Torture may have helped get Osama Bin Laden

[quote name='IRHari']http://www.startribune.com/nation/121089124.html

Worth it? #winning?[/QUOTE]

No. Torture is neither reliable as a means of gathering information nor acceptable as a method of treating captured combatants.

Just as LeBron James occasionally makes a stepback fadeaway 22 foot two point jumper, torture is not a wise or efficient use of manpower. Torture is also immoral, but I can't ascribe immorality to a poorly chosen basketball play.
 
Whoever wrote that article is terrible. Alternatively: That site is terrible but I'm not familiar with it.

Yes, that information was gained while he was in a secret CIA prison. However, it was not part of the suite of the stuff during the "enhanced interrogation" period.

Even if it was though, it still doesnt change that torture just doesnt work, statistically. You might as well have Shaq shoot 3 pointers.
 
Good. I'm so glad the public has another ten years of Jingo bloodlust. This apparently in the eyes of many is going to reaffirm the success of everything that's been done to our society the last then years. Torture, wiretaps, secret prisons, Patriot Act, illegal and immoral wars of choice, I can't wait for more of it.
 
So the only person who might be 'in the know' about where the intelligence came from who also keeps saying waterboarding got the info is Peter King. Yeah, THAT Peter King.

He does his classic 'some people I know tell me'...so it's questionable whether the info came from torture or just regular interrogation.
 
[quote name='IRHari']http://www.startribune.com/nation/121089124.html

Worth it? #winning?[/QUOTE]
I read an article yesterday (can't find it right now), that specifically mentioned that the CIA obtained the nicknames of OBL's couriers from KSM through normal interrogation methods. The regular interrogation occurred months after they had subjected him to the enhanced methods.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/politics/04torture.html?hp

But a closer look at prisoner interrogations suggests that the harsh techniques played a small role at most in identifying Bin Laden’s trusted courier and exposing his hide-out. One detainee who apparently was subjected to some tough treatment provided a crucial description of the courier, according to current and former officials briefed on the interrogations. But two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier’s identity.
Click to expand...

Too many false negatives to say that, since we got an affirmative result, therefore the technique works.

Then there's the whole temporal disconnect - years back, as Congress was debating the Military Commissions Act (which Senator Obama voted yes on, much to my dismay), the GOP talking point was that "enhanced interrogation" (GOP code for "torture") was necessary in order to get information in a high risk situation. They didn't say "we need to waterboard a person nearly 200 times so we can get Bin Laden 6 years from now." They said that it was necessary to stop a ticking time bomb that was about to go off. The whole perspective of enhanced interrogation was rooted in a "24" (the tv show) narrative, that the bomb was set to explode and we need information NOW.

Let's not forget that in the context of the current discussion. The "torture worked" argument is the GOP talking point to rewrite and justify the Bush legacy of flaunting the law and rewriting it after the fact. What we did eventually worked, though 9.5 years to "work" doesn't sound, to me, like a rousing success. This is another attempt of the GOP to frame the issue to their liking, and the compliant fraidy-cat media will roll over and run with it, like they always do.
 
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