Peter Bergen Quotes
Between November 23, 2002, and January 11, 2003, al-Qahtani was interrogated for 48 days at Guantanamo more or less continuously, kept awake for much of that time by loud music being blasted when he was falling asleep, doused with water and subjected to cold temperatures, kept naked and forced to perform tricks as if he were a dog.
Bergen, Peter. "Did Torture Really Net bin Laden?" CNN, Cable News Network, 11 Dec. 2012.
The George W. Bush administration had issued a memorandum to key Federal Agencies stating that certain types of torture were legal—a finding that was quickly repudiated after Bush and VP Cheney—who was a leading force for allowing torture of terrorism suspects—were out of office. But Bush had told the American People and the World that the United States will not torture any prisoners. The dilemma was “solved” when someone came up with this euphemism.
Neilson had flown in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. It was the first bombing of Tokyo in WWII. He was shot down and captured. He was tortured including the torture of ‘waterboarding.’ The Japanese who administered the torture and who allowed it were tried before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East—the Tokyo War Crime Trials. They were convicted and punished. In the first decade of the 21st century the George W, Bush Administration argued that waterboarding was not necessarily torture despite the fact that Americans had tried and punished foreigners who engaged in the practice and even Americans who did. It was completely outlawed by military regulations but some Americans felt that it should be allowed by the CIA in dealing with terrorists.
She was sentenced to death for the bombing of public facilities but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She was released after independence. She raised the moral issue of torture which was very commonly used by the French then, but she was silent about the morality of exploding bombs and killing civilians. Women however did not fare very well in the independent, post revolution Algeria—see {36994} and {36995}.
Under torture many people will tell their interrogators what they want to hear --- accurate or not.
This was untrue. The CIA used several forms of torture on high value detainees. The torture was psychological and physical. Even the FBI had agents who observed CIA interrogations and complained to their supervisors. For cover, the George W. Bush administration, got 3 Justice Department Attorneys to write a secret memo defining certain types of torture as “enhanced interrogation”. Water Boarding, for which American soldiers had been court martialed and convicted for torture then became enhanced interrogation, and was used on a few terrorists. Because of the rigged Justice Department memo, the CIA claimed that they did not torture people. Another thing the CIA did was to turn over enemy to the intelligence services of third countries like Egypt, where torture was used commonly with no regard for the Geneva convention or other human rights provision. CIA agents then watched and asked questions but they claimed that they did not torture which was in some sense literally true.
Peter Bergen is an American journalist, author, and producer who serves as CNN's national security analyst, New America's vice president, and as a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, was the first time that bin Laden was interviewed by Western media.
