Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

T R E 4 5 O N

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

So many bastards, so little time.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Today’s Torture Update

Today’s Torture Update

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Amy Davidson, in the New Yorker:

There is a tape recording somewhere, unless the Central Intelligence Agency has destroyed it, that captures the sound of a man named Nazar Ali crying. He was a prisoner in a secret C.I.A. prison, in a foreign country where terrorists were supposed to be interrogated. But Nazar Ali, whom a Senate Select Intelligence Committee report, part of which was released on Tuesday, suggests has a developmental disability—it quotes an assessment of him as “intellectually challenged”—was no sophisticated Al Qaeda operative. It is not even clear, from what’s been released of the report, that his interrogation was an attempt to gain information, or indeed that he was properly interrogated at all. According to the report, his “C.I.A. detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information.” A footnote later in the report, where his name appears, explains that Nazar Ali’s “taped crying was used as leverage against his family member.” Left unexplained is what the American operatives did to make this man cry. Did they plan ahead, preparing recording equipment and proddings, or did they just, from their perspective, get lucky?…

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    It was pretty sweet yesterday to hear the author of this book basically shoot down every stupid question the NPR reporter could think of about “enhanced interrogation.” He said what pretty much every single professional interrogator has said from the very beginning: not only is torture morally wrong, but it doesn’t get you information any faster than using non-coercive interrogation. You’re more likely to find that “ticking time bomb” by talking to the suspect than you are by torturing them.

  4. 4.

    eemom

    @Baud:

    It’s at least a little variety from solid blocks of copyrighted text, aka “long reads”.

    Jussayinzall.

    [edited due to “strike” dysfunction]

  5. 5.

    Jane2

    Twitter comments….so pithy, so transitional, so easily forgotten, so easy to not actually talk about torture.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    “Does torture work?” as a question needs to be put in the bin with “Is slavery commercially feasible?” & “Can genocide help overpopulation?”

    QFT.

    OTOH, I join in the bitching about the Twitter walls.

  9. 9.

    Mike J

    @eemom: She gets me bitching about how much stupidity can be crammed into 140 characters and you complaining about posts with substance.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: They’re quick hits across a spectrum. Scroll past. You don’t see others saying Richard’s massive amount of text on the FP is an issue. Which it is.
    Don’t make me break out my hazing gear.

  11. 11.

    Mandalay

    Oh goody….another OP full of tweets. :(

    I know you work your ass off here….you probably contribute almost as much all the other OPs combined I suspect. But just hurling up loads of tweets does not make for very inspiring OPs.

  13. 13.

    greennotGreen

    Murtaza Hussain wrote: “Those who carried out CIA torture are not “good people” with a bad job. Good people don’t commit rape whether its their job or not.”

    Nonsense. They were good Germans.

    We in the U.S. have a choice: Prosecute our own criminals or throw them and ourselves at the mercy of the World Court.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    @greennotGreen:

    We in the U.S. have a choice: Prosecute our own criminals or throw them and ourselves at the mercy of the World Court.

    There’s the third option. Stick our busted ass Cole middle finger right out at the world community.
    And tell them if they don’t like being fed rectally then they shouldn’t have been fucking brown. And they can all go fuck themselves because we’re exceptional.

  20. 20.

    Violet

    I don’t mind the tweet posts. They’re an interesting way to see a cross section of thoughts on a subject. It’s not like the entire site is only Twitter posts, day after day. There’s plenty of other stuff here.

  21. 21.

    JordanRules

    @Violet: Agreed! And once the subject is presented, in addition to the discussion in the comments, you may find links with a different, longer format.

  22. 22.

    mclaren

    “Does torture work?” as a question needs to be put in the bin with “Is slavery commercially feasible?” & “Can genocide help overpopulation?”

    On the contrary — torture works beautifully. It works to intimidate the rest of the American population.

    The true purpose of torture has nothing to do with “getting information.” It’s all about controlling the American population. Torture one victim and you can control a thousand unruly protesters. Torture 1,000 unruly protesters and you can control an entire nation.

    Torture is all about social control. And the evidence shows that it’s working perfectly. Americans are now too afraid to protest the ever-growing totalitarianism consuming this country.

    We heard huge groundswells of rage about the NSA surveillance — and what was the result? Nothing. No streets filled with raging protesters, no capitol building shut down by sit-ins, no Lincoln Memorial so jammed with protesters that the National Guard had to be called in (as happened with the protests against Nixon’s Cambodian bombing in 1970).

