Torture's Synopsis

The New York Times has published on today's front page a concise, clear article on Spokane's most recent claim to infamy: the two psychologists - Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen - who got the CIA to hire them to head up the torture program back in 2002. I think these guys are headed for an indictment. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

The article is interesting in that, as a latecomer to the topic, it looks backwards in time at events that have unfolded from 2002 to a couple of months ago, and gives perspective to them. It adds nice color too. There's an interview with Mark Mays, who was the first psychologist to manage the SERE program (a survival training program for our military personnel that Mitchell and Jessen twisted into an aggressive torture program). Mark - a local psychologist and lawyer here in Spokane - explains how the SERE facility was set up like interrogation camps based on American POW recollections, then says, "It was clear that this is what we’d expect from our enemies. It was not something I could ever imagine Americans would do."

Until now.

One interesting quote comes from psychologist Martin Seligman, who wrote on a theory called "learned helplessness." Seligman discovered in the 1960s that dogs that learned they could do nothing to avoid small electric shocks would become listless and simply whine and endure the shocks even after being given a chance to escape. He termed this "learned helplessness." Lenore Walker used this theory to help describe what happens to battered women who are so beaten down that they cannot leave the abusive relationship. Apparently SERE instructors used it to describe what can happen to military personnel - according to the NYT article, SERE instructors would stop short of creating a "learned helplessness" state. In his torture outings in 2002, Mitchell cited the "learned helplessness" state as one to attain, to force the tortured to give in to the torturer's commands. Problem with theory - all it will do is get the tortured to say whatever the torturer wants him to say - even if it's false.

In the article, Seligman is quoted as having met Mitchell, and that Mitchell praised his work on learned helplessness to such an extent that he mentioned to his wife that night. "Later, [Seligman] said, he was 'grieved and horrified' to learn that his work had been cited to justify brutal interrogations."

Keep in mind, these two psychologists had never interrogated a prisoner before becoming the head of this torture program. The article highlights the opportunistic nature of these guys, and the slobbering desire of the CIA (the people in charge) to have someone - anyone - who would justify torture under the guise of a psychologist's title.

The article also discusses how Mitchell and Jessen closed down their offices abruptly just a couple months ago. This I know - I wrote an entry about it. That entry prompted a phone call from someone purporting to be a BBC reporter, even though BBC had no idea who he was. (I returned the guy's voice mail by calling back the BBC directly rather than his cell phone.) This shall remain suspicious in my mind. Why would someone pose as a reporter to get information from me about the Torture Building and lack of offices? Especially someone who is listed in the New York business pages as a lawyer and architect? This is a mystery that remains unsolved. But it sounds right up the alley of Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

One of the article's comments: "'We have met the enemy, and he is us.' Pogo."

And here is a comment by someone named John, in D.C.:

As a former interrogator, I know from experience that you MUST put aside what you feel a suspect deserves in terms of punishment and focus on what most effectively produces reliable intelligence. That is the #1 goal of interrogation. It is not punishment, it is intelligence collection. Readers like Matt from NY and TN from Texas would do well to remember that distinction. There are NO PROVEN INTELLIGENCE results from interrogation. The only proven results are an increase in hostility from local populations, increased recruiting of extremist groups and increased attacks on US military service members. The fact that torture does not produce reliable intelligence is not news to well-trained, experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals. Over and over again, we see how the former administration employed AMATEURS with NO TRAINING or EXPERIENCE to do what trained professionals were unwilling to sanction. And THOSE who ordered and conducted that activity DO deserve to be punished.

Torture, And General Sanchez

There was an interesting headline that I read in yesterday's news. Did you see it? Likely not. Which is the other interesting thing about this headline...

On Sunday night, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez - the general who ran Iraq and was a bit skewered for being in charge during Abu Graib atrocities - was on a panel and called for a "truth commission" on the policies and practices of the Bush Administration when it comes to torture. The General described failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to abuses in Iraq and said that is why he supports a truth commission. "This was an insitutional failure, a personal failure on the part of many," he said. "If we do not find out what happened, then we are doomed to repeat it." He also stated that, during his time in Iraq, "there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniqes."

Personally, I am on the fence about a truth commission. I'm not against it, but I'm not vocally for it either. I've been on my own one-person truth commission bandwagon, at least with regard to the Spokane-psychologist connection (like here, here and here), so it might be surprising that I am neutral about an official version. The bottom line, for me, is what Gen. Sanchez says: that we have to know what happened so that we do not repeat our mistakes. The question for me is whether a truth commission is the best, or only, way to get to that information.

