The fruits of US torture point to above average stupidity.

[Nin`]

Something to spice things up? Or perhaps a little enlightenment...

The Confession Backfired

Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Paul Craig Roberts
Dated: 2007-03-17

The first confession released by the Bush regime's Military Tribunals – that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – has discredited the entire process. Writing in Jurist, Northwestern University law professor Anthony D'Amato likens Mohammed's confession to those that emerged in Stalin's show trials of Bolshevik leaders in the 1930s.

That was my own immediate thought. I remember speaking years ago with Soviet dissident Valdimir Bukovsky about the behavior of Soviet dissidents under torture. He replied that people pressed for names under torture would try to remember the names of war dead and people who had passed away. Those who retained enough of their wits under torture would confess to an unbelievable array of crimes in an effort to alert the public to the falsity of the entire process.

That is what Mohammed did. We know he was tortured, because his response to the obligatory question about his treatment during his years of detention is redacted. We also know that he was tortured, because otherwise there is no point for the US Justice (sic) Dept. memos giving the green light to torture or for the Military Commissions Act, which permits torture and death sentences based on confessions extracted by torture.

Mohammed's confession of crimes and plots is so vast that Katherine Shrader of the Associated Press reports that the Americans who extracted Mohammed's confession do not believe it either. It is exaggerated, say Mohammed's tormentors, and must be taken with a grain of salt.

In other words, the US torture crew, reveling in their success, played into Mohammed's hands. Pride goes before a fall, as the saying goes.

Mohammed's confession admits to 31 planned and actual attacks all over the world, including blowing up the Panama Canal and assassinating presidents Carter and Clinton and the Pope. Having taken responsibility for the whole ball of wax along with everything else that he could imagine, he was the entire show. No other terrorists needed.

Reading responses of BBC listeners to Mohammed's confession reveals that the rest of the world is either laughing at the US government for being so stupid as to think that anyone anywhere would believe the confession or damning the Bush regime for being like the Gestapo and KGB.

Humorists are having a field day with the confession: "'I'm a very dangerous mastermind,' said Mohammed, who confessed to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the Brink's robbery, St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Lincoln and McKinley assassinations. Mohammed also accepted responsibility for spreading hay fever and cold sores around the world and for rained out picnics."

If there was anything remaining of the Bush regime not already discredited, Mohammed's confession removed any reputation left.

The most important part of the Mohammed story is yet to make the headlines. Despite having held and tortured hundreds of detainees for years in Gitmo, and we don't know how many more in secret prisons around the world, the US government has come up with only 14 "high value detainees."

In other words, the government has nothing on 99 percent of the detainees who allegedly are so dangerous and wicked that they must be kept in detention without charges, access to attorneys and contact with families.

And little wonder. The vast majority of detainees, alleged "enemy combatants," are not terrorists captured by the CIA and brave US troops. They are hapless persons who happened to be outside their tribal or home territories and were kidnapped by criminal gangs or warlords who profited greatly at the expense of the naive Americans who offered bounties for "terrorists."

The US government does not care that innocent people have been ensnared, because the US government desperately needs both to prove that there are vast numbers of terrorists and to demonstrate its proficiency in protecting Americans by capturing terrorists. Moreover, the US government needs "dangerous suspects" that it can use to keep Americans in a state of supine fearfulness and as a front behind which to undermine constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights.

The Bush-Cheney Regime succeeded in its evil plot, only to throw it all away by releasing the ridiculous confession by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Will Bush's totalitarian Military Tribunal now execute Mohammed on the basis of his confession extracted by torture, or would this be seen everywhere on earth as nothing but an act of murder?

If Bush can't have Mohammed murdered, the US government will have to shut Mohammed away where he cannot talk and tell his tale. The US government will have to replicate Orwell's memory hole by destroying Mohammed's mind with mind-altering drugs and abuse.

It is to such depths that George Bush and Dick Cheney have lowered America.

---

Nin: Personally speaking, I suspect that nobody knows what left and right means anymore - particularly in America where "Liberal" has been transformed into a derogatory epithet for which apologies are apparently required, and where there is, to my eyes, only Right and Righter. In my opinion, Nazi Germany and the Soviets in the seventies were more tolerant of the unconventional than America of today, even if only because police control, presence, information management and powers were more constrained than in this multiply failed totalitarian state.

