CIA tortured suspects 'until the point of death': report

[wandasloan]

As much as I want to see justice bad guys get punished in these cases, I don't get behind extreme torture. Moderate torture, ok. Next question: where do you draw the line?

Well the headline says right off the bat that no one died. The story went into a bit of detail on the medical care provided to ensure no one died OR suffered permanent harm - and indeed it seems that no one suffered permanent harm of any sort. Myself, I'd call that moderate.

What has not been explained in my view or hearing is just WHY this went on and on with Khalid and with others. The ultimate goal or purpose of it was what? Was it gratuitous? If not, why continuous for so long? To me that's the strange part and the questionable part.

.

[sgtsabai]

I would like to see Nuremberg invoked on those that not only did torture but those that allowed it, i.e. Dick "shotgun" Cheney and GW "the deserter" Bush, AKA cheney/shrub et al. Life isn't a tv show, i.e 24 Hours, a real piece of propaganda trash. We did many things wrong in my war, Vietnam, that I'm not proud off, and please note I said "we". I would have never done what was systematically done by the cheney/bush regime. They are war criminals, those that refuse to prosecute them are war criminals and should be tried as such. Let us have another Nuremberg Trial. Keep GitMo open for those that really belong there.

[wandasloan]

Lordy, Lordy, just think of the noise and the righteous condemnation if it were Americans being tortured...

The whole reason for waterboarding al-Qaeda terrorists was because every US fighter-pilot was-and-still-is waterboarded as part of his training - what to expect, for example, if captured.

So there was no noise and indignation, actually. Only when terrorists were waterboarded did the righteousness begin on the subject.

.

[rijb]

Lordy, Lordy, just think of the noise and the righteous condemnation if it were Americans being tortured...

If you cut off their heads or drive an airplane into their buildings, you're going to get a lot more than 'righteous condemnation'...

You're going to get a visit from lots of angry people in uniform. And they'll bring the noise.

[HerbalEd]

The CIA tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, that killed and maimed thousands of innocent people. What a shame.

Has he actually been tried and convicted? No. However, if and when he is, then I say hang him slow.

[pedro01]

The CIA werent cutting heads off were they?

This is just fodder for raving liberals to rave about.

We should treat these Muslim Extremists with the contempt they have for us.

Keep them in pigs pens and have women decapitate them in front of their fellow terrorists and let the pigs eat the remains. No 72 virgins, no paradise.

That might loosen a few lips.

The West has been too soft for too long. We should not treat everybody the same. These people want to end us. The kid gloves should come off.

Bravo CIA.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[boomerangutang]

Very Cruel. Id just Shoot the Bastards.

Then you don't get any useful info.

Make them listen to ....Thai pop music,.....

No, Aaaaaah, A thousand times no! I'll give you all my money, my wife, my left kidney, ....just turn off the Thai pop music, pleeeeeeeeaaaase!

Seriously though, I imagine if I were in the boots of the men in the room with the prisoner - what would I do? For me, it would be a matter of degrees, predicated on how bad the bad man was (his reputation and attitude, etc), and how much info it was assumed he had. Other prisoners might say things like; "I don't know anything more about such and such, but Moham Mad #7 knows something." I would keep in mind the man's history (of making trouble) and possible links to others POI (people of interest) and so on.

[ChoakMyDee]

I'd like to see video of the torture. I'd play it every time I see a report of an innocent journalist being beheaded. It may make me feel a little bit better.

[boomerangutang]

Here's a little comic relief in the form of a joke in bad taste:

two brothers, one can hear, the other deaf, go to a doctor.

The normal brother says, "Doc, can you help my bother talk? We've been to a dozen doctors, and none can help. He doesn't even try to speak."

Doc says, "Well, I'll try. Just have your brother strip his clothes off and lie down on the padded seat, face down."

Deaf brother does it.

Doctor gets a broomstick and rams it up the deaf man's rectum.

"HAAAAAaaaaaay!" the deaf man screams.

Doctor says. "That's good. Tomorrow we'll work on letter B."

[arjunadawn]

The CIA tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, that killed and maimed thousands of innocent people. What a shame.

