9/11 Mastermind Waterboarded 183 Times

[quidmonkey]

September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, it has emerged.

The repeated use of the technique was sure to raise questions about its effectiveness in CIA interrogations.

New Justice Department documents show that CIA interrogators also used the waterboarding technique - which simulates drowning - on another al Qaeda suspect 83 times at a secret prison in Thailand, the New York Times reported.

A former CIA agent had told news media that the suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was subjected to only 35 seconds underwater before talking.

Zubaydah was the first prisoner questioned in the CIA's overseas detention program in August 2002.

A footnote to a 2005 memo regarding his captivity noted that the harsh methods may have in fact been 'unnecessary'. Interrogators believed Zubaydah had given up all useful information he had after other methods - but were ordered by officials at headquarters to waterboard him anyway, the New York Times reported.

CIA, you're doing it (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1172062/9-11-mastermind-waterboarded-183-times-CIA-documents-show.html) wrong.

[National Kato]

35 seconds...

[TheFlyingOrc]

I cannot feel bad about this, and I'm trying.

[CES]

That's a disgrace. They should have went for an even 200.

[Zero]

Yeah, I'm very anti-torture, but this doesn't bother me in the least.

[OldeWolf]

Should have hired Jack Bauer to do the waterboarding torturing. The world would've been at peace a long time ago.

[Johan]

35 seconds...

I was thinking more along these lines. :) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmKRyLdBho)

[Narradisall]

35 seconds...

Is it bad I also thought "What a pussy"

[National Kato]

Is it bad I also thought "What a pussy"

Actually, ABC News once reported (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866) that CIA officers undergoing the technique lasted on average for 14 seconds before caving in.

They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. So, no...not a pussy. However, if you choose to disagree with ABC News and those officers interviewed and decide to believe that 35 seconds is no time at all, then it only reinforces how terrible an experience it really is.

Actually, both opinions result in the same conclusion: waterboarding is torture, figuratively or literally.

[Shrinn]

It's torture, but like many others I have a really hard time feeling sorry for him. You do certain things, you lose your rights.

[Narradisall]

Actually, ABC News once reported (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866) that CIA officers undergoing the technique lasted on average for 14 seconds before caving in.

So, no...not a pussy. However, if you choose to disagree with ABC News and those officers interviewed and decide to believe that 35 seconds is no time at all, then it only reinforces how terrible an experience it really is.

Actually, both opinions result in the same conclusion: waterboarding is torture, figuratively or literally.

I'm sitting on the fence on this subject atm tbh. 14 seconds? Thats even worse!

I'd honestly be interested in trying this. I nearly drowned once, and it was NOT the plesant experience people harp on about it being. I'd be interested in trying waterboarding to see what its like.

[National Kato]

I'd honestly be interested in trying this. I nearly drowned once, and it was NOT the plesant experience people harp on about it being. I'd be interested in trying waterboarding to see what its like.

Keep in mind that when you 'try' it, you'll always know that your friends/family/compadres will not let you die or prolong your waterboarding beyond safe limits. They will honor your wishes for it to stop when you ask, so your fear level will be lessened by that knowledge of safety.

A typical prisoner does not have this feeling or safety net.

[cppcrusader]

Keep in mind that when you 'try' it, you'll always know that your friends/family/compadres will not let you die or prolong your waterboarding beyond safe limits. They will honor your wishes for it to stop when you ask, so your fear level will be lessened by that knowledge of safety.

A typical prisoner does not have this feeling or safety net.

As Jon Stewart pointed out, I would think by the 90th time they would.

[Narradisall]

Keep in mind that when you 'try' it, you'll always know that your friends/family/compadres will not let you die or prolong your waterboarding beyond safe limits. They will honor your wishes for it to stop when you ask, so your fear level will be lessened by that knowledge of safety.

A typical prisoner does not have this feeling or safety net.

Sorry, that makes little logical sense to me. I understand people can die in torture, but isn't the point of it to learn what they know, dead men tell no tales.

Besides I've experienced near death, not thinking I'd survive drowning. Oddly enough it wasn't that bit that concerned me. The fucking pain in my throat and lungs did though.

[National Kato]

Sorry, that makes little logical sense to me. I understand people can die in torture, but isn't the point of it to learn what they know, dead men tell no tales.

I wasn't just speaking of death, although you need only go into the other torture thread in this forum to see that sometimes, well...they die.

What I was trying to imply was that when you're lying down 'experimenting' with this funny thing called waterboarding and you decide you're uncomfortable after about five seconds, you can tap your hands or call out and your friends/family will stop and let you breathe - because they love you and they're sort of scared of killing you and this whole thing is a joke anyway, right?

