B
ob Woodward is on the anti-torture express, writing today about the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani, who, we are reminded way down in paragraph six, hoped to be the 20th highjacker, but his dreams of martyrdom were foiled when he was denied entry into the U.S. a month before the 9/11 attack. He was later captured trying again to kill Americans, this time in Afghanistan.
As such, the Saudi national may have had important information about how the 9/11 plot was put together, who was involved, how the logistics were handled, and how financial payments were received. In other words, the information he was holding needed very much to become un-held.
To get that information, agents used nothing but legal methods: sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold. But, Woodward reports, Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority of military commissions, has found Qahtani’s treatment meets the legal definition of torture.
Her problem is not the methods, but the duration of the methods:
Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. “The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. …
“For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators,” said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. “Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister.”
At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani “was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation” and “was told that his mother and sister were whores.” With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room “and forced to perform a series of dog tricks,” the report shows.
That’s it? That’s humiliation, and it might constitute torture for a pimply, chubby seventh grader, but not for the likes of Qahtani. As for Crawford’s biggest grouse, that this led to physical danger for the man who wanted to cause thousands of Americans to suffer mortal physical danger, there’s this:
… Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.
In other words, his health was carefully monitored, and when his heart rate slowed, he was hospitalized and treated. That sounds like a carefully managed, intense interrogation, not torture.
As they say in the world of dealing with bloodthirsty, damned, America-hating, 7th century Islamist pigs, bring it on. This is a case that should never have been brought but now it should be heard because our agents have to have clear direction – and, hopefully, courts will be wiser than Crawford and will allow the methods used on Qahtani.
This morning, 
