AN INTERROGATOR SPEAKS- I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq
Democratic Underground Latest Breaking News — ... interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them. I don't have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse. Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Former interrogator slams torture: Torture has cost nearly as many lives as 9/11.
Think Progress — ... In a Washington Post op-ed today, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. “Torture and abuse cost American lives,” he writes: ...

Midday Open Thread
Daily Kos — ... be counted. The board's move was "a cause for great concern," Reid said this week, and those comments may indicate his willingness to start a Senate investigation of the Minnesota recount, Smith said. And if so, it's possible that Franken's argument regarding rejected absentee ballots could be reconsidered by U.S. senators. Under the constitution, the Senate is the final arbiter of its membership, MPR noted. A U.S. interrogator speaks out about interrogation methods used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...

The Cost of Torture
HorsesAss.Org — ... An interrogator who served in the Iraq War is speaking up about the failures - both moral and practical - of the Bush Administration’s approach to treating detainees: ...

The Price Of Torture
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... As Obama weighs how to move forward, the false dichotomy that argues that somehow retaining the Bush-Cheney torture regime makes us any safer is exploded by this kind of testimony from a leading interrogator in Iraq: ...

Things I Did Not Know
Balloon Juice — ... The intelligence coup that led to killing abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not come from the torture-based methods that had become almost universal. Instead a renegade unit tried handling suspects with respect, a novel approach recommended by the notable terrorist lovers in Israeli intelligence. The renegade unit discovered more than just a guerilla leader’s hideout. ...

A Plan to Close Guantanamo
TalkLeft — ... On a related note, a former leader of a team of interrogators in Iraq in 2006 writes, using a pseudomym, I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq. ...

How An Interrogator Developed a Humane Method That Worked
PoliGazette — ... The Washington Post has an article from veteran military interrogator Matthew Alexander (not his real name).  While in Iraq, Alexander became disillusioned by some of the methods being employed to get information out of detainees there, namely: torture.  He went on to develop an alternative method where he and his team developed a rapport with the detainees in order to gain their trust and make it easier to draw information out of them.  The method worked and ended up leading to the killing of Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006. ...

The Abyss
Comments from Left Field — You know that saying about fighting evil? That if you stare long enough into the abyss, you will find the abyss staring back at you? Well, I think Uncle Jimbo fell into the abyss, headfirst. Be sure to read that op-ed he links to. It’s truly stunning, and very important.

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Daily Kos — ... come none too soon for the GOP. A Gallup poll taken after the November election and released last week showed "the Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse" since the election. Only 34 percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the party, and 61 percent view it unfavorably - the worst image rating in a decade. By contrast, 55 percent view the Democratic Party with favor, and only 39 percent look upon that party unfavorably. Matthew Alexander (interrogator): Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. ...

Torture doesn't work, redux
Political Animal — TORTURE DOESN'T WORK, REDUX.... One would like to think that the debate over torture policies is over. Torture doesn't work, it's illegal, it undermines our global standing, and it's fundamentally, morally repugnant. And yet, the argument persists. The leader of a U.S. interrogations team in Iraq in 2006, writing under the pseudonym "Matthew Alexander," had some fascinating insights in a piece for the ...

Hullabaloo — ... This goes to the other side of how this nation is changing radically - with a series of programs conceived largely by executive fiat that weakens civil liberties protections and subverts the plain letter of the law. This includes illegal wiretapping of American citizens, indefinite detention of prisoners without charges, and the dehumanizing practice of torture, which is ineffective and deeply dangerous to the lives of our troops, as this senior interrogator in Iraq explains. ...

What's A Posse Commitatus?
Newshoggers.com — ... This goes to the other side of how this nation is changing radically - with a series of programs conceived largely by executive fiat that weakens civil liberties protections and subverts the plain letter of the law. This includes illegal wiretapping of American citizens, indefinite detention of prisoners without charges, and the dehumanizing practice of torture, which is ineffective and deeply dangerous to the lives of our troops. ...

