Before the waterboarding and sleep deprivation, he gave no useful information. After such nasty techniques, he gave information that led to (among many other invaluable terror-stopping pieces of information) the arrest of Iyman Faris, an al-Qaida-trained sleeper agent who had been dispatched to the United States by KSM to plot attacks on landmarks in the New York area, including the Brooklyn Bridge.
....
realclearpolitics.com
In case you missed it, waterboarding worked
By Patrick McIlheran of the Journal Sentinel
Sept. 1, 2009 |(99) Comments
So reported the Washington Post the other day. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s attitude changed remarkably, the paper reports, “after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques.
“ ‘KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete,’ according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA's then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department.”
Whereas afterward, KSM sang like a bird. Discoursed for hours. Used a chalkboard to make things clearer.
And do recall that this was because of treatment that did not physically harm, much less maim or in any way permanently damage the guy. It terrified him but put him in no actual danger. It is harsh, to the extent we wouldn’t, of course, subject anyone under our criminal laws to it nor even POWs or anyone coverable by the Geneva Conventions. Which terrorists, being on no country’s side, are not. But it is not torture as customarily understood.
And it worked.
Rich Lowry points out the conundrum this presents to the anti-waterboarding forces:
“This demolishes a key argument of the opponents of the program, who have long insisted coercive interrogations can never work and must necessarily backfire. I always thought it was foolish of them to invest so much in this argument since it was so implausible. It showed a key insecurity behind their moral absolutism. The opponents knew that if they admitted that the toughest of these techniques were applied only to a few top operatives who coughed up intelligence that led to the arrest of other terrorists and the discovery of other plots, they could never get much traction with the public. So they had to insist the interrogations didn't work.”
So it turns out it does work. The equation, then, is this: Once we grant that torture as commonly and traditionally understood is banned, is it out of bounds for a foreign terrorist not under the protection of our laws to be frightened -- though not physically hurt or permanently harmed -- even if barring such techniques probably permits the success of a plot that will surely
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