Apparently Bush Regime Never Read Blowback by Chalmers Johnson

The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

President Bush told a September 2006 news conference that one plot, to attack a Los Angeles office tower, was "derailed" in early 2002 — before the harsh CIA interrogation measures were approved, contrary to those who claim that waterboarding revealed it. (A blatent lie exposed by the recently released memo).

The IG's report is among several indications that the Bush administration's use of abusive interrogation methods was less productive than some former administration officials have claimed.

Even some of those in the military who developed the techniques warned that the information they produced was "less reliable" than that gained by traditional psychological measures, and that using them would produce an "intolerable public and political backlash when discovered," according to a Senate Armed Services Committee report released on Tuesday. (We in the Political Science field call this BLOWBACK, which is an official intelligence term.)

The Bradbury memos that cite the inspector general's report reveal that officials at CIA headquarters insisted on the repeated waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, the first prisoner to undergo the technique, even after the interrogators on the scene sought to discontinue the technique. So after 83 attempts at obtaining information, the CIA finally gave up on the "harsh interrogation" technique.

Then the famous torture "memos" were released by President Obama this month, and WHAM! Get ready for the BLOWBACK America, cause it's coming.

A Brief history lesson is required for you to understand what I mean:

Originally, blowback is a CIA internal coinage denoting the unintended, harmful consequences — to friendly populations and military forces — when a given weapon is carelessly used, e.g. anti-Western religious fanatics who, in due course, attack foe and sponsor; right-wing counter-revolutionaries who sell drugs to their sponsor’s civil populace; Banana Republic juntas who kill American reporters; and in this case, the un-intended consequences of the failed attempts at interrogation using methods that constitute torture. The actual response, or blowback, remains to be seen.

In formal, print usage, the term blowback first appeared in the Clandestine Service History — Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran — November 1952–August 1953, the CIA internal history of the US’s 1953 Iranian coup d'état. Alleged examples of blowback include the CIA’s financing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerrilla war against the USSR in Afghanistan; it is claimed that some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support joined al-Qaeda's terrorist campaign against the United States.

I would like to make a prediction that the history of Blowback will soon include the consequences of the torture techniques used by the CIA and military in the last few years, specifically under the approval of the Bush administration. What the Blowback will be is not yet determined, but it won't be good.