Has he actually been tried and convicted? No. However, if and when he is, then I say hang him slow.

He should not be prosecuted at all for this act.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'm not sure if this is the latest, but Wiki has this entry on the status of the actual prosecutions against these guys:

Following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, his administration undertook a review of the Guantanamo cases to determine how to pursue them. In November 2009, according to an Administration official, Mohammed was being transferred from Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a federal trial.^[114] Four other detainees will be facing trial in front of civilian federal court, as well.

On January 22, 2010, the Pentagon officially dropped military charges against Mohammed and the four other alleged conspirators, clearing the path for likely transfer from Guantanamo to a location in the United States to face charges in a civilian federal court.^[115]

On August 22, 2012, the government said that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators will not be televised and may not begin for another four years.^[116]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#Trial_for_9.2F11

If these guys are guilty, then they should have been tried and convicted in either military or civilian court, not left to be tortured and in legal limbo for years and years.

But one of the problematic question is: how can they ever be convicted in court now given the quite extensive record of exceptional torture that's been used against them, and played a significant role in their confessions?

[arjunadawn]

I'd like to see video of the torture. I'd play it every time I see a report of an innocent journalist being beheaded. It may make me feel a little bit better.

Has it not dawned on you yet that the reason a totally innocent American's head was cut off was probably because of the anger and disgust in the world at the torture of innocent people by the CIA?

No, actually it has not dawned on me, at least. America has no history of employing beheadings as a conduct of war. However, Islam promotes, condones, insists upon beheading. Islam=war! Islam=beheadings!

Aba Hakam was severely wounded but still alive when Abdullah, the servant of Muhammad, ran up, put his foot on Aba Hakam’s neck, got a hold of his beard and started insulting the fatally wounded man whom his own people had named “the father of wisdom.” Abdullah cut off Abba Hakam’s head and carried it to his master. "The head of the enemy of Allah!" exclaimed Muhammad joyously; ---- "Allah! There is no other god but he!" - "Yea There is no other!" responded Abdullah, as he cast the severed head at the Prophet’s feet. "It is more acceptable to me;" cried Muhammad, hardly able to contain his joy, "than the choicest camel in all Arabia.”

Khalid said, “O Allah, if you deliver their shoulders to us, I will obligate myself to You not to leave any one of them whom we can overcome until I make their canal run with their blood.” Then Allah defeated them for the Muslims and gave their shoulders to them. Khalid then commanded to his herald to proclaim to his men, “Capture! Capture! Do not kill any except he who continues to resist.” As a result the calvary brought prisoners in droves, driving them along. Khalid had detailed certain men to cut off their heads in the canal. He did that to them for a day and a night. They pursued them the next day and the day after, until they reached the Nahrayn and the like of that distance in every direction from Ullays. And Khalid cut off their heads.

Some of Khalid’s men proclaimed to him:

“even if you were to kill all the population of the earth, their blood would still not run… Therefore send water over it, so that you may fulfill your oath.” Khalid had blocked the water from the canal. Now Khalid brought the water back, so that it flowed with spilled blood. Owing to this it has been called Blood Canal to this day.

In 680, the Prophet's favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid's capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph's soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein's 71 male companions, including the one-yeaBabur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern revisionist historians, recorded the following in his autobiographical “Baburnama,” about infidel prisoners of a jihad campaign: "Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp."r-old baby boy Ali-Asghar.

In 1842 the Afghani Muslims overtook the British garrison in Kabul and beheaded over 2000 men, women and children. The heads were placed on sticks around the city as decorations.

In 1992, the mullahs sent a "specialist" to cut off the head of Shapour Bakhtiar, the shah's last prime minister, in a suburb of Paris. When the news broke, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president of the Islamic Republic, publicly thanked Allah for having allowed "the severing of the head of the snake."

In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children. In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage. Last time we checked, Momo was still at large somewhere in Algeria.

Rival Sunni and <deleted> groups have made a habit of sending chopped off heads of each other’s activists by special delivery. By one estimate, over 400 heads have been chopped off and mailed since 1990.

