Torture or Interrogation
A lot of hot air is wasted in the blogosphere and amongst the punditry asking what is or isn’t torture. While it’s very tempting to throw my hat in this ring, I think it’s important to not just ask ethical questions regarding torture (or “enhanced interrogation” if you’re of the persuasion that nothing we do is torture), but what the actual result of it is. This Washington Post op-ed by former interrogation specialist “Matthew Alexander” (a pseudonym) provides a very illuminating look into things. Not only did he get results by never resulting to “stressful” or torturous techniques, but he also found out what motivated so many of the terrorists we fight.
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. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces 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.
