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  • Ex-CIA agent admits 'torture'

    Ex-CIA agent admits 'torture'
    A retired CIA agent confirmed in a US interview that interrogators used a simulated drowning technique on an Al-Qaeda suspect and admitted that it is a form torture
    'It is torture, but necessary'


    In an ABC News interview aired Monday, retired agent John Kiriakou, who led a CIA team that captured and interrogated Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, said using the "waterboarding" technique was necessary and yielded crucial information.

    Kiriakou said the method broke Zubaydah -- one of the first top Al-Qaeda suspects captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks -- in less than 35 seconds, according to ABC.

    "The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou told ABC News.

    "From that day on, he answered every question," he added. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

    The technique involves pouring water on the covered face of a restrained prisoner.

    Although Kiriakou admitted that waterboarding was used, he did not entirely approve of it: "We're Americans, and we're better than this. And we shouldn't be doing this kind of thing."

    But he also said that in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, there was a sense of urgency in getting information on terrorist groups.

    "What happens if we don't waterboard a person, and we don't get that nugget of information, and there's an attack," Kiriakou said. "I would have trouble forgiving myself."

    Kiriakou's comments come amid a growing scandal over the CIA's destruction in 2005 of videotapes made in 2002 of interrogations of Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, another top Al-Qaeda operative, as first reported by The New York Times. The videotapes reportedly showed harsh interrogation techniques used on the suspects.

    Kiriakou said he was unaware that the Zubaydah interrogation was being secretly recorded by the CIA and that the tapes were subsequently destroyed.

    CIA director Michael Hayden, who was not leading the agency when the tapes were destroyed, has said that getting rid of the tapes was necessary to protect the identity of CIA agents.

    The White House has stopped short of denying any involvement in the affair. The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog said they had opened a preliminary inquiry.

    AFP
    newstime7.com Ex-CIA agent admits 'torture'
    sigpicaction speaks louder than words

  • #2
    I really wonder what you guys are thinking .

    my personal opinion on this subject:
    I am against all kinds of tortures at any location,at any time,it goes against democracy.but a small exception exists.that is security purposes.Cuz terror has no religion,has no value,has no democratical understanding etc.

    but I cant stand wihout thinking, what if thhe tortured individual is not a terrorirst but an innocent stranger.what will be mentioned to him/her as an explanation?
    ":ahh, we pulled your finger nails, shocked your body with electric and filled your stomach with hot water!
    sorry for these.we were mistaken.you may go etc."


    actually,this situation that I tried to describe is as real as terrorism's and tortures itself,I think.
    sigpicaction speaks louder than words

    Comment


    • #3
      I too am against torture. Our civilisation is, after all, the thing we are apparently trying to protect by the interrogations, and barbarous acts are committed by terrorists not by operatives of civilised people.

      Whilst i think there sometimes comes a time to stoop as low as your enemy with the sure conviction that once the danger is cleared you will cease such practices, the west has not yet faced such a risk and its civilisation is not under such threat that it should be abandoned.
      at

      Comment


      • #4
        Torture sucks when your guy is the one getting torture. But when the enemy is getting torture, we don't really care that much except for getting information. It's been like that for millenias.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by snc128 View Post
          I really wonder what you guys are thinking .

          my personal opinion on this subject:
          I am against all kinds of tortures at any location,at any time,it goes against democracy.but a small exception exists.that is security purposes.Cuz terror has no religion,has no value,has no democratical understanding etc.
          OK I agree with that. The problem is you must have a definition of torture. What exactly is "torture?" We can agree that inflicting grave bodily harm or pain is torture. There will be no sticking toothpicks under the fingernails, no rack, no breaking knee caps, no sticking a glass rod in the urethra and then breaking it.

          Waterboarding is very uncomfortable, but it doesn't cause great pain or injury.

          How about if I leave you in a cold room with little clothes and thin bedding? Is that torture? You are well-fed and no one comes in to wake you up in the middle of the night to disturb your sleep, if you can sleep in a cold room. You're just very uncomfortable. Is that torture?

          How about if we play good cop/bad cop? Every few days someone comes in to declare that you have been tried or no longer useful and will be executed in 24 hours. Then the guy comes in, just when he's about to pull the trigger, another annoucement comes to say you have been spared, for now. Is that torture?

          How about if I just don't let you sleep? Is that torture?

          You must have a definition in order to draw a line. Otherwise I can call anything I don't like "torture."

