KSM did not cooperate until he was waterboarded. That's an irrefutable fact. Nice try.
NYT op Ed
:lamo
Op-Ed Contributor - My Tortured Decision - NYTimes.com
Ali Soufan said:
One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.
Do your research. The general buzz is that he answered questions after torture only to have the pain stop. You can find this out anywhere on the internet by doing research on the matter. As far as we know, the information he gave did not pan out to anything. Why else do you think the videos of his waterboarding were destroyed? Why is it that when asked about what information we learned from him, all we hear is "a boatload" from high ranking officials, but when you speak to an actual agent, they will tell you that torture is ineffective and pans out to nothing? Because it's politics. A high ranking republican CIA official will say that it works, but then if you talk to a democratic official, they will say it doesn't. Trust the agents on the ground. Trust the law enforcement officers who know how to interrogate people. Coercive methods work for one thing and one thing only, forcing people to answer things with false statements. Torture itself was first used to get people to confess to random crimes. Regarding what you're saying, I have heard the same stuff. Oh! a boatload of information. alright, so what is that information? What did we learn? And it can't be that it's classified, because when an interrogation is successful, we know all of the details within days (perfect example is this Bin Laden case). They told us that it saved Los Angelos, to give a specific answer of divulging interrogation secrets. Do you really think that Bush Cheney, the same people who exposed Valerie Plame, would not release secret information if it helped them prove torture works?
Regarding the topic here where people are talking about that LA terror attack, that was planned for 2002 which was stopped by waterboarding him, wrong. He wasn't captured until 2003. So, false.
About Bin Laden, waterboarding was not why he was found. The name of the courier was learned from other suspects, then KSM was asked about him. KSM then lied, which suspects will always do under torture, and said that the guy was unimportant and he had no idea. That's how we started this. It had nothing to do with beating the **** out of him then he suddenly decided to confess where Bin Laden is.
Ron, let me be clear again - we went to war with Iraq because we thought they had nuclear weapons, not because we thought they had the capability. A lot of nations have the capability. Right now Iran is a perfect example. Let's go invade Iran since they have the capability.
I don't think it's lefties that selectively ignore facets of debates, I'm pretty sure it's you, because I made a few points in my post, and the only thing you responded to was one of them, and also by insulting me for posting an article by an FBI Agent who served his country with honor and interrogated numerous terrorists, effectively.