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Josh Marshall relays Charlie Cook’s report about the reaction of Republican staffers to the news of Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) conviction:

Only the most partisan of Democrats or cold-hearted of people would fail to have some compassion or sympathy towards a party for which virtually everything has gone wrong. Someone recently likened it to watching a wounded dog kicked.

Stevens is one of the nine “Nazgul” (Republicans all, natch) who even voted against the torture amendment — McCain’s last decent act before he, too, joined the torturers with the Military Commissions Act. Today’s Republican Party deserves no sympathy — just a good old-fashioned “Raiders of the Lost Ark” mountaintop meltdown.

So here’s one cold-hearted partisan saying OK, maybe this Republican Party’s like a poor old wounded dog — but the thing’s rabid, too.  Put it out of its misery.

I’m a Constitution Voter
Originally uploaded by Thomas Nephew

I helped get a mass mailing out the door on Wednesday, to members of the facebook and mybarackobama.com “Get FISA Right” groups.  The full text is here or here; from the mailing:

…This election needs to be about more than lipstick, hockey moms, and Blackberries. It’s time to talk about the Constitution and how the two candidates propose to undo the damage of the past eight years.We’re contacting editorial boards across the country asking that they:

• urge presidential candidates to present their views on constitutional issues on September 17 — and for the rest of the campaign
• prepare editorials on restoring the rule of law to the next administration and Congress
• report on and analyze how the candidates would exert their executive authority as President. (Charlie Savage and the Boston Globe did this late last year; it’s time for a remake.)

In addition, we believe it is critical that the televised presidential debates pose questions about constitutional issues like warrantless electronic surveillance, torture, abrogation of habeas corpus, and how to restore our Constitution.

Again, we need your help — in two ways.

1. Please take a moment to write and send a *short* letter (best no more than 4 sentences!) to the editor of your local newspaper, putting these demands in your own words. We wouldn’t be “Get FISA Right” if we didn’t hope you’d mention rolling back the infamous FISA Amendment Act, but these letters will really have more impact if we don’t provide a canned script for you to follow.

If you don’t know your local paper’s letter to the editor email address, use this tool to find ones in your area. (Please don’t send the same letter to multiple newspapers, though.)

2. Help us with our op-ed piece. Collaborative writing — of open letters, blog posts, ad scripts — has always been one of Get FISA Right’s strengths; and with the media attention we’ve gotten so far, we think we’ve got a good shot at getting this op-ed piece placed. Please join in here. [...]

The conception and execution of this was interesting; the American Freedom Campaign held a press conference last Friday that a couple of us from “Get FISA Right” attended.  The editorial board outreach effort was AFC’s, and we thought we’d see if we could lend a hand by encouraging a fairly large base of support (about 23,000 people on myBarackObama, and another 2,300 on facebook) to support that with letters to the editor.  The drafting process took place on a “wiki” site (the same one being used for the op-ed piece), which makes it easy to see how a document has changed as different authors add to or subtract from it, and makes collaboration possible even when writers are literally on opposite sides of the country.

Anyhow.  There are plenty of other initiatives going on about constitutional, rule of law, civil liberties and human rights issues this campaign season.  A selection:

• Common Cause: Recapture the Flag Candidate Pledges
• ACLU: I’m a Constitution Voter
• Human Rights First: Elect to End Torture
• National Religious Campaign Against Torture (voter guides, tips on lobbying and questioning Congresspersons during election season)
• People for the American Way: Voter ID toolkits for CA, FL, GA, MI, OH, TX
• Institute for America’s Future: Demand the Debate We Need

Meanwhile, as “Get FISA Right” superactivist Jon Pincus writes, it seems like one of the biggest barriers we face is a deep unwillingness to cover these issues by the media, matched by a general reluctance among politicians to talk about them.  Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, a rare exception, wrote about this in “It’s the Constitution, Stupid“:

Maybe I live in a teensy little rarefied bubble, in which a handful of constitutional law professors, tetchy libertarians, and paranoid bloggers have been tearing their eyebrows out for the past seven years over the president’s use of the “war on terror” to run his tanks over great swaths of the Constitution and much of the Bill of Rights. Maybe I overestimate American concern that their president likes to eavesdrop on their phone calls and root through their library records. Yet Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side is on the best-seller list. Sixty-one percent of Americans oppose warrantless wiretapping. And both presidential candidates have recognized Guantanamo for the international disaster it is. So clearly somebody cares about the loss of civil liberties in America. It’s just that nobody wants to talk about it.

