Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Washington Independent, a sister site to the Michigan Messenger, has a fascinating article by Milt Bearden, former senior manager of clandestine operations for the CIA. This is a guy whose background demands that he should be taken very seriously when he writes:
Throughout this ugly drama, U.S. leaders have assured the public that the extreme interrogation measures used on detainees have thwarted acts of terrorist and saved thousands of American lives. The trouble with such claims is that professionals who know something of interrogation or intelligence don't believe them. This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn't work -- it doesn't -- but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.The administration's claims of having "saved thousands of Americans" can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered -- not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. All the public gets is repeated references to Jose Padilla, the Lakawanna Six, the Liberty Seven and the Library Tower operation in Los Angeles. If those slapstick episodes are the true character of the threat, then maybe we'll be okay after all.
When challenged on the lack of a game-changing example of a derailed operation, administration officials usually say that the need to protect sources and methods prevents revealing just how enhanced interrogation techniques have saved so many thousands of Americans. But it is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.
More damage is done to U.S. national security by "protecting" the sources and methods than by revealing a couple. So why not just sacrifice a few sources or methods to get at least Washington's closest friends to cut us some slack, and perhaps even knock some foes off balance?
He points to the fact that in 1986, the Reagan administration released publicly an intercepted communication from Libyan intelligence showing that they had planned and carried out the bombing of a disco in Berlin, leading to our bombing of Libya. In doing so they revealed that we could crack Libyan codes, which undoubtedly prompted them to change those codes, but the public release of that information quelled world protest of our actions against Libya and was very valuable.
There is much more in the article, including an assessment of how the Bush administration's insistence on using torture has divided and damaged the intelligence community and undermined that community's ability to do their jobs overseas.
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... but he'll be out in slightly under 200 days, and thanks to the level of secrecy used in his gov't, all the shite that erupts will fall squarely on the shoulders of whichever person becomes president (which I still think will be Obama, but I'm not a betting man).
To that end, I think the most politically expedient thing the next Pres. can do is to spotlight those things that Bush the Lesser did during his eight-year "rule" of this country, and let the American people be ready for the stinking cow flop that will inevitably fall from the sky.
Posted by: mercurianferret | July 7, 2008 9:50 AM
In doing so they revealed that we could crack Libyan codes, which undoubtedly prompted them to change those codes, but the public release of that information quelled world protest of our actions against Libya and was very valuable.
I would add that since that revelation, Libya did NOT become more of a threat after learning how we cracked their secrets.
Besides, if we actually managed to prevent a significant terrorist attack using torture, do you really think an undisciplined upper-class twit like Bush Jr. would keep quiet about it? Does anyone really think he COULD? If such a success existed at all, the entire far right would be crowing about it, and rubbing the bleeding-heart libruls' noses in it, for at least a generation.
Posted by: Raging Bee | July 7, 2008 10:04 AM
mercurianferret,
The problem is, not only will Bush's successor get stuck with the mess he leaves behind, there will be massive pressure for him to keep it quiet. If it is McCain, he has shown he will do so for the good of the Republican party, if it is Obama, he might believe he has to do so in order to get anything done.
Posted by: dogmeatib | July 7, 2008 10:52 AM
I would think that by now it's fairly clear to anybody that torture is a device used to get detainees to say what the torturers want to hear. It is not an information-gathering device. It is to get people to sign confessions. That's what the Stasi did and the Bush administration is using the same handbook.
Posted by: RickD | July 7, 2008 1:56 PM
I'm not so sure dogmeatib; if current trends hold until the election, there might not be enough republicans in federal office to gum up the works to shut Obama up about it. Then again, the Dems have shown themselves over the last 20 years to be more than apt at choking and mucking themselves up, R's or no, so maybe you're right.
The big issue for me is making sure that they don't do a Reagan on Shrub. Just the idea of listening to two more generations of young Republicans shrilly insisting that an incompetent crook is a true American hero turns my stomach.
Posted by: Julian | July 7, 2008 3:23 PM
What makes anyone think Obama won't pull a "we need to move forward" on us? Every Dem in leadership has been shilling for this administration, and Obama is already promised to back a bill that violates the fourth amendment and immunizes telecomms. Hope for any change from and Obama presidency seems sorely misplaced.
Posted by: Phaedrus | July 7, 2008 5:35 PM
"torture is a device used to get detainees to say what the torturers want to hear"
No, torture is a device used to terrorize populations. The whole point is for each person to know that they might have it done to them. The whole *point* of camp X-Ray is that foregners know what goes on them. The whole *point* of tasers is those taser videos on you-tube.
Posted by: Paul Murray | July 8, 2008 1:38 AM
"The big issue for me is making sure that they don't do a Reagan on Shrub. Just the idea of listening to two more generations of young Republicans shrilly insisting that an incompetent crook is a true American hero turns my stomach."
A-god-damned-men.
Posted by: uriel | July 8, 2008 2:32 AM
As I recall, the "decoded" messages about the Berlin disco bombing were revealed to be phone conversations along the lines of, "The bride is ready for the wedding. Has the cake been baked?"
Not exactly Enigma-class cryptography - nor, as was pointed out at the time, rock-solid evidence that those involved were perpetrating anything more than minor smuggling or some other low-grade caper.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 8, 2008 1:50 PM