Dark Bilious Vapors

From Larry C. Johnson:

I think Dick Cheney has been watching too many Hollywood flicks that glorify torture. He needs, instead, to get on the ground and talk to the folks he is ostensibly trying to empower to torture. Unlike Dick I have spoken with three CIA operations officers in the last three months--all who have worked on terrorism at the highest levels--and not one endorses torture or believes it will help us. In fact, they believe it will hurt us on many levels.

Two of my friends served in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. If the suicide bombing of the World Trade Centers was not enough justification for hooking Haji up to battery cables, I don't know what is. My friends recognized correctly that their mission was to gather intelligence not create new enemies. If you inflict enough pain on someone they will give you information, but, unless you kill them, they will hold a grudge. As far as the information goes there is no guarantee it will be correct. What real CIA field officers know from their work with actual sources is that whatever short term benefit can be derived from torture will be offset by the new enemy you have created. It is better to build a relationship of trust, no matter how painstaking, rather than gain a short term benefit that puts you on par with a Nazi concentration camp guard.

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Cheney's plea to allow CIA or other intelligence officers to torture would be the death of the CIA as a professional intelligence service and another stain on the reputation of the United States. We're losing our claim to being the City on the Hill as a beacon of light and hope to the world. Instead, we're morphing into the Dark Tower of Lord Sauron in the land of Mordor. Sauron's a big believer in torture, just ask Frodo.

Len on 11.08.05 @ 08:13 AM CST