re: #56 Killgore Trout

Personally I wouldn’t be bothered if KSM never left the CIA blacksite in Poland where he gave up the name of the courier. Part of the problem was Bush’s attempt at transparency with GITMO. It makes thing legally very complicated.
BTW, if you look back through reports of the bin laden raid you’ll find mentions of taking one captive alive. You also find mentions that one of Bin Laden’s sons who was in the compound is missing. We’ll probably never hear of him again. it’s easier that way, let’s not pretend Obama is some sort of saint. In fact he’s harsher and more brutal towards the jihadis than Bush was but he’s quiet about it. Americans like it that way, it helps them to fell better about themselves.

He didn’t give up the real name of the courier.

But there are two points that seem key in assessing the torture question. First, both KSM and al-Libi had critical intelligence they withheld under torture. KSM knew of Abu Ahmed’s trusted role and real name; al-Libi knew Abu Ahmed was OBL’s trusted courier and may have known of what became OBL’s compound.

And neither of them revealed that information to the CIA.

They waterboarded KSM 183 times in a month, and he either never got asked about couriers guarding OBL, or he avoided answering the question honestly. Had KSM revealed that detail, Bush might have gotten OBL 8 years ago.

And just as importantly, the whole time KSM was shielding Abu Ahmed’s true identity while being waterboarded, KSM was also lying to the CIA about where OBL was. When asked what things he lied about under torture at his 2007 CSRT hearing, KSM specifically said he first said he didn’t know of OBL’s whereabouts, and then confirmed false locations for him, in response to the torture.