No better markers can be found than in the fact that anyone who criticises America is regarded as deluded or hostile; foreigners treated with suspicion and hostility; information about the massive inequity of wealth and income or about the wealth transfer from the mass to the very wealthy that has undeniably occurred is suppressed or even denied; and even the clear fact that in every way possible, the ordinary American is far worse off than the ordinary European - but believes the opposite - is flushed down the memory hole. Denial extends even to the very remarkable silence surrounding the release, a month ago, of a UN report that the US is the very least desirable place in the industrialized world to raise a child. Refer e.g. UNICEF's Innocenti Report (PDF).

Funny old world, Einstein got there first (as usual). I came to America because I had heard it was a land of freedom and opportunity. I was wrong, but it is too late for me to rectify this in my lifetime.

Have a nice day.

Nin`

[Govinda]

I remember hearing of the above stated confession on television and saying to my brother, 'They really do not expect anyone to go for that, do they? Come on, America, that's just ****ing patronising.'

I'm glad to see that most of the world seems to agree.

As for Orwell's memory hole...that's a very scary metaphor, frightening only because it's so true.

1984, everyone. We've got the perpetual war; the control of goods; the survellience; arrest without charge, and no power to force an explanation; even the memory hole, it seems. The words of a dying man coughing into his typewriter on a remote Highland island, seemingly becoming more prophecy than fiction.

Bugger.

[Jin]

Although I'm going to neither agree nor disagree with the article (as it is taken from a source that's name itself is biased), it's a little premature to be comparing America's freedom levels to that of the Soviet Union and of Nazi Germany. After all, you most likely wouldn't have been able to even say that in those respective countries at the time.

Nevertheless, I do believe that America's current trend is leading in that direction. It wouldn't surprise me that torturing was used to get a confession like that, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a fact based on a site like that, especially seeing as how a lot of what they claimed as evidence was circumstantial.

Again, it wouldn't surprise me if torturing out the confession is what happened and I'm pretty inclined to believe it based on the confession itself - after all, it makes a great peice of propaganda, true or false - but more evidence is needed in my opinion before one can claim it a fact either way.

[Nin`]

Originally Posted by Jintatsu

Although I'm going to neither agree nor disagree with the article (as it is taken from a source that's name itself is biased), it's a little premature to be comparing America's freedom levels to that of the Soviet Union and of Nazi Germany. After all, you most likely wouldn't have been able to even say that in those respective countries at the time.

Please try to argue and at least make an effort to be seen to be trying to support your assertions rather than attempting to get away with mere slant and innuendo Jintatsu. It should be noted that all sources have bias, and that this should not affect one's analysis so long as you are aware of it. In this case, it seems to me to be even less relevant than usual. After all, I don't think that that facts in this case are in dispute? Or are they? If you think they are, please try to defend why? After all, the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammad has been held up as necessary and justifiable by many right wing lunatics; and his ridiculous "confession" is a matter of public record. As are the equally ludicrous "confessions" other torture users have apparently extracted over the years, from the Papal Inquisitors, through the English and French churches and government's strong men, taking in passing the Soviets, the Nazis, the various Maoists and worse, and now the United States. Why are you asserting special status for confessions obtained through torture by the freedom loving government of the United States (whose Attorney General has even borrowed the Soviet theory of state-granted rights and lifted the phrase “quaint and obsolete” in regards to the torture provisions in the Geneva Conventions from the German Nazis), if this is in fact what you are trying to do?

When you make comparisons, invidious as they may tend to be, it is important to specify which periods you are comparing. After all, the Soviet Union managed to survive as a totalitarian democracy for nearly 70 years. The degree of freedom - or lack of it varied greatly in that time. The National Socialists of Nazi Germany managed to teeter along as a party for only 20 miserable years - fewer than 15 in power, again with extremely varying degrees of freedom for those who were in reach of those not particularly tender hands. Neither of these very different beasts had either the level of information or quality of database access, nor even the degree of monitoring of their citizens now regularly available to the US government (Although it should perhaps be noted that East Germany's intelligence services were paralyzed but too much information, in the same strong hands as currently heads the the US department of Homeland Insecurities efforts to monitor US citizens - and it is mathematically possible to prove that this effort is entirely futile for its ostensible purpose, yet nevertheless sufficient to control its citizens to a very precise degree).

