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Torture Doesn't Work
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A former senior interrogator in Iraq says that abusing prisoners results in unreliable information, costs American lives, and it still hasn’t turned up Bin Laden.
There are valid reasons why we haven’t had enough with “torture sanctimony,” as Christopher Buckley puts it in an article in The Daily Beast, and let me start with the most important—it’s going to cost us future American lives in addition to the ones we’ve already lost.
Our policy of torture and abuse of prisoners has been Al Qaida’s number one recruiting tool, a point that Buckley does not mention and is also conspicuously absent from former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s argument in the Wall Street Journal. As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse. But that’s only the past.
When a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.
Somewhere in the world there are other young Muslims who have joined Al Qaida because we tortured and abused prisoners. These men will certainly carry out future attacks against Americans, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even here. And that’s not to mention numerous other Muslims who support Al Qaida, either financially or in other ways, because they are outraged that the United States tortured and abused Muslim prisoners.
In addition, torture and abuse has made us less safe because detainees are less likely to cooperate during interrogations if they don’t trust us. I know from having conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, that when a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.
Former officials who say that we prevented terrorist attacks by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or Abu Zubaydah are possibly intentionally ignorant of the fact that their actions cost us American lives. And let’s not forget the glaring failure in these cases. Torture never convinced either of these men to sell out Osama Bin Laden. And that’s the other lesson I learned in Iraq.
Coercion convinces a detainee to give you the minimum (and often an altered minimum) amount of information. Note that KSM only provided information that was downward from him in the Al Qaida hierarchy. I saw the same results in Iraq. When other interrogators used fear and control to force detainees to provide information, that information, at best, was always downward or lateral in direction. Why? Because a detainee knows that they can sell out the people below them or even future operations and the organization will survive. It’s been over seven years since 9/11 and we have yet to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. He continues to recruit new terrorists, especially with our past policy of torture and abuse as a recruiting tool.So when I look at the squandered opportunity to locate him through KSM or Abu Zubaydah, I see failure.
Contrast that with my interrogation team in Iraq. We used relationship-building approaches, leveraged the best of our American culture (tolerance, cultural understanding, and intellect), and we ultimately found the head of Al Qaida in Iraq by being smarter, not harsher. We captured Al Qaida terrorists, some very high-ranking leaders, who never provided information. But we didn’t resort to torture or abuse because we knew that it would have made us hypocrites to sell out the very principles that we were defending. We also knew that it would cost us the lives of our brothers and sisters in arms, our fellow soldiers. Instead, we used those as opportunities to become better interrogators and then concentrated on other avenues to achieve our mission. We can lose a battle and still win a war.
My extensive experience demonstrates that we can effectively interrogate without using torture and abuse. We do not have to choose between terror and torture. We are Americans and we are smarter and better than that.
Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym for a 14 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. As the leader of an elite interrogations team in Iraq, he conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. He served in three wars and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in 2006.
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Finally, a sane and knowledgable voice.
Exactly. We also need to start listening to warnings from other countries too. Israel warned us that torture is not a good way to go and they have a lot more experience with exactly the same type of prisoners. A lot of countries including France warned us about going into Iraq. As far a global warming goes every country seems to have seen the evidence much sooner than us.
The list of things goes on a on, I think its time to stop seeing the US as being so different from the rest of the world that we can't learn from there successes and failures. I see very little references to economic crisis in other countries in public discourse for example.
I completely completely agree. Combating the enemy does not require lowering oneself to the level of one's enemy. We must regain our integrity and respect the basic human rights that to which every person is entitled, suspected terrorist or American citizen. We need to stop behaving like barbarians!
Bravo, sir. Torture can get grudging pieces of information which may even be real, and it is these scraps that torture proponents--oh, excuse me--proponents of enhanced interrogation techniques seem to believe will prevent the next 9/11. But ultimately the cost paid for that information is in the long-term value of the detainee, American standing and ability to get cooperation, morals and principles, and ultimately, yes, more American blood. Yet these are all things that the U.S. needs to prevent the next 9/11. Torture can win some battles, but will cost us the war.
besides the fact that a whole lot of other things would have stopped 911. Like reading the stuff the Germany sent us on the four pilots. Or a whole lot of other info. I am continuously perplexed when pro-torture people say "we need all options on the table" but don't seem to value other options, like having enough Arabic language translators, as being all that important.
