Getting Osama Bin Laden: The Case against Torture | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Getting Osama Bin Laden: The Case against Torture | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "the GOP torture caucus argues that Bush-era prisoner abuse enabled officials to track down bin Laden.

Assume for the moment that this is true. It still offers no compelling argument to torture.

Bin Laden was a moral monster, well deserving of his fate. But for all of his plotting, he does not appear to have achieved very much in recent years. Wrote Charles Fried, a former U.S. Solicitor General, and Gregory Fried, a philosophy professor: 'Osama bin Laden was not the ticking bomb requiring immediate defusing, so familiar now from television dramas.'"

"The U.S. prosecuted Japanese military officers for war crimes including waterboarding: how can American interrogators use the same technique today?"

"many professional interrogators argue that torture generally is ineffective. Carle complained that torture 'didn't provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.' The interrogator stationed in Afghanistan, who also has worked in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, stated: 'No torture, no waterboarding, no coercion -- nothing inhumane -- is considered a useful tool in our work.'

Warned Stuart Herrington, a retired Army colonel who interrogated leading Iraqis, 'The abuse often only strengthens their resolve and makes it that much harder for an interrogator to find a way to elicit useful information.' Similarly, Alexander, now with the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, argued that prisoners tend to 'quit talking' after being tortured.

Even if they continue talking, what they say cannot be trusted, since torture creates an incentive to appear cooperative and say whatever will stop the pain."

"though Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times, provided Abu Ahmed's nom de' guerre, Khalid apparently was not the first detainee to do so. That information also was not garnered while he was being tortured--when, in fact, Khalid lied about many details about the courier."