Remember those 92 tapes?

[ThomWV]

The CIA destroyed 92 (I believe that is the number) tapes that were, it is reported, made during harsh interrogation of subjects in our custody. When the information was first released that the tapes had been destroyed no mention was made of how many there were - it was presented in such a way that one would think there were one or two. I could destroy a couple of video tapes in an office in 10 minutes - destroying 92 of them is a much different matter. Think of it this way, that's a grocery cart full.

What could it be about those tapes that was so potentially damaging as to cause their destruction? It could not have been simply the harsh methods. Even in cases that resulted in death they could be no worse than I could see on network television any weekday night; they wouldn't be any more horrible than the long-public pictures from Iraq's prisons.

I would suggest that what those tapes showed was how intimately and directly the interrogations were controlled from higher up. I am suggesting that they may have contained evidence of real-time approval of the harshest of methods directly from either the White House of the Pentagon, and possibly both. I expect those tapes show torturers on the phone or at a computer screen asking instructions and getting direction directly from people we would all recognize. Want to give someone immunity? How about the guy who was in the room when the tapes were being made. Would it be worth immunity for that underling to learn what we can not see and hear for ourselves?

On a somewhat related matter consider this. Some day someone is going to do the arithmetic of detention and torture. How many people in total did we send to Cuba? Subtract from that number those who will be released with no charges made, presumably innocent of any crime. Finally the number of prisoners tortured will be released. If the number tortured exceeds the final number we retain then it will be clear what we have done. The point is moot if torture produces good or bad information if the people being tortured had no information at all to give.

[Arctic Dave]

1. We have the most powerful spy organization the world has ever known

and we still use VHS? I'm thinking these type of things would be on a disc or a thumb drive. If you are going record every second of a person as they are being interrogated tortured would you use a tape that has to be changes very eight hours or would you use a digital recorder and a hard drive?

[tridim]

2. My theory is that either Rummy, The Dick or Bush are on the tapes..

helping out.