Torture and war

[wdmundt]

I was doing a little reading on the subject of torture and found this:

An al Qaeda commander who initially told interrogators that Iraq had provided chemical and biological weapons training to the terrorist organization later told CIA officers his statement was not true, according to intelligence officials.

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan captured in Pakistan on Nov. 11, 2001, later "changed his story, and we're still in the process of trying to determine what's right and what's not right" from his information, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "He told us one thing at one time and another at another time."

Al-Libi's statement formed the basis for the Bush administration's prewar claim that Osama bin Laden collaborated with Iraq, according to several U.S. officials.

In an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, for example, President Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases." Other senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in a speech to the United Nations, made similar assertions. Al-Libi's statements were the foundation of all of them.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30909-2004Jul31.html

And then there is this:

A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

Mr. Powell relied heavily on accounts provided by Mr. Libi for his speech to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, saying that he was tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda."

www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06intel.html?ex=1288933200&en=5a216116a0310ce1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

And, finally, this:

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html

So the Bush Administration used torture (by proxy) to gain bad information it then used to make the case for war against Iraq.

Hooray for torture.

[Jason]

I'm going to try to avoid getting into another scrap with you about torture (for the moment, anyway).
So my official response is "no comment."

[PhantomWolf]

wdmundt said:

So the Bush Administration used torture (by proxy) to gain bad information it then used to make the case for war against Iraq.

Hooray for torture.

So the Bush Administration is still guilty even when it was Egypt that did it? Do you have any evidence that Egypt tortured him on the US's command or authority? If not, how can you make this statement?

[wdmundt]

phantomwolf said:

wdmundt said:

So the Bush Administration used torture (by proxy) to gain bad information it then used to make the case for war against Iraq.

Hooray for torture.

So the Bush Administration is still guilty even when it was Egypt that did it?

Yes. It has been the policy of the United States government to send prisoners to countries that allow torture as an interrogation technique -- for the purpose of getting around President Bush's claim that "The United States does not torture."

From The Christian Science Monitor:

In the war on terror, the US is careful to show how fairly it's treating the hundreds of orange-suited Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters locked behind the razor-wire of the US base at Guantanamo, Cuba. But what the US isn't trumpeting is a quiet practice of shipping key Al Qaeda suspects to the Middle East for interrogation.

One reason for this new approach, US officials privately say, is that in some cases these militants' home countries have a better understanding of Islamist groups, their contacts, customs, and language. But there's another reason, say US sources. These countries – Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, among them – use torture, which, some officials suggest, extracts information much more quickly than more benign interrogation methods.

www.csmonitor.com/2002/0726/p01s03-usju.html

[Al Johnston]

It is a source of some controversy in the UK that airbases on our territory are or have been used as stopping off points on some of these transfer flights. Questions have been asked in Parliament.

[Jason]

As far as I am aware, it is prisoners of those nationalities that are remanded to the custody of those nations. So Egyptians have been sent back to Egypt, Jordanians to Jordan, Saudis to Saudi Arabia, Syrians to Syria, etc.

[LunarOrbit]

...and Canadians to Syria...

[wdmundt]

jason said:

As far as I am aware, it is prisoners of those nationalities that are remanded to the custody of those nations. So Egyptians have been sent back to Egypt, Jordanians to Jordan, Saudis to Saudi Arabia, Syrians to Syria, etc.

To be tortured. Don't forget that part. That is why we are sending them, not because they are from those countries.

[Jason]

So Egypt, Syria, etc. are just happy to take random individuals and torture them for us? They don't consider these people criminals under their own laws?

Are the indivdiuals returned to US custody after the torture, or do they remain prisoners in their nation of origin?
If they stay, then no, it wasn't just to torture them that we sent them to those countries.

[LunarOrbit]

Some would say that sending people to countries where you know criminals are tortured is just as bad as doing the torture yourself.

[gillianren]

At bare minimum, it's awfully hypocritical.

[Obviousman]

Many experts acknowledge that information gained under traditional means of "torture" is often unreliable; it generally tends to be what the victim thinks the other party WANTS to hear.

I also agree it is hypocritical to renounce torture but pretend not to notice when people are taken to a place where torture is condoned.

It's always a difficult situation - how do you fight within the rules against an enemy who does not hold such rules?

[wdmundt]

jason said:

So Egypt, Syria, etc. are just happy to take random individuals and torture them for us? They don't consider these people criminals under their own laws?

Are the indivdiuals returned to US custody after the torture, or do they remain prisoners in their nation of origin?
If they stay, then no, it wasn't just to torture them that we sent them to those countries.

First, I would ask what possible reason we would ever have for sending a high-value prisoner to another country. This is not extradition of any sort. We have no reason at all for sending these prisoners to another country -- except for the purpose of being tortured. When do we ever just send a high-value prisoner, accused of attacking the United States, to another country? Never.

And -- do they stay there? Unknown. Some disappear. Some are later released, as was the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen who was sent to Syria, tortured and later determined to be innocent.

This is more than hypocritical. It is outrageously illegal and barbaric.

[The Supreme Canuck]

I'm with wdmundt, gillianren, and others on this one. It's disgusting.

[Jason]

Are you sure it wasn't extradition? How could one confirm or deny this?

Do you Canadians oppose sending American nationals who committed murders in America back to America from Canada becuase we sometimes execute murderers?