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The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

tomdispatch.com

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Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#151

Post by hartpuff »

ikeboy wrote: post #131
hartpuff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking more generally, about the fact that these sites are set up and used specifically to avoid due process. I mean by definition, the people being tortured, not having been found guilty of any crime, are innocent.

>not having been found guilty of any crime, are innocent. That's not what innocent means. You should use unconvicted.

Why I should use "unconvicted", which implies possible guilt, for people who have not even been charged with anything, but are simply imprisoned and/or tortured indefinitely?

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#152

Post by ikeboy »

hartpuff wrote: post #151
ikeboy wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not having been found guilty of any crime, are innocent. That's not what innocent means. You should use unconvicted.

Why I should use "unconvicted", which implies possible guilt, for people who have not even been charged with anything, but are simply imprisoned and/or tortured indefinitely?

If you don't like that word, then use a longer phrase to convey what you mean. Innocent does not.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#153

Post by overcast »

peejaybee wrote: post #138
overcast wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? I'm generally curious as to what would be considered more effective.

From the sound of it, "do nothing" would be no less effective, and a bit cheaper.

Have you quantified the times when it has been effective though?

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#154

Post by deepnet »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #41

Before, we were told how tough it was on a person to be waterboarded. That it was so debilitating that it was only used in extreme cases. Now this guy is waterboarded 3 times a day for a month, basically at every meal (if you want to think about it in terms of frequency). It seems clear that it is not rare; and that it doesn't really deliver results. Again and again, we have been lied to about waterboarding, how ofte…

But it did deliver results, confessions that were directly cited by the US Commander in Chief to justify the invasion of Iraq.

This poses a further question. Was the invasion decided apon based on the belief such intelligence was true or was this confession rather something to justify a decision ?

Winston Churchill's criticism of torture is that it was not useful because you were told what you want to hear - under torture the victim will say anything to make it stop.

Enhanced Interrogation is a euphemism. That the actions described in the article are torture is clear.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#155

Post by mineshaftgap »

titzer wrote: post #150
npx wrote: post #143

I think it's time to confront the reality that we have a serious asshole epidemic in America. It has gone unchecked for a few centuries and it has reached a fever pitch of state sanctioned torture and Donald Trump supporters. Much like idiots, assholes cannot possibly realize that they are being assholes. It's one of the symptoms. They're actually completely confident that what they're doing makes total sense. It's a…

I don' think there's a magic bullet to asshattery. There has to be a cultural shift away from asshattery as acceptable behavior. The same way there has been a cultural shift away from domestic abuse and racism being acceptable (though they both have their stragglers). The problem is that the diet of pure shit serves a purpose. It keeps people both agitated and docile at the same time. The kind of agitated and docile…

>The same way there has been a cultural shift away from domestic abuse and racism being acceptable (though they both have their stragglers).

Are you claiming that racism isn't the biggest reason blacks are struggling?

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#156

Post by dragontamer »

overcast wrote: post #153
peejaybee wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the sound of it, "do nothing" would be no less effective, and a bit cheaper.

Have you quantified the times when it has been effective though?

If you can't tell the difference between when its effective and when its ineffective, then the technique is worthless.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#157

Post by pdonis »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #133
pdonis wrote: post #120

I notice that the article places all the blame on the Bush administration--yet it says the Obama administration quietly dropped the charges but did not release Zubaydah.

Charges is not the right word, he has to this day not been charged with anything whatsoever. He's held based on suspicion, allegations, stuff like that. Essentially awaiting a fair trial for over a decade, while being tortured in the process. It's quite insane.

> Charges is not the right word

Yes, good point, I should have said "dropped the claims being made" or something like that.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#158

Post by pjc50 »

ikeboy wrote: post #119
hartpuff wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI the CIA is not supposed to operate domestically, so the comparison between the two is not exact (I don't believe the CIA would operate domestically the same way as the KGB did anyway, though, but the KGB was basically just helping to prop up an openly tyrannical state), but even if the KGB has the CIA beat on home turf, I think the CIA 'wins' abroad. Even just taking the example in this thread, a monstrous progr…

> a monstrous program of 'black sites' set up around the world specifically to torture innocent people indefinitely I'm pretty sure everyone involved thought the person was not innocent. This is not a fair description. Also, as far as I can tell the claim is just that he wasn't part of al-Qaida or some of the other stuff he was accused of, not that he's completely innocent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah#…

I'm pretty sure everyone involved thought the person was not innocent.

This is always true of almost everyone arrested by the police: they're arrested because they're suspects. Suspicion is not grounds for torture. Guilt is not grounds for torture either! That's what the 8th Amendment is about.

Torture is, in and of itself, a crime against humanity under international law and the laws of war. This is not a theoretical point, it was used in the post-WW2 war crimes trials to prosecute even low-ranking staff who were involved in systematic torture. The Allies executed people for torture.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#159

Post by ikeboy »

pjc50 wrote: post #158
ikeboy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a monstrous program of 'black sites' set up around the world specifically to torture innocent people indefinitely I'm pretty sure everyone involved thought the person was not innocent. This is not a fair description. Also, as far as I can tell the claim is just that he wasn't part of al-Qaida or some of the other stuff he was accused of, not that he's completely innocent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah#…

I'm pretty sure everyone involved thought the person was not innocent. This is always true of almost everyone arrested by the police: they're arrested because they're suspects. Suspicion is not grounds for torture. Guilt is not grounds for torture either! That's what the 8th Amendment is about. Torture is, in and of itself, a crime against humanity under international law and the laws of war. This is not a theoretica…

I was just pointing out that "specifically to torture innocent people" was misleading and wrong.

>Suspicion is not grounds for torture. Guilt is not grounds for torture either! That's what the 8th Amendment is about.

Morally, you have a point. But from your mention of the 8th Amendment, it looks like you're talking legally, in which case only US citizens and people covered under relevant international agreements have such rights.

Re: The Al-Qaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubaydah

#160

Post by gumby »

shostack wrote: post #148
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to utterly break and dehumanize a person until they're rendered psychotic, incontinent, incapable of human interaction or ever being able to take care of themselves again, this is how you accomplish it. We handled interrogations with Nazis better. We showed them respect and they gave us valuable information. It leads me to believe intelligence wasn't the main motivator for the continued torture of the…

"If your goal is to utterly break and dehumanize a person until they're rendered psychotic, incontinent, incapable of human interaction or ever being able to take care of themselves again, this is how you accomplish it." Not to mention make them more pliable and potentially willing to give a false testimony just to make it end. Not that false testimonies have ever been tortured out of people by governments before.

Indeed: a technique mastered by the Soviets.

At the end of WWII in Europe, Churchill wanted to simply string up the captured leaders. The US pushed for trials -- and the Soviets agreed since they felt it legitimized their own show trial apparatus.

To paraphrase Pogo: we met the enemy and he was us.

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