Yes, there is. But I don’t feel confident enough about my ability to explain it to you in a way you will understand.

I’m sure Mark will do a better job if he chooses to reply.

This is why I say Qahtani is “the exception which proves the U.S.A. is not torturing detainees at Guantanamo. [Crawford's] revelation is evidence the steady drumbeat [Torture! Torture! Torture!] has been wrong.” The way I read WaPo/Crawford, excepting for waterboarding and the “combination of things that had a medical impact [on Qahtani]“, Crawford sees no torture at GITMO. Crawford sees techniques she disagrees with; Crawford does not believe those techniques meet the definition of torture.

Well, for one thing, the fact that any given technique was authorized by the Bush administration does not mean those techniques are not torture. We’re talking about the people who decided they did not have to follow the Geneva Convention or any other laws regarding the treatment of detainees — or, in fact, any laws at all.

But the bigger point is that the Crawford quote you use to “explain” to me why you are saying that al-Qahtani “is the exception that proves the rule” that detainees at Gitmo were treated humanely doesn’t, actually, um, explain why you say that. You are drawing a conclusion from the Crawford quote that is not stated, supported, suggested, or in any way concludable from the quote.

That’s all I can say to you on this point, Greg. I know you will not understand and you will still want to know why the quote doesn’t support your conclusion, but there is a limit as to how far I can reasonably go to aid your reading comprehension.

I believe it’s correct that, to this point, we’ve not released hardened, unrepentent jihadis whom we believe will again wage war against us. Is there some other aspect of my statement which you are speaking of, and which I am blind to?

I am not quibbling with any allegations regarding what has happened outside of GITMO.

Crawford said the following (as I believe you’ve already noted):

The techniques they used [on Qahtani] were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health.

This is why I say Qahtani is “the exception which proves the U.S.A. is not torturing detainees at Guantanamo. [Crawford's] revelation is evidence the steady drumbeat [Torture! Torture! Torture!] has been wrong.” The way I read WaPo/Crawford, excepting for waterboarding and the “combination of things that had a medical impact [on Qahtani]“, Crawford sees no torture at GITMO. Crawford sees techniques she disagrees with; Crawford does not believe those techniques meet the definition of torture.

Re Crawford’s “everybody wasn’t tortured”. My only point: Crawford is indicating she has investigated more than one case at GITMO.

Mark, I am going to take a wild guess: Your mouth is hanging open and you are absolutely speechless at this moment. Am I right?

Fair enough.

U.S. criminals have a high incidence of chemical dependence. Not so jihadis.

U.S. criminals often return to shattered families and little social support or opportunity. Jihadis often return to welcoming, strong families; and return to ages old stable tribal culture which welcomes them, and inside of which they know their place, and inside of which they know how to live functional and fulfilling lives.

U.S. criminals are often amongst the least disciplined, least motivated, least virtuous members of U.S. society. Jihadis are often amongst the most disciplined, most motivated, most virtuous members of their societies.

U.S. criminals are released after shortened sentences; benefitting from time off for good behavior. They are not released b/c they are rehabilitated. Jihadis at GITMO are released when a judgment has been made that they are ready to return to productive society. If they are judged unready to return to society; if they are judged to still be high risk for attacking the U.S.A. at first opportunity: they are to this point not released. This is a huge difference. U.S. criminals are released when they’ve paid their debt to society. GITMO prisoners are released when they are adjudged ready to resume peaceful living. GITMO prisoners also benefit from deprogramming-type rehab conversations with professionals. U.S. criminals often receive not much effective rehab for the help they really need in integrating into American society and into the American economy.

Therefore, I think the 11% Jihadi recidivism rate and the 67% U.S. criminal recidivism rate represents and apples and oranges comparison. If you disagree, I respect that.

No murders that we know of at Guantanamo, but there have been dozens of attempted suicides and three that succeeded.

At other U.S.-run detention and interrogation centers, such as Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Force Base, there have been confirmed murders. And at the C.I.A. black sites all over the globe, which nobody knows how many there are or where they are or what goes on inside them, nobody will ever know — at least, not for many years to come — whether any prisoners were murdered and, if so, how many.

… Crawford’s revelation effectively points to Qahtani as the exception which proves the U.S.A. is not torturing detainees at Guantanamo. Her revelation is evidence the steady drumbeat has been wrong.

This statement is absurd on its face. How does a judge’s finding that al-Qahtani was tortured prove that al-Qahtani was the only Gitmo detainee who was tortured? In fact, Susan Crawford explicitly acknowledges in the WaPo article the possibility that others were tortured.

Crawford herself has only been in this position of Gitmo trial judge overseer since 2007, and Guantanamo has been a detention and interrogation facility since early 2002. Based on what logic, then, do you say that Crawford’s finding that al-Qahtani was tortured means he was the only detainee at Gitmo who was tortured?

Crawford investigated more than Qahtani, as indicated by both the parameters of her position and her statement to WaPo: “There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured.”

And how do you find that “everybody wasn’t tortured” means that Crawford’s finding that al-Qahtani was tortured is proof that no one else was tortured?

In other words, could you at least try to make sense?

Your third: Has this accusation been accurately investigated or proven re Guantanamo?

