Saturday, April 28, 2012

Just In Case There Was Any Doubt: Torture Does Not Equal Useful Information

Latest leaks (unfortunate metaphor regarding waterboarding) on latest report:
  • While a final draft of a report being prepared by Democrat members of the Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to be completed, let alone made public, sources told Reuters the report would give little evidence to demonstrate that the techniques were effective, even in helping to track down and kill Osama bin Laden. It may have instead provided false leads and bogus intelligence.
  • One official said the research, which involved going over millions of pages of documents handed over by the CIA, had yielded "no evidence" that waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods had played "any significant role" in the years-long intelligence operations that eventually led to the killing of Bin Laden in a Pakistan safe-house by an elite team of US Navy Seals nearly a year ago. ("Waterboarding and 'enhanced interrogation' shown to be ineffective," by David Usborne, The Independent, 28 April 2012)
Or as your grandmother would note, you catch more flies with honey.  And you wonder, once intelligence is outsourced to semi-private companies, whether there would be a follow-up report like this to show that "coercive interrogation" produces "false leads and bogus intelligence" would ever be done. Or would the semi-private companies simply suggest that more "coercive interrogation" technology was needed, and continue to siphon off public funds?

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