Truth commission or no, Gen. Sanchez's words here are powerful. This is the man who was forced to retire because of the atrocities at Abu Graib. He was the fall guy. And now we find out that Abu Graib was not due to the actions of an isolated few, but was the offspring of a methodical plan by the Bush administration - either a caricature of it or (I shudder to think) a perfect model of it. That never worked. Never worked, people. Gen. Sanchez's own words: "There was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques."

So why have you (probably) not read this headline anywhere? Because the MSM (mainstream media) has not reported on it. I saw it here, on the Huffington Post, with all the above quotes. I searched this a.m. for news items on it... All news items are from the blogosphere. The only MSM outlet - and some would argue that it's not so MSM - appears to be Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" show on MSNBC. I love Keith, and that's great that it's on his show (Obermann clip is on the Huffington Post link) - he even interviewed the General - but this is a startling headline to me, with great quotes and one more authentic challenge to Dick Cheney's assertion that torture saved lives. Why has the MSM ignored it?

So, two headlines: Gen. Sanchez supports the call for a Truth Commission, saying that no actionable intelligence ever came from these torture techniques; and the MSM chooses to ignore him.

FYI: Sen. Patrick Leahy also calls for a Truth Commission, and encourages the signing of a petition if you support it too. Here's his website: www.bushtruthcommission.com. He has over 100,000 signatures so far.

More Torture Items

There are two incredibly interesting items about torture.

First: a Chicago-based radio show host called Erich Mancow Muller - apparently he's on a conservative show, though I've never listened to it - volunteered to be waterboarded. He lasted only a handful of seconds after less than a gallon of water was poured onto his face (he got through 3/4 of a gallon). He said it was "absolutely torture," and that it was "instanteous and horrific." Here's the clip.

Second: two men with first hand experience with waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" went on NPR to talk about how waterboarding is torture, is ineffective, obtains false confessions, and negatively affects the mental health and well being of our soldiers who were required to conduct the torture. The two men are Tony Lagouranis (a former interrogator at Abu Graib (not involved in any of the now-infamous photos) who has just written a book called "Fear Up Harsh - An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq") and Mike Ritz (a former interrogation instructor at SERE, our military's program that trains soldiers what kind of torture to expect if caught behind enemy lines). Here's the interview (audio form only). It's a little long, but well worth the listening.

Here are some parts of the interview:

HOST: One of the points of contention in this debate is whether the techniques actually yield useful information. Vice President Dick Cheney has been very insistent that the information obtained using these methods was important to American safety.

TONY LAGOURANIS: In my experience they didn't yield any useful information. Even if it did, you couldn't separate it from the information that wasn't useful. You can torture somebody into confessing to any crime you want. I could torture you until you confessed to murdering JFK, but that doesn't mean you did it, and it's certainly not intelligence.

* and *

TONY: Many of the detainees I interrogated, and tortured, didn't have information to give me. They hadn't committed any crime or action against the US forces. Beyond that, even when you're dealing with someone who does have information, I think that torturing them is the worst possible way to go. The FBI does not use torture and they have a 90% success rate in their interrogation practices, and I saw nothing close to that in Iraq using any of these techniques.

MIKE RITZ: I agree with Tony completely. I'd like to point out this isn't guesswork, we know this to be fact. If you look at the case of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi who was initially captured and cooperated with FBI interrogations. They were using report building techniques, they were giving him the incentive of promising that his wife and family could come to the United States. And this guy, who was very guilty, was cooperating, giving us actual intelligence information. What happened was that the CIA came in, asked if they could use more enhanced interrogation techniques on the individual and through rendition took him to a foreign country. They utilized those techniques. At first he clammed up completely, and then ultimately he linked al-Qaeda to Iraq and claimed that Iraq had trained al-Qaeda in weapons of mass destruction, which we now know to be completely false information and some would speculate sparked the war.

* and *

HOST: Is there some cost to you, psychologically or emotionally, in using these techniques?

TONY: Yes. When I came back I was experiencing intense guilt. I'm still dealing with that, and I think that any sane person put in the situation that I was of brutalizing a helpless person, it doesn't matter who they are, you're going to suffer psychological consequences. A friend of mine trained with me as an interrogator and trained in Arabic with me. She was sent to Iraq and asked to use these harsh techniques in the interrogation booth in Tal Afar. She refused, twice. She was ultimately taken off of her post. She ... she killed herself rather than use these techniques. We're asking our young servicemen and women to make a choice. To torture people or destroy themselves, and I don't think that's how we want to treat our service people.