In the same way, America's extremely varying degrees of liberty - and their lack - have varied dramatically over the years, generally declining as government has become more powerful; although most Americans still seem to believe they live in a relatively free country. The relative incarceration rates, with US levels over fifteen times higher than the next worst Western nation and over four times higher than the Soviet Union at its worst, would, I suggest, tend to prove that this is another clear example of delusion and denial. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

[Jin]

Hahaha. Wow, if you pounce this hard on someone who isn't even disagreeing with you, I'd hate to see the ones that do.

The funny thing about biases is that even when they have correct facts, they warp it with their own opinions and imply it's something far worse than it actually is. I'm sorry, but "anti-war.com" is a terrible place to use for a source of debate. Whether it's facts are straight or not, it's really a better idea to use something more neutral (there are sources around that are fairly neutral. Try to look for ones that don't use words like "stupid"). If it's so factually correct, then better sources are bound to have it as well. But that's besides the point.

Originally Posted by Nine Inch Nails with a tick mark

Why are you asserting special status for confessions obtained through torture by the freedom loving government of the United States (whose Attorney General has even borrowed the Soviet theory of state-granted rights and lifted the phrase “quaint and obsolete” in regards to the torture provisions in the Geneva Conventions from the German Nazis), if this is in fact what you are trying to do?

It's ironic how you sound very much like a proganadist. How could you have possibly thought that I was saying that? I said nothing like that. Infact, I specifically said that I would easily believe malpractice on the part of the US. Now, I haven't heard about the US admitting torture on this particular subject (other than their usual water boarding techniques, which isn't news so I assumed you meant more severe), but if that's true then I guess I was right to expect it. Good for me.

Regarding comparisons that you made, are you telling me that in the Soviet Union, even in the 70s, you could publicly protest and display your contempt for the government? And although Nazi Germany was fairly nice for Germans themselves, could the same be done there? If so, then I have been grossly misinformed about these two governments. Please direct me to a place of higher learning in that case. Now, I am by no means saying that America is as free as it should be. Far from it. However, and perhaps this is simply personal opinion, I would much rather live in America today (which I don't by the way) than I would in Nazi Germany or the USSR of the 70s. I haven't heard of too many westerners defecting into the communist bloc. But of course, I'd be equally as happy to be proven wrong.

all, I don't think that that facts in this case are in dispute? Or are they? If you think they are, please try to defend why?

Again, I hadn't heard of them admitting to any torture that's revolutionary for them, so possibly that. More importantly, however, the only fact that's up for debate is whether or not Khalid's confession is true or not. Despite the fact that you think it's rediculous and may well be correct, you really can't proove it. At least not with any available information I know of. All I'm saying is that it's possible that he did sincerely confess.

I hate seeing people whom I usually agree with politically jump on the anti-American bandwagon so quickly. It's not that I have any particular love for the States, but if they turn out to be incorrect, it gives the North American right so much more fire power in their "liberal bias" arguments. Understand what I'm getting at?

[Nin`]

My dear Jintatsu.

It is always a debating error to assert that because of a quotation source used, that an issue is tainted. Antiwar's position is, in my opinion, founded on numerous well articulated arguments and is right out there in the form of their name. Antiwar is a very solid source of facts and a rich source of opinion with an editorial perspective from a quasi-liberal, libertarian, capitalist,. right-wing, Christian - but anti-war - perspective. They produce some analytical material which is generally written by literate in field subject experts, editorialize knowledgeably based on their extraordinarily good connections with senior military and intelligence sources, publish a wealth of news service material chosen by a remarkably broad panel of experts and are not scared of calling a spade a spade when it is, as has been too frequently the case, appropriate. While I disagree with some of their perspectives and disagree even more for the reasons behind some of their stances, they happen, in my opinion, to have produced the most consistently accurate and timely reporting of the ongoing debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the Lebanon and Palestine and the massive decline in American military, financial and political capacity. They are also doing a much better job than anyone else, including JDW on whom they draw, at contextualizing the coming debacle in Iran and possibly Syria.

Unlike most sources, I haven't seen many issues where I am knowledgeable where I have seriously disagreed with either their selection of facts or their presentation of them. This leads me to my granting them credence when they report on issues where I am not as knowledgeable. Note the qualitative and substantive difference between this "bias" and e.g. Fox News, The New York Times or Washington Post's apparently massive, but largely invisible, pro-Republican bias and well documented consequent willingness to delay or suppress stories - or promote them - apparently based on their owner's political and economic ties.

