by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPage<\/em><\/p>\n The Senate Intelligence Committee last week grilled Obama\u2019s pick to head the CIA, John Brennan, on all sorts of issues. Democrats worked him over about the CIA\u2019s interrogation, detention, and droning of terrorist suspects, while Republicans were concerned about leaks of classified information. But the real story was not just Brennan\u2019s answers \u2014 which were in fact problematic, and perhaps duplicitous \u2014 but also the Senators\u2019 choice of topics, some of which reflect the delusional thinking that for over a decade has hampered the war against jihadism. One of the most harmful has been the proscribing of \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques,\u201d especially waterboarding, from which the CIA learned valuable intelligence, because it is \u201ctorture.\u201d<\/p>\n Liberals are put out with Brennan because of his involvement in those interrogation techniques, and so have made it an issue in the Committee hearings. The emotion and angst over waterboarding, at a fever pitch during the Bush years, have been roused again by the movie about killing Bin Laden,Zero Dark Thirty<\/em>, which suggested that useful intelligence was gleaned by waterboarding a terrorist. In 2009, Senate opponents of waterboarding commissioned a \u201cstudy\u201d that takes 6000 pages to reach the pre-ordained conclusion that waterboarding is immoral and ineffective. An executive summary was released in time for Brennan\u2019s hearing, which became another opportunity to perpetuate the misinformation and hysteria that surround this topic by parsing his words and actions on the subject.<\/p>\n Since Democrats (and Republican John McCain) continue to insist that waterboarding is \u201ctorture\u201d and \u201cdoesn\u2019t work,\u201d then, they couldn\u2019t have been happy with Brennan\u2019s 2007 interview in which he said,<\/p>\n There [has] been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hardcore terrorists. It has saved lives. And let\u2019s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9\/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.<\/p>\n Yet Brennan also said that waterboarding should be \u201cprohibited\u201d because it was \u201cinconsistent with American values.\u201d Ever the bureaucratic operator, Brennan was covering both flanks. But while the first statement was true, the second was mere pandering to the incoherent thinking on waterboarding that put Brennan on the hot seat.<\/p>\n But the real issue ignored in all this renewed handwringing over waterboarding is that it is not torture under American law. The\u00a0statute<\/a>\u00a0covering torture in the US Code defines it as \u201can act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control,\u201d and further clarifies \u201csevere mental pain or suffering\u201d as \u201cthe prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from . . . the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.\u201d The key words are \u201cintended,\u201d \u201csevere,\u201d and \u201cprolonged.\u201d As John Yoo writes in his indispensable\u00a0book<\/a>\u00a0on the subject, in passing this legislation \u201cCongress unquestionably intended its prohibition on torture to be narrow, much narrower than many popular understandings of the word. The alleged torturer must have acted with \u2018specific intent,\u2019 the highest level of criminal intent known to the law . . . . If severe physical or mental pain or suffering results, but was unintentional, or unanticipated, it would not be torture.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the law left vague what \u201csevere\u201d means. So in 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice clarified the meaning by looking at other uses of similar language in US law. \u201cThe only other place\u201d Yoo writes, \u201cwhere similar words appear is in a law defining health benefits for emergency medical conditions, which are defined as severe symptoms, including \u2018severe pain\u2019 where an individual\u2019s health is placed \u2018in serious jeopardy,\u2019 \u2018serious impairment to bodily functions,\u2019 or \u2018serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.\u2019\u201d So too with the use of the word \u201cprolonged\u201d in regards to \u201cmental harm.\u201d By including this language, \u201cCongress prohibited the causing of posttraumatic stress disorder or chronic depression,\u201d but not the \u201ctemporary strain\u201d of a tough interrogation.<\/p>\n This analysis led to the definition of torture in the 2002 legal opinion smeared as \u201ctorture memos\u201d: \u201cphysical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture (under US law), it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.\u201d By this analysis of the law, the enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, are neither \u201ctorture\u201d nor \u201cillegal.\u201d<\/p>\n And Attorney General Eric Holder agreed in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2009. Since tens of thousand of American service members were waterboarded during their SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training, Holder was asked why this training wasn\u2019t torture and hence illegal.\u00a0Holder correctly replied<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s not torture in the legal sense because you\u2019re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally.\u201d This same logic perforce applies to the CIA interrogators, whose intent was to gather intelligence in order to defend us from terrorist attacks. The lack of intent to harm permanently on the part of the interrogators is confirmed by the carefully calibrated limitations imposed on the techniques, as well as the presence of physicians and psychologists to monitor the proceedings and insure that the subject didn\u2019t suffer permanent physical or mental damage. As national security analyst Marc Thiessen writes in\u00a0Courting Disaster<\/a><\/em>, \u201cnone<\/em>\u00a0of the techniques used by the CIA meet the standard of torture in U.S. law. This is for two reasons: first, because the CIA\u2019s interrogators did not\u00a0specifically intend<\/em>\u00a0to inflict severe pain and suffering; and second because they did not\u00a0in fact<\/em>\u00a0inflict severe pain and suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the effectiveness of waterboarding in generating intelligence, former CIA directors Michael Hayden, George Tenet, and Leon Panetta, along with the CIA Inspector General\u2019s report on enhanced interrogation techniques, have said waterboarding and other now proscribed techniques produced