Fact Check Of The Day

What you are told: The fact that President Obama released "The Torture Memos" has made America less safe, because now terrorists know what interrogation methods to expect if captured by The United States.

What you are not told: The interrogation methods authorized for use on terrorists have been public knowledge for over two years now (published first in this Red Cross report in pdf format). The only thing the release of the memos brought to light was the legal-slash-logical acrobatics that Bush administration law advisers used to make their claim that those interrogation methods didn't violate The Geneva Conventions. This ultimately was why people fought against having the memos released: The legal reasoning in the memos was so spurious and laughable that it would be plainly obvious to everyone reading that they were nothing more than a flimsy CYA effort created by people who knew they were breaking the law.

Also, in related news, there are three interesting tidbits about the interrogations of terrorists detained in The Global War On Terror.

The first revelation is that "The September 11th Mastermind", Khalid Sheik Mohamed, was waterboarded 183 times in a single month... and he never gave any useful information. (To get an idea of how over-the-top that is, watch this video and read this article about Chistopher Hitchens being warterboarded. He lasted less than 10 seconds before losing it.)

The second revelation is that after CIA interrogators reported that they believed that Abu Zubaydah, a high-level Al Queda captive held in Thailand, had told them everything he knew under (what we will call) normal interrogation techniques, CIA bosses apparently thought they could get more out of him and set about with a long and brutal series of enhanced interrogation techniques. No further credible information was ever obtained.

The third revelation is from the guy who actually gets paid by the American Government to torture U.S. Special Forces troops in order to teach them survival skills when in enemy hands: He says that not only are the "harsh interrogation techniques" from the memo and Red Cross Report called "torture" when he teaches them, but also that the best tool to resist breaking under torture were tools that terrorists have in spades:

Worst of all was that an agency advising the Justice Department, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, knew that these coercive techniques would not work if captives devoutly trusted in their God and kept faith with each other. Yet those two characteristics are pre-qualifications for being allowed into al-Qaeda. Other non-coercive methods — the central focus of which is humanely deprogramming them of their religious ideological brainwashing — are now turning al-Qaeda members in Indonesia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But they were never considered. Perhaps they were not macho enough.

Here is my "If I Were The President" take on torture:

The only prisoner I would torture is:

1. a prisoner whose captors have at least some specific knowledge of what he knows in advance (i.e. they aren't just 'fishing' for information that might not be there);
   You already know what he has details about.
2. a prisoner who is the only person who can supply that information (i.e. he's not just confirming something the captors already know or suspect, or could obtain elsewhere);
   Nobody else has these details.
3. a prisoner who possesses information that cannot just be assumed without confirmation (i.e. he has required details that simply are not in any way optional to a mission's success);
   You cannot act until you have these details.

And then only after consideration of the timeframe of the particular situation (i.e. how long 'normal' interrogation techniques can be used before 'time runs out'), only after advice from neutral and experienced interrogation professionals, and only with the knowledge by all parties involved in the torture that what is being done, while in America's best interest, is illegal and all parties, President included, will be held responsible, would the decision to torture be made.

And, if I were President, and I did decide to torture a prisoner, I would be keeping a very close eye on things (perhaps even real-time monitoring) to make sure (a) I fully understood and continued to agree to what was being done, (b) to make sure that the goals of the torture were being met, and (c) to preemptively put a stop to it if my morals or scruples or compunction or common sense dictated it.