What's A Posse Comitatus?
Crooks and Liars — ... This goes to the other side of how this nation is changing radically - with a series of programs conceived largely by executive fiat that weakens civil liberties protections and subverts the plain letter of the law. This includes illegal wiretapping of American citizens, indefinite detention of prisoners without charges, and the dehumanizing practice of torture, which is ineffective and deeply dangerous to the lives of our troops. ...

Mumbai: Tortured Confessions and The Justification For War
Newshoggers.com — ... I've one word of caution for those reading about culpability for Mumbai - and that word is "Gitmo." Western readers are already familiar with the stories of "enhanced interrogations" there and at other US-run sites around the world in pursuit of the "war on terror", and have read in detail about how such interrogations produce intelligence that is entirely untrustworthy because tortured suspects will tell their questioners whatever they want to hear. Well, ...

Lunch Links
The Agitator — ... Here’s a pretty incredible op-ed by a former military interrogator in Iraq. His own story and stand on principle is moving. The reaction from the government is depressing. ...

Retired generals want torture revoked
Newshoggers.com — ... a Washington Post op-ed, written by a former interrogator, arguing for an end to the use of torture by American forces.  I included this comment: ...

An unrefutable case against torture
Unqualified Offerings — By Thoreau I should have blogged this earlier, but over the weekend the WaPo ran a piece by a former military interrogator who oversaw more than 1,000 interrogations in Iraq.  This guy refused to torture anyone, and instead worked by building rapport with the people in custody.  Yeah, yeah, it sounds all soft and squishy and liberal hippie traitor and all that, but it actually worked.  OTOH, ...

The Case of the Telltale Hoax
Antiwar.com Original — ... : it's going to make things much worse . Fighting terrorists effectively rather than politically – that is, with an eye to the voting public – is like a toxic cleanup: you want to consolidate the nasty stuff and keep it all in one place, not spread it around. Yet that is ...

Interrogator On Daily Show: 'I Never Saw Coercive Methods Pay Off'
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... RELATED: I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq [Washington Post]

Interrogator On Daily Show: 'I Never Saw Coercive Methods Pay Off'
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... RELATED: I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq [Washington Post] More on Video On HuffPost<br style="clear: both;"/> <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:ea93c3a162ebe056eb89e3c95d2112e2:04pCA%2F83G10v7PC64ESu46uYFzctgPeOqsqI0JXoJ%2BGMC9eKSEreI50uV6KLUVXzckpmLUC3ctYgKQ%3D%3D'><img border='0' title='Add to StumbleUpon' alt='Add to StumbleUpon' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif'/></a> <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' ...

Burrowing Guantanamo?
Daily Kos — ... The words of "Matthew Alexander," are instructive here. Alexander (a pseudonym) is a former Air Force counterintelligence agent who led an interrogations team assigned to the Special Operations task force in Iraq that was responsible for the intelligence that led to Zarqawi. ...

David Latt: Cheney Taunts Bush, Pardon Me or Else
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... " in interviews and articles, a former interrogator, Matthew Alexander, has argued that the abusive interrogation techniques the administration approved didn't make us safer, they actually cost American lives. ...

National Security Community on Torture: "If we're afraid of bloggers, how can we take on al-Qaeda?"
Open Left - Front Page — ... I don't believe that either of these are true, nor do I think that this attitude is uniformly held within the intelligence community.  It's long been well-understood by counter-terrorism experts that torture does not produce reliable information, and as Matthew Alexander noted, American use of torture was one of the main recruiting tools of Al Qaeda.  But Kamen's reporting and his use of the word 'everyone' suggests that the view of all intelligence officials are uniformly organized around the need to torture and illegally wiretap.  That's absurd, but it's what he ...

Kansas Politicians Standing In The Way Of Closing Gitmo
Think Progress — ... The U.S. military officer who led the interrogation team that rapidly and humanely persuaded one of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s associates to give up his location leading to his death in a 2006 airstrike recently wrote in the Washington Post that he “learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo… It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse.” ...

Scarborough: ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard’ that torture doesn’t work.
Think Progress — ... Scarborough condescendingly asked Freeland, “Should we just bring them a birthday cake and ask them what soccer match they’d like to see?” In fact, the interrogator who successfully brought down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — and who has written and ...