    Why?

    Because comfortable white middle-class people are scared spitless of winding up in one of those torture chambers.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    @JordanRules: Some of the tweets posted may also contain links to articles. The posts are a good way to generate discussion on a subject and give a variety of views around which to have that discussion.

  25. 25.

    KG

    @divF: actually, all tweets can be copyrighted by the tweeter. In fact, they’re protected under common law copyright. Registering for the copyright is where it’s tough because it’s really expensive, though I suppose you could use the periodical category. The thing is, what is the economic value of tweets?

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @KG:

    The thing is, what is the economic value of tweets?

    Mine are few but priceless – that is, no one would pay anything for them.

  32. 32.

    divF

    @KG:

    actually, all tweets can be copyrighted by the tweeter. In fact, they’re protected under common law copyright.

    “I can’t tell you how extremely sorry I am to hear that. “

  37. 37.

    KG

    @Omnes Omnibus: yeah, that’s what I mean, even if somebody infringes on your copyright (and the case discussing whether retweeting is fair use would be orth an entire law school seminar class), do they obtain any economic advantage? Not that the law requires that to find a violation

  40. 40.

    divF

    @KG:

    (and the case discussing whether retweeting is fair use would be [w]orth an entire law school seminar class)

    *Shakes head sadly*

  41. 41.

    KG

    @divF: people typically don’t understand copyright law, every picture on your phone or facebook or camera is protected by common law copyright. As is anything you write on your own blog, or in a journal. Common law copyright is governed by state law but basically provides a way for you to recover if somebody else publishes your stuff without permission.

    Federal copyright protection requires registering the work (which costs money) and publication. As I said, registering copyrights for tweets is probably not cost effective, nor does it have any economic value

  43. 43.

    mclaren

    The ACLU once again uses euphemisms and bafflegab to obscure the real problem in America today:

    We broke the law. This Human Rights Day, call for a criminal investigation on US.

    No sir, I didn’t break the law. I guar-fucking-tee you that I did not break any law whatsoever in this situation. The people who broke the goddamn law were high elected officials and elite appointees like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the joint chiefs of staff of the army, navy, air force and marine corps, and the director of the CIA. These are the people who broke the law.

    So let’s not use fucking euphemisms like “we” broke law, okay? “We” did not break the goddamn law, specific elected and appointed elite officials in the U.S. government broke the goddamn law.

    Likewise, we do not need to “call for a criminal investigation on US.” We need to call for a criminal investigation leading to prosecution and potential treason trials of the former president of the United States, the former Vice president of the united states, the former secretary of defense of the united states, the former joints chiefs of staff of the U.S. army, the U.S. navy, the U.S. air force, the U.S. marine corps, and the former director of the central intelligence agency.

    Treason is a capital crime. When the investigation leads to indictments and a trial, a guilty verdict should result in the appropriate punishment.

    Which means that after the trial finds them guilty, we (and I really mean we here, we the people) need to see that the former president of the United States George W. Bush hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former vice president of the United States Dick Cheney hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former secretary of defense of the United States Donald Rumsfeld hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former director of the CIA hangs by the neck until he is dead.

    And this is why none of this is going to happen. Because once you start down that road, you’re gonna open a whole can of worms. Think about all the people complicit in the torture: Paul Wolfowitz, the ruler of Iraq; Condoleeza Rice, who aided and abetted an illegal war of aggression and signed off on the torture; most of the Bush cabinet, who colluded in and/or knew about and kept silent about this torture and genocide and the WMD lies and propaganda. People like Fareed Zakaria, who participated in a round table meeting that laid out the plans for the illegal war of aggression against Iraq and who cheerled the torture and mass murder until it became so clear that the heinous atrocities represented a failed policy that he backed off. Tom Friedman, the Josef Streicher of torture and Iraqi genocide (“Suck. On. This.”).

    Think of all the ancillary characters who would have to be dragged in front of a war crime tribunal for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to purvey propaganda leading to the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, collusion in genocide and torture, lying in order to further an illegal war of aggression — America in 1946 and 1947 hanged high officials in Japan and Germany for the kinds of crimes many thousands of American committed over the last 14 years.