Jon concludes:

Like a lot of people, I believe that this election’s a choice between restoring the Constitution and continuing down the path to fascism and a police state.  Okay, maybe that’s not the most pressing issue to everybody … but it certainly seems worth talking about.

While it wasn’t her point, Nell’s excellent post earlier this week (”Prepare to Dare or Prepare to Despair“) reminds me that I’ve been less energetic than I should have been in supporting and discussing Dennis Kucinich’s H.Res. 1258 resolution calling for George Bush’s impeachment.  The lengthy resolution presents 35 articles of impeachment, leading with Bush’s propaganda campaign for the Iraq war:

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under article II, section 3 of the Constitution ‘to take care that the laws be faithfully executed’, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war against Iraq.

The resolution is a resource in its own right, presenting factual bases for each of the charges.*   As David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org said,

Impeachment is only a lengthy process when you don’t already have the evidence.  President Andrew Johnson was impeached three days after the offense for which he was impeached. … Bush and Cheney could be impeached, tried, and convicted in a week.

Not even every impeachment supporter will agree that every single article in H. Res. 1258 merits Bush’s impeachment,  removal from office, and  banning from future federal office.  But even in this the resolution serves a useful function, reminding us that impeachment is by design a political tool, to be wielded by the House of Representatives — not a judicial one or one limited to narrowly proveable violations of U.S. law.

To be sure — for those who insist on them — there are (in my opinion) such statutory and treaty violations involving illegal detention (Article 17), torture (Article 18), and illegally spying on American citizens (Article 24).

But impeachment can and sometimes must also be applied to the kinds of breaches of trust and willful poor judgment that have characterized the Bush administration, even if no specific statute is broken, even if “only” our constitutional system itself is at stake.   The cannon of impeachment may seem less warranted for, say, the relative fly of “endangering the health of 9/11 first responders,” (Article 35), but quite a bit more so for the propaganda catapult of misleading claims about Iraq and 9/11 (Article 2), Iraqi WMD (Article 3), or “even” climate change (Article 32) — regardless of whether particular statutes were broken in the latter cases.  Yet others strike at the equally profound subversion of the American political system, such as those about tampering with free and fair elections, corruption of the administration of justice (Article 28), creating secret laws (Article 22), and announcing intent not to follow duly enacted law (Article 26).

As AfterDowningStreet.com is reporting, Dennis Kucinich will present petitions supporting immediate impeachment hearings to Speaker Nancy Pelosi today. (You can still add your support here.)

Kucinich will also reportedly urge the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission — something Mark Gisleson (”Norwegianity”) supports in an article written for Mick Arran’s impeachment blog “The Bush/Cheney Impeachment Papers.” The arguments of Mr. Gisleson and others (like local congressional candidate Gordon Clark) notwithstanding, I see the “T&R” idea as a half measure ratifying a drift away from the Constitution and towards unwritten and impotent customs and conventions.

But even the half-measure of “truth and reconciliation” is not eagerly embraced by the Obama campaign.  As Mark Benjamin reported for Salon.com (via Mick Arran) this summer:

…don’t hold your breath waiting for Dick Cheney to be frog-marched into federal court. Prosecution of any officials, if it were to occur, would probably not occur during Obama’s first term. Instead, we may well see a congressionally empowered commission that would seek testimony from witnesses in search of the truth about what occurred. Though some witnesses might be offered immunity in exchange for testimony, the question of whether anybody would be prosecuted would be deferred to a later date — meaning Obama’s second term, if such is forthcoming.

On the other hand (and for what it’s worth), while it doesn’t call for either a commission or impeachment, the draft Democratic platform identified many of the same issues highlighted in H. Res. 1258.  And it closed the relevant “Reclaiming our Constitution and Our Liberties” section with the ringing words:

Our Constitution is not a nuisance. It is the foundation of our democracy. It makes freedom and self-governance possible, and helps to protect our security. The Democratic Party will restore our Constitution to its proper place in our government and return our Nation to our best traditions–including our commitment to government by law, and not by men.

