidence of the grinding gears of bureaucracy trying to justify itself.

There will likely be other opportunities in 2012 to look back at some of those other memos. Perhaps Jay S. Bybee himself, inexplicably rewarded for his role in the scandal by getting a federal judgeship, will say something. Let's leave that for the dog days of August. Today is a day instead to look at one of the first of these odious documents. It is a day to note how simple and easy it was, it still is, for political leadership to make monumental decisions on our behalf without really telling us -- or by simply telling us something that isn't true.

Men of dark hearts and no souls ...

[jalan48]

7. Our Current CIA Director, Gina Haspel, was involved with the torture program.

In late October 2002, Haspel became a chief of base for a "black site" CIA torture prison located in Thailand.[30][31] She worked at a site that was codenamed "Cat's Eye", which would later become known as the place where suspected al Qaeda terrorist members Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were detained and tortured with waterboarding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Haspel

[ConstanceCee]

8. From Cheney Film

(Paraphrased) The USA doesn't use torture, so if we're doing it, it isn't torture.

[ahlnord]

9. "The Report"

A movie starring Adam Driver and Annette Bening came out late last year (2019), "The Report," dealing with our torture program. It is dense with information and brings back a lot of painful history, but I highly recommend it.

[mpcamb]

10. 'Scuse me, but isn't it a bit late for that?

[marble falls]

11. Sure, NOW he tells us!

[captain jack]

12. "...he and others in the room became tearful." As psychotic as the psychos they condemn. n/t

[Marthe48]

16. I'm surprised they didn't have orgasms

because they are sick, perverted monsters

[DeminPennswoods]

13. He and the others are war criminals

They should all be sent to the Hague to be tried as such.

[JHB]

14. OF COURSE it went too far. What part of "torture" were you not clear on, Jim?

[robbob]

15. Yeah, we only wanted a LITTLE bit of torture...

[Stuart G]

17. There is a rule about this, in the U.S. Constitution..Amendment VIII

This is not new, ..ratified and became law on December 15, 1791
............ (218 years ago)....................................................................

Amendment VIII:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.