Ethics

Lies About Torture

By Ed Brayton

Let's compare a few statements from CIA operatives to the information found in memos released last week on torture during the Bush administration. On the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, we were assured in the media several times by CIA sources who refused to give their names that KSM had cracked immediately while being waterboarded and that he had given up lots of useful information that helped combat terrorism. One told the New Yorker:

"Waterboarding works," the former officer said. "Drowning is a baseline fear. So is falling. People dream about it. It's human nature. Suffocation is a very scary thing. When you're waterboarded, you're inverted, so it exacerbates the fear. It's not painful, but it scares the shit out of you." (The former officer was waterboarded himself in a training course.) Mohammed, he claimed, "didn't resist. He sang right away. He cracked real quick." He said, "A lot of them want to talk. Their egos are unimaginable. K.S.M. was just a little doughboy. He couldn't stand toe to toe and fight it out."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 21, 2009 (boomark / email).