Sadly, Michael Scheuer, author of this article in the Washington Post, does not seem to understand this. What is even more tragic is that his biographic info attached to the article reads:

"Michael Scheuer, the chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, is the author of "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq."

A summary of the article is this: we have to torture people because there might be a ticking time-bomb scenario and torture is not only the sole way of getting life saving, actionable intelligence, that is 100% accurate.

This article is full of illogical statements, massive leaps of faith, assumptions, and self delusion. A cursory reading by anyone with an IQ over "potted plant " level will realize this. But, let me point out a few of the juicier ones:

1. Note that the scenario is fictional. As in not real. Also, note that the author was in charge of catching Osama Bin Laden. Mr. Scheuer, it would be nice if this scenario was real, and Bin Laden was actually in custody. Perhaps you could spend less time writing fiction, and perhaps volunteer at the CIA to help capture him?

2. The author clearly demonstrates that he has no idea how terrorist groups based on cell structures work. In the scenario, Bin Laden, as the more-or-less head of Al Queda has operational and tactical intelligence about the exact timing and make up of a terror attack. Al Queda, in reality, works nothing like this. The principles of cell-based terror organizations are that: Cell A has no idea who is in Cell B, Cell A has no idea what Cell B is planning, Cell A does not even know Cell B exists. This insures that when you are captured (and tortured like Jack Bauer does in this weeks fully-erect episode of 24!), you have no information to give them, because you do not actually know anything about what goes on outside your cell. Cliff's notes: Bin Laden tells his terror-pals to "go out and do bad things to hurt the great satan that is America" via audio tapes, video messages, and notes that go through layers of cut outs and dead-drops.

3. Mr. Scheuer labels Obama's change in interrogation tactics as the President imposing his moral view on the rest of us. Completely wrong, Mr. Scheuer. Obama was elected by the majority of the voters in a democracy. He campaigned on changing the way we execute the War on "Terror." He also campaigned on closing Gitmo and ending torture. Therefore, he is not "imposing his own personal morality" on defense policy. He is imposing the morality of the nation, or at least the majority of the voters who bothered to show up on election day. This is how democracy works, Mr. Scheuer, the government does what the people say. If you do not support this view of government, you are welcome to move to more enlightened nations such as North Korea, or Cuba, where Dear Leader knows best.

At the risk of sounding redundant, it bears mentioning that in the real world, reality matters. Mr. Scheuers fanciful editorial might get him noticed by the producers of "24" who might offer him a consulting contract to help write episodes, but it will not help apprehend Bin Laden, nor will it help disrupt terror attacks that are being planned, or in the stages of execution.

 

Is it torture? Is it not? Here is a handy graphic, and then you can decide for yourself.




This certainly does not look pleasant.

Cheney confirms use of waterboarding

In radio interview, Cheney calls use of tactic a 'no-brainer.'

In a radio interview Tuesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that US interrogators have used a controversial technique know as waterboarding to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects. McClatchy's Washington bureau reports that Mr. Cheney said the White House does not see the practice as torture, and allows the CIA to use it. Cheney said use of waterboarding was a "no-brainer for him."

In the interview on Tuesday, Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D., told Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives."

"Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?" Hennen said.

"I do agree," Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday. "And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation."

Cheney added that Mohammed had provided "enormously valuable information about how many (al-Qaeda members) there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth. We've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that."

"Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" asked Hennen.

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president 'for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that."

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McClatchy also reports, however, that the US Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts, and many experts on the laws of war consider the technique to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by US law and by international treaties that prohibit torture." Some intelligence experts also say that it is an ineffective technique that often produces false information because people subjected to waterboarding will tell their interrogators anything to stop it.

Waterboarding involves holding "a person's head under water or pouring water on cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning until the subject agrees to talk or confess. ABCNews reported last year that it began as a practice in the 1500s during the Italian Inquisition. Soldiers who had used it during US conflicts in the 20th century have been court-martialed. It was declared illegal by US generals during the Vietnam War.

A spokeswoman for Cheney denied that he confirmed, or endorsed, the use of the tactic by US interrogators.

"What the vice president was referring to was an interrogation program without torture," she said. "The vice president never goes into what may or may not be techniques or methods of questioning."

The White House also posted the transcript of the interview on its website. The interview transcript, however, includes the section where the Vice President endorses the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique.

Last year, in an interview with the BBC, Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, said that in an internal Bush administration debate about the use of the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of detainees, Cheney led the argument to "do away with all restrictions."

In an opinion piece for Hearst newspapers last week, Helen Thomas wrote that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which sets up a system for trying detainees in military tribunals, also gives the President the right to decide what constitutes torture. White House spokesman Tony Snow later declined to say if waterboarding would be permissible under the new law. Three senior GOP senators who led the fight to enact the law believe that it does outlaw the technique, despite what the administration may feel.

In a piece for

he Washington Post, Stephen Richard, director of the Washington office of the Open Society Institute, writes that both those in the administration who argue that the new Military Commissions law gives them "clear authorization" for "enhanced techniques" and those critics who say it "legalizes torture" are both wrong. Richard writes that if CIA interrogators, who stopped using waterboarding and other controversial techniques last year after Congress passed the McCain amendment banning cruel treatment, allow the administration to convince them the new law gives them "carte blanche" to use whatever technique they want, "they will be at greater risk than they were last fall." He points out that in the past, the US has prosecuted every one of these techniques as a war crime.

ABCNews reported last year that CIA agents who subjected themselves to waterboarding lasted an average of 14 seconds before they "give in." Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of 9/11, is rumored to have won the "admiration" of his interrogators when he lasted almost two-and-a-half minutes before "begging to confess."