CIA Report

[CountDeMoney]

with Holder preferring to punt on it rather than risk a partisan squabble.

Or even more importantly, setting a precedent.  The one thing executives will do, even above partisanship, is go to great lengths to ensure the viability of executive action in the future.

[Admiral Yi]

We aren't talking about "opinions" in the sense that you or I express our points of view.  These were instructions and guides to action about matters that were literally a question of life or death.  It involved the responsible officials of the legal arm of the US government telling operatives in the field that they need not obey the law.

Actions have consequences.  If the CEO of Acme muses to himself about how nice it would be to monopolize trade, it is mere "opinion".  But if he expresses that opinion to the CEO of competitor Schmacme, it is something more.  It is, in fact, criminal.

Your analogy doesn't quite fit Joan.  Yoon (I think it's Yoon not Yao) didn't conspire to break a law.  He offered an opinion as to whether or not a certain course of action was legal.  How can that be grounds for disbarment?  Can lawyers be disbarred for expressing judgements that a court later disagrees with?  Actually, I don't think a US court has yet to rule whether EIT is illegal or not.  Can lawyers be disbarred for offering opinions that coincide with public opinion?

What's particularly puzzling about this story is that it was the Bush administration that was pushing for disbarment.  First they accept the arguments in his memo as the legal basis for EIT, then later on decide that it was unethical in some way.  Did he make up cites?  Fabricate case law?

[Admiral Yi]

Sometimes I'm really amazed and dismayed by some of your  questions.

This is about the hundredth time I've heard this record.  Just about every time you end up admitting it's a reasonable comment or question, or just slink away.  Then a couple weeks later you do the exact same thing.

[crazy canuck]

We aren't talking about "opinions" in the sense that you or I express our points of view.  These were instructions and guides to action about matters that were literally a question of life or death.  It involved the responsible officials of the legal arm of the US government telling operatives in the field that they need not obey the law.

Actions have consequences.  If the CEO of Acme muses to himself about how nice it would be to monopolize trade, it is mere "opinion".  But if he expresses that opinion to the CEO of competitor Schmacme, it is something more.  It is, in fact, criminal.

Your analogy doesn't quite fit Joan.  Yoon (I think it's Yoon not Yao) didn't conspire to break a law.  He offered an opinion as to whether or not a certain course of action was legal.  How can that be grounds for disbarment?  Can lawyers be disbarred for expressing judgements that a court later disagrees with?  Actually, I don't think a US court has yet to rule whether EIT is illegal or not.  Can lawyers be disbarred for offering opinions that coincide with public opinion?

What's particularly puzzling about this story is that it was the Bush administration that was pushing for disbarment.  First they accept the arguments in his memo as the legal basis for EIT, then later on decide that it was unethical in some way.  Did he make up cites?  Fabricate case law?

This gets into the area of when a lawyer moves from merely giving legal advice to a decision making or operational role.  Once a lawyer moves over that line they are no longer simply "offering an opinion". 

But even if a lawyer does stay within the realm of just giving advice it is possible to give that advice in a manner that would also attract a sanction.  I don't know enough about what occurred here to know whether that happened.

[The Brain]

Shouldn't we be happy that people get disbarred and leave it at that? Baby steps towards a lawyer-free future.

[The Minsky Moment]

Your analogy doesn't quite fit Joan.  Yoon (I think it's Yoon not Yao) didn't conspire to break a law.  He offered an opinion as to whether or not a certain course of action was legal.

I disagree.  The CIA asked for a written opinion so they could advise their agents in the field what to do.  And they got back an opinion that among other crazy things, stated that given the "circumstances," "self-defense" may justify interrogation methods that violate the federal torture statute.  Which was doubly incredible because the rest of the memo (wrongly) sets forth the argument that conduct isn't "torture" unless it results in "extreme acts" that result in "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.". That is the memo was telling the CIA that circumstances could warrant causing severe bodily injury or death to detainees.

Now I suppose one could argue that the opinion that the CIA need not obey the law was not really what it might appear to be - an incitement or conspiracy to break federal law - because it was accompanied by a good faith constitutional argument about Presidential power.  But that depends on accepting there really was a good faith argument, which is a questionable proposition.  To get an idea how far Bybee-Yoo was out there, when Bybee resigned, and Ashcroft blocked Yoo, Cheney and Gonzales were unable to find ANYONE to take the OLC job that was prepared to back the memos, even though there were plenty of lawyers with impeccable conservative credentials.  It wasn't a right-left difference of opinion. It was a difference between the rational and the indefensible.

In any event, a criminal charge was never at issue.  The question was whether professional sanctions would be on the table.  Which brings us to:

How can that be grounds for disbarment? 

If the question is: can a lawyer be subject to professional sanction for giving a client really really bad advice, the answer is yes.

What's particularly puzzling about this story is that it was the Bush administration that was pushing for disbarment.  First they accept the arguments in his memo as the legal basis for EIT, then later on decide that it was unethical in some way. 