The Saudi government beheaded 52 men and one woman last year for crimes including murder, homosexuality, armed robbery and drug trafficking… A condemned convict is brought into the courtyard, hands tied, and forced to bow before an executioner, who swings a huge sword amid cries from onlookers of "Allahu Akbar!", Arabic for "God is great."

[arjunadawn]

(Cont) Beheadings are most definitely a jiahdi depravity. You ARE their enemy; know their authority.

47:4: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), strike off their heads; at length; then when you have made wide Slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives”: thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.”
47:4 “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…”
47:4: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks…”

5:33: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution [by beheading], or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.”
5:33: Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides…”

8:12: “I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off.”
8:12: “Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.”
8:12: “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers.”

[Johpa]

Torture is a slippery slope once a people make it part of their arsenal. But when the threat weighed against a people is existential, the rights of the individual should not prevail. I remain uncertain where we draw the line, or when we employ such a tactic.

Your thoughts are similar to mine. War is always ugly and - IMO - such tactics are sometimes just, but it depends on who they are used on and why. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was justified in my opinion, if anyone ever was.

I suggest reading Ali Soufan's book The Black Banners where he claims that all the useful intelligence gleaned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed was obtained using traditional police style interview techniques well before the CIA and their waterboarding supporters became involved in the interrogations.

[lovetotravel]

I'd like to see video of the torture. I'd play it every time I see a report of an innocent journalist being beheaded. It may make me feel a little bit better.

Has it not dawned on you yet that the reason a totally innocent American's head was cut off was probably because of the anger and disgust in the world at the torture of innocent people by the CIA?

Or perhaps for money?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Beheaded-journalist-Steven-Sotloff-was-sold-by-moderate-Syrian-militants-to-ISIS/articleshow/42106794.cms

"We believe that these so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support, one of them sold him probably for something between $25,000 and $50,000 to ISIS, and that was the reason he was captured," Barfi told Cooper crediting what he called "sources on the ground".

[Ulysses G.]

Torture is a slippery slope once a people make it part of their arsenal. But when the threat weighed against a people is existential, the rights of the individual should not prevail. I remain uncertain where we draw the line, or when we employ such a tactic.

Your thoughts are similar to mine. War is always ugly and - IMO - such tactics are sometimes just, but it depends on who they are used on and why. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was justified in my opinion, if anyone ever was.

I suggest reading Ali Soufan's book The Black Banners where he claims that all the useful intelligence gleaned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed was obtained using traditional police style interview techniques well before the CIA and their waterboarding supporters became involved in the interrogations.

Another good book is The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden, by Mark Bowden. He spent time with the C.I.A.s deputy director, Michael Morell; the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon; as well as with Rhodes and he came to the opposite conclusion: that Bin Ladin was caught because of information gleaned from Bush's enhanced information program.

[Johpa]

I suggest reading Ali Soufan's book The Black Banners where he claims that all the useful intelligence gleaned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed was obtained using traditional police style interview techniques well before the CIA and their waterboarding supporters became involved in the interrogations.

Another good book is The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden, by Mark Bowden. He spent time with the C.I.A.s deputy director, Michael Morell; the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon; as well as with Rhodes and he came to the opposite conclusion: that Bin Ladin was caught because of information gleaned from Bush's enhanced information program.

Bowden depended upon access to CIA sources for the larger narrative for his book so it is not surprising that he accepted the CIA version of events relative to the interrogation. The CIA and Soufan (former FBI) are at odds here and there are competing narratives. But having read Soufan's book and listening to his interviews I find him very credible.

[Ulysses G.]

But having read Soufan's book and listening to his interviews I find him very credible.

I feel the same way about Mark Bowden and other sources that I have read, that support his point of view.

[Toany]

And the USA judges every other country on their human rights and tries to tell Thailand what to do.

Take the plank out of you own eye before you try to take the.splinter from the eye of another

[coma]

Guess they shouldn"t have put themselves in a position to be suspects then.

