generalspeaking

Should We Give A Damn?

"They weren't just pouring water over their heads or over a cloth. They were holding them under water until the point of death, with a doctor present to make sure they did not go too far. This was real torture."
Unnamed intelligence source, Washington

At a time when the American Senate is preparing to publish a declassified version of its Torture Report, a document of 3,600 pages based on a review of millions of classified CIA documents, a security source has revealed that at least two leading al-Qaeda suspects -- one the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- were exposed to fairly dreadful coercion in the form of torture that exceeded what 'waterboarding', also called 'simulated drowning' was said to consist of.


In a strictly moral sense that's pretty dreadful. Taking into account who was being targeted for this inhumane treatment that surely represented nothing less than extreme torture, it's worth a resigned shrug. The Central Intelligence Agency's reputation is fairly well shredded in any event, and has been for quite awhile. Even Hollywood has produced films for years whose shocking screenplays portray a picture of a vicious agency that will stop at nothing to achieve its goals.

A direct reflection, one might say, of the al-Qaeda terrorists who viewed the atrocity of 9/11 personally as a magnificent event, that they would courageously impose upon America and its people. The destruction of a signature landmark and with it almost three thousand innocent lives to strike terror into the heart of America. And to provoke that same terror-stricken America to strike back. It did, clumsily enough, unsettling the balance in several Muslim countries in the process.

With the consequences eventually presenting themselves as seriously threatening, in a vile Islamist lashback at the entire world, its focus on its own co-religionists albeit of the 'wrong' view of Islam first for good practise. So those 'extreme' CIA interrogation techniques don't quite send as much of a chill down one's spine as does the deliberately posted videos of jihadist atrocities which nothing the CIA can think up can come remotely close to approaching the dehumanized version of Islamist revenge.

A source familiar with the Senate report warns its accounts of interrogations would "deeply shock" the general public. Doubt it. The Senate report will accuse the CIA of lying (!!) and grossly exaggerating the usefulness of torture (but not approach the view that it gave those interrogators great personal satisfaction in the vengeance portfolio).


And though the CIA has already admitted to using "black sites" where it subjected three high-value al-Qaeda detainees to "enhanced interrogation" -- let's see now ... the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the USS Cole bomber Abd al-Nashiri and senior Osama bin Laden aide Abu Zubaydah. So who the hell cares?

There is of course the issue of a backlash from sinister, violent sources who will be re-inspired by these new revelations, and its concern to the administration. Which has established a preparedness scenario for increased security at 'sensitive sites' on the report's publication. And then, to be fully aware, the anniversary of 9/11 is on the near horizon, so how're the Islamists planning to celebrate that?

Labels: Atrocities, CIA, ISIS, Islamists, Terrorists, United States

posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 08, 2014