The "Bush administration" didn't accept the arguments.  Your formulation assumes -- kind of ironically given Yoo's own support for extreme versions of the unitary executive theory - that the Bush White House and cabinet had a single coherent view on this.  They didn't.  This was a classic example of a core of powerful policy entrepreneurs within the exec branch trying to push through a particular policy despite broader resistance.  It succeeded for a while, but ultimately failed and was repudiated. 

[Jacob]

I thought this was a good article, by a former General Counsel of the Navy during the Bush administration.

This article, and similar responses from other Americans (including in this thread) along with the publication of the report itself paradoxically gives me greater faith in American institutions and the American character.

It is probably too much to hope that serious charges are laid, but the fact that these acts are brought to light nonetheless shows that American ideals and institutions are still worth something.

Today, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of its findings of its comprehensive, five-year investigation into CIA interrogation practices. By doing so, the committee rendered a considerable service to our country, and deserves our thanks. Particular credit goes to the Chairman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who steered the process with grit, steady and effective leadership, and a clear vision of the national interest.

So we now know more – if not yet quite all – about the program of official brutality that was cynically and deceptively sold as "enhanced interrogation." We now know that the only "enhanced" aspect of the program was the quantum of its cruelty; we know that the cruelty was applied at much higher levels of intensity than previously admitted; and we know that the degree of torment deliberately inflicted crossed the threshold of torture under any reasonable definition of the term.

Related: Senate report: 'Brutal' CIA program was kept from public

Here are a few examples: Each of the 183 times we subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to waterboarding, we tortured. When we forced Mohammed al-Qahtani to endure beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, abnormally low body temperatures, and numerous other abusive techniques for 49 days of up to 20 hours-per-day interrogation sessions, we tortured. When we shipped Maher Arar – an innocent Canadian – to Syria for interrogation and he was beaten with shredded cables and held in a three-foot by six-foot "grave" for ten months, we tortured. When the CIA kidnapped Khaled El-Masri – an innocent German – from a hotel in Macedonia and flew him to Afghanistan for four months of brutal interrogations, we tortured. And when we rendered the Libyan dissident Sami al-Saadi (along with his wife and four children) to Gaddafi's Libya, where our proxies tortured him, it is we who bear the responsibility.

This fact – that we purposefully committed torture – is the only salient fact that Americans will need to know in order to confidently reach a permanent judgment about this misguided chapter in our recent history. That judgment will rest on the understanding that the American project, our very purpose as a nation from our birth until today, is to promote human dignity. And it will rest on the recognition that we as a nation are sworn to the protection of those inalienable rights that define and shield human dignity, among which is the non-derogable right to be free from cruelty.

"When we tortured these victims, both those innocent and those culpable of acts of terrorism, we violated our laws and committed crimes, we betrayed our values and heritage, and we disfigured our national character."

If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qahtani, Arar, El-Masri, and al-Saadi did not have the right to be free from cruelty it is only because no one has the right to be free from cruelty. But we do have that right – and they did, too. When we tortured these victims, both those innocent and those culpable of acts of terrorism, we violated our laws and committed crimes, we betrayed our values and heritage, and we disfigured our national character. The issue of torture, to paraphrase Sen. John McCain, is more about who we are than what they did. Seen this way, if we wish to become again the nation we would wish to be, then we need to look into the mirror which the Senate Intelligence Committee provides us and resolve never to go that way again.

The issue now is whether, having once invited torture into our home, we will continue to make room for torture in our future. Some insist we should. These individuals, many of whom were among the chief architects, authorizers, or implementers of the torture program, can be heard to say that "it wasn't torture", that the torture "worked", and that it kept us "safe." Or, it is claimed, because "patriots" administered the torture, it must be applauded – as if the degree of the torturers' patriotism could be of the slightest relevancy.

All of these claims are bogus. As the Navy General Counsel in the Bush administration when the torture policies were first adopted, I as well as the near-totality of military lawyers in the Pentagon recognized that the now-discredited legal memos authorizing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" licensed torture, a conclusion that is now shared not only by President Obama and the European Court of Human Rights, but by close to the totality of legal academics and experts in the United States and Europe.

And the torture policies neither worked nor made us safer – to the contrary. Our nation's strategic defensive national interest is to protect both our people and our values equally and simultaneously. Throughout our history, brave men and women have taken risks and at times incurred casualties in order to protect our heritage and way of life. Our use of torture damaged the nation by disregarding this second strategic interest and by damaging our values. And, in addition, our use of torture blunted our moral authority; damaged foreign political support for our effort against terrorism; alienated our closest allies; created rifts in the alliance structure assembled to fight the war; impaired military, intelligence, and law enforcement cooperation; obstructed tactical operations in the battlefield; gave aid and comfort to the enemy in that it enabled them to more effectively recruit combatants and muster political support; and, for this reason, appears to have been a significant cause of U.S. combat deaths.

Time and distance from the horror of 9/11 may help us better understand why we tortured: we were angry and afraid. But this understanding should not soften our ultimate judgment on our use of torture as a weapon of war: it was inexcusable and greatly damaged our nation.

[Valmy]

'Palin? That fu-Censored for content.'

