Former SERE Instructor: ‘We Created’ An ‘Al Qaeda SERE School’
Former SERE Instructor: ‘We Created’ An ‘Al Qaeda SERE School’
Many conservatives, including Liz Cheney, who is the daughter of Vice President Cheney, have been defending the Bush administration’s torture regime arguing that many of the techniques authorized were derived from U.S. special forces training called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Evasion (SERE) and were used on American troops.
While the situations are clearly not analogous (mainly because the circumstances in which techniques are applied are “very different“), former master instructor and chief of training at Navy’s SERE school Malcolm Nance said last night on MSNBC that that argument is “ridiculous on its face” and he called those making it “torture apologists”:
Host Rachel Maddow then asked Nance if he would use SERE techniques in the “faulty” premise of a “ticking time bomb scenario.”
MADDOW: In the case of an actual ticking time bomb scenario, which is a faulty premise because things don’t work out this way in the real world, would you do SERE, these techniques on a prisoner in that scenario? [...]
NANCE: No of course not, because one, it defeats the ticking time bomb scenario, in that all the prisoner has to do is not answer the question or, better yet, the prisoner will lie. And once the prisoner lies, especially with al Qaeda members. Let me tell you something, their ideology — they have a concept within their ideology called “al-warrah el barrah” (sp) and that is absolute devotion to their god, but absolute disavowal and hatred of anything that’s not their god.
Nance added that when these techniques were used, detainees knew they were were giving “gibberish,” thus seeing “that as a victory.” “[W]hat we’ve done is we created al Qaeda SERE school for them,” Nance said. Watch it:
Incidently, “torture apologist” Liz Cheney also made this ticking time bomb argument earlier this week: “We are talking about a situation in which there are imminent threats to the United States so if you say to me, this guy’s got information that’s gonna save my kids’ lives and your kids lives that’s going to keep this country safe but we gotta waterboard them to get it, I got no problem with that.”
Transcript:
MADDOW: In terms of the argument that SERE-based techniques, these techniques, reverse engineered as you say what was done by totalitarian regimes, reverse engineering figured out in the ’50s, the argument has been made that because we do it to American troops as part of training it can’t be torture, because then people like you who were an instructor could be charged with torture.
MALCOLM NANCE: That’s ridiculous on its face. Listen, there’s a whole class of people who I call torture apologists and their full-time job is to go out and find spurious arguments in order to justify exactly why they violated, you know, U.S. legal code. And, of course, the standing order from general George Washington to treat prisoners with dignity. And so it’s ridiculous. What we’re doing is we’re allowing a service member the opportunity to practice in a controlled environment over a few moments how to behave and how to react in order to act like Abu Zubaydah, in order for them to become resistant and for them to make sure that the techniques being applied to them don’t work. […]
MADDOW: In the case of an actual ticking time bomb scenario, which is a faulty premise because things don’t work out this way in the real world, would you do SERE, these techniques on a prisoner in that scenario?
NANCE: Of course not.
MADDOW: Any of them?
NANCE: No of course not, because one, it defeats the ticking time bomb scenario, in that all the prisoner has to do is not answer the question or, better yet, the prisoner will lie. And once the prisoner lies, especially with al Qaeda members. Let me tell you something, their ideology — they have a concept within their ideology called “al-warrah el barrah” (sp) and that is absolute devotion to their god, but absolute disavowal and hatred of anything that’s not their god.
Therefore, anything that they do to foil you is well within their plan, and they take great pride in that. And I’m sure when he was brought back to his little cage or to his holding cell, he saw every time that he defeated us, every time he didn’t get an answer out of us or got some gibberish out of us, he saw that was a victory.
MADDOW: Yeah, so you got to out wit them.
NANCE: Well what we’ve done is we created al Qaeda SERE school for them.
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Yet another expert telling us what we already know. How many experts do we need till the torture apologist shut up?
May 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pmLiz Cheney also made this ticking time bomb argument earlier this week: “We are talking about a situation in which there are imminent threats to the United States so if you say to me, this guy’s got information that’s gonna save my kids’ lives and your kids lives that’s going to keep this country safe but we gotta waterboard them to get it, I got no problem with that.”
May 14th, 2009 at 5:36 pmNow I can see that the rotten apple is right next to the rotten tree and the snake.