          Originally posted by snc128 View Post
          but I cant stand wihout thinking, what if thhe tortured individual is not a terrorirst but an innocent stranger.what will be mentioned to him/her as an explanation?
          ":ahh, we pulled your finger nails not done, shocked your body not done with electric and filled your stomach with hot water not done!
          sorry for these.we were mistaken.you may go etc."
          Well, why did this "innocent" individual end up with a bunch of suspected terrorists? Did someone just grab him off the street with no good reason and use him to fill a quota or something? Then that someone should be tried in court for falsifying information, illegal imprisonment, and face justice in our courts.

          Originally posted by snc128 View Post
          actually,this situation that I tried to describe is as real as terrorism's and tortures itself,I think.
          Really? You know of people who were innocent but interrogated by the CIA, and had his fingernails pulled, shocked with electrodes, and stomach pumped with hot water?
          "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

          Comment


          • #6
            I believe that torture should be allowed in the situation of heinous crimes and terrorism. In those particular instances the person involved would show no similar simpathy or care for their victims and have information that is important for the safety of others. In such a situation putting someone in an uncomfortable condition, be it waterboarding or another form of torture, is called for. In the situation of war (like the one we are currently in with muslim extremists) you can expect and grant no compassion from and to your enemy. From a personal standpoint I know what kinds of torture are used on soldiers, my uncle was a prisoner of war in vietnam. He was tortures, mildly by most standards of the time, by the vietnamese. The torture he endured was brutal. I think that we should be as nice to the enemy as they are to us.

            Comment


            • #7
              I wouldn't lose one bit of sleep over allowing a cockroach like Zarqawi to be tortured. That said the degree of torture should reflect the level of known guilt. The hard part is getting people of unfailable stature and with the credentials to honestly dish out that level of guilt and without all the loopholes in the rule of law that terrorists exploit.
              Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

              -- Larry Elder

              Comment


              • #8
                what i wonder about is the efficacy thereof. american interrogators in WWII found that the best method of getting information was simply making the prisoners feel comfortable in talking, with merely the hint that unpleasant things might happen if one didn't talk.

                second best tactics were sleep deprivation and the such, and finally the last was torture.
                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                Comment


                • #9
                  I don't think us in the West should EVER use torture.

                  While I understand that it's a great way of getting much needed information I feel that we need to fight morally better than our enemy or we are no better.

                  How can we expect to be seen as those in the right if we resort to the same tactics of a disgusting enemy.
                  Originally posted by GVChamp
                  College students are very, very, very dumb. But that's what you get when the government subsidizes children to sit in the middle of a corn field to drink alcohol and fuck.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Expat Canuck View Post
                    I don't think us in the West should EVER use torture.

                    While I understand that it's a great way of getting much needed information I feel that we need to fight morally better than our enemy or we are no better.

                    How can we expect to be seen as those in the right if we resort to the same tactics of a disgusting enemy.
                    ...because to the enemy it dosn't matter what we do. We are already heads and sholders above the rest in reguards to torture and they still find ways to make us look evil. Churchill IIRC eluded to the fact that democracys have to lose something when fighting a morally inferior enemy, just to survive, otherwise they lose everything including that moral superiority they hold so dear.
                    Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

                    -- Larry Elder

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Torture is not a good thing.

                      But then, it happens.

                      That is how the pennies fall!


                      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                      HAKUNA MATATA

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        If Churchill said that well then.....

                        I still don't like the idea no matter what good it does. I guess I'm an idealist.
                        Originally posted by GVChamp
                        College students are very, very, very dumb. But that's what you get when the government subsidizes children to sit in the middle of a corn field to drink alcohol and fuck.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I'm a realist. I Never said I liked torture, but I don't like what terrorists do either. I have no qualms about turning men like Zarqawi or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed over to be tortured, men who saw off heads, kill without mercy and brainwash others to strap bombs to themselves and their kids if it means actionable intel to bring down more of their ilk and save inocent lives.

                          In a perfect world where the goodguys allways win and no one dies torture isn't nessassary, sadly it isn't a perfect world.
                          Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

                          -- Larry Elder

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            I just don't like that people can use our actions as an excuse to do the same. If we hold the moral high ground all the time when they step out of line I feel we can come down even harder on these people, as in go in and get them no matter where they are.
                            Originally posted by GVChamp
                            College students are very, very, very dumb. But that's what you get when the government subsidizes children to sit in the middle of a corn field to drink alcohol and fuck.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I am afraid there is no moral high ground that anyone can adopt.

                              WoT has made it archaic words.

                              Immorality is the buzz word these days.

                              Shape up or ship out, so to say!


                              "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                              I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                              HAKUNA MATATA

                              Comment

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