President Bush - Ongoing Serial Stupidity & Willful Ignorance (Or Is He Just Evil?)

PHOTO: mindfully.org

I've written 15 posts about torture and although I am deeply disappointed at the Obama Administration's decision to let Bush and Cheney get away with their actions leading up to and during the Iraq war, I had thought that the discussion had subsided into a low murmur.

Unable to keep his mouth shut, President Bush made a cavalier comment while speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday, saying that he did indeed have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded, and would do so again if it would save lives. Never mind that there is significant evidence, as discusssed by Matthew Alexander here, that details how waterboarding detainees made us less safe.

Extensive research, readily available to the President and much of it conducted by the FBI - experts at interrogation - and the Department of Defense, has been conducted on how to elicit useful information from people. As a counselor, it is my job to be able to get people to open up as I have discussed here that I have related to SERE training and torture.

Today, Dan Froomkin reports on the response of top military leaders to Bush's comments. Anger appears to be the universal response. They are appalled that Bush, still, has no conception of the illegality of his actions nor does he appear to care (although, why should he? apparently ex-Presidents are above the law).

"George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded -- and would do it again -- has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting."

There is no question that waterboarding is torture regardless of what has been discussed in the media in the past year or two. This country has imprisoned people and even executed people for waterboarding, and as recently as a few years ago, a sheriff's deputy in Texas was jailed for using waterboarding as an interrogation technique. More discussion here.

The article goes on to quote military leaders:

"Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years."

"As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War," Irvine said. "Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life."

Irvine told the Huffington Post that Bush doesn't appreciate how much harm his countenancing of torture has done to his country.

"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush told a Grand Rapids audience Wednesday, of the self-professed 9/11 mastermind. "I'd do it again to save lives."
But, Irvine said: "When he decided to do it the first time, he launched the nation down a disastrous road, and we will continue to pay dearly for the damage his decision has caused.

"We are seen by the rest of the world as having abandoned our commitment to international law. We have forfeited enormous amounts of moral leadership as the world's sole remaining superpower. And it puts American troops in greater danger -- and unnecessary danger."

The article continues by quoting other military leaders:

"James P. Cullen, a retired brigadier general in the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps, told HuffPost that the net effect of Bush's remarks--and former Vice President Cheney's before him--is 'to establish a precedent where it will be permissible to our enemies to use waterboarding on our servicemen in future wars."

"Cheney famously once agreed with an interviewer that a 'dunk in the water' was a 'no-brainer' if it saves lives."

What is it with these men? Don't confuse me with the facts? As I wrote about yesterday, this is willful ignorance in the extreme, and the serial stupidity of the Republican Party to the nth degree.

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k

SUN: 7:02PM Edited for duplicate section

Come On Sean, DJ Waterboarded, Where Were You?

On his show today, Sean Hannity said regarding the debate about waterboarding,

"...that was the reality of what they [Bush/Cheney] faced every day...President Obama and Prince Harry and Princess Harry...do they really believe that they are morally superior in their views...that they would allow tens of hundreds of innocent Americans, that they should die rather than waterboard for 40 seconds at a time Khalid Sheikh Mohamed...frankly only a moral fool would say that there are no circumstances that they would envision using enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. You'd have to be a fool."

And how many days has it been Sean, that you have refused to honor your pledge to be waterboarded because, after all, it isn't really torture?

A radio station in Chicago, whose 2 co-hosts also believed that waterboarding wasn't that bad had a contest in which their listeners voted on which of the 2 would be waterboarded. Host Mancow said, "I want to find out if it's torture," saying that he did not believe that it really was. A Marine Sergeant stated that Mancow should be able to tolerate about 14 seconds, the average, although he said he would "wriggle and scream."