An Al-Qaeda school? Well, it’s not as if the USA was involved in Al-Qaeda’s creation back in the 80s or anything…
Oh, wait.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:37 pmThis is yet another failure of fundamentalist thinking, in this case political fundamentalism on the part of the Bush administration. The thinking that “our way is the only way and we don’t have to study and understand other cultures” leads to bad intelligence gathering.
In this case, the person being tortured wins by lying to their torturers and the torturer doesn’t understand they have lost.
The only way to bring peace to that area is to fundamentally change the way we approach the problem by understanding their culture and find some common ground on which to build. Anything else will only lead to further violence.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:41 pmReza Aslan describes al-wala’ wal-bara’ in his new book:
thought that might be helpful.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:42 pmNot another expert for the MSM and neocon’s to ignore!?!?
May 14th, 2009 at 5:43 pmshould i be waiting for a punch line or a van full of white-coated lab technicians?
May 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pmsomeone please get me some of whatever brothabilldenstein has been smoking?
May 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm“[W]hat we’ve done is we created al Qaeda SERE school for them,” Nance said.
reminds me – was it last night? on the daily show – jon stewart interviewed the pakistan ambassador who remarked that it was ronald reagan who created the taliban, originally the myhajedeen (sp?), who he thought the equivalent of our founding fathers…
yea, thanks ronnie…
May 14th, 2009 at 5:51 pmIncidently, “torture apologist” Liz Cheney also made this ticking time bomb argument earlier this week: “We are talking about a situation in which there are imminent threats to the United States so if you say to me, this guy’s got information that’s gonna save my kids’ lives and your kids lives that’s going to keep this country safe but we gotta waterboard them to get it, I got no problem with that.”
I would love to ask Liz Cheney if her son or daughter was captured in Iran and tortured, because they thought there was a “ticking time bomb” scenario going on, would she be OK with that?
I think that stupid “ticking time bomb” was the worst excuse for torture. If time is short, the person being tortured knows that they can lie and thereby misdirect the people torturing them. By the time they figure out it was a lie, it would be too late.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:57 pmso, just flag the possible waste of bandwidth, or what?
May 14th, 2009 at 5:58 pmTP – can’t you come up with an “ignore” feature. You know, click on the header of a certain poster and then when you read the posts, you won’t see the posts by that person. I am getting really tired of having to hit the scroll bar so heavily to try to get past the meaningless posts by brothabilldenstein. Is anyone here actually reading them?
May 14th, 2009 at 6:01 pmLiz proves that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The same extremist ideology as her father.
First it was Support The War or else you must be Unpatriotic!
Now it’s Support Torture or else you must Not Really Love Your Children!
May 14th, 2009 at 6:01 pmFlag the Troll spammer.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pmPathetic
yes – flag it.
another plagiarizing tool.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/2727662
May 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pmkaty Says:
so, just flag the possible waste of bandwidth, or what?
That’s what I am doing, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope. TP doesn’t seem to care about spammers and trolls any longer.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:03 pmOh, Brotha!–this is the big breakdown, right mate?
May 14th, 2009 at 6:12 pmkaty Says:
Reminds me – was it last night? on the daily show – jon stewart interviewed the pakistan ambassador who remarked that it was ronald reagan who created the taliban, originally the myhajedeen (sp?), who he thought the equivalent of our founding fathers…
I heard it was Carter actually (as much as it pains me to say that). Mika’s dad supposedly thought that the funding may provoke the Russians, which it did and, as we all know now, it went downhill from there. Well unless you’re glad that it bankrupted the Soviet Union and you like to sell lots of armaments I suppose. Please correct me anyone who may know better!
May 14th, 2009 at 6:13 pmEventually, we’ll have a heaven on earth and I hope to end this suffering the humans have been enduring for millennia.
– - Yeah, just TRY to read your bloviating, non-sequitur prattle.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:15 pmTo clarify a bit, Brzezinski says that he expressed his “concern” to Carter about that funding…
May 14th, 2009 at 6:17 pmGuido the Benevolent Torturer Says:
Good for this SERE instructor for speaking out.
Amen to that brother! Btw, what exactly is a Benevolent Torturer?
:?
May 14th, 2009 at 6:20 pmThe issue remains the legality of ‘torture’,which is illegal by our laws and the International treaties we signed and the Constitutionality related to such treaties.
The argument of Cheney,his daughter, and many other big names in the Republican party and some supporting cast in the media that torture worked is not a seller.
