The Morning Scoop - When Torture Can Work

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MAY 12, 2011

Torture Can be Wrong and Still Work You might have missed the tale of Magnus Gäfgen, the convicted child murderer currently suing police for beating him and threatening worse in order to extract a confession—an apropos story for our national debate on torture in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death. According to Gäfgen's lawsuit, they beat him, then told him a torture specialist was being flown in, a man whose training would enable him to "inflict more pain on me than I had ever experienced." At that point he confessed. The Daily Beast's Stephen L. Carter on why, if the goal is to obtain information, torture can work. Read it at The Daily Beast Bin Laden Obsessed with U.S. Attack Osama bin Laden was so preoccupied with staging another terrorist attack on U.S. soil that it began to chafe some of his followers, who focused on operations in places like Yemen and Somalia instead. According to his journal and files recovered from his compound, bin Laden wanted al Qaeda to recruit non-Muslims "who are oppressed in the United States"—especially African Americans and Latinos—to help with attacks and suggested targeting cities other than New York and Washington. He seemed to care little about operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. collected what amounts to millions of pages of documents from bin Laden's compound; scans, so far, have taken the form of keyword searches of things like city names and al Qaeda names. Read it at The Washington Post Yemen Forces Kill 18 Protesters Yemeni forces fired on demonstrators in three major cities Thursday, killing at least 18 people and wounding hundreds more. In the capital, Sanaa, republican guards fired on protesters who broke away from the designated sit-in area and marched on the cabinet building. Soldiers loyal to the defected general Major Ali Mohsin then arrived to the area in pick-up trucks and returned fire to the republican guards—his first clash with government forces since siding with the opposition in March. Protesters are planning a march on the presidential palace Friday. Read it at The Guardian Spain Suffers Deadly 5.2 Quake A 5.2 earthquake struck southern Spain overnight, killing eight people in the town of Lorca. Despite the relative smallness of the quake, it appears to have caused much damage to old buildings in the town. Most of the deaths were caused by falling debris. Video footage of the incident shows cars crushed by fallen bricks and stones and a church bell tower that collapsed from the quake. Read it at BBC How bin Laden Met His Wife Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada took a bullet for her husband, Osama bin Laden, on May 1. Was it true love? "I want to be martyred with you," the Associated Press says al-Sada once told her husband. Through interviews with her family, the AP pieces together a sense of what her life was like with the world's most-wanted terrorist. She had always told friends and family that she "wanted to go down in history," though the family says it was unaware what she was getting into when an uncle came to them in 1999 to say a Saudi man named Osama bin Laden was looking for a wife. She accepted the engagement without meeting him and flew to Afghanistan to meet him. Her family only saw her once after that, visiting her in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks. When bin Laden gave her the option to leave with her family, she said " I won't leave as long as you're alive." Read it at Associated Press Massey Acted 'Above the Law' In last year's Upper Big Branch mine disaster. Google Unveils Chrome Laptops Will start at $349. Demjanjuk Convicted of Nazi Crimes Ohio man, now 91, guarded death camp. Hugh Grant Turns Down Two and a Half Men Was offered $600,000 per episode. Nigerian Man Had 107 Wives And 185 children. Sign up for The Yes List email, our weekly cultural recommendations. For more of The Daily Beast, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Raj Rajaratnam and Wall Street's Thieving Majority by Randall Lane Most traders would steal if it were a sure thing, according to a blockbuster survey. That's why the conviction of hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam sends a key message about a fair system and free markets, writes Randall Lane. Mitt Romney Goes Elite for 2012 Race by McKay Coppins Mitt Romney's big speech today calling for a repeal of Obama's health-care reform is his presidential campaign's first step toward a Romney reboot—dropping the failed "just one of the guys" approach of 2008 and embracing his inner elitist. The 25 Hottest Movies of Summer 2011 by Brandi Andres From Steven Spielberg's collaboration with J.J. Abrams on Super 8 to a whole slew of sequels from The Hangover Part II to the final installment of Harry Potter, check out The Daily Beast's guide of what's coming to theaters this summer.

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