Impeachment is not a nuisance either — it’s an integral part of the Constitution.  Impeachment is no esoteric afterthought — it’s the biggest actual “check and balance” in the document, and it’s mentioned six times.  Impeachment is literally patriotic.  And it would be a far more powerful tool towards uncovering the truth than any congressional committee or even special prosecutor would be — refusal to honor impeachment-related subpoenas was itself an article of impeachment in the Nixon articles of impeachment.

As Nell Lancaster wrote:

Impeachment is the key to reversing the damage of the last eight years, not simply papering it over. The time to organize for demanding it is not after the election, but now.

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* I’m planning to find or publish a web page of the resolution with hyperlinks to supporting documents and reports.

The people at “rejecttorture.org” just e-mailed to let me know that the Republican Party is soliciting input for their national platform at http://www.gopplatform2008.com.

The GOP is thus doing something similar what Obama and the Democrats did with the kind of “Listening to America” event I attended — except they’re apparently doing it all online, and calling that “the most grassroots-driven platform in the history of American politics.” They specify that participants need not be Republican to have a voice in their platform process.

Naturally, the “Reject Torture” people are urging all of us to weigh in with variations on “reject torture” and “no torture, no exceptions.” As they noted in their e-mail, the Democrats actually have “reject torture” in the draft Democratic platform,* as well as rejecting the “legal” processes that have kept torture hidden away for years –

We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. We reject torture. We reject sweeping claims of “inherent” presidential power. [...]

…To build a freer and safer world, we will lead in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. We will not ship away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, or detain without trial or charge prisoners who can and should be brought to justice for their crimes, or maintain a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law. …

So let’s take the Republican Party organizers at their word and see what happens. There’s a sign-up process - be sure to check the box next to “Attribute Ideas, so your first name and city will appear — followed by a followup e-mail from the site. Once you use the password in the e-mail to log in, you’re presented with the kind of online form similar to those used by many politicians and businesses, in which your comments are categorized by issue. Since none correspond directly to the issue of torture — surprise, surprise — the “Reject Torture” organizers suggest you categorize your anti-torture input as either “Protecting American Values: Other” or “National Security: Human Rights.”

I chose the latter, and wrote:

The United States should never torture anyone under any circumstances. To do so demeans our country as a whole, and ignores what interrogators tell us over and over again: that torture doesn’t work.

There are better ways to get information from those who have it, instead of having to follow up on every desperate lie told by someone just trying to make the pain or torment or degrading treatment stop. And there are costs and risks every time we stoop to torture: every time it happens, our country runs the real risk of making an enemy out of a bystander, loses any ability to try our true enemies fairly, and loses the respect of more of our friends around the world.

It’s time to draw the line and say “no torture, no exceptions” — not for the military services, not for the intelligence services, not for anyone.

I hope you’ll join me in sending messages like this to Minneapolis, to the Republican Party, and to John McCain.

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* EDIT, 8/23: Democratic platform section added. The cited parts can be found on page 49 of the document, p.54 of 56 PDF pages.

Blogging will be sparse at best. Meanwhile some items worth paying attention to:

—

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News (Glenn Greenwald) — Greenwald makes a pretty good case that the government’s case against Bruce Ivins (the Fort Detrick germ lab scientist who committed suicide), the m.o. of the anthrax terrorist, and ABC News’s false insistence at the time that lab results pointed to Iraq all add up to a case that urgently requires Congressional investigation. Whoever gave ABC the false “bentonite additive” story has a lot to answer for — very arguably the Iraq war.

—

Wal-Mart mobilizing against EFCA, pressuring “associates” on how to vote — That’s illegal, and that’s arguably what they’re doing by raising Obama’s support for the Employee Free Choice Act in in-store meetings. The charge is based on a Wall Street Journal article “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win“:

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don’t specifically tell attendees how to vote in November’s election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

The main link leads to “Americans Rights At Work,” where you can add your name to a petition urging the FEC to investigate Wal-Mart for potential election law violations.

—

Last and definitely not least, the ACLU is sounding the alarm about a jaw-dropping legislative initiative by Bush and Attorney General Mukasey:

After years of litigation, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus — the ancient freedom that protects people from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process. Habeas proceedings could allow detainees to bring up the fact that the evidence that the government has against them came from hearsay, or even torture and abuse. Courts could also release people who are detained indefinitely without charge. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wants to make sure neither of these things happen. That’s why he’s calling on Congress to authorize indefinite detention through a new declaration of armed conflict. He is also proposing that Congress subvert the right of habeas corpus with a new scheme to hide the Bush administration’s past wrongdoing — an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

More here. Join the ACLU petition to your Representative and Senators here urging them to oppose this misbegotten idea. Thanks to Mick Arran and the Talking Dog for sounding the alarm as well. As Mick says: “Please let’s not give them this one.”

Will wonders never cease — discussions of war crimes on late night TV with millions watching. It happened when David Letterman interviewed Jane Mayer, author of “The Dark Side,” a book about the Bush torture presidency.

Letterman does a remarkable job with the interview — asks the questions a “24″ watcher might ask — but he didn’t shy away from going long the other way, with direct and repeated questions about war crimes. He might have skipped the “will never happen” part as unnecessary soothsaying, but other than that he’s put most of the network news teams out there to shame. Colbert, Stewart, Letterman: when the news “industry” is a joke, it takes jokers to bring you the news.

Via Avedon Carol; as she says, pass it on.

From the Jane Mayer interview by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!:

JANE MAYER: Many of the detainees have said they lied to stop the torture. Shaykh Ibn al-Libi was perhaps one of the most fateful cases, because he was taken into custody by the CIA, sent to Egypt, where he was basically beaten up. While he was in Egypt, this was before the war in Iraq. He was asked, “Are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? And are there connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein?” He later said he had absolutely no idea. He didn’t even really know what weapons of mass destruction were. But he told his interrogators whatever they wanted to hear. And what he told the interrogators made its way into Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, which was one of the major turning points in selling the war in Iraq. Colin—

AMY GOODMAN: February 5, 2003, five weeks before the invasion.

JANE MAYER: Right. And it was a speech that was very powerful, convinced an awful lot of people who were on the fence about whether we needed to go to war. One of the things Powelll talks about in that speech is the information that came from al-Libi saying that there was WMD and that there were connections between terrorists from al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Almost one year after Powell’s speech, this same detainee, Shaykh Ibn al-Libi, recanted. He told the CIA he made it up. He said he had to say something, because they were killing him.

You know, one of the things, though, that I think people haven’t picked up on in that story is not only the disinformation that came out of this program, but that there were really doubts about al-Libi at that time that Powell gave that speech, and Powell was not told about the doubts. The DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, already suspected that al-Libi was fabricating things, because his confessions lacked all the kind of detail that’s convincing. And the DIA was sounding an alarm, but Powell wasn’t told about this when he gave his speech.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was Cheney’s role?

JANE MAYER: Well, Cheney vetted the speech, so he—his office was just deeply involved in almost all of these issues. You know, David Addington was up in Congress not very long ago, and he testified. And again, people didn’t pick up on this much. But he said as kind of an aside that he was very involved in the CIA’s interrogation program, which is extraordinary. Now, why is the lawyer for the Vice President involved in the CIA’s interrogation program? Well, when the history of this is told—and I did my best to tell it in The Dark Side—you’ll see there’s sort of fingerprints from Cheney and the people in his office all over this program.

While this hasn’t escaped attention before now, there are two reasons the bolded parts remain important and worth emphasizing, I think. First, obviously, a key convincing spokesman went to the United Nations with a story that was built on sand — leading to the deaths and maimings of (at minimum) tens of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of Americans. Second, perhaps less obviously, there was an effort — a conspiracy, to put it bluntly — to have him do so. I’ve compiled a short and no doubt partial list of other major instances of this kind of deception here — “Practice to Deceive.”

For people to argue that torture or deception leading to war (or, in this case, both) were somehow done in good faith is to “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil.” It’s wilful blindness in the face of overwhelming evidence. In my view, these were part of a conspiracy of war crimes, crimes against U.S. statutes, and impeachable acts. There must be accountability for them; all I can do, I suppose, is point that out — and hold it against politicians, pundits, and others who argue otherwise.

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UPDATE, 7/29: Support Dennis Kucinich’s call for impeachment hearings here; your name will be forwarded to your Representative.

In the years and decades and centuries ahead, John Yoo’s and David Addington’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week will become a simple, memorable marker about just how low this country fell in the early years of the 21st century. A former Department of Justice counsel and a current chief of staff to the Vice President of the United States proved unwilling to say that the president could not legally order torturing children or burying people alive.

