Some members of the Bush administration are finally willing to admit what the world has long known They employ people to commit torture in the name of the citizens of the United States. Words cannot express how sickened I am that our government has done this. I have always been proud to carry the title of “United States Citizen”. It is one that my recent ancestors decided on, fought for, and sent their children off to die for. Now I, like the other 300 million of us, must carry the shame of our nation. The worst part? George W. Bush sold our national honor and purchased nothing.
In 2006, one of our interrogators was “astonished” to discover that “The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model”. In response he
refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology — one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.
The US was able to capture a major criminal mastermind, bring some measure of peace and stability to a nation we had torn apart, and do so without breaking international law, or further tarnishing the good name of the United States. One small quibble I would take with this soldier. He may have had to invent the techniques from scratch, but they’re not new:
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.
And
“During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”
Effective and human interrogation takes time, and doesn’t give anyone cheep thrills of manliness. But it keeps Americans safe. I pray that with the Obama administration incoming, we won’t have to ever make this distinction again.
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