Newsweek Writer’s Story Claiming That Torture Might Work Contradicts His 2006 Article Saying That It Doesn’t
Think Progress — ... have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts Newsweek’s recent claim that torture is effective fails to consider the consequences of its usage. Not only has torture caused the United States to lose standing in the world, but the perception that the U.S. tortures “directly and swiftly” helps terrorists recruit. – Michael Wilson ...

Torture Lover John Yoo Excoriates Obama For Banning Torture
Think Progress — ... avert future attacks, it provides an opportunity for our enemies to obtain intelligence on us. Considering the Bush administration repeatedly insisted its use of coercive techniques was “limited,” it would be a far stretch even for loyal Bushies to suggest that torture is not the one and only method to obtaining information. And as ThinkProgress has made clear again and again, numerous intelligence experts and real interrogators agree that, far from being “the most effective intelligence tool,” ...

Torture Lover John Yoo Excoriates Obama For Banning Torture
The Hollywood Liberal — ... most effective intelligence tool to avert future attacks , it provides an opportunity for our enemies to obtain intelligence on us. Considering the Bush administration repeatedly insisted its use of coercive techniques was “ limited ,” it would be a far stretch even for loyal Bushies to suggest that torture is not the one and only method to obtaining information. And as ThinkProgress has made clear again and again, numerous intelligence experts and real interrogators agree that, far from being “the most effective intelligence tool,” torture ...

Torture Supporters Make Up Evidence To Support Torture
Wonk Room — ... As military interrogator Matthew Alexander wrote last November, not only doesn’t torture work, it actually makes Americans less safe. “The No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked [to Iraq] to fight,” wrote Alexander, “were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” ...

New York Times Accepts Premise That Torture Memos Reveal Too Much, Despite Their Own News Reports
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... But, you know, just in case the New York Times has entered some new era in which they cannot believe that they have actually been reporting news, all this while, we could also take the word of an actual interrogator. Here's Matthew Alexander, explaining to the Washington Post that terrorists are pretty much aware of our torture regime: ...

New York Times Accepts Premise That Torture Memos Reveal Too Much, Despite Their Own News Reports
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... But, you know, just in case the New York Times has entered some new era in which they cannot believe that they have actually been reporting news, all this while, we could also take the word of an actual interrogator. Here's Matthew Alexander, explaining to the Washington Post that terrorists are pretty much aware of our torture regime: ...

The Torture Lobby
Wonk Room — ... Simply put, there is not credible argument for the use of these “enhanced” techniques. Whatever information they produced — and again, there’s no evidence that they produced any — is surely outweighed by their functioning as a recruiting mechanism for terrorists. ...

The Torturer’s Apologist
Wonk Room — ... .” He also wrote that “the large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq…. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.” ...

The second half of the article
Political Animal — ... going to disregard morality, the law, and the importance of U.S. stature and leadership -- what about the "high value information"? I don't doubt that in some instances, torture led detainees to give up information U.S. officials wanted to know. I also don't doubt, however, that torture led detainees to say all kind of things just to make the pain stop, much of which was nonsense that led to a waste of officials' time. For that matter, we can also say with confidence that torture " cost American lives ," and produced intelligence that could have been acquired ...

How Many American Lives Were Lost Because of Torture?
Newshoggers.com — ... And far more to the point is that we also know that the torturing of captives by the U.S. cost American lives.  For those with a short memory, (or in the case of the apologists, a selective one), may I point you to the words of the man responsible for tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. ...

Torture Did Not Make Us Safer
Comments from Left Field — ... “Matthew Alexander,” a former military interrogator who uses a pseudonym for security reasons, is another such source.  His team’s non-coercive interrogation techniques led to the finding and killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ...

Joe Scarborough: Blame Dana Priest "If Planes Go Into Buildings" Because She Reported On Waterboarding
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... Joe Scarborough seems to think that the sadistic use of waterboarding has been an essential and successful component of our national security apparatus, when in truth, its a fantastic boon to terrorist recruiters. Apparently, however, these programs - torture, rendition, secret prisons - are so dear to him, that he'll be holding Washington Post reporter Dana Priest responsible for any further deaths related to terrorism. This is, as they say, bonkers: ...

