high fly
07-07-2007, 03:11 PM
Sorry for the length, folks, but here is what a number of professional interrogators and others worth listening to have said about torture or other abuse of prisoners:
Let's begin with the US ARMY INTELLIGENCE AND INTERROGATION HANDBOOK The Official Guide on Prisoner Interrogation (Lyons Pres, 2005), and here are abbreviations referred to in the text to follow:
UCMJ - Uniform Code of Military Justice
GWS - Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949
GPW - Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949
GC - Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949
Let's go to page 9 and 10:
"One of the significant means used by the intelligence staff is the interrogation of the following:
* EPWs.
* Captured insurgents.
* Civilian internees.
* Other captured, detained, or retained persons.
* Foreign deserters or other persons of intelligence interest...
In conducting intelligence interrogations, the J2, G2, or S2 has primary staff responsibility to ensure these activities are performed in accordance with the GWS, GPW, and GC, as well as US policies regarding the treatment and handling of the above - mentioned persons.
The GWS, GPW, GC, and US policy expressly prohibit acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhuman treatment as a means as an aid to interrogation.
Such illegal acts are not authorized and will not be condoned by the US Army. Acts in violation of these prohibitions are criminal acts punishable under the UCMJ....
"Experience indicates that the use of prohibited techniques is not necessary to gain the cooperation of interrogation sources. Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.
Revelation of use of torture by US personnel wil bring discredit upon the US and its armed forces while undermining domestic and international support for the war effort. It also may place US and allied personnel in enemy hands at a greater risk of abuse by their captors. Conversely, knowing the enemy has abused US and allied PWs does not justify using methods of interrogation specifically prohibited by the GWS, GPW, or GC, and US policy...
"Physical or mental torture and coercion revolve around eliminating the source's free will and are expressly prohibited by the GWS, Article 13; GPW, Article 13 and 17; and GC, Articles 31 and 32. Torture is defined as the infliction of intense pain to body or mind to extract a confession or information, or for sadistic pleasure.
Examples of physical torture include -
* Electic shocks.
* Infliction of pain through chemicals or bondage (other than legitimate use of restraints to prevent escape).
* Forcing an individual to stand, sit, or kneel in abnormal positions for prolonged periods of time.
* Food deprivation.
* Any form of beating.
Examples of mental torture include -
* Mock executions.
* Abnormal sleep deprivation.
* Chemically induced psychosis.
Coercion is defined as actions designed to unlawfully induce another to compel an act against one's will. Examples of coercion include -
* Threatening or implying physical or mental torture to the subject, his family, or others to whom he owes loyalty.
* Intentially denying medical assistance or care in exchange for the information sought or other cooperation.
* Threatening or implying that other rights guarunteed by the GWS, GPW, or GC will not be provided unless cooperation is forthcoming."
I direct the gentle reader to THE INTERROGATORS Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against Al Qaeda, by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller.
Mackey commanded interrogators in Afghanistan, and his experiences are what the book is about.
On pages 31-32, Mackey describes his training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona:
"Staff Sergeant Casey, our senior instructor, hammered home the idea that prisoners being tortured or mentally coerced will say anything, absolutely anything, to stop the pain. All of the instructors told us stories of the experiences of Army interrogators working in Vietnam alongside South Vietnamese units that would do the most unspeakable things to prisoners - take two of them up in a helicopter and shove one out the door, torture one of the prisoner's relatives right in front of him - and the squeals of anguish and false information that would flow. The goal of interrogation isn't just to get prisoners to talk, our instructors stressed, it's to get them to tell the truth."
Mackey goes on to say his interrogation school instructors showed the famous photo of the Saigon police chief shooting the VC prisoner in the head with a revolver and said,
"This just hardens the enemy against us......This is not the way we do business"
On page 477, Mackey says
]"The reason the United States should not torture prisoners is not because it doesn't work. It is simply because it is wrong. It dehumanizes us, undermines our cause, and, over the long term, breeds more enemies of the United States than coercive interrogation methods will ever allow us to capture."[/B]
Here's another professional interrogator described in the February 2007 issue of Leatherneck magazine, the article titled, "The Gold Standard, Major Sherwood Moran and the Interrogation of Prisoners of War," by LtCol James B. Wilkinson, USMC (Ret) with Dick Camp on page 45.
In World War II, "Pappy" Moran landed on Guadalcanal with the 1st Marine Division as their Chief Interpreter. Here are some highlights from the article:
"Moran used his experiences in the campaign to write [B]"Suggestions for Japanese Interpreters Working in the Field," which has become one of the "timeless documents" in the field and a "standard read" for insiders, according to the Marine Corps Interrogator Association (MCITTA), a group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel. MajGen Michael E. Ennis, former director of Marine Corps Intelligence, has gone even further, saying Moran's reports are the "gold standard" of interrogation techniques...
Moran believed that "despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subject. They were nice to them."he firmly believed "stripping a prisoner of his dignity, treating him as a still-dangerous threat, forcing him to stand at attention and flanking him with armed guards... invariably backfired."
In 1943, Moran wrote, "Without exception it has been demonstrated time and again that a 'human approach works."..."...Capt. Moran forbade strong-arm methods, threats and contemptuousness. "You can get a 'confession' out of a man by bullying him, by practicing 'third degree' methods - but an intelligence officer is not interested in confessions," he said. "He is after information, and it has been demonstrated time and again that a human approach works best."
