Former interrogator slams torture: Torture has cost nearly as many lives as 9/11.

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/30/interrogator-torture-washpo/

By Ali Frick at 3:36 pm
Former interrogator slams torture: Torture has cost nearly as many lives as 9/11.»


In a Washington Post op-ed today, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. “Torture and abuse cost American lives,” he writes:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

The writer, who used a pseudonym for the article, adds that when he switched his team’s techniques to a rapport-building method, they found enormous success. One detainee told the author, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

Update: The author, who is writing a book on his experiences as an interrogator, notes that the Pentagon tried to redact non-classified information and block parts of his book. "Apparently, some members of the military command are not only unconvinced by the arguments against torture; they don't even want the public to hear them," he writes.

[EFerrari]

1. Fallujah erupted BECAUSE of Abu Graib. Nice job, Bush!

:puke:

[gratuitous]

2. Somebody send this to Bartcop

I quit going there when he wouldn't get off his "torture is okay by me under certain circumstances" hobbyhorse. Although I'd participated on his forums a lot and donated a good bit of money to his site, I couldn't stomach his fixation on "24" inspired scenarios where torture was going to work. I finally had to leave.

If he asks, tell him gratuitous sent you. He might remember . . .

[Pastiche423]

3. K&R!

[malaise]

4. Someone will have to pay for the innocent ones

War Crimes!! War Crimes!!