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Did Use of "Intelligence" from "Enhanced Interrogations" Cost American Lives?
Maybe this has been obvious to everyone else for awhile, but it just dawned on me.
If so-called "enhanced interrogations" (i.e., waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, cold temperatures, and other forms of torture) were used to create evidence of links between Hussein and al Qaeda links and evidence of weapons of mass destruction in order to build a more convincing case for the invasion of Iraq (where more than 4,000 American troops have died),
Then, contrary to what Cheney, Bush, and other apologists have claimed, didn't the use of "enhanced interrogations" cost American lives, and not save them?
If so-called "enhanced interrogations" (i.e., waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, cold temperatures, and other forms of torture) were used to create evidence of links between Hussein and al Qaeda links and evidence of weapons of mass destruction in order to build a more convincing case for the invasion of Iraq (where more than 4,000 American troops have died),
Then, contrary to what Cheney, Bush, and other apologists have claimed, didn't the use of "enhanced interrogations" cost American lives, and not save them?
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Billions of dollars went to friends of those who ordered the torture in the first place. Then these friends oversaw the actual torture--a true case of government outsourcing gone awry.
Then five thousand soldiers were lost along with a hundred thousand (or is it hundreds of thousands) of Iraqi lives were lost. And of course, tens of thousands of our soldiers came back with whatever the jargon is now for the Vietnam Syndrome.
And for what?
And cheney still maintains that this carnage protected America and made the world safe for democracy.
May 30, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
dickday,
Post traumatic stress syndrome (psychological) is different than Vietnam syndrome - the reluctance to engage in foreign military operations.
May 31, 2009 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we could cut to the chase here and just say once and for all, the Bush/Cheney regime has cost our country and others' many many lives. Not only have people needlessly died, many have been grievously harmed, physically and psychologically. Iraqis, who at least knew how to stay out of Saddam's way have been traumatized, humiliated, and uprooted for no good reason.
Torture? It is a symptom. Bush/Cheney regime? The disease. Not 100% fatal, but always striving to be.
May 30, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes it's good to say the obvious "out loud" whether as a reminder, whether it's redundant to some (might be news to others), or as a riposte or rejoinder in what passes for public debate.
It is possible for intel to both save lives and cost lives, whether the intel is "false" or "true".
It's good to put small claims into a larger context. Cheney might be right that EITs or even outright torture occasionally got useful accurate info. In response, it's not enough to point out the cost-benefit ratio, the risk-reward factors of such efforts. It's important to also put them into perspective.
There probably was no one thing which led to Bush's decision to invade Iraq when and how he did. The "testimony" of Al-Shaykh Al-Libi via false confession under torture was another "brick in the wall" for Cheney et al. While surely a shining example of a failure of torture to provide accurate intel, it is only one false brick in the facade.
I doubt that we will find documents, or get inside testimony, that Cheney et al overtly conspired clandestinely to lie in the dramatic sense of a movie line such as "Fuck the truth and fuck Saddam, just make something up."
OTOH we do have evidence such as "Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity", and "F--k Saddam" from Bush.
And to get a bit conspiratorial... did anyone connected with the Bush Admin have a hand in creating false flag attacks such as the Anthrax incidents which followed after 9/11?
May 30, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is not one misdeed that I would put past the Bush Administration, you know the one run by Dick Cheney. So for me, it was obvious that I should know not to trust their bellowing even before this new evidence came out. And all the braying of the former Vice President did not do one thing to convince me differently. I already suspected that Cheney had manipulated intel to get his assistant, G. W. Bush to bomb heck out of Iraq. Remember, Cheney had a great deal to do with the failed Iraq policy of the last Republican Administration run by George H. W. Bush. He may have thought he had a big score to settle.
May 30, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The answer is, absolutely yes! It also destroyed the reputation of many who went along with the bogus scheme. I forgot what a bagman Powell was until I went to the link. Thank you.
Do you think dick/george count the money aquired based on a per capita of American lives or on all the death that will come of their misadventures.
Prison is the fitting end for the whole gang. Dick & george are the least we can settle for.
May 30, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink