{"id":326070,"date":"2010-02-16T09:06:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T14:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=67509"},"modified":"2010-02-16T09:06:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T14:06:29","slug":"it%e2%80%99s-extremely-important-we-don%e2%80%99t-torture-mullah-abdul-ghani-baradar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/326070","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Extremely Important We Don\u2019t Torture Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_66822\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 310px\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-66822\" href=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/2010\/02\/12\/afghanistan-strategy-based-on-assumption-that-failed-in-iraq\/100209-m-2934t-0224\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-66822\" title=\"MarinesInMarjehAfghan_DVIDSHUB-Flickr\" src=\"http:\/\/static1.firedoglake.com\/1\/files\/2010\/02\/MarinesInMarjehAfghan_DVIDSHUB-Flickr-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"100209-M-2934T-0224\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marines fight insurgents on road to Marjeh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan (photo: DVIDSHUB via Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Taliban&#8217;s military commander has been captured in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/16\/world\/asia\/16intel.html\"> a joint Pakistani-U.S. intelligence raid<\/a>. A high-five to Langley: this is one serious motherfucking success. Now it&#8217;s really important we don&#8217;t screw it all up by abusing Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently Baradar has been in custody since last week and is being interrogated by both the Paks and us. (This is why the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group exists.) The ultimate point of fighting the Taliban is to compel them to give up fighting and accept some version of a post-Taliban order in Afghanistan. Torturing Baradar &#8212; which the Pakistanis have been known to do &#8212; is counterproductive to that effort. If we treat the guy respectfully, in a demonstrated way, it might spur a reconsideration of Taliban goals. I am not counting any chickens, but any hope of a game-changing possibility will be foreclosed upon if we or our allies torture Baradar. Let&#8217;s be smart &#8212; and true to Obama&#8217;s stated principles\/executive order. If there was any doubt whatsoever, the Abdulmutallab case proved we don&#8217;t need to torture to get good intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Last thing. Just weeks ago, American pundits were bemoaning how the Pakistanis weren&#8217;t taking any steps to go after the Quetta Shura Taliban. Hopefully they&#8217;ll have the decency to apologize to the Pakistanis. This longterm partnership has just paid a big dividend.<\/p>\n<p>Boy, that Barack Obama sure doesn&#8217;t know how to deal with terrorism, huh?<\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/attackerman.firedoglake.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/share-this\/share-icon-16x16.gif\" alt=\"Share This icon\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=67509&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"Email, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_67509\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"noindex nofollow\">&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marines fight insurgents on road to Marjeh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan (photo: DVIDSHUB via Flickr) The Taliban&#8217;s military commander has been captured in a joint Pakistani-U.S. intelligence raid. A high-five to Langley: this is one serious motherfucking success. Now it&#8217;s really important we don&#8217;t screw it all up by abusing Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Apparently Baradar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}