I just want to say that the argument over "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "torture" has led to the idea that one is on one of two sides of the argument: they work OR they are wrong. It seems that all people who have taken the position that they are wrong have usurped the argument that they don't work into their position as well. I am able to step outside of the moral argument and say whether they worked. I believe they provided useful information and I believe Panetta's reluctance to say they did not work in his interview is proof of that. If they had produced nothing of note he would have been thrilled to say that. He wouldn't. That does not mean I support the actions. I can assess whether or not they worked without clouding my judgment with my own moral view on them. I think too many who are opposed morally to the use of these techniques are unable to objectively measure whether they worked because they are afraid of justification.
It goes both ways. I believe they don't work, and it's wrong. Both. I believe the direct statement by the official that no useful information leading to Bin Laden happened under the waterboarding, is better evidence than Panetta's wishy washy answer which really doesn't definitively say that waterboarding did work. Add that evidence to the timeline of when the waterboarding of KSM stopped and when the mission actually took place, and it makes even less sense to claim that waterboarding worked. Add to that the countless other testimony we've heard by experts in interrogation that show that waterboarding doesn't work. All of that vs. one wishy washy statement that could be contorted into kind of meaning what the torture crowd wants it to mean.
How is that goading? Why do you say the question is loaded? a loaded question would be "Why do you think Obama is the worst president ever?" (pretty much any question Hannity would ask). It is a simple question that he completely dodged, before finally admitting that enhanced interrogation techniques led to OBL's capture and those techniques include water-boarding.
It is a different argument, that just so happens to encapsulate and supercede this one in terms of importance. You are reading something that is not there in Panetta comments ('he's not denying he's gay, so he's totally gay!'), and trying to use it to save some face on an issue that you've already doubled down on sick, inhuman behavior long ago. Even if it were true, and we got Bin Laden's GPS coordinates from waterboarding, it doesn't change the rightness or wrongness involved here. Period. So you should probably stop with your pathetic inferences, because it's not helping you or your cause. As an aside, based on Panetta comments, I theorize that we likely got some intel that contributed to the Obama man-hunt, but obviously not the meal-ticket that was his courier's identity. Was that intel literally the difference between capture and not? Based on what we've been told, it doesn't look like it. Could this intel have been acquired without torture? An open, but irrelevant question based on modern morality and legality.
I view torture as a quick and risky shortcut to real interrogation. It seems like Jack Bauer enthusiasts promote torture/EI as a way to get results and in a quick and timely manner. Well it took us 6 or 7 years after the fact, and there's still no real indication that we needed it to get to this point. It might work to some extent, but no one can positively assert they even got accurate intel faster than through legal methods.
I find this to be a plausible, logical viewpoint and I rep you for it. Edit: Actually I don't, because I need to spread the rep around.
tend to agree with Donny (post 452) and basso (454). Is that possible? And DD had a good post too (a trifecta of bizarre connections ) -- can't find his post now -- something about good on Obama for giving the go ahead and that he'd have been the one to take the fall). On Panetta, I think he does acknowledge that info gathered from torture contributed....otherwise he wouldn't have had to expand his comments to the possible availability the *same information* through other means. So, while he acknowledges the torture may have yielded results, he does not justify it, nor in any way say it was necessary, or even beneficial. In fact, he seems to afirm, as diplomatically as he can in the circumstances, his objection to the...um the enhanced interrogation techniques.
Thank goodness. Now declare victory in Afghanistan, get the hell out, and go covert with intelligence and special forces.
I described it as a loaded question, meaning it assumes a premise. "Can you confirm" sorta sets the tone of "what we already know." I don't think it's misleading or unfairly worded as any good interview should start with something evocative, and I wish LP was more clear, but I think it certainly implies the assumption that is inevitably being derived (ie. information from waterboarding = catching osama). It's hard to say its not loaded when the premise it is loaded with, is exactly what you are arguing we should all take from it. Secondly, again, I do not see what you see. I am trying to evaluate this objectively. IMO, the 2nd and 3rd questions only really ask if waterboarding "was among the tactics used."
I think the bits about debate on whether same info would be available through other means hints that there was actual info used acquired by torture -- not just that the technique was used. It certainly was a leading question in that it was clearly an attempt to have him say "torture worked" and imply it was necessary. He did his best to question the necessity of the torture.
We also have the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee saying torture didn't give us any information about him. Shall we dismiss her too?
Can't we all just agree that a civilized nation and, in our case, arguably the most technologically advanced nation on the planet, doesn't do torture for moral reasons and doesn't need it because we are smart enough NOT to need it? Christ, some of you people are beyond help.