With fire department personnel standing by, Mancow threw his toy cow--his signal to stop--immediately and was able to endure the waterboard for a total of 6-7 seconds. Later, Mancow stated that,

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

A link to the article and video can be found here

Cheney said yesterday that Admiral Dennis Blair, the Intelligence Director, wrote last month that these techniques did in fact produce high-value information. Cheney just forgot to tell the rest of the story. What Blair actually said, was that had he been asked, he would not have approved the use of such techniques, saying:

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

If you'd like to read the whole article about Admiral Blair's memo to others in the intelligence community, you can find it here. Like much of the Republican spin over the past month, Cheney forgets to point out Blair's main point--that being that use of waterboarding has made us less safe.

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k

Lanny Davis Changes His Mind

Lanny Davis, counsel to President Clinton has changed his mind. An interesting position to take, considering his history, but still, better late than never I suppose. He says in his blog, posted on "The Hill."

"An indictment, of course, is only an accusation of criminal conduct. Mr. Cheney must be presumed innocent until a jury of his peers finds him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Many people still think, and I was among them until recently, that it would be better not to put the country through the divisive and backward-looking experience of seeing a former vice president on trial for crimes committed while in office. But given Mr. Cheney's decision to publicly attack the president on the subject, perhaps we have no choice but to take Mr. Cheney up on his challenge."

And what, exactly, was seeing a sitting president on trial if not divisive? The majority of the country was not interested in seeing the President impeached. The majority were not interested in Watergate or the many other -gates, and were appalled when Kenneth Starr released his report which was written not to show wrongdoing, but rather to embarrass the President. After years and millions of dollars, President Clinton was convicted of perjury for lying about having sex--a question that we, quite frankly, had no right to ask. All of that, after all the money spent investigating every aspect of their personal and business lives, including that of their friends and associates, the Clintons were found to have committed no crime, broken no ethical code, and participated in no conspiracy to commit a crime.

On the other hand, the Bush Administration has lied us to war, violated the Geneva Conventions, U.S. Code, the Constitution, and Vice President Cheney has, since leaving office, gone on tour proclaiming the rightness of his torture program. We don't even need to investigate. Our new Attorney General in his confirmation hearings stated that yes, "waterboarding is torture." Vice President Cheney, and many others, have stated that yes, we waterboarded detainees--or in Cheney's words, "high-value detainees" which somehow makes it better.

The historical record shows that we have prosecuted--and executed--others for waterboarding. The Japanese after World War II, our own soldiers during Vietnam, and a sheriff's deputy in Texas. We have no doubt that we did then, commit torture, no matter what you decide to call it. The Republicans try to change the subject and say it's about saving lives, saving the country, although we now have evidence that is not true. We have evidence that more information is gained through standard interrogation techniques; that torture elicits lies.

We know now that torture was most likely used to justify--after the fact--going to war with Iraq. The Republicans try to change the subject and say that high-ranking Democrats knew about it. And this matters, how? It becomes less a crime, how? If it is necessary it is not criminal, why?

Keep talking Mr. Cheney. Keep talking.

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k

Let's Lie Our Way to War

As a counselor, I know a little bit about psychology and interviewing. I make no claims to be any kind of expert, particularly on torture or enhanced interrogation, but I do know that the essence of counseling is establishing a relationship with my client.

What is the purpose of counseling? To help the client reach the solution to whatever problem has brought them to me. It is not for me to advise them, to tell them what to do, or even to tell them what the problem is. My values are not theirs, my opinions my own. Our feelings and emotions are often buried very deep and what we identify first (or second) is often not what is really at issue.

The counselors job is to create an environment in which the client feels safe, in which they can explore feelings and experiences that are too strong to deal with alone. Perhaps to re-write the story and this time, come out on top. Perhaps to talk through a problem and explore the consequences to potential solutions. Who knows what is going to happen when a client walks through that door, but it is said, and confirmed in numerous studies, that regardless of training, the act of simply listening - truly, actively listening - is enough to facilitate healing.