What happens when you're tied down securely in a dark room, attended by a few strangers who do not, in any way, like you and you tap out or struggle after those five seconds? Do you think they'll stop and let you breathe or do you think they'll wait for the medical physician and psychologist to nod their heads when they think you've had enough? What if you don't know the answer to their question? At what point will they let you up and you'll know your waterboarding experience is over and you can go back to hanging out with your friends, drinking pints, and laughing?

This opinion (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/) from a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California, has some intimate descriptions of the process and debunks the 'simulated drowning' concept (starting at #2):

It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.Or from Steven G. Bradbury in the recently declassified memos (http://waterboarding.org/):


In addition, you have indicated that the detainee as a countermeasure may swallow water, possibly in significant quantities. For that reason; based on advice of medical personnel, the C.I.A. requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia (i.e., reduced concentration of sodium in the blood) if the detainee drinks the water.It might be worth a read if, as you say, you want to try this out and do it correctly. You might want to have a doctor present, however. I'd hate for you to do it wrong and suffer any ill effects.

[Ink Asylum]

Kind of off topic, but discussing the distinction between someone testing waterboarding on themselves as opposed to inflicting it on a prisoner, I'm reminded of a Mythbusters episode where they tested Chinese Water Torture (restraining a prisoner's head and slowly dripping water onto the center of their forehead).

wFFslAjUyj4

Despite being in a well lit room in a place she works every day, surrounded by friends, and assured that she'll be released within moments if requested, there's a disturbing point where she almost has a nervous breakdown just from answering some simple questions.

[National Kato]

Agreed, Ink. It's a joke to think one can 'try' waterboarding and have the same experience and intensity of punishment, and thus the same grasp of the procedure, as those in captivity in a hostile environment.

[Ink Asylum]

Your body will have similar physical and mental reactions but they will be greatly mitigated by the knowledge that you are perfectly safe and free.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Despite being in a well lit room in a place she works every day, surrounded by friends, and assured that she'll be released within moments if requested, there's a disturbing point where she almost has a nervous breakdown just from answering some simple questions.

Right, and we clearly need to take special precaution before anything of this type is ever used. However, horrific things happening to people who are certainly terrorists is probably never going to bother me.

[National Kato]

Your body will have similar physical reactions but they will be greatly mitigated by the mental knowledge that you are essentially safe.

Do you really think your friends will let you swallow 'significant quantities' of water? I think the physical reactions would be mitigated as well.

[Ox]

Your body will have similar physical and mental reactions but they will be greatly mitigated by the knowledge that you are perfectly safe and free.
Ink, I really don't think you want to say this. It's exactly what Cheney is saying.

See, the President is reforming interrogations. There will probably be some sort of coercion (if only deprivation of TV privileges) involved. And he's going to make the standards public. Cheney is saying that's a bad idea, because if the terrorists know exactly how far we're willing to go and how far we're not willing to go, their fear will be greatly mitigated by the knowledge they are perfectly safe within those limits. With this knowledge, the coercion will be less effective.

I know you don't want to agree with Dick Cheney about anything, especially anything related to coercive interrogation. And I don't think you have to agree with him here. You can easily use that video to argue that coercion operates on a brain-stem level beyond the reach of reason: even though the woman knew perfectly well she was safe, the more primitive parts of her brain could not accept that and she freaked out. Even after being removed from the torture device, she took a long time to calm down and stop panicking. Rational thought was simply irrelevant: she reacted in exactly the same way as someone who didn't know he was safe would act, or how a dumb animal would react. This argument is sustainable and, more importantly, doesn't echo Dick Cheney.

[Ink Asylum]

I don't agree with Cheney because I don't think it makes America less safe. In Zabaidah's case we didn't get any new information from waterboarding. All actionable intelligence was gained from non-torture methods. After that we got useless information that wasted resources following false leads.

So torture makes us less safe because we're given false information and waste time and resources following them up that could be spent elsewhere. It also makes us less safe because a worldview of a US that tortures, whether it really does or not, is used as a recruitment tool for terrorists. Hearts and minds and all that.

I don't believe telling the world "We don't torture" and actually not torturing make us less safe. We don't need torture or the threat of torture to get information from detainees. Despite Dick Cheney's argument the world does not work like 24.

[Ox]

I don't agree with Cheney because I don't think it makes America less safe. In Zabaidah's case we didn't get any new information from waterboarding. All actionable intelligence was gained from non-torture methods. After that we got useless information that wasted resources following false leads.

So torture makes us less safe because we're given false information and waste time and resources following them up that could be spent elsewhere.
I'm not sure how that logic works. At some point, we had extracted all the actionable intelligence from Zabaidah he was ever going to give us. But we thought (erroneously) we could get more. If we had sweet-talked him 183 times instead of torturing him, wouldn't he have fed us bad intel? Wouldn't we have spent just as much time pursuing it and wasting time and resources? Would that demonstrate sweet-talking makes us less safe?