Yes.

When lesser and lesser experiences are characterized as torture, the negative impact of “torture” as a concept is lessened. Young Americans will soon enough hear “Egypt tortures her enemies”, and will respond “So? The U.S. Military tortures their own enlistees during training. Big deal.”

Americans are already hearing that, because too many people are intentionally ignorant about the meaning of torture, such as yourself. If you can opt out of “torture,” as enlistees can, simply by not volunteering for programs like SERE, then it’s not torture. Torture by definition is something you do not volunteer for.

Torture is torture. There is no such thing as torture lite. Either something is torture or it is not torture. There really is not any ambiguity. Depriving someone of sleep, forcibly, for one night is not torture. That doesn’t mean it makes sense to do it, but it’s not torture. Depriving someone of sleep for months by interrogating them for 20 continuous hours, allowing four hours for sleep, then waking them and interrogating them for another continuous 20 hours, on and on like that as I said, for months, is torture.

Simply stating “apples and oranges” doesn’t refute my point, which was an attempt to explain why the numbers are so disparate.

Regardless, if you really do think it’s “apples and oranges” then you need to explain why. Simply stating so doesn’t make it true.

I don’t credit your assertions. If we were murdering prisoners at GITMO, it makes sense such would have widely come to light by now.

As far as what happens away from GITMO: I make no comment. My only point is this: Crawford’s revelation casts the U.S. in both positive and negative light. Across world media, like a drumbeat, we’ve heard “Torture at Guantanamo, Torture at Guantanamo, Torture at Guantanamo”, etc., to such extent that GITMO detention will be closed down at some point. However, Crawford’s revelation effectively points to Qahtani as the exception which proves the U.S.A. is not torturing detainees at Guantanamo. Her revelation is evidence the steady drumbeat has been wrong.

Mark,
Apples and oranges.

Kathy,

Your fourth: Got it.

Your third: Has this accusation been accurately investigated or proven re Guantanamo?

Your second, I only mention this: When lesser and lesser experiences are characterized as torture, the negative impact of “torture” as a concept is lessened. Young Americans will soon enough hear “Egypt tortures her enemies”, and will respond “So? The U.S. Military tortures their own enlistees during training. Big deal.”

Your first: Crawford investigated more than Qahtani, as indicated by both the parameters of her position and her statement to WaPo:

“There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured.”

First, Crawford has not investigated all the Gitmo cases coming to trial. There may yet be more cases like al-Qahtani’s.

Second, the use of individual cruel, degrading, and/or environmental manipulation techniques together, in combination, and for prolonged periods IS a torture technique. It was the North Koreans and the Soviets who pioneered the use of torture techniques that don’t leave marks on the body but very effectively break down and destroy the human psyche. The North Koreans, in particular, found that when more than one of these techniques were used together for long periods of time, the destructive effect was greatly increased. The Bush administration got the idea to use psyche-destroying techniques in combination from studying North Korean interrogation manuals.

So what happened to al-Qahtani was not an anomaly — it was policy.

Third, the use of low-level personnel who were not trained in the use of these techniques was a deliberate choice. They were given a list of 18 approved techniques from Rumsfeld and told to use them however they wanted. The predictable result is the responsibility of those who left people who had no professional experience or training in interrogation to use very dangerous, destructive, harmful techniques on detainees who, in large part as Mark points out, knew absolutely nothing of the matters they were being questioned on.

Fourth, it is true that individual techniques such as sleep deprivation, isolation, yelling, insults, etc., do not usually rise to the level of torture when used singly and for short periods of time. But the point is that senior Bush officials were operating from the start on a deeply held, unshakeable belief that actionable intelligence could only be obtained through force. If a detainee was believed to have particular knowledge of terrorist plans or connections that the government wanted to get out of them, forcing it out of them was, in their view, the only way to get it. Given that mindset, when any given detainee did not have the information the government was convinced the detainee had, the answer was not that the detainee did not have the information; the answer was that the detainee did have the information but would not give it over unless more force was used. That was the whole point of using these techniques in combination. The point is, the Axis of Evil in the White House — Bush, Cheney, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes (and most particularly the second two) *knew* that the techniques we are discussing, when used singly and not for long periods of time, were not torture. And that’s precisely why they wanted them used in a way that *would* cause extremely high levels of distress — because, in their twisted view, these men, who had already been tried and convicted of being terrorist masterminds in the heads of Cheney, Addington, et al., would never, ever give up what they knew if treated humanely. If some force was not enough, the answer was more force, not less.

For all these reasons, Crawford’s finding does NOT comprise evidence of the humanity of U.S. policy.

Putting a hood on a person’s head whose hands are handcuffed behind his back and then suspending him by his arms so his feet cannot touch the floor and then that person dies from asphyxiation consistent with the way a person who is crucified dies sounds like torture to me.

Not to mention the deaths of prisoners at gitmo who died that did not come under the purview of Crawford.

I make no assertion about the effectiveness or the wisdom of the interrogation techniques employed at Guantanamo. I only note those techniques, properly applied, do not rise to a level where they can be labeled “torture”. If anyone wishes to damn the ineffectiveness of the interrogation techniques: I assert no quibble with their characterization.