Working with victims of abuse, I see clients who have shut down. People often wonder why women stay with men who abuse them, not realizing that the primary abuse is not the physical violence, but rather the assault to the sense of self. Women who are abused are often isolated, cut off from friends and family. A slow and gradual erosion of confidence has taken place that paralyzes their ability to make a decision, to take action. Women who are abused rarely have resources. They rarely have access to money, cell phones, transportation, or the will seek them out. I have met upper-middle-class women who turned over their paychecks to their husbands, who received the grocery money in cash and had to return with the receipt and change. Women who when attending a social event for other women - a Tupperware party or shower - had their husband drive them. Many said "how sweet," when it was really another facet of control. It takes, on average, at least 6 episodes before an abused woman leaves for good. The triggering factor is often when the violence is finally turned on the children.

The point to the above, is that violence and emotional isolation causes the psyche to shut down. The individual feels paralyzed, helpless, without resources, and totally incapable of making independent decisions. Of course I am generalizing with a very broad brush, however, to understand the function of waterboarding, you must first understand the process in which interrogation works.

Countless studies and testimony of experts have shown that empathy, compassion, and relationship-building are essential components to successful interrogation. The FBI is expert at this and trains their interrogators thoroughly to be interrogators. The CIA does not. Why do you suppose that the waterboarding ordered by the Bush White House was conducted by the CIA and by CIA contractors and not by the experts already well trained by the federal government? Even military intelligence officers receive more training, yet the waterboarding was conducted by two psychologists who reverse engineered the training provided in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape SERE Program used to train military officers in survival tactics.

The fundamental problem, is that the waterboarding did exactly what it was designed to do. Unfortunately, we have two men, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, who did not understand conceptually the purpose for training our soldiers in the SERE program including waterboarding under controlled, extremely brief, circumstances.

Knowing something is controlled, for training, and to help save your life should you be captured is very different emotionally than knowing that something is being done to you by your enemy. The enemy does not care about you. You know they are breaking international law by the very fact that they are engaging in the very techniques that are happening to you, so why should you feel anything except intense, overwhelming fear of death?

Because our soldiers were waterboarded during the Korean War, this training was provided so that the soldiers could learn how to respond to torture. Remember; empathy, compassion, and relationship-building build trust. Physical violence and emotional abuse cause fear and cause the individual to shut down. Soldiers who go through SERE Training are trained to shut down when tortured. When waterboarded, the goal is to become so fearful that you will say anything to make it stop, to lie.

Therefore, when a soldier is waterboarded, shuts down, and lies, he or she has accomplished the goal of the SERE training. Why then, would Bush and Cheney expect a different result? When they were receiving successful, actionable intelligence through standard, relationship-building interrogation techniques, what did they hope to accomplish by doing something designed and guaranteed to elicit false confessions? Why did they demand that these men be tortured time after time after time, sometimes 6 times in one day, when they had already cooperated and established relationships with their interrogators? Why did they bring in these outside contractors to provide "harsh enhanced interrogation" when they had everything they knew?

One reason. One reason only. We had to go to war with Iraq. We had to depose Saddam Hussein. That was the only acceptable solution. On 9/11, there was already talk of Iraqi involvement (strange considering that the highjackers were, for the most part, Saudi nationals and that the only plane allowed to fly that week was one used to pick up members of the Saudi royal family and take them out of the country. hmmmm.) Interesting. That week, and we didn't yet know for sure who was responsible. We just knew though, that it was Bin Laden and Iraq.

Doubt me? Go pick up a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report.

An aide to Saddam Hussein, captured several months after 9/11 - a prisoner of war, by the way, not a "terrorist detainee" - was very cooperative and provided a lot of good information. Unfortunately for him, he didn't say the one thing the White House needed him to say. So, he got to experience some of those non-torture, "we had to do it to keep us safe" enhanced interrogation techniques, including 17 hours in a coffin.

Want to know what he finally had to say? You betcha. Despite our intelligence services all saying it wasn't true - then and later - he said that yes, despite the enmity between Hussein's Baath Party and Bin Laden's jihadists, there was an operational link between the two.

