You continue to make the error of thinking this is about tea and crumpets versus torture. You insist the 'ticking time bomb' scenario changes everything. Clearly, neither of your assumptions is true. You're just plain WRONG about this -- now demonstrate the intestinal fortitude of the officer class and just admit it.

NO ONE says we should coddle terrorists and ask them to pretty please tell us where the bomb is hidden. Torture WILL NOT HELP in these circumstances -- in fact, it can only HURT, because it makes the detainee LESS likely to cooperate. Any cooperation, any information gleaned from torture is IMMEDIATELY suspect -- not because torture is wrong, but because it DOES NOT PRODUCE RELIABLE INFORMATION or a cooperative prisoner.

I'm not particularly concerned about making terrorists "comfortable." I am very, VERY much concerned about getting reliable, useful information from them in a timely fashion. There is too much at stake to let our atavistic impulses take over. So, Lt. Michale, shall I torture the prisoner -- or INTERVIEW him??

However, that situation is a far cry from what I am referring to.

Finally: What about you, Michale? While YOU are driving in your Prius, enjoying the benefits of the freedom I bought for you with my blood, sweat, and tears (including the freedom to swallow whatever bullshit Dick Cheney says), what do YOU know about interrogation techniques and the psychology of torture? What studies have you made of the 'effectiveness' of so-called 'enhanced interrogation'?

I have to admit, this part gave me a huge laugh. I find it amusing that you would mistake me for a Prius driving, latte slurping liberal.. :D

I am a veteran of the USAF and the US Army. I was an MI Ell Tee during Desert Storm and had served as an LEO and an FSO for the better part of a quarter century. I have also served as a military and intelligence liaison to about a half dozen different countries, spanning the globe..

CT operations is a far cry from milops and what doesn't work for military applications is quite effective in the field.

I am not saying that we should torture people to see if they are terrorists. I am not saying we should torture terrorist just because they are terrorists, although I would not have much of a problem with that..

I am saying that, in the unlikely event that we have a known and proven terrorist and there is an imminent threat of loss of innocent life or lives and it's proven that said terrorist has actionable intel, then I don't see a problem with torturing the scumbag to save lives.

And, frankly, I am surprised that anyone WOULD have a problem with that, under the circumstances that I have outlined.

It comes down to a question of priorities. What's more important.

Saving innocent lives??

Or the comfort of a terrorist??

To me, it's a no brainer.

Michale.....

To answer your question, I was one of those "dedicated men and women who are highly successful at what they do."

Yeah, that's right, Michale. You're having a debate with someone who actually did interrogations.

YOU can thank ME.

To be specific, I was a US Army 98G Arabic translator. I worked with classified Top Secret/SCI SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence) for five years. During that time I deployed to the Middle East and supported counterintelligence operations with real-time translation services. During that deployment I observed several disappointing shortfalls in our training.

First and foremost, we had virtually zero cultural training to go with the language skills. Language is a barrier all on its own, but within the words there is the symbolic and intellectual language of ideas. The armed forces never, ever bothered to teach us those ideas. My own private studies were invaluable to the commander in trying to interpret data because he didn't have the first clue what 'Hajj' really meant, or why the Shi'ites in Jahara wouldn't cooperate with Salafis in Kuwait City.

The Army didn't teach me these things because it had much more important things for me to do while at Fort Hood: cut the grass, change the oil in trucks, destroy several tons of documentation about Soviet units that no longer existed, and play with Cold War-era tactical SIGINT equipment.

When Rumsfeld downplayed the significance of the shortfall in Army translators, he sneered and cited this lack of cultural training as a reason for using contractors instead of training new linguists. This was the first time I have ever actually thrown an object at my television.

But don't take my word for how important this is -- take Matthew Alexander's word for it. He's the US Army interrogator who nailed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by sitting down to talk (yes, TALK) to a detainee for a few hours:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/hbc-90004036

There's a long, long history behind the US Army Field Manual for interrogations, Michale. Decades and decades of experience in many theaters of war has taught the Army that you gain the most valuable information most quickly by offering food and liquid ("tea and crumpets") and having a conversation.

The "ticking time bomb" is a red herring. Alexander dealt with the ticking time bomb every friggin' day in Iraq, and produced actionable intelligence in a timely fashion without ever once resorting to torture.

Real interrogation is NOT just some namby-pamby coddling of evil men; it's smart, rational policy. But it takes trained, specialized people who are in chronically short supply in a country that has never valued foreign language skills or cultural awareness. An Arabic linguist takes 63 weeks just to learn the language. Waterboarding is quite easy and cheap by comparison -- an easy resort for sociopaths like Cheney and Bush.