Unless the laws changed to make ‘torture’ legal, then using torture remains illegal,and the people who committed such act must face the consequences of breaking the law.
It does not wash it to use or invent another name(s) like ‘enhancing techniques’ or any other description.
If Cheney and the Bush administration thought that ‘torture’ was a useful tool, then they should have come to the Congress and approve it by passing a law to make it legal.
But that’s not what happened here. They did not change the law by asking Congress to declare ‘torture’ as legal method, but instead they did it while it is still illegal, and justified their acts by saying torture was very useful…
but was it legal..? no it wasn’t.
If Cheney and Bush secured a law to make it legal to torture, then they should not have anything to worry about today, and the ball will be in the Congress’s court.
The issue remains the legality of it. Administrations do not make the laws under the Constitution,they abide by them, but in Cheney’s world anything possible and the end justifies the mean.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:25 pmYes it’s that bad for the RepugniCants
May 14th, 2009 at 6:28 pmIf the Bush government (Reagan through Bush2) had’nt gutted our military and infrastructure, we would’nt be having discussions about why torture is ok in order to defend Americans, even though it is against our and international laws…
May 14th, 2009 at 6:29 pmAre Liz and Dick speaking for the neo-cons who are deathly afraid of everything, and fear we can’t be protected by our own intelligence agencies or military? If so, why?
3000 people died in New York in 2001, we should have gone to the source of that attack and crushed it, forever,, At the time, the world and even the taliban were with America…but NO!! Bush/Chenney and the free marketers wanted Iraq as a clean slate to implement the Friedman philosophy…and we lost our credibility and values and had our constitution shredded…in the bullshit, fear mongering “We’re doing it to protect Americans”…mindset…
The “ticking time bomb” scare tactic is an excuse to by pass our values all the while scaring the shit out of people..there is no argument…
America must defend herself, but with values…damn it!
The rapture is bullshit, superstition…Why would GOD come here?…you need to go to him/her/it…
It’s time for clear thinking and getting back to a country that is not afraid of everything, even if Dick, Liz, George or whoever tell you the sky is falling…
The excuse that they had a ticking time bomb scenario is bogus. How do I know this? Because nothing happened! There were no major plots stopped thanks to waterboarding. There was no “ticking time bomb”.
They keep saying, “If you knew this guy had information about a ticking time bomb, wouldn’t you torture him to get the info you need?” Except that no ticking time bomb existed in order for them to justify waterboarding. They simply assumed a ticking time bomb and used that as justification for waterboarding. They waterboarded KSM 183 times in one month. If there really was a ticking time bomb, wouldn’t it have gone off? It didn’t go off because it didn’t exist. They didn’t know for a fact that these people had information, they simply assumed it based on their own sick thinking.
And, no, I wouldn’t torture him. Because that would make me no better than him. And I was always taught that the United States is better than that.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:39 pmWayne, Exactly. If it takes one month of torture, than Liz better hope that bomb has one HELL of a slow timer.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:50 pmOr perhaps life started on earth by chemical reactions.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:58 pmbrothabilldenstein Says:
You tards are like catching bluegills!
I mean you really hate freedom of speeh you disagree with so much.
This is just a lesson, its just true you hate speech you brainwashed sheeple disagree with lol
Spamming blogs has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Blogs have rules they expect their members to abide by. One of them is to not spam the blog. That’s pretty much all you do, so that’s why you are being flagged.
BTW, what about the conservatives respect for free speech. Can you direct me to one conservative blog that actually allows progressives to post? Because I can’t find any. They are so afraid of what we have to say, they ban us within an hour of posting.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:11 pmbrothabilldenstein Says:
I am not as easily controlled my the evil Elohim as you.
I am not going to kill myself!!
You are in serious need of mental health help. Call 411 and ask for your nearest mental health facility. Do it before it’s too late.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:13 pmbrothabilldenstein – you are nucking futs
Go away
May 14th, 2009 at 7:18 pmThe ticking time bomb scenario is pure fallacy even excepting the fact that tortured individual is likely to lie during the process. Consider the experience of the French in Algeria. The French subjected guerillas/insurgents to torture in attempt to identify the identities ans location of other guerilla members. The insurgency essentially nullified the efforts of the French in that by requiring each member to recruit 5 individuals to join the insurgency known only tim or her. Thus, a form of damage control was created even if the torturee told the truth. When u consider that terror cells r small groups of people often operating independent from each other the idea that torture is going to save u in a situation limited by time is ridiculous.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:20 pmWayne Ant Schneider Says:
—
i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: if waterboarding were effective and legal, and bush and cheney *had* the ticking time-bomb scenario (i.e., the pdb warning them of the 911 attacks), how can they defend *not* waterboarding someone *before* 911? doesn’t their argument is legal and effective entail that they’re responsible for 911?
could i *please* hear lindsey graham make that argument? thank you
May 14th, 2009 at 7:26 pmBilbo Hussein Baggins Says:
[...] they ban us within an hour of posting.
