What We Should Take From The C.I.A. Torture Report

The torture report that has been released by the CIA yesterday has left the entire country asking themselves, once again, is tortue worth it?

The American public was told time and time again by multiple politicians on varying sides of the political spectrum that torture was a necessary evil that we must handle in order to remain safe. However, the report released yesterday has many wondering how true that really is.

Now, the CIA itself has admitted that at times it's statements were sometimes "inaccurate or speculative"* and said that it intended to change its ways in the future.

To say that the CIA was "speculative" would be the understatement of the year, however. You see, in most situations reviewed by the Senate, the CIA was completely dishonest in its methods to keep authority's opinion in its favor on the matter of torture. I'll explain some examples and their response by the Senate Select Committee's report.

1. One of the greatest display of a successful counterterrorism mission was the assassination of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Once they had heard of the success of the mission, the CIA began telling Congress that their interrogation program led them to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who in turn sent them straight to Bin Laden. However, after reading through multiple pages of recently declassified evidence, the Senate Select Committee declared that this was in fact false.

"Within days of the raid on UBL’s compound, CIA officials represented that CIA detainees provided the ‘tipoff’ information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti. A review of CIA records found that the initial intelligence obtained, as well as the information the CIA identified as the most critical — or the most valuable — on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, was not related to the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques."

2. Jose Padilla was accused to be plotting a radiological dirty bomb attack inside of the United States. He was one of the first American citizens to be designated an "enemy combatant". Throughout the Bush administration the torture of Abu Zubaydah was given credit for the uncovering of Padilla's plotting. However, it has now been revealed that Padilla's arrest took place three months before the torture program had even started. Also, the Bush administration never actually took the case seriously. It was based on a comedic internet article titled; How to Make an H-Bomb. One step in the process was swinging a bucket of Uranium over one's head for 45 minutes.

"A review of CIA operational cables and other CIA records found that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques played no role in the identification of ‘Jose Padilla’ or the thwarting of the Dirty Bomb or Tall Buildings plotting."

These were not the only cases to be debunked by the report. In fact, there were many, many more. We as Americans were lied to, and for whatever reason we have thus far remained okay with that.

This report, however, changes things and shows that this kind of torture does not work, it has been infinitely more aggressive and vile than we ever could have imagined, and it violates much more than human rights. I will be leaving a link to the report as well as a few articles which talk about it for those who are further curious on the matter.

That's all I have for today, but I'll be back tomorrow!

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe it." -Neil deGrasse Tyson

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/timeline-of-cias-secret-interrogation-program.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-key-points.html

Committee Report

*via NY Times Does Torture Work? The C.I.A.’s Claims and What the Committee Found By MATT APUZZO, HAEYOUN PARK and LARRY BUCHANAN, published on December 9th, 2014.