HOST: You can disobey an order that's unlawful. In the real world does that happen?

TONY: Yes, but we were given rules of engagement issued by the Pentagon, so we believed that the orders issued were legal.

The tape ends with Tony Lagouranis saying that the debate about torture is not really a debate conducted by professional interrogators, who already believe, like he does, that it is not effective. Instead it is just a debate being made by civilians like Dick Cheney: "Ultimately, I don't think that torture is about getting intelligence. I think it's about domination. I think it's about revenge, it's about fear..."

Torture, Revisited

Two items on torture.

First, love that Obama. Here is what he said today in his speech on national security:

I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

(And though I do not quote it here, I also appreciate the part of his speech that outlines his plan on dealing with Guantanamo detainees - very smart, methodical.)

Second - and this fits in a "did you know" category - according to NPR, it turns out that James Mitchell - one of the two Spokane psychologists who formed the basis of the opinions in the 2002 torture memos that torture isn't torture (I've outlined this issue here) - was in daily contact with the White House back then, and apparently with Alberto Gonzalez in particular. Here's an excerpt:

One source with knowledge of Zubaydah's interrogations agreed to describe the legal guidance process, on the condition of anonymity.

The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top-secret cable to the CIA's counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the administration's legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.

A new document is consistent with the source's account.

The CIA sent the ACLU a spreadsheet late Tuesday as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The log shows the number of top-secret cables that went from Zubaydah's black site prison to CIA headquarters each day. Through the spring and summer of 2002, the log shows, someone sent headquarters several cables a day.

"At the very least, it's clear that CIA headquarters was choreographing what was going on at the black site," says Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer who sued to get the document. "But there's still this question about the relationship between CIA headquarters and the White House and the Justice Department and the question of which senior officials were driving this process."

The more we learn, the darker it gets. As the story notes at a later point, it is "highly unusual" for the White House to tell interrogators what they can and cannot do. You can read the entire NPR story here.

Jesse Ventura

Yesterday I had the chance to watch a video of Jesse Ventura (former governor of Minnesota) talking with Elizabeth Hasselbeck on "The View" about torture. Ventura was a Navy Seal, and received SERE (survival) training from the military before going to Vietnam. As I have discussed in the past, it was the SERE training - which taught our soldiers what to expect if captured by an enemy who might use torture to elicit "confessions" to use in propaganda - that got co-opted by our country, via Spokane psychologists, so that torture (and waterboarding) suddenly became a pro-active interrogation tool rather than a training tool to protect our guys, and our information, from illegal torture.

In the "View" segment, Ventura was very articulate. He had been waterboarded through his SERE training, to know what to expect in foreign countries if he got captured. "It's torture," he said. It just is. Hasselbeck attempted to distract in a variety of ways, and Ventura held his own. He also pointed out that this country has only waterboarded Muslims. Fascinating. "Why not criminals, to get a confession?" he said, and then said, because it's torture. (In fact, it goes even further than just that, though that would be enough. In part it is because "confessions" obtained through torture are so inherently unreliable that they are not admissible in courtroom cases, even to disprove a defendant's otherwise inconsistent statements.)

I've never paid a whole heck of a lot of attention to Jesse Ventura. But he was great in this clip. He sussed out the issues succinctly. He just made sense. And he knows of what he talks - he experienced the waterboarding first hand, when our country waterboarded him to help him know what to expect from countries who act illegally, unethically, immorally...

So then this a.m., I was up before 6 a.m. (unfortunately) and thought, hmm, since I'm awake, I might as well take a gander at "Morning Joe" on MSNBC. Sometimes I like this show, though it's sort of a sitting-duck arrangement for the host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican U.S. representative. Joe can be a bully and the show is set up to let him bully whoever when he's in the mood. Still, they have good comentators and sometimes it is worth watching.

This morning? Not so much. I flipped it off about as soon as I flipped it on. His target? Jesse Ventura. I didn't need to listen to much more, after I heard Joe say there should be a law against "being that stupid."

Seriously? Ventura was articulate on "The View." He was real. He was smart. He was compassionate to a different point of view while simultaneously extremely clear that the view was incomplete, misinformed.

