Forty-nine percent of Americans oppose the use of torture no matter the circumstance, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll (48 percent believe the United States should consider torture on a case basis). The country also is split on whether President Obama should investigate the treatment of terrorism suspects under the previous administration (51 percent want an inquiry, 47 don't).
At the same time, the intelligence community's perception that fear will be removed from the equation has caused morale to plummet. "At its lowest point since the days of the Church Committee in the 70s," is the consensus I gathered from a range of intelligence community sources (most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity/information for background use only). One source said that Al Qaeda members are happy with the new U.S. policy that essentially has opened our interrogation playbook to them. Fred Rustmann, who was a CIA operations officer for twenty-five years, says that the terrorists "feel as if they've been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card."
"Al Qaeda becomes dangerous when they have a feeling of security," former Homeland Security Advisor Kenneth Wainstein told me. "We've seen that movie before with Afghanistan, in the 1990s, when they built up the infrastructure they used for 9/11."
"Now, when an Al Qaeda recruit is going through his version of SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] training camp, he is being told exactly what his interrogation will be like if he is captured," Rustmann says. "He has no fear of it. He knows that he'll come out okay. He knows that any threats to run him over to a country that will torture him are false. He knows he will not be killed or physically or mentally harmed. There will be no scars on his body or psyche when the interrogation is over. The most he'll endure will be days or weeks of discomfort. He'll be able to hold out. He won't break. There will be no incentive for him to betray Al Qaeda plans and intentions, or to give any information other than his name, rank and serial number."
While careful to draw a line at cruelty, Rustmann adds, "There has to be incentive for the prisoner to answer the interrogator's questions. If there is no incentive, the prisoner will simply stonewall the interrogator. And particularly when there is no time for lengthy rapport building and recruitment, fear is the best incentive for cooperation."
"The hope is that our liaison counterparts will do the heavy-lifting," Rustmann says.
The Pakistani ISI interrogation tactics reputedly make those employed at Guantanamo seem like spa treatments.
Rustmann notes: "People always think that the CIA will find a way to get things done, despite the laws. That may have been the case in the old days, but not today. They won't risk their careers and possible jail time."
Of course, fear is not the only way to gain our enemies' cooperation.
Some are swayed by ideology -- The City Upon a Hill has a good track record. Some are motivated by ego, the chance to avenge a grudge against one's superior, for example. And then there is, historically, the CIA's greatest sales aid: The Almighty Dollar.
With these tools, CIA officers will attempt to recruit Pakistani and Afghanistani locals -- even locals who hate the West -- in order to learn the whereabouts of Al Qaeda camps and destroy them.
"We have been successful recruiting from strength and not having to coerce people into cooperating," Rustmann says. "You need to give them a way to rationalize their behavior. Give them an excuse -- a better life for their families, for instance. They may still hate you. But they'll work for you -- there are a lot of workers in America who hate their bosses."
But such penetrations are rare, and time-consuming ("a year or more," Rustmann estimates). Also, as Rustmann puts it, "It's the hardest sales pitch you'll ever make in your life: inducing someone to willingly betray his country. And that's a Russian or a Frenchman, not a religious fanatic like an Al Qaeda jihadist."
Still, there is an excellent historic precedent for penetration on a fee basis: It worked in, of all places, Afghanistan in 2001.
"Along with Delta and Special Forces, the CIA officers were the first into Afghanistan, handing out money," Rustmann recalls. "That's how we got the Northern Alliance on our side. It was like a rent-an-army, and not a lot of money: two dollars a day was a great wage for a soldier. And you can buy fanatics too."
Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson
With that "rent an army", we not only captured Bin Laden but also didn't have to commit US troops to Afghanistan after the initial invasion.
And with the torture used, we got all the answers we were looking for. The same sex marriage of Saddam and Osama in Prague, their honeymoon tryst as illegal aliens picking lettuce in California, and the US tax payer funded abortion in California..
It's a pity that the questions asked didn't include (a) where Jimmy Hoffa's body is and (b) was there a gunman on the grassy knoll? We could have solved a lot of mysteries.
Countries that condone and use torture.
Countries that have a large segment of religious radicals bent on forcing society to follow their beliefs.
Their citizens feel they have a need for unlimited weapons for their own self protection.
They have a corrupt judicial and parliamentary systems where money talks.
They have violent societies and high incarceration ratios compared to other nations.
