Sept. 11 planner waterboarded 183 times

[hongi]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the September 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another al Qaeda suspect, The New York Times said on Sunday.

The Times said a 2005 Justice Department memorandum showed that Abu Zubaydah, the first prisoner questioned in the CIA's overseas detention program in August 2002, was waterboarded 83 times, although a former CIA officer had told news media he had been subjected to only 35 seconds underwater before talking.

President Barack Obama has banned the use of waterboarding, overturning a Bush administration policy that it did not constitute torture.

The Justice Department memo said the simulated drowning technique was used on Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. The Times said some copies of the memos appeared to have the number of waterboardings redacted while others did not.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the CIA interrogation program, which under President George W. Bush also included slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in uncomfortable positions and depriving them of sleep.

Bush administration officials had claimed such methods were needed to get information but the repeated use of the waterboard on Zubaydah and Mohammed were sure to raise questions about its effectiveness.

Inhumane and ineffective to boot.

[Knife]

Though it shouldn't have been done, I have a hard time feeling bad for Mr. Khalid.

[Col. Crackpot]

Are we supposed to feel bad for him?

[Darth Onasi]

I never approve of torture as a means of extracting information.
On the other hand, fuck him.

[Elfdart]

Are we supposed to feel bad for him?

Sure, why not?

[SirNitram]

So on top of being useless, illegal, pointless, and counter-productive..
It hit an average of six times a day for one person.

Wow. And the worst part is the guy probably went home to his family and was fine. Banality of evil, writ large.

[Rogue 9]

Wow. And the worst part is the guy probably went home to his family and was fine.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Not bloody likely; he's standing trial for planning the September 11 attacks.

[RedImperator]

Wow. And the worst part is the guy probably went home to his family and was fine.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Not bloody likely; he's standing trial for planning the September 11 attacks.

Assuming the case doesn't get thrown out because all the evidence is tainted. Add that to the Bush Administration Irony-o-Meter: if they hadn't been a bunch of sadistic shitheels, we'd have a better chance of throwing KSM into Federal prison where he belongs than we do now.

[Col. Crackpot]

Are we supposed to feel bad for him?

Sure, why not?

Did you feel bad for Jeffrey Dahmer when he was murdered in prison? I'm not endorsing torture, I just really have a hard time feeling sympathy for a sociopath mass murderer.

[SirNitram]

Wow. And the worst part is the guy probably went home to his family and was fine.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Not bloody likely; he's standing trial for planning the September 11 attacks.

I mistakenly thought the Banality Of Evil reference would make it clear. My bad: I mean the people doing this sort of thing. Not the victim.(Yea, a crime was committed, he's a victim of it. Doesn't make him less of a peice of trash.)

[Pablo Sanchez]

Are we supposed to feel bad for him?

You don't have to feel bad for him, that's not the point. The point is that this rebuts the claim that torture was somehow a useful part of the CIA's interrogation repertoire, and instead proves that it was purely a sadistic activity. I can see an interrogator, deluded into believing that this would work better than standard interrogations, and pressured from on high to hurt the guy and get information, subjecting someone like Mohammed to a few waterboardings. But 183 fucking times? What's he going to be holding back after the first 10, or 20, or 30? Even in the Lubyanka they stopped torturing people once they'd gotten what they needed out of them. The story demonstrates that under the Bush administration, pointless sadism was officially part of intelligence policy.

[Elfdart]

Did you feel bad for Jeffrey Dahmer when he was murdered in prison? I'm not endorsing torture, I just really have a hard time feeling sympathy for a sociopath mass murderer.

Jeffrey Dahmer was tried and convicted in court of law based on the partially eaten remains of the teenage boys he molested being found in his freezer. What has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed been convicted of? I keep hearing about how he's the most evil bastard on the face of the earth, but they haven't convicted him of so much as a parking ticket, and that's in front of the Crawford Caligula's handpicked kangaroo courts. What evidence (no, the "confessions" they tortured out of him don't count) is there that he's done anything wrong?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I don't feel sorry for him one damn bit, but in the face of the staggering and ridiculous brutality inflicted on this man--remember, that was just 183 waterboardings in one single month, there were more for him total--to the point where it would have been literally more merciful for a soldier to have just headshot him at some point, that I do have to say that it must be reluctantly acknowledged that the Bush administration really did step into the realm of systematic totalitarianism in pursuit of the Jacobinist police of worldwide democratic revolution by force of arms. When the day is said and done, Bush is a closer match for Robespierre than any American politician, and that only makes the declarations of said same supporting neo-cons as to the horrors of the French revolution against the noble, gallant and correct nature of the American revolutoin, approach the realm of blatant Orwellianism.

[Thanas]

Did you feel bad for Jeffrey Dahmer when he was murdered in prison? I'm not endorsing torture, I just really have a hard time feeling sympathy for a sociopath mass murderer.

Jeffrey Dahmer was tried and convicted in court of law based on the partially eaten remains of the teenage boys he molested being found in his freezer. What has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed been convicted of? I keep hearing about how he's the most evil bastard on the face of the earth, but they haven't convicted him of so much as a parking ticket, and that's in front of the Crawford Caligula's handpicked kangaroo courts. What evidence (no, the "confessions" they tortured out of him don't count) is there that he's done anything wrong?