Well, now seeing that written on the screen, I guess it sort of does. But I think the underlying problem for both torture and sweet-talking is that you don't know when to stop. Both waste resources, but obviously excessive sweet-talking is less likely to give us moral qualms than excessive torture.

And anyway, I thought I was clear that some sub-torturous coercion is probably going to be used (I used the TV privileges example). Do you think removing any coercion at all is a good idea? Will that make us less safe?

It also makes us less safe because a worldview of a US that tortures, whether it really does or not, is used as a recruitment tool for terrorists.
And our perceived "weakness" is also a recruiting tool for terrorists. I'm coming to the conclusion that whatever we do, somebody out there will be filled with hatred/scorn/contempt/fear and become a terrorist. Unless I see data demonstrating that one action generates more terrorists than another, I think we should collectively decide to stop pretending there's a good option on that front.

[Ink Asylum]

I'm not sure how that logic works. At some point, we had extracted all the actionable intelligence from Zabaidah he was ever going to give us. But we thought (erroneously) we could get more. If we had sweet-talked him 183 times instead of torturing him, wouldn't he have fed us bad intel? Wouldn't we have spent just as much time pursuing it and wasting time and resources? Would that demonstrate sweet-talking makes us less safe?

Sweet-talking is going to get less bad intel because if a detainee has no more actionable intelligence he can just keep his mouth shut and that'll be it. If he's being tortured, though, he'll want to end the torture so he'll say anything, even if he has to make stuff up. If he keeps his mouth shut he's tortured more, a far less attractive option than being sweet-talked more, so make shit up it is. That's one of the biggest arguments against the effectiveness of torture.

And anyway, I thought I was clear that some sub-torturous coercion is probably going to be used (I used the TV privileges example). Do you think removing any coercion at all is a good idea? Will that make us less safe?

No. Clearly we need to use effective coercion that isn't torture. I believe that is more effective than using torture anyway, so that's why I believe Cheney is wrong.

And our perceived "weakness" is also a recruiting tool for terrorists. I'm coming to the conclusion that whatever we do, somebody out there will be filled with hatred/scorn/contempt/fear and become a terrorist. Unless I see data demonstrating that one action generates more terrorists than another, I think we should collectively decide to stop pretending there's a good option on that front.

Well, that's where the debate is right now. We've had seven years under Bush of trying the "We're going to do absolutely anything, up to and including torture, look how strong we are!" Has that worked out for us? If no one knows which way is more effective at reducing the number of terrorists shouldn't we use the method that doesn't result in death and torture?

[Johan]

Has that worked out for us?

Subsequent to 9-11, how many successful terrorist attacks have been perpetrated on U.S. soil? Zero.

That's the standard. If Obama's approach allows one, his approach would appear to be less appealing from the perspective of any possible dead, maimed, or otherwise impacted in a life-changing way.

[Ox]

Sweet-talking is going to get less bad intel because if a detainee has no more actionable intelligence he can just keep his mouth shut and that'll be it.
Why would he do that? If we're bribing him with more comfortable sheets or whatever, he'd obviously like those sheets. Allegedly, sweet-talking often elicits false confessions in ordinary criminal investigations. And then there's always the possibility that, as a terrorist, the detainee might not like us very much and would try to feed us bad intel.

That's one of the biggest arguments against the effectiveness of torture.
Yes, I understand that. But the argument assumes people being politely interrogated have no reason to lie. I must have missed that class.

No. Clearly we need to use effective coercion that isn't torture.
In complete seriousness and without any snideness at all: I would be genuinely interested in knowing what you think "effective coercion that isn't torture" would be. Examples would be great, as would some principle that would allow me to figure out whether a given coercion constituted torture or not.

Well, that's where the debate is right now. We've had seven years under Bush of trying the "We're going to do absolutely anything, up to and including torture, look how strong we are!" Has that worked out for us? If no one knows which way is more effective at reducing the number of terrorists shouldn't we use the method that doesn't result in death and torture?
Yes. That's not terribly far from exactly the reason I oppose torture. Add a little God talk and you're there.

[Narradisall]

Snip

I was actually thinking more along the lines of how much like drowning it is rather than how much of an effective method it is for gaining information.

I van understand in a controlled environment it wouldn't gain the same results in testing it as torture. Still I'd imagine the CIA make the lost effort to ensure ppl don't die if they need the info.

As for testing it, I doubt I'd ever try, it wouldn't be an effective test for torture techniques, but as for being safe.... You haven't met my friends...