They don't provide free universal medical services to their citizens.
They have very limited freedom of the press where truth gets suppressed.
They have no rights to privacy and their governments can spy on them using phone tapping etc.
Who can name 4 countries who presently have all these latter similarities that link their cultures?
2.
-Condone and Use Torture: Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Cuba
-Religious Radicals: same as above but add Egypet
-Unlimited Weapons: same as above, and add the Palestinians for good measure
-Corrupt Judicial system: all the Middle East, Venezuela, Cuba
-Violent Societies: Palestinians, Iran, much of Africa, Venezuela
-Don't Provide Free Universal Health Care: USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and more
-Limited Press Freedom: Russia, China, Middle East, Venezuela, Cuba
-No right to privacy: Russia, China, Middle East, Cuba
We won't have as many enemies to fight if:
the world knows we do not torture.
Ok first of all, your great source Rustmann is not even with the cia anymore (since 1990). And he is somewhat of a crazy person. Back during the Wilson/Plame scandal he would go on Sean Hannity's show and claim she wasn't a covert agent, which of course later turned out to be false
But to his point, No they are not getting out of jail free. They are going to be imprisoned in jail. That's the purpose of a jail, jailing people, not torturing people.
And secondly, we don't care what they think. Our policy on torture is not dictated by them.
YouTube? I guess "M" didn't divulge that bit of spy tech to Double 0 Fred after the whole Church committee thing.
when one of those sources went on to Hannity and "claim she [Plame] wasn't a covert agent, which of course later turned out to be false".
so it doesn't matter?
this whole story is one sided. don't worry about the law. that's for regular people. the CIA can break any law they wish. everyone knows that.
don't worry that torture is a recruiting tool used by the terrorists. and that the US waterboards has been known for years.
don't worry about the ethics, morals, and laws of this country. you are the CIA after all.
Money is an amazing motivator and facilitator but it doesn't always work. For example, no one collected the $25 million bounty we placed on Bin Laden's head or that of his partner in crime Ayman al-Zawahiri.
I am not on the torture bandwagon because we fought wars without waterboarding. In fact at least one of our troops was court martialed for waterboarding in Vietnam. The Israelis don't use it, some countries don't use it, why not adopt their techniques before swiping our national credit card and pay our adversaries? We can't pay them forever.
And what about rendition? Would the CIA be liable in such cases?
I am not worried about Al Qaeda or other terrorists knowing our interrogation techniques playbook. It was mostly taken from the Chinese and that was no secret. Such techniques lose some of the edge when they are anticipated but the famous Zimbardo prison experiment showed prisoners lose their sense of security in a relatively short time.
We need to explore other avenues and I am sure UK and Israel are able to assist us. The trick is, we have to listen rather than think we are so exceptional.
I can bet the word torture was not included in the polling information. If you use enhanced interrogation or dunking, it sounds like something you see in the old cop movies. If you say torture, it sounds like something from a horror movie.
That is why everyone on the Conservative side violently avoids the word torture. How many of those respondents would say sure if the question was posed to them this way? "Would you arbitrarily torture someone to find out if they were guilty or innocent of a crime?" I bet you that the poll numbers would be different.
As heartless as this might sound, I'm less offended by the torture of KSM and more outraged by the rendition and torture of innocent people who are caught up in the madness of the Bush Doctrine.
The idiots who use the torture rationale are the same ones who believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. The threat of death only works on the innocent. People who murder others without remorse are called sociopaths. There are plenty of those now looking for an excuse to justify their actions in the previous administration.
I think their morale is low because they weakened a nation when they abandoned its principles. It is not being weakened by the move to rectify those principles. If their morale is low because they can't torture then they ought to be let go.
Every war is a civil war.
They have caused us nothing but problems from the very beginning. Literally everything they have ever done has come back to hurt America. From their overthrow of Iran, the support of Bin laden, Sadaam, to their laughable intelligence assessments ect.
None of it has ever helped, it has always hurt
And they have nothing to do with spying either, that's the NSA
And they have nothing to do with interrogations either, that's the FBI.
The CIA is worthless and counterproductive at every turn in our history
What this article doesn't mention is the fact that torture produces erroneous data, lies. That's a well-founded fact. Lots of gyrations being made here to justify their misbehavior.
If these guys thought torture was ok, they would have admitted that those soldiers who went to jail and through hell, were doing what Condi and Dick told them to do.