[F430murci]

Tough call here. Dispicable to torture, but when the frickrard just orchestrated a high jack of 4 airliners and killed that many people . . ., it would seem that efforts to extract information to determine whether there was a similar plan in the works at that time would warrant the treatment. How many injured, dead, maimed, children without fathers and those still suffering today?

The lesson is don't target and kill US civilians on US soil through an act of terrorism or things could go very bad for you very quickly. If theses measures used on bad people kept at least one good US citizen from being hurt or killed, then so be it. Get out of the terrorism/crazy Muslim business if you don't like the consequences or prospect of becoming a medieval science experiment.

[arjunadawn]

(Cont) Beheadings are most definitely a jiahdi depravity. You ARE their enemy; know their authority.

47:4: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), strike off their heads; at length; then when you have made wide Slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives”: thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.”

47:4 “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…”

47:4: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks…”

5:33: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution [by beheading], or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.”

5:33: Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides…”

8:12: “I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off.”

8:12: “Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.”

8:12: “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers.”

'Unbelievers' here and 'unbelievers' there....was it codeword for 'liberal' in those days?

Yea, might as well have been. In the beginning, the folks in Mecca tolerated this new Islam. It wasn't all together alien to them, the god part, as Al Lah and his consort Al Lat were two of many gods that were worshiped at the kaaba. It is quoted that they once said "Why do you always say we persecute you and we hate you; we do not. We just want you to stop disrespecting our gods (paraphrase)."

As their power in Medina finally became significant, they returned to Mecca and warred upon their former neighbors, sparing few. "Unbelievers" were not just "people of the book" but the polytheists of Mecca. Atheism was hardly foremost in their minds. But this standard- 1) tolerance while they were weak, 2) defensive warfare while transitioning to Medina because they had to, and 3) offensive warfare once they amassed enough power- became the three division standard of waging jihad throughout the world. Indeed, the koran is divided in this manner that is why as the suras progress it becomes more and more violent. Couple this with the underlying islamic practice of "abrogation" (where any early passage that is in conflict with a later passage is replaced by that later passage, IAW the prophet's instruction that god has the power and right to reverse previous commands and the koran reflects this).

Thus the koran really is both an account of the passing of lives in the formation of Islam, and an instruction book on waging war in the name of their god. At every point in the spectrum of jiad, from migration, to protesting persecution, to claiming intolerance, to slowly foisting sharia on the host, to open warfare... the koran provides the guidance in exactly these steps. Knowing this... really seeing this... one cannot then ever unsee this; all current islamic acts are then realized to collectively be promoting global domination. When considering whether extraordinary steps should be taken to make people divulge information, and being aware those you fight have a blueprint that covers not only the warring, but the lying and dissembling as civilians to further jihad, you must push further than you would a bank robber. This is why the ludicrous notion of trying jihadis in the legal system is in fact furthering global jihad. This cannot be in the legal system and legal rulings cannot apply. We don't want these people in our prisons either as this enables them to further action their jihad and harm our civilization, a double insult to the citizens of the west.

(In keeping with the misogyny that would become a cornerstone of the faith, Al Lat was excised out to make Al Lah more in keeping with Elohim; after all, significant material was plagiarized from the very "pigs and apes" they would come to eternally hate).

[hard124get]

I would like to see Nuremberg invoked on those that not only did torture but those that allowed it, i.e. Dick "shotgun" Cheney and GW "the deserter" Bush, AKA cheney/shrub et al. Life isn't a tv show, i.e 24 Hours, a real piece of propaganda trash. We did many things wrong in my war, Vietnam, that I'm not proud off, and please note I said "we". I would have never done what was systematically done by the cheney/bush regime. They are war criminals, those that refuse to prosecute them are war criminals and should be tried as such. Let us have another Nuremberg Trial. Keep GitMo open for those that really belong there.

Cheney Bush and Blair are war crims alright, but don't ask for another Nuremberg. That was the biggest sham in history, and relied on torture for the confessions !

[spidermike007]

I'd like to see video of the torture. I'd play it every time I see a report of an innocent journalist being beheaded. It may make me feel a little bit better.