valuable information. In his memoirs George Tenet wrote about the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed \u2014 the mastermind of 9\/11 who claims to have personally decapitated\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0reporter Daniel Pearl. According to Tenet, \u201cFrom our interrogation of KSM and other senior al-Qaeda members and our examination of documents found on them, we learned many things \u2014 not just tactical information leading to the next capture. For example, more than twenty plots had been put in motion by al Qaeda against US infrastructure targets . . . . All these plots were in various stages of planning when we captured or killed the pre-9\/11 al-Qaeda leaders behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite that success, on coming into office Obama issued Executive Order 13491, forbidding the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. A few months later he ordered \u2014 over the protests of 6 CIA directors, including Leon Panetta, and 8 field operatives \u2014 the Department of Justice to release the internal memos that in the process of establishing the legality of the techniques described them in detail, thus providing valuable information to the enemy on how to overcome them. Having neutralized proven interrogation techniques, now Obama simply drones terrorists to death rather than trying to capture them in order to gather information with all those other techniques that critics of waterboarding claim are equally effective.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the real story behind the Committee\u2019s interrogation of Brennan: partisan self-interest, emotional delusion, and sloppy thinking have taken from the hands of those charged with keeping us safe a tool that proved its usefulness in acquiring information critical for preventing attacks. That mistake is more important than whether John Brennan can flip-flop his way to getting himself confirmed as CIA director.<\/p>\n \u00a92013 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage The Senate Intelligence Committee last week grilled Obama\u2019s pick to head the CIA, John Brennan, on all sorts of issues. Democrats worked him over about the CIA\u2019s interrogation, detention, and droning of terrorist suspects, while Republicans were concerned about leaks of classified information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[59,22,495],"tags":[1051,12,311,210,1061,61,180],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-bA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11339,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/john-brennans-security-clearance\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":0},"title":"John Brennan\u2019s Security Clearance","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Scarier than former CIA chief John Brennan losing his security clearance is the idea that he ever had one in the first place. Perhaps to avoid the appearance of partisanship in pulling the security clearances of former intelligence chiefs, the Trump administration should now\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "John Brennan"","block_context":{"text":"John Brennan","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/john-brennan\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3107,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/imprecise-language-breeds-dangerous-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":1},"title":"Imprecise Language Breeds Dangerous Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society In his classic essay \u201cPolitics and the English Language,\u201d George Orwell identified a \u201clack of precision\u201d as the besetting sin of politicized writing, either through incompetence or indifference as to whether \u201cwords mean anything or not.\u201d The liberal media have illustrated the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8096,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/are-drone-strikes-more-defensible-than-torture\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":2},"title":"Are Drone Strikes More Defensible than Torture?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Democrats are hypocritically silent about Obama\u2019s policy of targeted assassinations. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online There are lots of hypocrisies surrounding the recently released executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA\u2019s detention and interrogation program. But they pale in comparison to the current\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"MQ-9 Reaper in Afghanistan, 2008 (Staff Sergeant Brian Ferguson)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/pic_giant2_121814_SM_Reaper-Drone-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11215,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-reply-to-ronald-radoshs-smear\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":3},"title":"A Reply to Ronald Radosh\u2019s Smear","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In a strange attack on my criticism of former CIA director John Brennan\u2019s lack of veracity, Ron Radosh\u00a0alleges\u00a0that I have engaged in a sort of conspiracy theory about the deep state. He quotes me in an article largely devoted to Jerome Corsi\u2019s new book,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CIA"","block_context":{"text":"CIA","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/cia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/time-for-a-foreign-policy-paradigm-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":4},"title":"Time for a Foreign Policy Paradigm Shift","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The greatest danger in foreign policy is a reliance on worn out paradigms and unexamined assumptions. This received wisdom acts as a mental filter that ignores new developments and lets through only that information which fits the preordained narrative. For nearly forty years American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-no-revelation-that-intelligence-agencies-are-politicized\/","url_meta":{"origin":718,"position":5},"title":"It\u2019s No Revelation That Intelligence Agencies Are Politicized","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Trump is acknowledging a fact that recent history has repeatedly demonstrated. Furor has arisen over President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s charges that our intelligence agencies are politicized. Spare us the outrage. For decades, directors of intelligence agencies have often quite inappropriately massaged their assessments to fit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}