Rice: Al Qaeda A Greater Threat Than Nazi Germany
Wonk Room — ... as a result of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, and a good portion of those as a direct result of the detention and interrogation methods that she continues to defend as necessary to protect Americans. ...

Kristol: Gitmo Has Been ‘Effective’
Wonk Room — ... Despite the fact that U.S. courts have slowly but surely rejected the Bush administration’s various rationales for it, Gitmo itself remains a potent symbol of American lawlessness, and a driver of anti-American sentiment. This has real consequences for U.S. national security. It raises the political costs for potential American allies and partners. Along with the reported abuses of detainees there and elsewhere, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay has been a significant radicalizing force for Islamic militants. So yes, it’s been effective — at getting ...

Kristol: ‘Literally, On Substance, There Is Now No Argument For Closing Guantanamo’
Think Progress — ... , Gitmo “remains a potent symbol of American lawlessness, and a driver of anti-American sentiment” and “raises the political costs for potential American allies and partners.” Addressing Kristol’s claim that Gitmo has been “effective,” Duss notes that it “has been a significant radicalizing force for Islamic militants” and adds, “So yes, it’s been effective — at getting American soldiers killed.” ...

How Dare He?
Obsidian Wings — ... I'm not going to rehearse again all the reasons to think that torture is immoral, does not work, and makes us less safe, not more. I've said all that many, many times before. What I do want to say is just this: ...

How Dare He?
Political Animal — ... which are after all the tactics that the other side uses, that when we adopt their methods, that we’re weakening security, not enhancing security, because it sort of makes a mockery of what we tell the rest of the world? CHENEY: Well, then you’d have to say that, in effect, we’re prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America." I'm not going to rehearse again all the reasons to think that torture is immoral, does not work, and makes us less safe, not more. I've ...

Key McChrystal Success The Result Of No Torture
Wonk Room — ... , it’s good to remember that, according to the interrogator responsible for generating the intelligence that led directly to Zarqawi, that information was gotten using traditional interrogation methods and without recourse to the abusive measures that were apparently commonplace in McChrystal’s unit. ...

Former Interrogator Slams Cheney Over Torture Policy
Open Left - Front Page — ... Alexander, who writes under that pseudonym for security purposes, first voiced this opinion in a WaPo Op-Ed last fall entitled, "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq."  His experience has become widely regarded as proof Cheney's interrogation policy was not only morally bankrupt, but endangered thousands of Americans serving in Iraq as well.  Last Sunday on   ...

ZP Heller: Former Interrogator Slams Cheney Over Torture Policy
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... Alexander, who writes under that pseudonym for security purposes, first voiced this opinion in a WaPo Op-Ed last fall entitled, "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq." His experience has become widely regarded as proof Cheney's interrogation policy was not only morally bankrupt, but endangered thousands of Americans serving in Iraq as well. Last Sunday on ...

The Next Terrorist Attack on US Soil, Courtesy of Dick Cheney’s Dark Side
Firedoglake — ... Just to review, we have Cheney coming out five days after 9/11 to tell the world that the US would abandon human rights considerations in its fight against terrorism. Cheney takes the lead role in developing torture as a policy and even personally leads the effort to keep torture as a tool when Congress begins to rebel. What has this policy gotten us? Here's former interrogator Matthew Alexander, in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post: ...

Shahid Buttar: Secrecy Sacrificing National Security
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... potentially rising to the level of treason. U.S. Air Force Major Matthew Alexander, who led a team of interrogators in Iraq and conducted over 300 interrogations himself, recently wrote that "the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked [to Iraq] to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." ...

McChrystal Acknowledges Growth of Insurgency; Seems Tragically Ignorant of Why
Firedoglake — ... McChrystal has all of the pieces lying there in front of him to understand how new terrorists are created in Afghanistan, but he refuses to see how his personal policy of detaining innocent citizens, torturing them and then keeping them in prison with no hope of release is what radicalizes them far more than any indoctrination from fellow detainees. Further, as Matthew Alexander has pointed out with regard to Iraq, the knowledge of these practices serves to recruit even more terrorists from outside the area: ...