Has it not dawned on you yet that the reason a totally innocent American's head was cut off was probably because of the anger and disgust in the world at the torture of innocent people by the CIA?

No, actually it has not dawned on me, at least. America has no history of employing beheadings as a conduct of war. However, Islam promotes, condones, insists upon beheading. Islam=war! Islam=beheadings!

Aba Hakam was severely wounded but still alive when Abdullah, the servant of Muhammad, ran up, put his foot on Aba Hakam’s neck, got a hold of his beard and started insulting the fatally wounded man whom his own people had named “the father of wisdom.” Abdullah cut off Abba Hakam’s head and carried it to his master. "The head of the enemy of Allah!" exclaimed Muhammad joyously; ---- "Allah! There is no other god but he!" - "Yea There is no other!" responded Abdullah, as he cast the severed head at the Prophet’s feet. "It is more acceptable to me;" cried Muhammad, hardly able to contain his joy, "than the choicest camel in all Arabia.”

Khalid said, “O Allah, if you deliver their shoulders to us, I will obligate myself to You not to leave any one of them whom we can overcome until I make their canal run with their blood.” Then Allah defeated them for the Muslims and gave their shoulders to them. Khalid then commanded to his herald to proclaim to his men, “Capture! Capture! Do not kill any except he who continues to resist.” As a result the calvary brought prisoners in droves, driving them along. Khalid had detailed certain men to cut off their heads in the canal. He did that to them for a day and a night. They pursued them the next day and the day after, until they reached the Nahrayn and the like of that distance in every direction from Ullays. And Khalid cut off their heads.

Some of Khalid’s men proclaimed to him:

“even if you were to kill all the population of the earth, their blood would still not run… Therefore send water over it, so that you may fulfill your oath.” Khalid had blocked the water from the canal. Now Khalid brought the water back, so that it flowed with spilled blood. Owing to this it has been called Blood Canal to this day.

In 680, the Prophet's favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid's capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph's soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein's 71 male companions, including the one-yeaBabur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern revisionist historians, recorded the following in his autobiographical “Baburnama,” about infidel prisoners of a jihad campaign: "Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp."r-old baby boy Ali-Asghar.

In 1842 the Afghani Muslims overtook the British garrison in Kabul and beheaded over 2000 men, women and children. The heads were placed on sticks around the city as decorations.

In 1992, the mullahs sent a "specialist" to cut off the head of Shapour Bakhtiar, the shah's last prime minister, in a suburb of Paris. When the news broke, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president of the Islamic Republic, publicly thanked Allah for having allowed "the severing of the head of the snake."

In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children. In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage. Last time we checked, Momo was still at large somewhere in Algeria.

Rival Sunni and groups have made a habit of sending chopped off heads of each other’s activists by special delivery. By one estimate, over 400 heads have been chopped off and mailed since 1990.

The Saudi government beheaded 52 men and one woman last year for crimes including murder, homosexuality, armed robbery and drug trafficking… A condemned convict is brought into the courtyard, hands tied, and forced to bow before an executioner, who swings a huge sword amid cries from onlookers of "Allahu Akbar!", Arabic for "God is great."

The Saudi govt. and their royal family are the main supporters of the Wahhabi faith, the most extreme form of Islam on the planet. Zero tolerance. That strikes me as the opposite of spirituality. A complete absence of wisdom. Wahhabism is an abomination against the creator. It is positively heinous. And yes the Saudis do support the spread of terror. They are the true enemy of the west.

[simple1]

The Saudi govt. and their royal family are the main supporters of the Wahhabi faith, the most extreme form of Islam on the planet. Zero tolerance. That strikes me as the opposite of spirituality. A complete absence of wisdom. Wahhabism is an abomination against the creator. It is positively heinous. And yes the Saudis do support the spread of terror. They are the true enemy of the west.

Yes, yet US & NATO countries, in their regional self interest, have supported the Saudis, UAE & Kuwait who have funded Islamic extremism for years.

[Scott]

Off-topic post deleted. There is some interesting material being posted, but please make an effort to tie it into the topic of the thread.