Especially when the Arabic speakers are the scary gaaaayyyyyys....
Even you do not see the real reason behind torture. It is not to gain information as much as it is to intimidate and terrorize those on the sidelines. It will never scare off those who decide to get involved but it will might change the mind of many who might otherwise consider joining the fight.
My uncle was tortured by young German soldiers during WWII for his work in the Norwegian Resistance movement. He told them whatever they wanted to hear to get the waterboarding and nail removing to stop. They were just remotely interested in what he had to say. Mostly, it seemed to him, they were just a bunch of kids having some sadistic fun. The real value of the whole excercise was upon his release, my uncle went back and told his compatriots what had happened to him. The fear his experiences instilled in their little group was the real payoff for the torturers. This is real reason prisoners are sent home from Gitmo.
If torture was only about getting crucial information out of suspects, we would have never even heard about it's use.
If your little story is right, the Germans wouldn't have had problems with insurgency once they started torture. Didn't work. If your little story is right, Saddam Hussein wouldn't have problems with insurgency before we invaded Iraq. Didn't happen. If your little story is right, we wouldn't have problems with Al Queada, also didn't happen. Torture doesn't work even for the purpose you describe regardless of how un-American that idea is.
opedanderson, it sounds like your uncle endured a helluva lot. But it also sounds like the kind of thing that can happen when a bunch of callous, young stupid soldiers are given free reign to indulge their more sadistic whims. We had something like that happen in the American Army--it was called Abu Ghraib.
Other obvious truths:
The Earth is round.
There is no god.
The government is corrupt.
WWJD?
Torture the crap out of terrorists.
you really think that people who are willing to blow themselves up because they disagree with our culture are going to say "oh well now they are torturing people.. lets see maybe I need to rethink".
Fear of the Nazis probably did keep a lot of people quiet. Thats not the point. It also caused huge cooperation on the part of the not-so-nazi German population. Thats something we are missing in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, cooperation from the local population.
And by the way if you think Jesus would torture the terror SUSPECTS (they have not had a fair trial) you need to get and read a lot more material on his teachings.
What I already knew and have been saying for days. It will amaze you how many who know nothing about the subject and will defend Bush to their last dying breath, will say otherwise.
IT DOES NOT WORK. IT HAS NOT KEPT US SAFE. IT HAS COST US DEARLY. It doesn't have a legal or moral leg to stand on.
So for those of you who think otherwise... read this article. He isn't the only one that I've heard say the EXACT same thing.
when the mossad starts questioning torture as a viable tool to gain information it is time too give pause.
Why does no one think to pardon the poor NG soldiers that were caught up in the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-et al war crimes at Abu Ghraib? They deserve MORE consideration that the CIA types that ought to know better. There must be some protection the American people can provide when crooks misuse/abuse our military. The "conservatives" who descry Obama's release of the DOJ memos are protecting only their sorry persons.
The difference between NG soldiers may have been (I am not 100% sure about this), is that the NG soldiers may have went beyond what they were told was legal. The Office of Legal Consul memos ('torture memos') are basically legal golden shields that protected the CIA operatives as long as they operated within them. So far it seems that they have been operating within them and has not gone to the threshold allowable by the memos. This , i think is the reason why the NG soldiers were convicted of torture while the CIA operatives should, are getting legal protection for things they did. As I said before, going after the CIA operatives is meaningless, it is the department heads, the people who wrote, and the people who sign off on these torture memos that are the ones who should really get prosecuted.
I've been in the army. No one at their level EVER does anything like that except with persuasion. Also, the presence of "outside" individuals was reasonably well documented. Were they CIA? I bet they were;-)
The first time a major US city's water supply is poisoned by terrorists, the same whiny bleeding hearts evidenced here will be screaming for information by any means available.
If we don't torture people, and convince the terrorist that we have captured to give up their information freely, and especially information on their leaders, then there would be no first time. That is the point of why we are fighting terrorism are we not?
Yes, by means that actually work. There is a rather large difference.
Torture doesn't work - Torture doesn't work - Torture doesn't work.
Keep repeating that to yourself until it sinks in. Only sickos disbelieve the opinions of the real professionals in the field.
I agree, if you don't even believe the people in the field that says more about your ability to grasp reality then it has to do with "torture" itself as a policy.
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Yes,
its important for people to stop and think why these terrorists want to attack us.
