From Raw Story via BoingBoing comes an interview with Ali Soufan, ex-FBI interrogator. It turns out that even in the infamous "ticking time bomb" scenario, cookies can be more effective than torture. As Soufan describes it, when questioning bin Laden lieutanant Abu Jandal
[I]noticed that he didn't touch any of the cookies that had been served with tea: 'He was a diabetic and couldn't eat anything with sugar in it . . . . At their next meeting, the Americans brought him some sugar-free cookies, a gesture that took the edge off Abu Jandal's angry demeanor. "We had showed him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him . . . so he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures.Take that, Jack Bauer.
It would seem that not only is establishing common humanity a more effective interrogation technique, but it is also likely a more effective means of counter-insurgency. As another interrogator concludes
Torture does not save lives,” the interrogator, who spoke under a pseudonym, said. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment