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I didn’t know who I was any more: how CIA torture pushed me to the edge of death

36 points by vanusa 5y ago

14 5y ago
Treat your prisoners how you would want to be treated if you were captured in a foreign conflict. Shameful.
thorncorona 5y ago
Shameful. Sadly no prosecution for those who ran this whole farce.
- Aspos 5y ago
  How about those who authorized and funded it? How about those who actively covered it up?
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    How about those who appointed or elected those people into positions with the authority to do such things? At the end of the day, The People must take responsibility for the actions of their democratically-elected government; real accountability will never happen for that reason.
hyperman1 5y ago
Articles like this must be the best possible ISIS propaganda. A nation does this, refuses to reign in the perpetrators, and really believes itself to be the good guy? I can understand when muslims read this and say to themselves: Maybe ISIS is not that bad after all.
- jevoten 5y ago
  > A nation does this, refuses to reign in the perpetrators, and really believes itself to be the good guy? A government. Large parts of the left and the right are no fans of the CIA. But it's one of those things voters have lost all control over, just like no matter who they vote for, US meddling in the middle east will continue. Edit: In fact, even the (elected) government has lost control of the CIA: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spy...
  - fatjokes 5y ago
    And the government doesn't represent the people of that nation? Then what the hell is the point of democracy?
    - hulitu 5y ago
      No. The point of democracy is to spread "democracy" to other parts of the globe so that they can be cheaply exploited. It has nothing to do with the people of the nation. The only masters are some of the big corporations.
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      You don’t really expect the people to take responsibility for the actions of their government, do you? That would require us to have some authority to change the status quo, or be able to hold the government accountable. Neither option seems remotely possible, based on everything that I have seen in the last 40 years.
    - jevoten 5y ago
      The point of democracy is to try to make it represent the people. Often, it fails.
  - daniel-cussen 5y ago
    It's formally under the control of the president, directly. So that means, if the president is a "bad chess player," to put it one way, the CIA is in control of itself. What were you expecting?
- qazpot 5y ago
  Muslims do not need to read article like these to get violent or support ISIS they can read they holy book for all the inspirations for doing violence.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Remind me who dasas are in Vedas again?
    - qazpot 5y ago
      How would I know I have never read them.
ncmncm 5y ago
There has still been no prosecution of any of the people responsible for this, at any level. Every last one of them knew at the time, all up and down the line, that they were committing crimes that the US has executed people for. Any of them could have refused to participate, knowing they were being invited to commit capital crimes. Instead, they did it eagerly. I don't think there is any Statute of Limitations on these crimes. We could prosecute them today, or ten years on. If any crime merits execution, this does. No previous assurances of immunity by the "Justice" Department of the time should have any force: they had no legitimate authority to offer any. The woman who ran this thing got promoted to cabinet level, and even got a movie made to look like she was some sort of hero. She was personally responsible, also, for destroying video evidence of their crimes. But in the meantime we could at least let this poor guy out of the damn cage.
beerandt 5y ago
Not justifying his treatment or torture, but at least regarding his continued imprisonment: He's undoubtedly a high ranking terrorist with a long history. He was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to death in Jordan before Sept 11 even happened, in 2000. The alternative to him being held by the US is being executed in Jordan. No one else is going to take him. And I have a serious issue with how he (and those relaying his story) will repeatedly claim he knew nothing as if he were uninvolved and innocent. Which is entirely untrue. >I laughed and said: “First of all, I am not from al-Qaida.” He was certainly al-qaida, and was at the center of al qaida training camps and providing passports and money to operatives for years. (At best, some claim he splintered from the group just before 9/11 over a ideological disagreement.) It's not even disputed that he provided valuable intelligence during his interrogations - at least two other high level operatives were caught and at least one planned US attack was foiled. The only thing in dispute is how much of that info was obtained before he was tortured vs because of the torture. Additionally, he has a brain injury and memory problems due to shrapnel from a previous war injury, but kept a weird, cryptic, yet meticulous journal, written from three points of view: what he remembered, what he didn't remember but learned, and a current record of thoughts and activities and even details like errands and what he ate. Which gave investigators reason to believe he actually did know more than he was sharing, since he wrote many things implying just that. But it also fed into the narrative that he's just a brain damaged schizophrenic with delusions, not a terrorist with intel. Or forgot. Which again, is proven wrong by what info he actually did provide. Again, not justifying torture, but the narrative that he's innocent and wasn't involved and didn't know anything is BS.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  It does not matter one whit what he was involved in. This is about crimes committed by Americans acting supposedly under American law. What they did is therefore overwhelmingly worse than anything he is accused of.

36 points by vanusa 5y ago

14 5y ago

Treat your prisoners how you would want to be treated if you were captured in a foreign conflict. Shameful.

thorncorona 5y ago

Shameful. Sadly no prosecution for those who ran this whole farce.

Aspos 5y ago
How about those who authorized and funded it? How about those who actively covered it up?
- voakbasda 5y ago
  How about those who appointed or elected those people into positions with the authority to do such things? At the end of the day, The People must take responsibility for the actions of their democratically-elected government; real accountability will never happen for that reason.

hyperman1 5y ago

Articles like this must be the best possible ISIS propaganda. A nation does this, refuses to reign in the perpetrators, and really believes itself to be the good guy? I can understand when muslims read this and say to themselves: Maybe ISIS is not that bad after all.

jevoten 5y ago
> A nation does this, refuses to reign in the perpetrators, and really believes itself to be the good guy? A government. Large parts of the left and the right are no fans of the CIA. But it's one of those things voters have lost all control over, just like no matter who they vote for, US meddling in the middle east will continue. Edit: In fact, even the (elected) government has lost control of the CIA: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spy...
- fatjokes 5y ago
  And the government doesn't represent the people of that nation? Then what the hell is the point of democracy?
  - hulitu 5y ago
    No. The point of democracy is to spread "democracy" to other parts of the globe so that they can be cheaply exploited. It has nothing to do with the people of the nation. The only masters are some of the big corporations.
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    You don’t really expect the people to take responsibility for the actions of their government, do you? That would require us to have some authority to change the status quo, or be able to hold the government accountable. Neither option seems remotely possible, based on everything that I have seen in the last 40 years.
  - jevoten 5y ago
    The point of democracy is to try to make it represent the people. Often, it fails.
- daniel-cussen 5y ago
  It's formally under the control of the president, directly. So that means, if the president is a "bad chess player," to put it one way, the CIA is in control of itself. What were you expecting?
qazpot 5y ago
Muslims do not need to read article like these to get violent or support ISIS they can read they holy book for all the inspirations for doing violence.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Remind me who dasas are in Vedas again?
  - qazpot 5y ago
    How would I know I have never read them.

ncmncm 5y ago

There has still been no prosecution of any of the people responsible for this, at any level. Every last one of them knew at the time, all up and down the line, that they were committing crimes that the US has executed people for. Any of them could have refused to participate, knowing they were being invited to commit capital crimes. Instead, they did it eagerly. I don't think there is any Statute of Limitations on these crimes. We could prosecute them today, or ten years on. If any crime merits execution, this does. No previous assurances of immunity by the "Justice" Department of the time should have any force: they had no legitimate authority to offer any. The woman who ran this thing got promoted to cabinet level, and even got a movie made to look like she was some sort of hero. She was personally responsible, also, for destroying video evidence of their crimes. But in the meantime we could at least let this poor guy out of the damn cage.

beerandt 5y ago

Not justifying his treatment or torture, but at least regarding his continued imprisonment: He's undoubtedly a high ranking terrorist with a long history. He was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to death in Jordan before Sept 11 even happened, in 2000. The alternative to him being held by the US is being executed in Jordan. No one else is going to take him. And I have a serious issue with how he (and those relaying his story) will repeatedly claim he knew nothing as if he were uninvolved and innocent. Which is entirely untrue. >I laughed and said: “First of all, I am not from al-Qaida.” He was certainly al-qaida, and was at the center of al qaida training camps and providing passports and money to operatives for years. (At best, some claim he splintered from the group just before 9/11 over a ideological disagreement.) It's not even disputed that he provided valuable intelligence during his interrogations - at least two other high level operatives were caught and at least one planned US attack was foiled. The only thing in dispute is how much of that info was obtained before he was tortured vs because of the torture. Additionally, he has a brain injury and memory problems due to shrapnel from a previous war injury, but kept a weird, cryptic, yet meticulous journal, written from three points of view: what he remembered, what he didn't remember but learned, and a current record of thoughts and activities and even details like errands and what he ate. Which gave investigators reason to believe he actually did know more than he was sharing, since he wrote many things implying just that. But it also fed into the narrative that he's just a brain damaged schizophrenic with delusions, not a terrorist with intel. Or forgot. Which again, is proven wrong by what info he actually did provide. Again, not justifying torture, but the narrative that he's innocent and wasn't involved and didn't know anything is BS.

ncmncm 5y ago
It does not matter one whit what he was involved in. This is about crimes committed by Americans acting supposedly under American law. What they did is therefore overwhelmingly worse than anything he is accused of.