The Proof Of The Pudding Is In The Eating
Laura Rozen tells us: “The information gotten from Libi as the result of the torture the CIA facilitated has now been identified as total fabrications.”
At Yellow Doggerel Democratic Steve Bates makes the point: “To the extent that torture elicits information, it elicits whatever the interrogator wants to hear.”
And at No More Mister Nice Blog a different Steve draws the conclusion: “They didn’t have al-Libi tortured to get the truth out of him; they had him tortured to get him to ‘confirm’ what they already ‘knew.'”
Torture is used to make people say what you want them say. The KGB wasn’t interested in information, they wanted a “confession”. The North Koreans and North Vietnamese used the same techniques to provide grist for their propaganda mill.
Al-Libi wasn’t asked if Saddam’s government was linked to Al Qaeda, he was asked how they were linked and pressure was applied until he came up with a reasonable story.
For those who haven’t been paying attention, there are a lot of prominent figures and families in the Islamic world who have ties to the Bin Laden family. Having terror suspects questioned, with or without torture, by authorities in an Islamic country could well lead to selective editing of the names of those individuals or families. This is not the way to conduct an effective investigation.
This “pudding” is half-baked and sour.