It just may be that this a.m. was the last time I watch "Morning Joe." It's one thing to disagree. It's another to be an attack dog, and to laugh arrogantly, when you know - you know (and I believe Joe Scarborough knows) that you are attacking someone who is telling the truth. I thought Joe was better than that kind of blatant partisan line.

Here's a clip discussing Ventura and Scarborough. (Also, interesting note - some of those sticking up for Scarborough say that Ventura "admitted" that this country waterboards because he "admitted" that he himself was waterboarded. Those comments fail to understand the SERE program.)

The Torture Building

Monday, I had to run an errand in Spokane at 108 North Washington. (or North 108 Washington, as Spokane lists addresses.)

As soon as I saw the address, I knew. I was going to the Torture Building.

As discussed in the news lately, and in my blog here and here, two Spokane psychologists - Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell - were instrumental in the turn this country took in the summer of 2002 in choosing to use interrogation techniques such as waterboarding prisoners and slamming them into walls. As also described previously, neither psychologist had ever conducted an interrogation before, and they stepped in with these techniques - as CIA contractors making a reported $1,000 a day (CORRECTION, 2014: Received $81 million of a $180 million contract, over 4 years) - in spite of the fact that the FBI was succeeding with more traditional, bonding-type interrogation techniques. (The Mitchell-and-Jessen-generated CIA techniques themselves originated with countries who sought confessions to be used for propaganda, not reliable intelligence.)

So here I've been, obsessed for a week on this topic, when - voila! - I have to be in the very building where these two psychologists have offices.

And then here is the other weird thing. As I drove to the Torture Building, I realized that the Obama election office last February, during the primaries, was two blocks south of it. Same street - same side of the street, even. Just a couple blocks south. (Oh, and point of clarification - I don't think the tortures took place there. But that is where the head offices were in Spokane.)

I got to the building and had to take a photo of it. Then I got to the office where I was going and said, "Hey. You're in the Torture Building!" To which my source (let's call him "Dave") agreed. Why yes, he said - yes I am.

So then, get this. They moved. Last week. Jessen and Mitchell moved, just vacated offices in the middle of the night. (Well, actually it was the middle of the day, as "Dave" saw the moving trucks and all.) (Apparently they had nice furniture.) (Well, and of course, given that we were paying them very well through their CIA contract.)

Apparently Mitchell and Jessen had been on the sixth and seventh floors, and needed a special code to get there. Not just any schmuck was allowed that high up in the building. Though they reportedly did have an office in Suite 205 of the same building that was more accessible to the public. (I took a photo of that too - office is dark and empty.)


So there you have it. The news from Spokane, hot off the presses, is that Mitchell and Jessen have left the building. Have they left Spokane? I hope we rode them out on the rails. It is the Wild West, after all.

Did You Know... (Another Torture Item)

... that the United States executed Japanese war criminals for waterboarding U.S. prisoners? Here's an article by CNN commentator Paul Begala that spells it out. In essence, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II for various war crimes, including water torture that simulates drowning. Sound familiar? So exactly how is it that waterboarding isn't a crime today if it was a crime a few decades ago - and such a serious crime that it warranted execution?

Apparently there was a debate as to whether the waterboarding resulted in just hard time for the Japanese prisoners. But Begala's article clears up the confusion. Yes, in fact, some were executed.

Just trying to keep everyone informed and honest about the debate here....

Newsweek Article - When Torture Began

Here is a link to a "Newsweek" article that explains the circumstances in 2002, when the United States chose to begin using torture (rather than bonding) interrogation techniques. It goes to my point made the other day that the CIA is taking credit for information obtained via FBI bonding techniques. Ali Soufan is one of the FBI agents who interviewed prisoners using bonding techniques. As the article explains, a major pivotal point is the summer of 2002, when CIA contractor James Mitchell - psychologist from Spokane, partners with Spokane-based Bruce Jessen, also a psychologist - shows up and says, we're doing this my way from now on. This is definitely an article worth reading, as is Ali Soufan's op-ed piece in the New York Times last week. As Soufan says: "We could have done this the right way."

Torture Timeline

Here is the best timeline I have found so far on what we did and when. All paragraph summaries have links to source material.

