If The Other 182 Times Fail, Just Keep Moving Forward

So, turned out we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed One Hundred and Eighty-Three times in one month as Marcy Wheeler does a little research.

I've put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post. According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

Note, the information comes from the CIA IG report which, in the case of Abu Zubaydah, is based on having viewed the torture tapes as well as other materials. So this is presumably a number that was once backed up by video evidence.

So yes. Monsters. Inhuman, sadistic, crazed, insane monsters. No wonder this guy went insane and told CIA interrogators inquisitors wild goose chase stories. We sadistically tortured this guy 183 times. I don't care about the CIA's feelings. Obama absolutely has to prosecute these people. Period.

We got a grand total of zero useful information out of him. So we waterboarded him again and again and again and again. We did this. Not China, not North Korea, not some Afghan warlord or Pakistani tribal leader or Iranian mullah. We did this. Americans. In the name of America.

If Obama does not prosecute the people who performed these war crimes, then justice in America does not exist any longer. I beg of you, Mr. President. Make this right. You have to for the sake of humanity. If you do not, then we as a country are lost.

My god, I'm physically ill right now. We are sick, terrible bastards if we allow these people to skate. Only when the American people stand up for justice will we be able to put an end to this.

I pray we find the courage to do so. Obama has no choice now. The world is watching, and the UN is suggesting that not prosecuting the people who did this in and of itself constitutes a war crime.

“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”

“In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak [...] said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Nowak, who said he would soon travel to Washington for meetings with officials, also called for a comprehensive independent investigation into the matter and added it was important to compensate the victims,” the paper continued.

“Nowak said he did not think the president would not go so far as to issue an amnesty law for CIA operatives. Therefore US courts could still try torture suspects,” reported Earth Times.

The evidence is now a matter of international public record. Prosecute these men, Mr. President.

Or it may destroy this country.