As for your Cheney talking point, "the FACT that there has not been a terrorist attack on US proper in 7 years" -- how many jihadis have been drawn to the cause over this? The number one reason cited by foreign fighters in Iraq for their joining the fight is GUANTANAMO and ABU GHRAIB. That's right. Thousands of "rough men who stand ready to do violence on (our) behalf," who "do not have the luxury of living in (my) cushy world," have been killed because of Gitmo and Pvt. England. They were both disasters for America, and not just in some mythical court of opinion but in the form of IEDs and sniper fire.

Finally: What about you, Michale? While YOU are driving in your Prius, enjoying the benefits of the freedom I bought for you with my blood, sweat, and tears (including the freedom to swallow whatever bullshit Dick Cheney says), what do YOU know about interrogation techniques and the psychology of torture? What studies have you made of the 'effectiveness' of so-called 'enhanced interrogation'?

Anything?

Episodes of "24" don't count...

Michale, no one is saying that terrorists should be treated to tea and crumpets. That's a straw man and you can stop stabbing it.

By putting the comfort of terrorists BEFORE saving innocent lives, you might as well be treating them to tea and crumpets.

Torture simply does not produce reliable information; if it did, every police department in the country would be using it. Instead, torture produces the information that will stop the torture — if I torture YOU, Michale, you will actually look for the subtle clues to figure out what you're supposed to confess. You will make a ***FALSE*** confession.

Torture CAN produce reliable and actionable intel. This is a bona fide fact.

Even if it's only effective 1% of the time and only 1 innocent life is saved, that makes it worth it..

By torturing you, I will blow a big hole in my credibility and the credibility of any information I produce. I will cease to be the Good Guy in The Situation.

Yes, that's the politically correct attitude to have. It is also completely false and has NO basis in reality... There were many MANY terrorist attacks against innocent Americans before Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a documented fact.

The idea that, if we DON'T torture terrorists, there will cease to be any terrorism is ludicrous and completely unsubstantiated by ANY facts whatsoever.

But real interrogation is hard. It requires knowledge, training, and insight — three things sorely lacking in the US intelligence community as of 2001, for a host of reasons

And you know this... how exactly??

The fact is, our intelligence community is made up of dedicated men and women who are highly successful at what they do. This is supported by the FACT that there has not been a terrorist attack on US proper in 7 years...

I realize it's easy for people to sit in their cushy chairs and cushy offices and drive their cushy SUVs and castigate the intelligence community for their actions.

But keep in mind. They do not have the luxury of living in your cushy world.

"People can sleep peacefully at night only because there are rough men who stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
-George Orwell

Perhaps you should just say, "Thank you"...

Michale......

Torture simply does not produce reliable information; if it did, every police department in the country would be using it. Instead, torture produces the information that will stop the torture -- if I torture YOU, Michale, you will actually look for the subtle clues to figure out what you're supposed to confess. You will make a ***FALSE*** confession.

By torturing you, I will blow a big hole in my credibility and the credibility of any information I produce. I will cease to be the Good Guy in The Situation.

But real interrogation is hard. It requires knowledge, training, and insight -- three things sorely lacking in the US intelligence community as of 2001, for a host of reasons I won't go into here. Interrogation is hard, but torture is easy. When the Bush team made their sociopathic choice, it was the easy way out.

To put it in it's proper context, if you have a rabid dog bearing down on a group of innocent little children, are you going to compassionately intercede and calm the rabid dog with kindness?

Of course not. You are going to put the dog down as quickly as possible.

What is the public policy in dealing with animals that have attacked humans? That same policy should be applied to terrorists..

As far as Colin Powell, he has flip-flopped on so many different issues, he is not much of a reliable source.. As much as I used to respect the man, he seems to be a political animal these days.

Michale.....

Crossposted to huffingtonpost.com

We'll be reversing deregulation and the financial crisis. We'll be changing tax policy. We'll be undoing Gitmo and disentangling from Iraq. We'll be overturning midnight regulations. But the last eight years won't un-happen, and they won't be checked in the first hundred days.

Given that reality, the sooner we get to the bottom of what went wrong -- on every level -- the sooner we can get started undoing the Bush years. That's why Senate reports and blue-ribbon commissions will be so important: we can leave George Bush, Cheney, and the neocons in the dustbin of history -- and let the historians deal with him as they may.

Let them crack jokes about the other shoe (and I will); we have to move on to repairing the damage.

Just between you and me and the four walls, so to speak, your post was better!

Lots more to say but no time now...later!