Here is what some other professional military interrogators have to say:
"I conducted interrogation operations and training, and served as an interrogator near the front lines during Operation Desert Storm.... I know the techniques in the field manual work, and I know torture isn't as effective...I did resistance-to-interrogation training for NATO forces. We simulated the sort of abuse they could expect...This treatment is quite similar to the sort of techniques described as the CIA's "alternative interrogation procedures." We invariably obtained more reliable information using our own techniques than we did using the abusive procedures. I cannot name one instance in which abuse was successful after standard interrogation techniques failed.... Not a single military interrogator with whom I have communicated expressed anything but contempt for the idea that torture could be more effective than standard interrogation techniques."
--Peter Bauer
Here's another pro:
" You try to develop a very intense relationship with another human being so they'll part with information they'd rather not part with. You wheedle, cajole, trick, lie. The point is to collect usable, actionable information. Sure, if you start pulling a guy's fingernails out, he'll start talking - it may not be the truth, but he's going to tell you exactly what you want to hear.
In a training environment ( a mock prisoner-of-war camp), my students would be subjected to hostile forms of interrogation: loud noises, fake burials, 15-20-volt electric shocks. And I got people to confess to things they absolutely did not do. The information you receive is worthless."-- Marney Mason
Another professional interrogator quoted in the article was Travis W. Hall, who said:
"Over my 14 years of military experience, both as an interrogator and as a JAG, I observed a degradation in the respect of service members for the laws of war since 9/11. When I attended interrogation school in 1992, all of the attendees had 40 hours of classroom time on the Geneva Conventions followed by a written exam on all the rights and obligations of the military personnel under the Conventions.
What I saw firsthand as an interrogator and, later as a JAG in Iraq in 2003 working on detainee issues, has left me with a strong belief that torture is counterproductive. What has proven effective in interrogation time and again, regardless of what culture the detainees is from, is building a positive relationship with an individual. Americans really want their soldiers to not only come home, but come home with honor. I would challenge the current administration to come up with one example where torture in interrogation has produced actionable intelligence that saved American lives in the United States."
Quotes above by Bauer, Mason and Hall are from "The Questioners Answer," by Rachel Dry, a sidebar article in the Outlook section of the Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2006, page B6.
Bauer, Mason and Hall were among a group of military interrogators who had written to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and said in their statement to the committee:
"Prisoner/detainee abuse and torture are to be avoided at all costs, in part because they can degrade the intelligence collection effort by interfering with a skilled interrogator's efforts to establish rapport with the subject."
Besides the professional interrogators quoted above, it's always good to see what Sun Tzu had to say:
"Provide for the captured soldiers and treat them well. This is called increasing our own strength in the process of defeating the army."
And what could be wrong with checking out the Father of Our Country?:
"In New York, Washington had wept while watching through a spyglass as the British massacred Americans who had surrendered. But Washington, Fisher writes, "Often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies." To the American officer in charge of 221 prisoners taken at Princeton, Washington said, "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren."-- from, "Our Greatest Christmas," by George F. Will, Dec. 25, 2004
Then there's American Hero David Hackworth:
let's go to page 532 of About Face:
"...Hank Lunde's Alpha Company made contact and captured a malaria-ridden, panic-stricken soldier from the 141st NVA Regiment. Lunde gave the prisoner water and got him covered with a blanket. Then Emerson landed, and before he hit the guy with a barrage of questions, he gave him some cigarettes and a much-needed meal. The POW's reaction to this kindness was simply to break down. Hank's interpreter explained that the NVA had been told he'd be beaten, tortured, and then shot if captured by the Americans. As this was obviously not the case, the grateful prisoner eagerly provided Emerson with the straight skinny on the disposition of his unit: a four-company ambush was waiting some forty minutes away, and six more companies were behind them, at a further forty-minute walk."
....and you might want to check out, SHOOTER The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper, by Gunnery Sergeant Jack Coughlin, USMC and Captain Casey Kuhlman, USMCR with Donald Davis.
From pages 189-190:
"[Lt. Col. McCoy, commander of 3/7 Marines] had written and distributed to his officers and staff NCOs before the war a printed list entitled, "Expectations of Combat Leaders," in which one element stated, "Treat prisoners with dignity but do not trust them and be forceful and firm. Do not abuse prisoners, it is cowardly." In all, those of us on the front line treated them better than they had expected, and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. What happened to some prisoners later in some of the prisons startled us all.
Torturing prisoners is dishonorable, no matter who does it and it usually gains nothing of value, because a prisoner being tortured will say anything to make it stop."
And now we have the following article from the January 16, 2007 Washington Post,
"Interrogation Research Is Lacking, Report Says Few Studies Have Examined U.S. Methods," by Josh White.
A few highlights:
The study, sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity, was posted yesterday on the Federation of American Scientists Web site, at www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf. "
"The 374-page report from the Intelligence Science Board examines several aspects of broad interrogation methods and approaches, and it finds that no significant scientific research has been conducted in more than four decades about the effectiveness of many techniques the U.S. military and intelligence groups use regularly."
"In it, experts find that popular culture and ad hoc experimentation have fueled the use of aggressive and sometimes physical interrogation techniques to get those captured on the battlefield to talk, even if there is no evidence to support the tactic's effectiveness."
"Coulam also wrote that interrogation practices that offend ethical concerns and "skirt the rule of law" may be narrowly useful, if at all, because such practices could undermine the legitimacy of government action and support for the fight against terrorism."
" "The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information," wrote Col. Steven M. Kleinman, who has served as the Pentagon's senior intelligence officer for special survival training.
Kleinman wrote that intelligence gathered with coercion is sometimes innaccurate or false, noting that isolation, a tactic U.S. officials have used regularly, causes "profound emotional, psychological, and physical discomfort" and significantly and negatively impact the ability of the source to recall information accurately."
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