Attempted terrorist attack on plane landing in Michigan

[Big Lutz]

File this under: WHY NOT TO TREAT TERRORIST LIKE CRIMINALS

Abdulmutallab was “singing like a canary” — until he went to court

The chance to secure crucial information about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen was lost because the Obama administration decided to charge and prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, critics say. He is said to have reduced his co-operation with FBI interrogators on the advice of his government-appointed defence counsel.

The potential significance became chillingly clear this weekend when it was reported that shortly after his detention, he boasted that 20 more young Muslim men were being prepared for similar murderous missions in the Yemen.

The lawyer for the 23-year-old Nigerian entered a formal not guilty plea on Friday to charges that he tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25 – even though he reportedly admitted earlier that he was trained and supplied with the explosives sewn into his underwear by al-Qaeda in the Arab state.

"He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."

Abdulmutallab could have been held and interrogated in military custody under existing US legislation before a decision was taken whether to charge him before a military tribunal or a civilian court, according to Michael Mukasey, the last Attorney General under President George W Bush.

Mr Mukasey argues that it was crucial to gain intelligence from him immediately as details about locations, names and other plots is subject to rapid change. For the same reason, he dismissed the argument by John Brennan, Mr Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, that investigators will garner valuable data during any plea-bargaining talks.

"He certainly should know that the kind of facts that Abdulmutallab might be expected to know have a shelf life that is a lot shorter than the plea bargaining process," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week.

Bu-Bu-But Obama knows we are at war with terrorism, a-a-and he cares about taking terrorism seriously![/sarcasm]

 

[Fig]

The distinction between the two seems to depend in no small part on whether you buy into the Bush-whacky distinction between "unlawful enemy combatant" and "enemy combatant".

From my perspective, either you treat him like a criminal, or else you treat him as an enemy combatant under the laws of war (Geneva convention). If the later, there is a limit as to what information you're allowed to demand from him.

Yeah, it makes fighting terrorists harder. But the power of arbitrary detention (that is to say, keeping someone in prison with a hazy legal status for as long as you want without giving them any right) has no place in a democracy, and a non-democracy is not worth saving.

 

[Big Lutz]

The distinction between the two seems to depend in no small part on whether you buy into the Bush-whacky distinction between "unlawful enemy combatant" and "enemy combatant".

From my perspective, either you treat him like a criminal, or else you treat him as an enemy combatant under the laws of war (Geneva convention). If the later, there is a limit as to what information you're allowed to demand from him.

Yeah, it makes fighting terrorists harder. But the power of arbitrary detention (that is to say, keeping someone in prison with a hazy legal status for as long as you want without giving them any right) has no place in a democracy, and a non-democracy is not worth saving.

Nor is it worth saving when it allows valuable information that could end up saving thousands of lives of its own people to sit in a jail cell, lawyered up and told to keep his mouth shut.

The US could give him a tribunal and establish his status as a unlawful enemy combatant as they have with other unlawful enemy combatants, and in keeping with Article 5 of the third Geneva Convention.

The problem is that Obama's unwillingness to do that, even though the set of laws allowing it was established in a bi partisan manner with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress working on the law, just becuase Bush did it, is both stupid and supremely dangerous.

Obama is essentially gambling with the lives of American Citizens so that he won't have to do what Bush did.

 

[Nando]

The problem is, what if you classify him as an enemy combatant, throw him in a military prison and use whatever interrogation tactics you want on him - and he lies?

 

[Big Lutz]

The problem is, what if you classify him as an enemy combatant, throw him in a military prison and use whatever interrogation tactics you want on him - and he lies?

Then you go back and do it again, the man is not going anywhere and has no reason to lie except to face harsher treatment, while telling the truth gives him better treatment and better perks. Not to mention that it isn't like that these guys havn't spent years dealing with these suspects, as well as training intensely to determine when some one is lying or not, it pretty much is their job to know when some one is lying or not.

 

[Nando]

Then you go back and do it again, the man is not going anywhere and has no reason to lie except to face harsher treatment, while telling the truth gives him better treatment and better perks. Not to mention that it isn't like that these guys havn't spent years dealing with these suspects, as well as training intensely to determine when some one is lying or not, it pretty much is their job to know when some one is lying or not.

Maybe that's the case with someone who is clearly a clueless idiot like this guy, but if you get a hardened terrorist, what's to stop him from saying, say, 12 attackers are coming from Afghanistan when 20 are coming from Yemen? I'm sure these hardcore guys are trained to pull this.

Worse, he could lie and overstate any impending threat - if a captured terrorist with any reputation 'breaks' and claims 100 attackers are planning to blow up 25 planes simultaneously and word of that gets out, imagine the consequences.

I'm not really trying to take any sides here - I'm just trying to point out that neither side really has a cut and dry solution to it.

 

[Big Lutz]

Maybe that's the case with someone who is clearly a clueless idiot like this guy, but if you get a hardened terrorist, what's to stop him from saying, say, 12 attackers are coming from Afghanistan when 20 are coming from Yemen? I'm sure these hardcore guys are trained to pull this.

You mean like KSM? Some one who was a hardened terrorist and devoted to the cause of many plans he put together, who eventually became one of our best sources of information.

It comes down mainly to self survival, going through the same horrible conditions day in and day out, lacking sleep, going through bitter cold and horrible heat with no end. They eventually believe they have fullfilled their spiritual duty ( Islam says you can go until you can break, and then you are free to tell your captor everything with no religious repercussions ). At that point you are willing to tell them everything you know just to get better treatment, and if you lie again, its the same if not worse, for the rest of your life.