We are just giving them more material for their propaganda.
For the sake of this discussion I will stipulate that I believe that torture will not generally result in obtaining useful intelligence. And the author acknowledged that often, high level captives will not furnish useful intelligence using non-coercive interrogation. And I will accept, for the sake of this discussion, that our bad behavior endangers our soldiers and encourages the enemy.
But it is not like the efforts we make to capture these people are cost free. Most of the captives have not voluntarily surrendered, they are tracked and captured alive because of their supposed intelligence value. We spend much more blood and treasure to bring these guys in alive than we would spend if we simply killed them. And killing them would be for the most part morally and legally acceptable.
So it would seem to be more morally acceptable to minimize our efforts to capture people whose intelligence value is questionable at best and simply kill every enemy combatant who fights, flees or resists our efforts to win the war on the battlefield.
This is not about about morality. It is about legality which affords us the comfort of believing we are moral.
End the torture, hang the torturing miscreants and sleep tight with the certainty that we are truly righteous. And our enemies are truly dead.
Most prisoners we have tortured were not picked up in the heat of a gun battle. You can't just go by and shoot someone instead of arresting them. Your hypothesis that we picked up all of these people on the battlefield is incorrect.
BTW, is there anyone out there who can explain why torturing a single enemy captive is more likely to encourage an enemy to hate us and fight us than slaying a thousand or so of his soldiers on the battlefield? Oh, that's right there is honor in dying in battle. Right. Just ask someone who's spent a few hours with a gut shot buddy dying an agonizing death.
It's about those on the edge. Those people who most likely will not join these groups see this behavior as an attack on Islam or on their society at large and it is a propaganda coup for the very people we are trying to defeat. It isn't that we are worried for the terrorists. I'm more worried about the foundations of this nation, what we stand for and for those that go into battle and American lives.
a lot of the "terrorist suspects" we have rotting in G-Bay were "captured" by pamphlets. by that i mean our military would drop pamphlets down, saying there would be a reward to whoever turns in al-quida members. this means that John would turn in Jeff for a one lump sum, without any evidence that Jeff was actually an Al-quida member. Now i dont know about you but if i was Jeff, I would say whatever the hell these "interrigators" wanted to hear to keep my finger nails intact and my head above water. There are many Jeff's still sitting in G-Bay with no basic human rights for no reason other than John's greed.
Throughtout the history of mankind a democracy has lasted little over 200 years before it collapsed from corruptness. Were coming up on 233 years. I'm not an anarchist nor do I want to see this country collapse. America once stood as a nation that other nations looked up to. as of now we are not, and no other nation has taken our place on the pedestal, so either we get up off the ground, dust ourselves off, and jump back on the horse towards what our founding fathers stood for (which is very different from what politicians nowadays claim they stood for), or another country is going to take the place we once had and who knows where the world will be when that day comes.
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I don't like or respect either Bush or Cheney, but your assertion that they have done more to destroy America than anything done on 9-11 is the single most asinine statement I have ever read on the subject.
I strongly suggest that you do whatever you need to review the image of an airliner flying through a building filled with innocent people on that day. Your idiotic statement trivializes the losses which many, many American families suffered before either Bush or Cheney had done any of the we all hold against them now. Neither Bush nor Cheney compelled the innocent victims to jump out of a burning building.
Your observation reflects a sick, sick lack of perspective. This world is populated with many hateful, dangerous people who don't need any excuses whatsoever to do harm to others. Bush and Cheney certainly don't have any sort of exclusive franchise in that regard. I am sure that a sick mind like yours would take great pleasure in participating in the torture of these two pathetic people. And that says more about you and people like you than it does about Bush and Cheney.
Perhaps you should take your own advice, for you clearly advocated torturing Bush and Cheney. May you should "clear the Hell out -- take your simpering cowardice and get out -- you are not American and you do not belong here -- you are a far greater threat than any terrorist." And you are one sick puppy.