Spokane and Its Secrets

One thing I like about living in a smaller community like Spokane is the accountability that there is in people knowing their neighbors. Big cities, big anonymity, big crime. In a town where everyone is a neighbor to everyone else, there just is less crime. Oh, it exists, of course. But there is something that protects a little when anonymity is less. And Spokane has the extra benefit of being the hub of local activity. We are not a suburb, but the city between Seattle and Minneapolis. So we can be safe and have accountability in a city that is not swallowed up by some nearby metropolis.

I remember years ago, when I was on the board of the downtown Senior Center and Meals on Wheels program, we learned that we were the only Senior Center in town that received no finances from the Parks and Recreation department. All the other centers - including the one on the South Hill (translation: rich one) - received about $100,000 each annually. Here we were, serving the poorest of the poor seniors in all of Spokane, and nary a penny of those coffers reached our little center. As a board, we discussed it. As a board, we decided to speak out. I got nominated to do the speaking. Before we got started, the head of the Parks and Rec department told us we had less of a chance of succeeding than that snowball did down under. Within days of our speaking up, however, the newspaper did a feature story on the unfairness of it all. Coincidentally the story ran on Thanksgiving - with the first line being that our organization had learned that those who come last to the table get only crumbs. Good line. In the end, we got a little bit of funding, a promise for more funding, and some in-kind contributions (like use of a van to transport seniors). I left the board soon after, so I don't know details of what happened. But that series of events is an example of what I like about Spokane. If something is wrong, you can at least try to fix it.

On the other hand... This town loves its secrets. My experience with the Catholic Church (and its lay review board that - suffice to say - refused to listen to some pretty immediate concerns) is one example, but it's not the only one. There was the town's defense a few years ago of the mayor who proposed laws hostile to gays and then it turned out he had been trolling for just-turned-18-year-old young men (among other allegations, including quid pro quo for political appointments and earlier attempts of going after under-18-year-olds). The big issue in Spokane became the fact that the newspaper exposed the guy, not the substance of the exposure. People really were mad at the paper. Wow. Or what about the time that the local police force broke into the hotel room of a "20/20" producer and confiscated his videotape on the story he was putting together on the Gypsy curse? (Yes, we had a curse from the gypsies....)

When I said to a colleague recently that "Spokane loves its secrets," my colleague said that didn't I know there was a mafia connection in Spokane that dated back to its founding? I did not know that. Would like to know more... Because where we come from inevitably becomes a part of who we are, especially if we do not choose to change the course.

So I guess it should have come as no shock to me that the two psychologists instrumental in the torture policies of this country over the past several years - James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen - live in Spokane. I don't think that they're from here, but they run their business here. "If you want a place that will keep your secrets - come to Spokane," must be the word on the psychological street. Here is an article on the connection, from 2007. Turns out, in the torture memo released this past week that was authored by now-Ninth Circuit Court judge Jay Bybee, our two psychologists's opinions are used as his reassurance. A radio program in Spokane yesterday interviewed three reporters - one local - on the connection between Spokane and these torture memos. Not really something to write home about, is it?

This is what the psychologists did. They took the training at the local air force base that is used to prep our soldiers on what to expect if they are captured and tortured - which sounds like a good and important program, in and of itself - and turned the program into a "how to" for our own military to use those tactics proactively and against prisoners. Apparently the psychologists were great marketers because they were hired to implement this regardless of not having conducted any studies of effectiveness. Called "voo doo science" by a former FBI chief, the techniques they used were the techniques used in places like Korea and the former Soviet Union to get material for use in propaganda - not use in intelligence activity. As noted on the first page of the 2007 article, the CIA "chose two clinical psychologists who had no intelligence background whatsoever, who had never conducted an interrogation … to do something that had never been proven in the real world." As one person put it, "I think [Mitchell and Jessen] have caused more harm to American national security than they'll ever understand." Here's a good article connecting Bybee, Mitchell and Jessen. Here's another good article on the whole fiasco (and speaks of Mitchell's belief in "learned helplessness," a term used to describe what happens to battered women).

Which, I do not care if the torture was "good" or "bad," scientific or not, because torture is torture and it goes against the principles of this country - what I believe this country to be - so I would be against it no matter how "scientific" any outcomes could be proven to be. But to also find out that the torture we implemented was done so irresponsibly... and to know that the torture was given credit for getting information when the best information had been gotten by the FBI through bonding with the guy (rather than torturing him - see page 1 of the 2007 article).... ugly, ugly, ugly. And then to see Spokane have a connection to it all... Makes me sad. Spokane is a great place, in spite of itself. But on days like today (and news like this), I wonder why I'm still here.