    Judith Miller would have to shuffle in front of a war crimes tribunal wearing an orange jumpsuit, the former editor of the New York Times would have to crab-walk forward in shackles whimpering and pleading for his life as the prosecutor read out the hour-long list of war crimes and torture and mass murder in which he colluded and which his lies aided and abetted…this would gut American society.

    Academics would be dragged before the war crimes tribunal, journalists would be tried and convicted and hung, most of the former high Pentagon officers of the U.S. army, navy, air force and marine corps would be courts-martialed for war crimes and shot.

    Not.

    Gonna.

    Happen.

  44. 44.

    KG

    @Omnes Omnibus: I had a dream of doing entertainment law for a while, so I took IP (avoided family law and community property like Ebola). And since I am trying to write, it was something that always appealed to me

  45. 45.

    divF

    @KG:

    Federal copyright protection requires registering the work (which costs money) and publication. As I said, registering copyrights for tweets is probably not cost effective, nor does it have any economic value

    Thanks for taking my semi-snark seriously, and providing the clarification. As someone who lives on the fuzzy edge of tech, I actually have a morbid fascination with IP law, mainly to protect the rights to use my own work from being snatched out from under me (I am more than happy to let anyone else use it).

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @KG: The only time I have really touched on it was a brief period of time when a law school buddy and I got into film-making. We shot a couple of shorts and wrote a couple of screenplays. We didn’t register the copyright on anything, but we did register the screenplays with the Writers Guild.

  47. 47.

    mclaren

    @JordanRules:

    “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Nixon.”

    Martin Luther King’s original was “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice,” but that’s outdated now. New pithy mottos for new pithy times.

  48. 48.

    divF

    @mclaren: I hope you won’t take this amiss, but I think that your short form work is much more effective than your extended screeds. This one was particularly witty.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @mclaren:

    Martin Luther King’s original was “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice,”

    Golly, no one here had any idea that JordanRules was play off of that MLK quote, least of all her(?). Of course, you probably don’t care that MLK was paraphrasing Theodore Parker, an abolitionist and Transcendentalist.

  52. 52.

    mclaren

    Meanwhile, congress just passed a law allowing “warrantless forfeiture” of all wireless communications.

    `Congress has quietly passed an Intelligence Authorization Bill that includes warrantless forfeiture of private communications to local law enforcement. Representative Justin Amash unsuccessfully attempted a late bid to oppose the bill, which passed 325-100. According to Amash, the bill “grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.”‘

    http://thehill.com/policy/technology/226752-gop-rep-attempted-late-bid-to-kill-spy-bill

    And what does this lead to?

    This.

  54. 54.

    patrick II

    Chris Rock on Letterman tonight:

    “Dave, do you realize that even the WWE has outlawed the chokehold? The WWE has better sense than the NYPD. Even Steve Austin thinks a choke hold is too much”.

  62. 62.

    Tree With Water

    UPDATE: (9:25 PM PST) Today’s torture report has been amended to include the craptacular budget that just passed the House tonight.

  74. 74.

    smintheus

    Btw, the real title of the “U.N Convention against Torture” is “The U.N Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”. All that stuff is illegal, even if abuse doesn’t rise to the level of “torture”.

    Anybody going to deny that prolonged sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, and prolonged exposure to freezing temperature is NOT cruel, inhuman or degrading?

    Yeah, I thought not. So use the full title, please.

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    @smintheus:

    Anybody going to deny that prolonged sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, and prolonged exposure to freezing temperature is NOT cruel, inhuman or degrading?

    I’m on my feet 14 or 18 hours in a day on a routine basis. What’s the big deal?

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    @JordanRules:

    Quit playin, you did not make that many calzones.

    I didn’t make enough for you, if that’s what you’re getting at.
    Now, Little Boots. Yeah. i think there’d be enough for Little Boots.
    Thread needs more Little Boots. Steeplejack’s ok, but Little Boots is better.

  91. 91.

    Tenar Darell

    You own the copyright for anything you write, including your tweets. It’s automatic. Of course you can thank Sonny Bono for how long it is too. For example, the fighting over Sherlock Holmes took place because it was extended by his law to lifetime plus 70 years or 120 from date of creation for corporate works. (So far, software code is not directly covered by copyright, but that’s where registration can come in I believe. However, any manuals would be automatic).