I just don't understand it.  How did somebody that vapid make it through so many rounds of elections before being exposed for the shallow idiot she is?

She's got all the grasp of nuance of a half-brick in a sock.  Her ability to empathize with other cultures doesn't extend outside of her backyard, let alone outside of our borders, and I've never seen anyone with such an uncanny ability to offend as many people as possible in as few sentences as possible.

Before a national campaign handlers can do wonders protecting somebody's image.  I mean look at Rick Perry.

[Razgovory]

Most politicians aren't polished presidential material.  It's surprising she got to the level she did, but Alaska does have a low population.  There's probably not a lot of scrutiny up there.

[Martinus]

There's probably not a lot of scrutiny up there.

I guess katmai ate most of it.

[CountDeMoney]

I thought this was a good article, by a former General Counsel of the Navy during the Bush administration.

This article, and similar responses from other Americans (including in this thread) along with the publication of the report itself paradoxically gives me greater faith in American institutions and the American character.

It is probably too much to hope that serious charges are laid, but the fact that these acts are brought to light nonetheless shows that American ideals and institutions are still worth something.

I'm not budging on KSM, though.  That sinister fuck deserved each and every 183 bucket sessions.  And his TV dinners.

[CountDeMoney]

'Learned helplessness': The chilling psychological concept behind the CIA's interrogation methods
By Terrence McCoy
Washington Post

Of all the harrowing accounts and chilling examples in the U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation practices, among the most striking was that of Abu Zubaydah. One of the first detainees in the war on terror, he was also one of the most vital. Lying in a bed in Thailand, he told FBI interrogators all about Khalid Sheik Mohammed — the mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks.

But then the CIA showed up. Its team was accompanied by a psychologist. And he wanted to conduct a test that would get "Zubaydah to reveal everything by severing his sense of personality and scaring him almost to death," reported Vanity Fair in 2007 in a groundbreaking story. So interrogators built a coffin and stuffed him inside it, the Senate report said, for 300 hours. He was waterboarded 83 times in 17 days. He was absolutely broken by the procedures — but not one significant plot was foiled as a result of his confessions.

Despite the failure of the interrogation methods, the psychological concept guiding them — called "learned helplessness" — lived on. With the guidance of two psychologists on contract to the CIA for $1,800 per day, the technique of stripping someone of their will would be applied to numerous additional prisoners in the coming years. Media reports have named the two psychologists: Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who in all earned $81 million in payment. They derived their approach from a well-known 1967 research paper by University of Pennsylvania psychologists.

The concept: "exposing organisms to aversive events which they cannot control," according to a later paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology co-authored by Martin E. Seligman, who studied what happens when someone loses control over their life. One definition of the result: "an apathetic attitude stemming from the conviction that one's actions do not have the power to affect one's situation." But it's also more than that. Learned helplessness occurs when a subject is so broken he will not even attempt escape if the opportunity presents itself.

The original tests were designed for dogs as part of a search for treatment of depression in humans. Seligman subjected two groups of dogs to electric shocks. One had an escape: If they moved to one area, they could stop the shocks. The other had none, and soon realized that they no matter what they did, their torment would continue. The result "seemed related to the concept of learned 'helplessness' or 'hopelessness,'" the paper said.

Decades later, the psychologist Mitchell became enamored with the idea. And in 2001, he approached Seligman at a small gathering at Seligman's house, the New York Times reported. Mitchell was so effusive in his praise of "learned helplessness" that Seligman recalled it years later. He even told his wife of the strange encounter that night. But Seligman was unaware of the uses to which it would be put.

When he later learned through media accounts how it was employed– for enhanced interrogation–he issued a statement: "I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression, may have been used for such bad purposes."

That may have been because he knew what the principle could do to a distressed person, as mentioned in later accounts of the treatment. In people, it "disrupts normal development and learning and leads to emotional disturbances, especially depression."

This is exactly what appeared to happen to Abu Zabaydah. With the backing of the CIA, he was stripped and exposed to loud rock music. Then, after weeks of psychological interrogation, the Senate report said Zabaydah became "compliant."

"When the interrogator 'raised his eyebrow,' without instructions, Abu Zabaydah 'slowly walked on his own to the water table and sat down,'" one account said. "... When the interrogator snapped his fingers twice, Abu Zabaydah would lie flat on the waterboard."

He had been trained. Like one of Seligman's dogs.

Now, reached for comment by Bloomberg News, Mitchell would not confirm or deny his role. But he took issue with the report's description of the treatment. The psychologist said the Senate report "cherry picks things" and others are taken out of context: "It looks like what they did was get some facts wrong. It is easy looking back in hindsight and say you could have done it better."

It's unclear from his comment whether he was referring to the efficacy of "learned helplessness" in exposing secrets — or the decision to use it at all. He declined to elaborate.

[garbon]

Wow...

[CountDeMoney]

Wow...

A stunningly, incredibly, massively stupid Wow of Biblical fucking proportions at that.

[garbon]

Wow...

A stunningly, incredibly, massively stupid Wow of Biblical fucking proportions at that.

Yeah, I was pretty much speechless.