Him boasting about having planned 9/11?

[Elfdart]

Did you feel bad for Jeffrey Dahmer when he was murdered in prison? I'm not endorsing torture, I just really have a hard time feeling sympathy for a sociopath mass murderer.

Jeffrey Dahmer was tried and convicted in court of law based on the partially eaten remains of the teenage boys he molested being found in his freezer. What has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed been convicted of? I keep hearing about how he's the most evil bastard on the face of the earth, but they haven't convicted him of so much as a parking ticket, and that's in front of the Crawford Caligula's handpicked kangaroo courts. What evidence (no, the "confessions" they tortured out of him don't count) is there that he's done anything wrong?

Him boasting about having planned 9/11?

Did he do that before or after being worked over?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Jeffrey Dahmer was tried and convicted in court of law based on the partially eaten remains of the teenage boys he molested being found in his freezer. What has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed been convicted of? I keep hearing about how he's the most evil bastard on the face of the earth, but they haven't convicted him of so much as a parking ticket, and that's in front of the Crawford Caligula's handpicked kangaroo courts. What evidence (no, the "confessions" they tortured out of him don't count) is there that he's done anything wrong?

Him boasting about having planned 9/11?

Did he do that before or after being worked over?

His confessions regarding the scope of his involvement in 9/11 only came months and years after his capture and imprisonment. In short, they came about as a result of his 'interrogations.' Which is to say, much of the evidence against him is tainted by his experiences in the medieval torture dungeon Guantanamo Bay.

[Pablo Sanchez]

His confessions regarding the scope of his involvement in 9/11 only came months and years after his capture and imprisonment. In short, they came about as a result of his 'interrogations.' Which is to say, much of the evidence against him is tainted by his experiences in the medieval torture dungeon Guantanamo Bay.

The accusation is probably also backed up by independent corroboration. I believe that Zubaydah fingered him... after being tortured. Any road up, I think they would have made sure who Mohammed was before they hanged the "chief architect of 9/11" sign on him. We know from our multiple victories over the "#3 guy at Al Qaeda" that the Bush administration had no problem being vague with this, and I don't think they'd get so specific on such a critical accusation unless they felt it was in the bag. So he probably did it, but this brings up an interesting point: maybe the reason for all the hedging and equivocation that the Obama Administration has been doing on these human rights issues is that Bush's choice to use illegal methods on the suspects irreparably tainted any case that could be assembled against them, so that if we started treating them legally with habeus corpus and so forth, we'd have to outright release people who we certainly know--though only through illegal means--to be terrorists.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yup, fruit of a poisonus tree, too bad them poison apples don't kill/sicken those harvesting them....

[Alyrium Denryle]

His confessions regarding the scope of his involvement in 9/11 only came months and years after his capture and imprisonment. In short, they came about as a result of his 'interrogations.' Which is to say, much of the evidence against him is tainted by his experiences in the medieval torture dungeon Guantanamo Bay.

The accusation is probably also backed up by independent corroboration. I believe that Zubaydah fingered him... after being tortured. Any road up, I think they would have made sure who Mohammed was before they hanged the "chief architect of 9/11" sign on him. We know from our multiple victories over the "#3 guy at Al Qaeda" that the Bush administration had no problem being vague with this, and I don't think they'd get so specific on such a critical accusation unless they felt it was in the bag. So he probably did it, but this brings up an interesting point: maybe the reason for all the hedging and equivocation that the Obama Administration has been doing on these human rights issues is that Bush's choice to use illegal methods on the suspects irreparably tainted any case that could be assembled against them, so that if we started treating them legally with habeus corpus and so forth, we'd have to outright release people who we certainly know--though only through illegal means--to be terrorists.

I will be the first one to say

Fucking release them then. We are a nation of laws. Where does it end? If we start holding people without trial because our evidence is tainted in terrorism cases, what is to stop our government from doing the same to its own citizens? What would we have done if the evidence against Dahmer was tainted?

[Qwerty 42]

The thing that's often forgotten here is that it's possible to be a victim without being a hero. The 9/11 planners are monsters, but that doesn't justify the use of torture. The same is true of Dahmer: although his murders should stand trial for that offense, that hardly makes him into some sort of hero worthy of our sympathy.

[hongi]

Torture is wrong. Torture is wrong.

This is just such a fundamental part of my ethics that I can't understand how America of all places started bending such rules. Goddamn.

[Sephirius]

So, can we move up to some real torture yet, considering this hasn't worked so far?

[wautd]

Wow. And the worst part is the guy probably went home to his family and was fine.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Not bloody likely; he's standing trial for planning the September 11 attacks.

A country that's holding and torturing its suspects before their trial is unworthy to be called a democracy.

[Knife]

I will be the first one to say

Fucking release them then.

Release them where?

[SirNitram]

I will be the first one to say

Fucking release them then.

Release them where?

Honestly?

Well, given it all, we won't get them on parking violations, and there's also likely serious mental harm from this sort of mayhem. So mental facilities.

And yes. They have things to deal with those dangerous to themselves and others.