—
heehee! how many times have you been banned from redst8? i think i’m up to four, but i’m not really trying hard enough.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:28 pmI am not going to kill myself!!
As an alternative, you might consider voluntary commitment, just until you quit having your “insights.”
May 14th, 2009 at 7:54 pmbrothabilldenstein, I might be speaking for most all TP users here and we all feel very sorry for you. It amazes us that someone can be somewhere in this world that can act like you. What is your purpose in life? Are you happy acting like an internet blog terrorist? It seems to be a waste of time to me. What are you gaining from all this?
Anyway, good-bye. I hope you find a meaningful purpose in this life soon. I’m done with you and your silly behavior. I hope your daddy takes you over his knee soon to teach you a lesson on manners – child.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:12 pmActually RL, I think its a chemical imbalance. Religious visions are linked to a specific form of mental illness. He might be off his meds.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:16 pmI tried to post at RedState, once, Bilbo. Two words. “What WMD?” I was banned and can’t even try and counteract some of the insanity.
That being said, this moronic spammer makes me wonder, how many trolls are there? I am starting to lean towards ONE. One sick little creep who needs treatment for his/her Multiple Personality disorder.
What leads me to this conclusion? Simple. None of the “other” patriotic trolls have said a word about the vile and anti-American views expressed by the brothatroll. Though, I suppose it’s possible that there are two, who coordinate their efforts, I find it hard to believe that such antisocial creatures would be able to coordinate a bathroom break.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:22 pmWayne Ant Schneider Says:
——————————————————————————–
The excuse that they had a ticking time bomb scenario is bogus. How do I know this? Because nothing happened! There were no major plots stopped thanks to waterboarding. There was no “ticking time bomb”.
________________
When the revelations of torture first came out, I remember hearing Bush exclaim,”we don’t torture.” It went from we don’t torture to it was “enhanced interogation” to it was perfectly legal and now it is justified because of it’s success…….all untrue.
Arrest them all.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:58 pmBrothamoron look around. Your life is still pathetic. No one likes or respects you. Coming here to annoy us and get all your posts deleted and banned again wont in any way make your dismal life any less pathetic. You are just begging for our attention any attention at all. Dont you just cry when you think how stupid and pathetic you are?
May 14th, 2009 at 11:56 pmHusain Haqqani
(08:47)
Husain Haqqani says Pakistan needs an investment in the people, not in the military alone, to defeat the Taliban.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
at about 1:09 – Haqqani: … what we are dealing with is a lot of debris from the past. Ronald Reagan thought the Muhajideen in Afghanistan were the moral equivalent of America’s Founding Fathers. The Taliban are just the children of those moral equivalents, which have become a problem, not just for Pakistan and Afghanistan, but for the whole world.
…
my favorite of his quips”:
… there was a time when the CIA thought that sending exploding cigars to Fidel Castro was the way to protect America…
we’ve come a long way baby…
May 15th, 2009 at 12:25 amoh – that makes sense if you read #9…
May 15th, 2009 at 12:27 amThe ticking time bomb was Cheney’s deadline to produce the evidence he wanted to justify the war he and Rumsfeld were planning before they got power.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:40 amWhy the hell would you assume that Al-Qaida would “stay the course” if their operations are compromised by US intelligence? Especially if one of their operatives is captured.
These “ticking bomb” scenarios are highly unlikely, even non existant.
May 15th, 2009 at 2:52 amOh, and by the way, how do you “reverse engineer” pain and suffering? You don’t. How does one teach oneself to not panic when drowning? Not to be disoriented and exhausted after being kept awake for 11 days? Not to be hurt, when repeatedly slammed against a wall?
May 15th, 2009 at 2:57 amI’m still waiting for one holier than thou Evangelical nut job to denounce torture. Araç Kiralama l
May 15th, 2009 at 3:50 amRent a car