    Archivists and also librarians have to be familiar with this (not expert, familiar) because of the Fair Use provisions. If you ever have any questions about Fair Use, I suggest Lawrence Lessig’s who often lectures on Fair Use, and the Cornell University Copyright Information website.

  96. 96.

    Tenar Darell

    @Omnes Omnibus: /on soapbox

    Depends on what time period you’re talking about. In some ways, proving your copyright of unpublished and/or posted material is easier than ever because of the automatic time-stamping in a lot of software programs used for straight writing now. Even more so with a Tweet, a blog post, or even a comment.

    Legally speaking however, anytime it gets to court cases things get prohibitive really quickly. It’s often a David vs. Goliath situation, where whoever has the deep pockets for the best lawyers tends to win. (Not always, but often). And you’re right about one thing, why would anyone fight over the copyright of a single Tweet? But Billmon’s Tweet series from earlier today, if someone other than him tried to use it in their novel, or Twitter tried to publish it in a Collection of Best Tweets of 2014….Well,that seems a more rational basis for a fight.

    IIRC you’re a lawyer, but I believe you don’t specialize in copyright. But, like all lawyers do, I got some basic training. In my case it was the review all librarians and archivists get. Like when we have to inform professors how much of a book they can copy as handouts for their students vs. how much a student could copy. Or whether we need to warn the scholars who use our collections whether those papers might still be within copyright. Very basic stuff. And I know about places to get more detailed information, particularly for laypersons. No one in my profession can entirely avoid the whole range of IP and copyright issues, it affects everything from preservation to the prices libraries pay for e-books.

    Students, for example, can quote from published works without permission. That’s the classic case of fair use. But there’s so much that’s under copyright for so very long now. Which is why a basic understanding of the fair use provisions of the law are a big deal. I think it’s important that people understand that they can legally re-use and re-mix and quote for certain purposes. The law isn’t entirely on the side of literary estates or corporations.
    /off soapbox

  97. 97.

    Chuckles

    @Anne Laurie: Count this as a “+1” on what you’re doing. Don’t know why a bunch of people above don’t like the format; I thought this was a great post.

  98. 98.

    RaptorFence

    Fun game today: do a find-and-replace for various iterations of the word “interrogation” in this piece with “sacrificing babies to the sun god”. Krauthammer’s logic holds up remarkably well.

  99. 99.

    Starfish

    I ilke to get New Englanders to think outside of the clam chowder, but I generally like the Tweet posts.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    @GregB: @RaptorFence:

    Isn’t there a little amendment near the end about cruel and unusual punishment?

    Thought so! Although since they didn’t use the actual word “Torture” you may say it doesn’t count. I think they knew that a word means what it means, and cruelty and unusual punishment envelops torture.

    I’m not sure the fact that people overseas were tortured is what keeps people of today from engaging in mass demonstrations. I think that the fact that all the mass demonstrations held in the past didn’t make any difference in how the Executive executed is keeping many people from getting into it again.

    I’ve been teargassed in Washington DC, and it isn’t much fun, even if you are convinced that it will make a big difference. If you are convinced by history that it won’t amount to a hill of beans so far as moving the Republican Party to become humane, what’s the point in suffering?

  101. 101.

    Jado

    @greennotGreen:

    Or ignore it. Don’t discount our ability to put our fingers in our ears and chant “Lalalala I can’t hear you.”

    Hell, we have chant leaders already in our Republican elected officials, and their media lap dogs.

    “Let’s not bicker and argue about who tortured who. We are here today to witness the domination of one people by another in the terroristic bond of the mutual antagonists… I want their natural resources, from now onwards, to think of me as their own dad … in a very real and legally binding sense.”

    No blood for oil, but plenty of blood and waterboarding for “evidence” of Iraq – Al Queda collusion to justify giant defense contracts and an invasion to get revenge for Daddy’s war

  103. 103.

    PJ

    @KG: Federal copyright law does not require registering of copyright to enforce one’s rights – it only establishes a prima facie case.

  104. 104.

    PJ

    @Tenar Darell: As if copyright, like other forms of property, did not represent the labor and creativity of human beings, and instead was some extortionate gift from Congress to corporations and estates.

  105. 105.

    tones

    @mclaren:
    All of this.
    this is all I want for Christmas every single year since then.
    From your mouth to God’s ears…
    If we EVER get a real government again, they will all be in shackles at the Hague.

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