Worse, he could lie and overstate any impending threat - if a captured terrorist with any reputation 'breaks' and claims 100 attackers are planning to blow up 25 planes simultaneously and word of that gets out, imagine the consequences.

Which intel would be verified by what we already know as well as other captured sources. For example the Underwear bomber says there are more attacks on the way, this agrees with what the British are saying with atleast 20 more terrorists are on the way.

The problem you do not seem to realize is that he has nothing to gain from lying, and typically these guys will know if you are lying or not. The only thing lying is going to get you is worse treatment for the rest of your life. Meanwhile the other terrorists are outside watching TV, socializing, enjoying themselves. Meanwhile you are in a small cramped cell, going on 5 days with 2 hours of sleep and 45 degree temps. Knowing that you will go through that for the rest of your very long life unless you spill your guts. What is your incentive not to.

 

[Phoenicks]

What if? What if?

What if all the world were apple pie,
and all the sea were ink?
And all the seas were bread and cheese -
what would we have to drink?

I disagree Nando, simply because the fear of failure should not overcome the chance of success. A few steps take that logic to being unable to trust our agents abroad for fear of double-agents. A few steps take that to say that we should wait until we know what our enemies are doing - right as they're doing it to us. We would not have defeated the soviets without intelligence.

 

[Nando]

While I'm inclined to agree with you both, when you're dealing with things on a global scale, I do think you have to at least acknowledge possible situations.

 

[Big Lutz]

While I'm inclined to agree with you both, when you're dealing with things on a global scale, I do think you have to at least acknowledge possible situations.

I acknowledge that they will start off lying, or using any other trickery, but these guys are trained to wear down the mind through numerous methods from fear to exhaustion and everything in between. At some point the mind begins to say "Please, enough, say everything"

 

[Phoenicks]

We simply don't know. It's not good to insert things when we don't know. We don't know about what plans we have to counter lying terrorists, we don't know if terrorists have lied before, and we don't know about the nature of the training terrorists receive in response to torture.

The knowns are the precedents. We have extracted useful information from terrorists before, and saved thousands of lives. We know that the Military plans for many circumstances, even the implausible (like war plans to fight Canada).

Given the knowns and unknowns, we're better off trying to get information (And getting bad info) than getting no information.

 

[Big Lutz]

Since we had been discussing torture I figured this would be a interesting story about the US Torture Techniques during the Bush Administration.

Indeed, the first terrorist to be subjected to enhanced techniques, Zubaydah, told his interrogators something stunning. According to the Justice Department memos released by the Obama administration, Zubaydah explained that “brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” In other words, the terrorists are called by their religious ideology to resist as far as they can — and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know.

Several senior officials told me that, after undergoing waterboarding, Zubaydah actually thanked his interrogators and said, “You must do this for all the brothers.” The enhanced interrogation techniques were a relief for Zubaydah, they said, because they lifted a moral burden from his shoulders — the responsibility to continue resisting.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTYyYTlhMzg5OWY1OThlMDA0ZjIxNmMzNjg2N2E1NWU=

I have heard several times before about this, how Muslim Terrorists believe they have a religious duty to resist as much as they can, and then they are free to speak up about everything they know. Just never thought I would hear a terrorist thanking his interrogators.

Edit:

Critics have charged that enhanced interrogation techniques are not effective because those undergoing them will say anything to get them to stop. Soufan, the FBI agent and CIA critic, has written: “When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. . . . That means the information you’re getting is useless.”

What this statement reveals is that Soufan knows nothing about how the CIA actually employed enhanced interrogation techniques. In an interview for my book, former national-security adviser Steve Hadley explained to me, “The interrogation techniques were not to elicit information. So the whole argument that people tell you lies under torture misses the point.” Hadley said the purpose of the techniques was to “bring them to the point where they are willing to cooperate, and once they are willing to cooperate, then the techniques stop and you do all the things the FBI agents say you ought to do to build trust and all the rest.”

Former CIA director Mike Hayden explained to me that, as enhanced techniques are applied, CIA interrogators like Harry would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already know the answers — allowing them to judge whether the detainees were being truthful and determine when the terrorists had reached a level of compliance. Hayden said, “They are designed to create a state of cooperation, not to get specific truthful answers to a specific question.”

And another lie about these enhanced interrogation techniques finally dies.

Another reason the program was so effective, Harry and Sam explained, was that because the terrorists were in a secure location, CIA officials could also expose sensitive information to them — asking them to explain the meaning of materials captured in terrorist raids, and to indentify phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and voices in recordings of intercepted communications. This could never be done if the terrorists were being held in a facility where they had regular contact with the outside world. The danger of this information getting out would have been far too great.

Harry and Sam told me that the agency believed without the program the terrorists would have succeeded in striking our country again.

Just couldn't resist, one last juicy tidbit.

 

[Golbat-Man]

"The system worked." If 9/11 occured when this putz was around, she'd say the same thing. What a load of shit.

I really don't know what to think of Obama, but he's got three years to go.

Everything Big Lutz says.

BAAAAAW I HAET OBAMA BECAUSE HE'S UNAMERICAN AND HE DOESN'T DO THINGS LIKE HE'S OUR LORD JEEBUS.

I hate the appearance of ignorance too, but he inherited alot from his predecessors (namely the Iraqi war from Bush) and so he's got a lot to fix. Don't assume that if there's five seconds without him talking about it he's "unamuurican". I also know that middle-eastern conflict has been going on for decades, but Bush started the Iraqi War, which I hear escalated the terrorism. It's not a blame, it's just a fact. To say Bush didn't start the Iraq War is like saying that FDR didn't come up with the New Deal. It's just a fact and there's no running from it, and if you do, it's from denial.

On a side note, you seem to stick around debate sections a lot. Do you even play pokemon?