Since last week’s events are well known enough, I’ll make just two points, and ask a question.

First, torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading abuse of children by United States military, intelligence personnel, and/or U.S.-hired contractor thugs is not a hypothetical situation. I’ll list just two cases, but more have been reported, and no doubt yet more remain unreported. Abu Ghraib sergeant Samuel Provance told a German news team about “interrogation specialists” pouring water on a boy, driving him around in the cold night, smearing him with mud — and then displaying the result to his father, who (Provance was told) broke and promised to tell all he knew. In an even grimmer story, Tara McKelvey reported (in her 2006 book “Monstering) about at least one alleged rape of an underage detainees — photographed by a fellow soldier. The investigation was desultory at best. In cases like these, the cruelties and/or the whitewashes can be traced to policies made in America.

Second, the way in which Addington and Yoo answered — that is, failed to answer — Congressional questioning should itself set off emergency sirens for our democracy. These two are, in a very real sense, enemies of our state. They are our enemies. Whether delivered with Addington’s coolly contemptuous attitude or Yoo’s baby-faced pseudo-naivete, we simply can not afford to have legitimate questions to the executive branch by the legislative one “answered” this way. To pretend to fail to understand the distinction between “would” and “could” is the kind of ‘trick’ a 3rd grader wouldn’t get away with. Contempt of this sort by the Bush administration should be … that is, should have been… met by Congress with contempt of its own — direct, immediate, Congressional sergeant at arms, off to jail you go contempt.

Meanwhile, at least the future narrative is clear. We were attacked. We panicked. Our elected leaders in the White House threw away our country’s honor and our alleged principles, and set about subverting our own political system in order to do so and to get away with it. Meanwhile, our elected representatives in Congress did next to nothing to prevent it.

People have often tried to lay the abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere at the feet of so-called “bad apples.” The future will know those “bad apples” didn’t fall far from a corrupt and rotten tree, and can roll the tape above to prove it. The question for us is how far and deep that rot extends — to the White House only? To its alleged “check” and “balance” on Capitol Hill in the “opposition” party — capable of belated video theatrics, but not of real oversight?

Or does it extend deeper yet? A recent study (by WorldPublicOpinion.org) suggests that the United States is more akin to brutalized societies like Egypt, Azerbaijan, or Russia than those like Europe’s when it comes to accepting torture under some or even any circumstances. To agree that the state may completely own an individual, make this one say something … anything, turn that one into a screaming thing — that, to me, seems a kind of original sin. As we approach our Independence Day with the usual fanfare, self-congratulation, parades, and hot dogs, I may wish that this country were not so easily tempted to that sin. But wishing doesn’t make it so. Maybe 9/11 really did change everything. Maybe the terrorists have really won.

On Tuesday, Human Rights First held an event in downtown Washington D.C. honoring the efforts of professional military, CIA, and FBI interrogators to restore decency and respect for human rights to U.S. detainee interrogation policy. Human Rights First and these interrogators are advocating a policy of “rapport-based” interrogations — no torture and no cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment by anyone acting on behalf of the United States of America.

I had a conversation at that event with one man who is now retired from the military after extensive service as an interrogator. I wrote about our conversation here: “I want my white hat back” — military interrogators against torture.

Today I corresponded again with “Ray” — a pseudonym — about his positions on following orders to waterboard or otherwise torment a detainee, about what he thought his colleagues believe, about Abu Ghraib, and about what the future may hold.

1. If you had been ordered to waterboard someone or engage in other cruel/inhumane/degrading detainee mistreatment (e.g.., hypothermia, long time standing), what would you have done?

Refused the order. That would probably have resulted in my getting fired or re-assigned, but so be it. In addition, I would have documented the incident, and reported it to the Army’s (assuming that’s the environment I would have been working in) Criminal Investigation Division, or otherwise appropriate authorities.

2. [Excuse my ignorance here]: … what if the order was not “up to snuff” — not written, not verbally direct with witnesses, or whatever constitutes “an order that should be obeyed”?

Same answer. Refuse the order, immediately document the incident, and follow up with a report to the appropriate investigative authorities.

Read the rest of this entry »

HRF reception for interrogators against torture
Originally uploaded by Thomas Nephew

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed titled “The Torture Gambit” decrying renewed congressional hearings on torture:

Nearly seven years after 9/11, the U.S. homeland hasn’t been struck again and American civil liberties remain intact. So how does Congress say “thank you”? By trying to ruin the men who in good faith set the legal rules that have kept us safe.