Yay! War! Get to go avenge daddy! (Remember, Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate Bush I). The 2 men who knew nothing, absolutely nothing about service, got to send our men and women to their deaths and kill tens of thousands of others because they wanted to.

Bush joined the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam and even then, could not fulfill his contractual obligations. Cheney received 5 deferments because he "had other priorities." What cowards. Too afraid to serve themselves, too afraid that the next attack might actually hit its target (remember all the 'undisclosed locations' and that vacant thousand-yard stare? - 'My Pet Goat'?), they could only prove their manhood by playing war. To our cost.

To our cost.

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k

UPDATE:

I should perhaps have clarified that the torture of Saddam Hussein's aide occurred after we were already at war with Iraq (hence his status as a prisoner of war). The purpose therefore was a retroactive search for justification for war. No WMD's, remember?

Journalist Undergoes Torture, but not Hannity

Last week, perhaps joking around, perhaps not, Sean Hannity told Charles Grodin, on air, that he would let himself be waterboarded for charity with the proceeds to benefit military families. The offer arose from a discussion of the danger to the military from taking waterboarding out of the arsenal of tools available in the fight against terrorism.

Hannity's long time nemesis, Keith Olbermann, immediately took him up on it and offered Hannity $1,000 for each second that he was able to endure the waterboarding and would double the amount if he would admit, on air, that waterboarding is in fact torture. Not surprisingly, neither Hannity nor Fox News has responded.

For those who think the challenge from Keith Olbermann to Sean Hannity is theater - which it is, but not just theater - and that waterboarding isn't really torture, you should read Christopher Hitchen's take on the process of waterboarding. As he says, quite emphatically, "The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered."

To better understand what everyone was talking about, Mr. Hitchens, a journalist, asked to be waterboarded. His story detailing his experience appeared in the August 2008 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine titled Believe Me, It's Torture

"...I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the “mastermind” of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. “Hell,” said one, “from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.”) But, hell, I thought in my turn, no Hitchens is going to do worse than that. Well, O.K., I admit I didn’t outdo him. And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that I’d like to try it one more time."

Even knowing what to expect, even knowing before the first episode and even more so before the second, Mr. Hitchens said afterwards:

"...Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it."

We still don't know how long Mr. Hitchens endured the watering. We do know from his story, that from an experience that lasted for seconds, under controlled conditions, knowing that all times he was completely safe, he developed symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Do we want to stop terrorism? Then we need to stop being terrorists.

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k

We don't want retribution. We want justice.

How long does this conversation go on? And at what point do the talking heads and Republicans finally catch sight of the mirror and see how foolish they really are?

Ex-vice president Cheney has stated that yes, we waterboarded. The recently released OLC memos listed 10 different procedures that certainly meet the definition of torture according to those who read them. The FBI Director was so certain that the activities described in those memos was torture that he refused to allow any employee of the FBI to participate. The recently released Senate Report states that torture occured. More documents state that two detainees were waterboarded over 200 times in a period of 1 month.

It's pretty clear that torture occured.

Eric Holder, during his confirmation hearings in February 2009 stated unequivocally that, "yes, waterboarding is torture."

Thus, I am stunned to hear Mr. Holder, the Democratic leadership, and President Obama dancing around the issue, continuing to use the phrase "enhanced interogation" and talking about the need for a thorough review, proper analysis, and complete understanding of everything that occurred before any decisions about prosecutions are made. President Obama states that pursuing this is retribution. What? Criminal prosecution is retribution? This, from a constitutional lawyer?

We do not want retribution. We want justice. We are not too busy. Congress had the time to impeach President Clinton. They had the time to investigate everything that the Clintons ever did including anyone who ever associated with them (and I would add, found no wrongdoing, ever - oh excuse me. President Clinton lied under oath about having sex). I think we can take the time to investigate the Bush administrations commission of war crimes.

This issue will not go away. We will not be quiet. As Americans, torture was done in our name and as such, we have the right to hold those responsible accountable.

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k