In his gung-ho views on torture, New York State Senator Greg Ball has plenty of company.
At the November 12, 2011 Republican debate on foreign policy, all seven candidates endorsed the use of torture as an effective counter-terrorism tactic.
Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain called for the re-authorized use of waterboarding to “persuade” captured terrArabists to talk.
“I don’t see it as torture, I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique,” said Cain.
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Texas Governor Rick Perry agreed with Cain.
And Perry drew sustained applause when he declared, “This is war…I will defend them [waterboarding and other coercive techniques] until I die.”
The use of waterboarding was discontinued late in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Following much heated, internal debate, officials in the FBI and Justice Department admitted that it constituted torture and was therefore illegal.
But after the killing of Osama bin Laden, several Bush administration officials–notably former Vice President Dick Cheney–tried to reinstitute the technique, or at least its reputation.
They suggested that information acquired during the earlier waterboarding years may have provided an essential clue to locating bin Laden.
Unfortunately for Republicans, the truth about torture generally–and waterboarding in particular–is just the opposite.
Victims will say anything they think their captors want to hear to stop the agony. And, in fact, subsequent investigations have shown that just that happened with Al Qaeda suspects.
Waterboarding a captive
Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, hundreds of Al Qaeda members started falling into American hands. And so did a great many others who were simply accused by rival warlords of being Al Qaeda members.
The only way to learn if Al Qaeda was planning any more 9/11-style attacks on the United States was to interrogate those suspected captives. The question was: How?
The CIA and the Pentagon quickly took the “gloves off” approach. Their methods included such “stress techniques” as playing loud music and flashing strobe lights to keep detainees awake.
Some were “softened up” prior to interrogation by “third-degree” beatings. And still others were waterboarded.
In 2003, an FBI agent observing a CIA “interrogation” at Guantanamo was stunned to see a detainee sitting on the floor, wrapped in an Israeli flag. Nearby, music blared and strobe slights flashed.
In Osama bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of war against America, he had accused the country of being controlled by the Jews, saying the United States “served the Jews’ petty state.”
Draping an Islamic captive with an Israeli flag could only confirm such propaganda.
The FBI, on the other hand, followed its traditional “kill them with kindness” approach to interrogation.
Pat D’Amuro, a veteran FBI agent who had led the Bureau’s investigation into the 1998 bombing of the American embasy in Nairobi, Kenya, warned FBI Director Robert Mueller III:
The FBI should not be a party in the use of “enhanced intrrogation techniques.” They wouldn’t work and wouldn’t produce the dramatic results the CIA hoped for.
But there was a bigger danger, D’Amuro warned: “We’ll be handing every future defense attorney Giglio material.”
The Supreme Court had ruled in Giglio vs. the United States (1972) that the personal credibility of a government official was admissible in court.
Any FBI agent who made use of extra-legal interrogation techniques could potentially have that issue raised every time he testified in court on any other matter.
It was a defense attorney’s dream-come-true recipe for impeaching an agent’s credibility–and thus ruin his investigative career.
But there was another solid reason for avoiding interrogations that smacked of torture: Most Al Qaeda members relished appearing before grand juries.
Unlike organized crime members, they were talkative–and even tried to proslytize to the jury members. They were proud of what they had done–and wanted to talk.
“This is what the FBI does,” said Mike Rolince, an FBI experrt on counter-terrorism. “Nearly 100% of the terrorists we’ve taken into custody have confessed. The CIA wasn’t trained. They don’t do interrogations.”
According to The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror (2011), jihadists had been taught to expect severe torture at tha hands of American interrogators. Writes Author Garrett M. Graff:
“Often, in the FBI’s experience, their best cooperation came when detainees realized they weren’t going to get tortured, that the United States wasn’t the Great Satan. Interrogators were figuring out…that not playing into Al Qaeda’s propaganda could produce victories.”
And the FBI isn’t alone in believing that acts of simple humanity can turn even sworn entmies into allies.
No less an authority on “real-politick” than Niccolo Machiavelli reached the same conclusion more than 500 years ago.
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DOES TORTURE WORK?: PART THREE (END)
In Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 1, 2013 at 12:02 amThroughout the Cold War, Republicans held themselves out as the ultimate practitioners of “real-politick,” at home and abroad. They convinced millions of Americans to believe that only their party could be trusted to not sell out America.
As a result, they held the White House–and often the Senate and/or House of Representatives–for most of the 20th Century.
According to Republicans and their Rightist supporters: A President–especially a Democratic one–could never be too aggressive or warlike.
After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Republicans lost their Great Red Bogeyman. Now they could only accuse Democrats of being “soft” on crime, not Communism.
Then, on September 11, 2001, the Republicans found their next great enemy to rally against–-and to accuse Democrats of actively supporting: Islamic terrorism.
This ensured the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush–-who had hid out from the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard–over John Kerry, a genuine war hero who had seen heavy action in the same conflict.
In the last column, we saw that the FBI’s “kill them with kindness” approach to interrogation has yielded far better results than the “Jack Bauer/24” methods favored by the CIA and military.
But this has not prevented Republicans from attacking even those FBI agents who have risked their lives at home and abroad to defend America from terrArabism.
According to the high priests of the Republican party, those agents are “naive” do-gooders who don’t have the guts to go “all the way” against America’s enemies.
But Niccolo Machiavelli, whose name is a byward for political ruthlessness, would disagree with those Republicans.
In his small and notorious book, The Prince, he writes about the methods a ruler must use to gain power. But in his larger and lesser-known work, The Discourses, he outlines the ways that liberty can be maintained in a republic.
Niccolo Machiavelli
For Machiavelli, only a well-protected state can hope for peace and prosperity. Toward that end, he wrote at length about the best ways to succeed militarily. And in war, humanity can prevail at least as often as severity.
Consider the following example from The Discourses:
Camillus [a Roman general] was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it….A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city [to ingratiate himself] with Camillus and the Romans, led these children…into the Roman camp.
And presenting them to Camillus [the teacher] said to him, “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”
Camillus not only declined the offer but had the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back….[Then Camillus] had a rod put into the hands of each of the children…[and] directed them to whip [the teacher] all the way back to the city.
Upon learning this fact, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.
This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity.
It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
This truth should be kept firmly in mind whenever Right-wingers start bragging about their own patriotism and willingness to get “down and dirty” with America’s enemies.
Many–like Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney–did their heroic best to avoid military service. These “chickenhawks” talk tough and are always ready to send others into battle–but keep themselves well out of harm’s way.
Such men are not merely contemptible; they are dangerous.
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