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The War On Terror: Tactics
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It Feels Good to Outlaw Torture
by James Dunnigan
January 23, 2005
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The media attention given to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and the question of
using any kind of "torture" at all, has caused the U.S. government to order
their troops and intelligence people to back off on the use of any “strenuous
persuasion” when trying to get information. Any unapproved (even if retroactive)
methods will result in the interrogator being prosecuted. Protests from pressure
groups (many are more anti-American than anti-torture) want to ban interrogation
methods (which some define as “torture”) that are commonly used by police
interrogators, as well as lawyers (either in court or while taking depositions).
So now, troops not only have to risk their lives in the war on terror, but their
freedom as well, to gather information. Al Qaeda has long told its members that
the Americans cannot use a lot of the interrogation methods common in the Moslem
world (the most severe tortures imaginable, as well as seizing family members
and torturing them as well, plus group punishment.) Al Qaeda advised its member
to just play dumb, or simply don’t say anything, and you would be safe from any
American interrogations. What al Qaeda missed was the fact that there were other
interrogation techniques, basically mind games, which, when used by an
experienced practitioner, could get results. Unfortunately, there were few
experienced practitioners who knew the languages and cultural quirks of the
terrorist suspects. So American interrogators were left to use more primitive
methods, or get very little information.
A further complication is that
you cannot defend yourself by pointing out how valuable the information obtained
via "vigorous interrogation" was, and how many lives were saved. Most of the
data obtained from any interrogation is but one of many pieces that, eventually,
get fitted together with other bits to produce something useful. For obvious
reason, all the information is kept classified. So providing compelling, or
unclassified, success stories of interrogations for the media is often
impossible. But for the media and those who believe Saddam should have been left
alone, torture is always bad, and is a popular issue to get behind if you want
to ban it. You can’t defend it openly, and even doing so off to the side can be
dangerous to ones reputation and political prospects. As the old saying goes,
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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See Jim Dunnigan's interviewed about his latest book The Perfect Soldier on ireadnet.com
The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
More Books by James Dunnigan |