Maybe torturing Cheney would shed more light on 911, its obvious to most in the free world there were elements of that day that pointed to an inside job, several things never fully explained. Bush and Cheney lied repeatedly throughout their administration why are people so eager to believe the 911 official story, some of the science used is totally laughable, that wasn't a plane that crashed into the pentagon and building number 7, never fully explained that either. Do you actually know what you saw that day, 2 planes crashed into buildings and they came tumbling down in a few hours and your fear and hatred went up, so what did your masters do, start a war in iraq, torture people and launch a man hunt for an unseen foe, distracted you all while they robbed you blind. My countryman Mahar Arar spirited away to syria for a nice year long stay at their torture spa only to be released and exonerated, in Canada, your country still doesn't have the balls to admit wrong and has gone about shielding themselves. Fascism takes many forms and clearly its alive and well in the USA today. Dick Cheney is a traitor to you, your way of life and constitution you so prattle on about, prosecute him, torture him, hang him on the white house lawn, he had more to do with 911 than he is letting on, and given the last 8 years there is more than enough evidence of his involvement than any of these so called terrorists he had locked up as patsies for his conspiracy. But you people can't handle truth and ridicule is the default retort to rantings like mine, so keep your debate going and the political pundits yapping, no one is really listening anymore and your economy shows it. Good Luck USA you'll need it.
misterdon
Well, lets step back... lets think about this. The events of 9/11 were a tramatic wound for the nation. But lets take the anger/pain/etc out of it.
How many have been killed in Iraq. (A war of choice, and don't just limit the number to Americans, include Iraqi civilians) How much damage to the nation did it (9/11) ACTUALLY do? I've always held the notion that the only people that could actually bring down this nation... is this nation.
I think the bigger terrorists can be found on Wallstreet. They created a crisis that affects the world and has put millions in the 3rd World at risk (or at even greater risk) of starvation. On Sept. 18th of last year, there was a run on the banks that started at 11:30am in the morning. The Fed noticed and shut it down, and had they not, 6 trillion dollars would of been pulled out of our monetary system and it would of been total collaspe. And those bankers... are us.
So you talk about "hateful, dangerous people who don't need any excuses to do hard to others." Well, what do we do when they are the people that were in the administration and part of our own nation? We've done more damage to ourselves then any terrorist has accomplished thus far.
I so want an edit button.
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You don't deserve to live in the United States.
Anyone who doesn't agree with you is a screaming liberal. Of which I am clearly not... and the last post you made is utter ridiculous.
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Torture is meant to inflict pain, not to really be used to extract any information. If someone gives up information then more the better but it shouldn't be meant as a primary tactic to extract information if that is the intent. The way the rules are setup now it would be better for us to kill the detainee immediately and save everyone the headache. If you are caught committing an act of war against any of our coalition forces then you should be executed immediately. That's my personal opinion and I have the right as much as one who believes to the contrary.
Okay so let's make this a personal issue. Your family (Mom, Dad, Wife, Kids and Dog) are being held captive in your house and you have a finite amount of time to potentially save them before the house blows up and everyone inside will either die of shrapnel wounds or the shock wave will rupture every organ in their body and shatter every bone rendering everyone dead. You and a friend have captured one of the "terrorists" while he was performing perimeter security. You suspect he knows at the very least where everyone is located and how many other "terrorists" are inside the house. What do you do with him? Remember time is ticking and you only have a little while to gain some if not all of this information.
There is no right or wrong action but remember you have to live with the ramifications of your decision and the lives of your family members.
This is the author of the article. If it was my family, I would use relationship building (it doesn't take a long time -- I could do it in Iraq in a minute) and deception. My last resort would be torture. That would only harden their resolve and reaffirm to them why they placed the bomb in the first place. By the way, I lived the ticking time bomb scenario in Iraq many times -- we didn't use torture -- we used our brains.
Those who endorse the use of torture like to rationalize their position with the "ticking time-bomb" scenario. You have in custody a person who has planted a time-bomb. Conventional interrogation has produced no results. Should torture be employed? What if you knew you could prevent the deaths of scores, hundreds, or thousands of lives?
That scenario misses the point entirely. Whether it works or does not makes no difference to the moral question. We know that torture is wrong. When we employ it, we take on moral responsibility for the act, just as the terrorist takes on moral responsibility for taking innocent lives.
We all will die. Some things are more important than that. Living a principled, moral life is one. If we do what is right, the rest will take care of itself. If, on the other hand, we transgress clear moral imperatives, we become indistinguishable from those upon whom we would inflict torture.
Really, it's very simple. Our personal and public principles must not be compromised lest we cheapen the ideals for which Americans have served and sacrificed since the birth of the nation. Some things are worse than death.
Thank you.
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