Andrew Sullivan nails it: 7 years with torture yielded no progress on UBL

[Recursion]

2 years without torture, and we get the info to put a bullet in his face.

EDIT: the link: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/how-will-limbaugh-spin-this.html

[GSLevel9]

1. Actually...

They're saying info about the courier came from CIA interrogators and KSM

[Recursion]

2. Everything I've read said they got to the courier within the last 2 years (nt)

[zaj]

5. NBC reported that the info on the Courier came from Gitmo in 2004.

[Recursion]

6. Ah crap. There goes that argument (nt)

[socialist_n_TN]

7. Not necessarily. I remember seeing some

testimony where one of the high level assets that was held at Guantanimo gave BAD info under torture, but good info under regular interrogation. We don't know if this info came from waterboarding or regular interrogation. I would put my money on the regular interrogation.

As to Gitmo, the captured asset that gave up the info, could have been detained anywhere as long as we weren't torturing him.

[seabeyond]

9. i am not buying. want a link or more. first 2004. saw 2007. most all is two years ago

found the carriers and followed a year ago. house came to attention 8 months ago

[Rage for Order]

21. The information came from interrogations in Gitmo. Link here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/02reconstruct-capture-osama-bin-laden.html

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.

[Recursion]

22. OK, so torture got them a name, actual interrogation got them something actionable

If they had started that way, he might have been dead four years ago rather than Sunday.

[seabeyond]

23. so they got a name and did nothing. obama stepped in and worked it adn this is what we got.

i can work with this, lol

thanks

[demwing]

11. In his address, Obam, stated that the info came in August of last year

not 2004

[seabeyond]

20. thanks. that is what i heard at beginning. then started getting distorted by fox and repugs.. nt

[Bucky]

3. How sure are you that the torture is over with?

I'm not sure at all, myself. But maybe you know something I don't know. Where did you get that news from?

[Recursion]

4. Err... Executive Order 13491

Signed January 22, 2009

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-1885.pdf

[Javaman]

8. WE may or may not be torturing, but...

other nations where some of these guys are still sent, are.

And the corporate hired intel experts? They don't torture?

Just because it's on record, that the US Military doesn't torture, doesn't mean the US allies and contacts don't.

And frankly, holding someone without charges for years in confined cells and suspending their right to habeas corpus, isn't torture?

[Recursion]

10. I'm not aware of foreign nationals captured by the military ever having recourse to hc

The EPW receipt documentation (which they all have to have to be processed) suffices as a writ of habeas corpus.

holding someone without charges for years

Prisoners of war (which, despite Bush's gymnastics on this, is what they are) are not criminals, and are not going to be "charged" with anything. They are detained until the conflict ends.

[Javaman]

15. They aren't defined as "prisoners of war" and never have been

moron* knew perfectly well, once that that name is given to a captured person then Geneva Convention kicks in.

This is why they are called "enemy combatants".

As far as the EPW, while that may "suffice as a writ", they have been denied time and time again a trail by their peers and look at the evidence.

Unless you have been in a cave for the past 10 years, there have been story after story of guys been held in gitmo with no evidence.

I don't need to google that for you.

[Recursion]

16. A "trial" for what? "Evidence" of what?

Fighting against the US is not a crime.

[Javaman]

17. Did you just fall off the turnip truck?

have you not understood what pretense they have been held under?

They have been held as enemy combatants who have supposedly colluded with terrorists and have committed terrorists acts. This is the excuse the US Government and Military have been using for the last 10 years. This denies them a trial under the Geneva convention. This allows the US to do whatever the fuck they want with them, including torture.

As a result, since they aren't classified as "prisoners of war", they are merely people with gun which are then allowed representation via our judicial system because they are accused by the occupiers, the US, as enemies.

are you deliberately trying to be obtuse?

You what? fuck it. I can see there is no convincing you of everything that has been in the news for the past 10 years.

You want to continue thinking that way, go crazy.

this is done. You may now have the last word, because I can see you are itching for it, regardless of how bizarre your argument is.

[Recursion]

19. What do you mean "denies them a trial"?

Seriously, I'm trying to figure out what you expect. When we captured Germans in WWII did we put them on trial? Himmler and Goebbels, sure (that would be KSM I guess), I'm talking about the 99% in both cases. Fighting against the US isn't a crime, and AFAIK we aren't saying it is, we're saying that combatants caught aren't released while the war is still going on.

[EFerrari]

13. The black site at Bagram is closed now?

I don't think that's the case.

But as far as this OBL point, it makes more sense that some deal was finally cut with Pakistan than anything else.

[snooper2]

12. “They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden,”

“They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden,” a senior administration official told reporters on a midnight conference call. “Detainees gave us his nom de guerre, or his nickname, and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.”

Officials didn’t learn the courier’s name until 2007. Then it took two years to find him and track him back to this compound, which was discovered in August 2010.

“It was a “Holy cow!” moment,” an official said.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54093.html#ixzz1LDLA9O5t

[robinlynne]

14. great point!!! The Pres should say this on national tv!!!

[ThomWV]

18. That is a very good line to quote