Former Interrogator Slams Cheney Over Torture Policy

Let's debunk Dick Cheney's pernicious lies about torture once and for all. Let's look past the mainstream media frenzy over the personal feud between Obama and Cheney, past the ludicrous GOP talking points, and instead focus on a real story that could allow us to hold Cheney accountable. Major Matthew Alexander is a former Senior Interrogator who conducted more than 300 interrogations in Iraq and supervised over 1,000 more, including that of al Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- and he did so using traditional methods. In an exclusive interview released today by Brave New Foundation, Alexander said Dick Cheney's torture policy "literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives."

According to Alexander, the torture and abuse conducted at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay became the number one recruiting tool for foreign fighters and suicide bombers who attacked coalition forces in Iraq. Huffington Post's Ryan Grim highlights the importance of Alexander's testimony:

Alexander easily takes down Cheney's arguments. The most immediate blow Alexander strikes is, of course, his obvious success, which undercuts Cheney's case for more brutal techniques. Alexander also engages on the level of principle. For Cheney, the suggestion that torture is a poor strategy because it aids terrorist recruitment is nothing more than old-fashioned blame-America-first cowardice.

Alexander, who writes under that pseudonym for security purposes, first voiced this opinion in a WaPo Op-Ed last fall entitled, "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq." His experience has become widely regarded as proof Cheney's interrogation policy was not only morally bankrupt, but endangered thousands of Americans serving in Iraq as well. Last Sunday on "Meet the Press," Sen. Richard Durbin cited Alexander specifically when asserting that half of the detained al-Qaeda suspects in Iraq had been "recruited and were fighting, trying to kill Americans because of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."

As the Washington Examiner's Byron York writes:

What's striking in the Guantanamo terrorist-recruitment debate is the lack of a definitive text, a study done that shows in detail how the prison has become an engine for terrorist recruitment around the world. In the place of that definitive document, there is Alexander's experience, and there is a statement from former U.S. Navy general counsel Alberto Mora, who in 2008 submitted testimony to Congress saying that, "There are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively, the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." But there is no big report, no treasure trove of documents, that supports the terrorism-recruitment argument. "We didn't need documents," Alexander told me. "Just ask anybody on my interrogations team."

I asked about the relative damage done by Abu Ghraib and by Guantanamo. The Abu Ghraib photos were a complete disaster for the United States; they were devastating evidence of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq. But what about Guantanamo? There weren't provocative pictures from there. "One of the bigger things that wasn't torture or abuse was the desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo," Alexander said. "Things like that were extremely inflammatory, even more so than torture and abuse."

In the absence of a definitive text or study as York mentions, we need more personal testimonies like Alexander's to build the case against Cheney and those who tortured and abused detainees. We have to urge more experts like Alexander to come forward on the record. As my fellow Open Left blogger Adam Green said over the weekend on MSNBC, "Gitmo is a stain on America to the rest of the world. It is a recruiting tool for terrorists. If we really care about keeping the American people safe, we need to get these facts out there and debunk these ridiculous talking points."

Comments

[Pseudonerd5569]

What angers me about the whole torture debate right now is how fast we've swallowed the ideas put forth by Cheney and his enablers in Washington, Wall Street, and the media. We keep talking of "security, security, security," but security for whom exactly? Don't give me the line that it's for PEOPLE LIKE US either... I'm not buying it. All that B.S. about how other countries hate us is a BLATANT LIE! They hate our POLITICIANS and our MULTINATIONALS, but they don't hate average Americans! That's just the xenophobic, jingoist rhetoric that conservatives have been feeding us for years! (And I'm sure everyone here will agree w/ me on that at least.) More stories like this should be brought to light and more of us should be confronting our fellow citizens on this subject whether we REALLY want to do so or not. Like it or not, we should be moving away from the Democratic Party and organizations that are too close to them too since Obama's administration and his party aren't going to listen to us.

[lthuedk 1]

Any future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil will be correctly blamed on the Bush-Cheney dictatorship's terrorist recruitment. It's that fear thing that fuels the protections racket begun by illegally invading Iraq. That's a fact that should never be left to become diluted and lost. Any reasonable mind would clearly understand that torture, kidnapping, and murder does nothing but grow terrorists by the thousands.

Do you get it yet, Neo Con-enabling Republicans? Or have you no idea at all about cause and effect?

http://www.light-to-dark.com/gift_for_osama.html

The blame is all yours and we will not allow Cheney or his MSM comrades to rewrite history.

[IntellectuallyHonest]

Dick Cheney: 1960s draft dodger, 21st century warmonger.

[Yermammy]

We had better start investigations into this per our treaty obligations, or the world will. 145 Countries have signed the CoTT (Conference on Torture Treaty) and if we don't do it, they are compelled to.
Barack is now actively blocking Eric Holder to do this. Why is that? I'm not going to be fooled into thinking this is change until I SEE it with my OWN eyes.

[norman60]

Cheney is a torturist!