But breaking human rights law isn’t legal just because John Yoo or William Haynes II say it is. What’s more, it isn’t “just” wrong — it’s ineffective and unsafe for the rest of us as well. I attended a “Human Rights First” (HRF) reception sporting the lengthy title “Winning the Asymmetrical Conflict—How We Can Gain the Intelligence We Need And Stay True to our Nation’s Values” yesterday after work that wound up giving that editorial the lie.

Human Rights First has brought together about twenty pros with significant interrogation experience this week to lobby Congress and the presidential campaigns, and to speak to the public about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to gaining credible intelligence — as opposed to unreliable information — from interrogations. Among them are Colonel Stuart A. Herrington, U.S. Army (Retired), with service in Vietnam, Panama , and Operation Desert Storm; Joe Navarro, who served for more than 25 years with the FBI as an interrogator, an agent and a supervisor working in the area of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence; and Ken Robinson, who served a twenty-year career in a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic assignments including Ranger, Special Forces, and clandestine special operations units, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

In other words, seasoned professionals who know what they’re talking about, not a hippie among them; these three are speaking today at an “Effectively Interrogating Terrorism Suspects” panel hosted by HRF and the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) Human Rights and Security Initiative.

While I didn’t speak with any of them, I did wind up talking for a while to another interrogator — now retired from government service — with a resume fitting in with those described above, including interrogations of the so-called “deck of cards” Baathist Iraqi officials and the like in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion. Since the reception was “off the record”, I won’t say who he was, but can report the gist of what we discussed.*

Much of that is captured in the title — “I want my white hat back,” he told me. All his career he had assured people that “we don’t use thumbscrews”, and that torture was counterproductive. After Abu Ghraib, he said, he got a lot of “I thought so all along” looks and comments that bothered him greatly.

For his part, he had always stuck to the guidelines for legal, Geneva Conventions compliant interrogations, and felt he had gained good intelligence that way. From the 1992 Army Field Manual FM34-52 for Intelligence Interrogation:

Experience indicates that the use of prohibited techniques is not necessary to gain the cooperation of interrogation sources. Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

Revelation of use of torture by US personnel will bring discredit upon the US and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort. … (p. 1-8)

He emphasized that the HRF legislative and lobbying goal for his group was simply forward-looking rather than “finger pointing”. While HRF is following the current oversight hearings on its “End Torture” blog, the goal of the HRF interrogator lobbying initiative is to support a new policy that all interrogations — whether by the military, the CIA, or any other part of the U.S. government — should be “rapport-based”: non-coercive, nontorture. (Shaking his head, he said that used to be assumed.) He felt that the vast majority of professional military and other interrogators felt that way. But speaking just for himself, he agreed that “without accountability, there will be a smudge on that white hat”; “we’re on the same side” in that respect.

Human Rights First is doing important work in bringing expert legal, medical, military, and intelligence people together to oppose torture; they also support human rights defenders around the world, and lobby politicians and educate the public about Darfur, immigration, and other human rights issues. Readers should have a look at their web site, subscribe to their alerts, and do whatever they can to support the organization.

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EDITS, 6/18: “about twenty pros with significant interrogation experience” and “[military,] and intelligence [people]” — FBI and CIA interrogators were also present, not just military interrogators.
UPDATE, 6/19: link to HRF/CSIS panel “Effectively Interrogating…” added.
* UPDATE, 6/20: I incorrectly understood “off the record” here. I felt my conversation at the reception could be conveyed in broad strokes on condition of anonymity, which I honored. I can’t quote an exchange to that effect, but believe Ray agreed with that (Ray later told me “Ray” is a pseudonym). As is clear from his ongoing participation here, my impression was correct, and anonymity/pseudonymity was Ray’s main concern.

However, this post may have violated HRF’s understanding of the ground rules for the event (not that I’ve heard that from them). If so, I apologize, and hope no harm was done; I felt our conversation was our own, and that I was simply not supposed to attribute names to statements, or what was said “officially” by speakers (who were brief). For what it’s worth, the HRF explanation for “off the record” was that sensitive information might be discussed, and I neither wrote about or heard such discussion.