That said, I could have drawn the same information from the highly respected (enough to get elected and reopeatrdly reelected in the midst of a Republican stronghiold) Libertarian Rep. R Paul's own website, and you would probably not even had blinked. I chose not to do so, as that was not my original source for the article, and I think that Antiwar.com deserve the exopsure which his republication by them brings them. But again it weakens your case for ignoring what he has to say, rather as the fact that while some wannabe nazis might agree with some of what Iran or political analysts might say about Israel or the Israeli lobby in the US, this in no way affects the validity (or lack of) of what they have to say. Sad to say, this category of logical error, along with resort to slippery slope arguments, not only characterises but is typical (although of course they are hardly restricted to this demographic) of those raised in the American school system. Which is why, when a "friend" exhibited this error as blatantly as you did, I attempted to use it as an example not only of why it is invalid, but of how to analyse the claims such as you appeared to be advocating (including asking for confirmation given that I might have merely misunderstood your assertions). Again I recommend to your attention, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong" by James W. Loewen available on Amazon for well under $5 used. It might save you the cost of several years of military college study - or a liberal arts degree majoring in modern history at any competent University. Given that exceptionally gifted teachers occur in both environments and they don't have the political pressure to teach myth that schools do, the perspective is rather different from what I suspect you are used to.

Finally, to deal with your last queries, 70% of Germans disagreed with the appointment of Hitler's government (Election results, Statistisches Bundesamt). Very few of them, even the most vociferous, suffered from government sanctions for purely political speech until late 1941 or early 1942 ("The Third Reich in Power", 2005, Richard Evans, 1-59420-074-2). The same could, by and large be said even of massively oppressed minority groups like the Roma, Jews, homosexuals, communists and socialists. They did not form a large enough percentage of the population to act as a 1930s style Soviet - or current American style - warning to the general population to conform, under threat of imminent state sanctions (Above and other sources, supplemented by recollections from family members). By the 1970s, the legacy of Beria was largely gone though not forgotten, and Russians would privately and amongst friends joke and criticize the government far more freely - and with less reason perhaps - than I have seen or heard in public or private in America (reports by a large number of Soviets and those growing up in Soviet Republics). In public people were cautious, though not as cautious it seems of being labelled as unpatriotic or biased - as current Americans (Personal observation). Of course, Soviets had a living memory of internal purges and "disappearances" upon which to draw (Toynbee inter alia). Simultaneously, while incarceration rates were high compared to some European countries, they were low in comparison to contemporaneous American incarceration rates and insignificant in comparison to current US rates (US incarceration and comparative data compiled from US DOJ reports). Given the clear lack of a statistically sustainable use of force by the Soviets of the seventies, and a clear evidence of such force by the American government of today, is my conclusion - while you may find it unpalatable - also unreasonable?

As for refering to me as "Nine Inch Nails with a tick mark", if you want to get technical about it you'll find that their abbreviation is actually "NIN", or this and not "Nin`" - as my name is. More, my name does not refer to an abbreviation of any sorts.

I suspect it was just your way of trying to be jocose, or perhaps burlesque, but I'll bear in mind the facetiousness of it.

Then again, who really cares, eh?

[Jin]

Haha, you debate only my side points. I like you.

In response to that rediculously long bit about biases that I skimmed through as spending an hour to post an argument on a forum is silly in my opinion: It may well be founded, as I never said it wasn't, but it's still an argumentative article and should be used on a topic about debating the argument itself, not a topic about the facts and one's opinions of them. It twists the minds of those who are seeing the information for the first time. Not everyone is as much a child of the Enlightenment as yourself afterall.

Originally Posted by Ninjinsky

The same could, by and large be said even of massively oppressed minority groups like the Roma, Jews, homosexuals, communists and socialists.

Enough said.

In public people were cautious, though not as cautious it seems of being labelled as unpatriotic or biased - as current Americans (Personal observation).

Oh no! Please don't let me be labeled as unpatriotic or biased! That isn't a repression of freedom, that's simply morons being free to make prejudgemental opinions about others. Arabs and other Muslims (domestic ones) are really the only ones that can claim the government is acting against them on this, and while I believe it's disgusting, I still don't think that it happens enough or severly enough to label America as unfree. Not yet at least.

As for refering to me as "Nine Inch Nails with a tick mark", if you want to get technical about it you'll find that their abbreviation is actually "NIN", or this and not "Nin`" - as my name is. More, my name does not refer to an abbreviation of any sorts.

You're right, I'm sorry, because accuracy was my main goal there.