US Intelligence Veterans
Warn Against Torture
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35380-us-intelligence-veterans-warn-against-torture
To those living
"outside the Beltway" it may seem counterintuitive that those of us
whose analysis has been correct on key issues that the US government got criminally
wrong -- like the invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- would be blacklisted from
"mainstream" media and ostracized by the Smart People of the
Establishment. But, alas, that’s the way it is.
Forget the
continuing carnage in which hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions
made refugees. Within the mainstream US media and around Washington’s major
policy circles, there is little serious dialogue, much less debate about what
went so hideously wrong; and Americans still innocently wonder -- regarding
the people on the receiving end of the blunderbuss violence -- "why they
hate us."
After more than
13 years of presenting thoughtful critiques to senior officials -- and having
little discernible impact -- we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
are strongly tempted to take some solace in having made a good-faith effort to
spread some truth around -- and, now, go play golf. But the stakes are too
high. We can’t in good conscience approach the first tee without having tried
one more time.
Accordingly, we
repeat the offer we
extended on Feb. 26 -- this time to the winnowed candidate roster of
Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump -- to
make our deep experience and proven expertise available to those of you
interested in the tell-it-like-it-is analysis that has been our niche for so
many years.
Given our 13-year record for accuracy and insight, we had
hoped that at least one or two of you would take us up on the offer, especially
since a few of you have faced criticism for a paucity of foreign policy
and national security experts.
Of more
immediate importance to the nation and the world, statements by some of you in
reaction to the Monday bombings in Brussels, seem to betray:
Gross naiveté
about how to counter terrorism;
Demagogic
disregard for the civil liberty protections embodied in the US Constitution; or
Both of the
above.
We can help
round out your understanding of terrorism, its causes and its possible cures --
but with respect to "A" above, you may wish to begin by
reading VIPS memorandum #15 (of June 18, 2007), How Not to Counter
Terrorism, drafted by our VIPS colleague, former Special Agent Coleen Rowley,
who was FBI Division Counsel, Minneapolis, during 9/11. (Rowley later blew the
whistle about the ineptitude at FBI headquarters that thwarted the simple steps
that would have prevented those terrorist attacks.)
On Torture, Pols and Polls
Based on our
lengthy experience in intelligence, we know that torture doesn’t
"work." So we confess to a certain disgust with the "new
normal," fostered not only by some presidential candidates but also by the
media, that torture techniques like waterboarding yield useful
intelligence. They don’t.
This issue has
come to the fore again in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels bombings. We
continue to be concerned that presidential candidates may be unaware, not only
that harsh interrogation techniques don’t "work," but also that they
are a great fillip to the recruitment of more terrorists.
There are, of
course, polls purporting to show that a majority of Americans still think that
torturing "bad guys" can be justified. That simply means that many
citizens have been seduced by artificially stoked fear into believing
what all independent investigations -- including the detailed Senate
study relying on original CIA documents -- have proven: that despite all the TV
and Hollywood propaganda "showing" that torture "works," it
doesn’t.
The sole
exception is if your purpose is to obtain unreliable or false
"intelligence." For instance, if you wish to coerce an Al Qaeda
operative into "confessing" that there were close ties between Iraq’s
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, well, then torture can work like a charm. A
detainee will happily confirm a lie to stop the pain.
As for those
responsible for implementing torture -- like former CIA directors George Tenet,
Porter Goss and Michael Hayden -- is it not clear that they have strong
incentive to "justify" their criminal behavior? Some other
complicit CIA officials and operatives, eager to protect themselves
from the opprobrium that comes from torturing, also continue to pretend
that torture helps "keep us safe."
The opposite is
the case, but these torture practitioners and their accomplices continue
to promote the lie that useful intelligence can be gotten via abusive
interrogation techniques (never mind that most such "enhanced"
techniques are clearly illegal, not to mention immoral and ineffective).
VIPS has spoken
out strongly -- most recently in a Sept. 14, 2015 memo --
against these crass attempts by former intelligence officials to exculpate
themselves and other perpetrators.
What the
commanding general of US Army intelligence has said about torture bears
repeating: On Sept. 6, 2006, the very day President George W. Bush announced
and applauded the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation
techniques," Gen. John Kimmons told a Pentagon press conference: "I
am absolutely convinced [that] no good intelligence is going to come from
abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical
evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that."
Wise Advisers Needed
Some of today's
presidential candidates are brimming with what we're told are sage foreign
policy advisers, even though many have been implicated in the disastrous
policies of recent decades; other candidates have relatively few advisers --
some of them unknown entities about whom little can be found even via Google.
As a collective, VIPS stands ready to help any and all candidates who might be
interested. It may now be time to insert some names into our offer.
The listing
below contains only those members of VIPS who signed onto our Memorandum of
Sept. 14, 2015, addressing our former bosses’ transparent attempts to cover up
their role in torture:
VIPS Steering
Group, Sept. 14, 2015
Fulton
Armstrong, National Intelligence Officer for Latin America (ret.)
William Binney,
former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA;
co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Tony Camerino,
former Air Force and Air Force Reserves, senior interrogator in Iraq and author
of How to Break a Terrorist under pseudonym Matthew Alexander
Glenn L. Carle,
Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Transnational Threats, CIA (ret.)
Thomas Drake,
former Senior Executive, NSA
Daniel
Ellsberg, former State Department and Defense Department Official (VIPS
Associate)
Philip Giraldi,
CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh,
former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate
VIPS)
Larry C
Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S.
Kearns, Captain, USAF Intelligence Agency (Retired), ex Master SERE Instructor
John Kiriakou,
Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer
Karen
Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.)
Edward Loomis,
NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David
MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
James
Marcinkowski, Attorney, former CIA Operations Officer
Ray McGovern,
former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth
Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Todd Pierce,
MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former
Maj., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Diane Roark,
former professional staff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Coleen Rowley,
Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Ali Soufan,
former FBI Special Agent
Robert David
Steele, former CIA Operations Officer
Greg Thielmann,
US Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and former Senate Intelligence Committee
Peter Van
Buren, US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Lawrence
Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of
William and Mary
Valerie Plame
Wilson, CIA Operations Officer (ret.)
Ann Wright, US
Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former US Diplomat
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