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DENVER, Colo. — Mind taking a couple minutes away from convention-centricity? I have a new piece out in the Washington Independent about Joshua Casteel, a former interrogator at Abu Ghraib, who paints a picture of an intelligence process where, stunningly, torture was not the end of the U.S.’s problems.
Under pressure from his commanders, Casteel was ordered to interrogate detainees at length even after he was convinced they knew little or nothing about the insurgency — a diversion of resources that, he said, wasted time and energy. Worse, he was cut off from the rest of the intelligence process, lacking the ability to judge the reliability of those whose confessions and anonymous tips had led to the detentions of the men he interrogated.
In addition, he was given a quota of so-called “actionable intelligence” he had to get out of his interrogations, regardless of whether those he interrogated knew anything valuable. Then, when his interrogations ended, he was never able to learn if those arrested as the result of his interrogations were dangerous terrorists or innocent people.
This is the sort of systemic problem that nearly never gets addressed: the
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Further proof, if any were wanted, that torture is NEVER done to get information. EVERYONE — no exceptions — knows that it is useless for that purpose. It is never anything more or other than an expression of sadism. It is done because the victim is thought to “deserve” it, never for any other reason.
“It is done because the victim is thought to “deserve” it, never for any other reason.”
You should add that they torture because they enjoy it.
This is the sort of systemic problem that nearly never gets addressed: the
Eh?
You should add that they torture because they enjoy it.
They torture because they’re sadistic, they torture because they’re angry, they torture because they want information (that justification probably lasted about a month), but mostly they just torture because it makes them feel powerful. The midget version of throwing a country up against the wall. ‘We torture, don’t resist us!’
max
[’Winston Smith would understand.’]
Some years ago, I was an auditor at the then largest Chicago bank. It was a trip. They were attempting to implement a “Quality Initiative” but this was really limited to what they did best – fudging numbers.
Everyone had to have “metrics”, and they had to show improvements to their metrics each month. Naturally they did have metrics which improved each month. It didn’t matter whether any of the metrics impacted quality of customer service, or cost of service delivery. Nor did it matter if the measurements were faked, or if they were constantly reset (due to unforeseeable circumstances – like one-time events in an annual statement).
This is modern American Free-Enterprise business management. The thing that is supposed to be so efficient (due to market pressures).
So, naturally, with all the Stirling business leaders this administration has leveraged, starting at the top with the V.P. and his assistant the Prez, it’s no wonder that we see this same sort of advanced, effective, and actionable business process now become replicated in government agencies.
Pure Genius