Posted: 7/7/2006 7:01:57 PM EDT
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I used to work with a guy who grew up in Egypt, probably one of the nicest and generally civilized persons I have ever met. One day we were talking about terrorism, and he was of the opinion that we are going about it the wrong way. This was in the late 90‘s, before 9/11. In his mind, the way one should deal with captured terrorists is something along these lines. Say, for instance, the first interrogation: The terrorist is led into a comfortable room and offered a cup of tea and a sandwich. He is offered to sit down and enjoy his sandwich, or maybe to read a magazine, while he waits for the interrogator to enter the room. When the interrogator enters the room, the dialogue goes something like this: “Hello, I am Joe Blow, and I am here to talk to you about your involvement in terrorist group X. But before we start, I just want to tell you the ground rules for this morning. First, we are not here to talk about you and your fate. You are of no interest to us as you are a dead man. Yes, within 30 days at most, one of my men will take you into a room and put a bullet in the back of your skull. There is no way out of this. There is nothing you can say or do to change your fate. You will die. We are here to talk about your family, because their fate rests in your hands. You see, based on what you tell me today, you have the power to spare their lives or to condemn them to the same fate as you. If you tell us today what we want to know, your family will be spared. But if you try to deceive us, you will condemn your family to death, for we will kill your wife and all your children. We will then kill your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, and all their children. We will wipe out your entire family and erase their existence from all state documents. Their fate is in your hands. Now, what do you have to tell us?” So, is that too ruthless? |
I wonder where Ruth is? |
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It's pretty hardcode, and I was surprised he would suggest such a method. But he said that is the kind of commitment required to deal with such people. That is, you have to make the price so high that no one would even consider strapping a bomb to himself and boarding a bus. BTW, the guy was an Orthodox Christian. |
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That may be an easy way to do things, but it's not the right way to do things. They use our intrinsic goodness, our Christian and Jewish beliefs, against us. That is their main weapon. Without this weapon all of the Al Jezzera theatre, posturing for the cameras, taking hostages, etc, just would not work. We need to find a way to use their Muslim beliefs against them. |
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We don't do that sort of thing. As an example of how others have no compunction about behaving like animals, there's the Russian Method, pioneered by Soviet Spetnaz troops in Afghanistan. One man would ask the man questions, while another used a gun butt to tap nails into his children's skulls. If you do things like this, you deserve whatever fate befalls you. America really does have a sense of honor and decency. This will make it harder to win, but in the long run we'll deserve to win, and we'll do it without acting like Nazis, commie butchers, or medieval tyrants. |
We're not at that point. Oh and if we were, I'd go after the dipshit uncle with a blowtorch before anything along those other lines. |
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I believe that dealing with the terrorist issue requires a "special" MO. The terrorists are the enemy, don't be hoodwinked into any other conclusion. I think all of us should play by the same rules, there are no rules, therefore it should be a no holds barred defense of our countrymen and country. The videos of the beheadings from the terrorists in Iraq should burn an image into your minds, don't forget that image because that is your fate if they get their hands on you. These people are vermin and will never rehabilitate. I say F--- all of them, get out the Gerbils and stuff them up their butts before you get down to serious interrogations. I like the method outlined by mattja, anyway it could be a starting point. |
| How about having your subject pointing at a map with a stick, with your personnel close by so it looks like he's giving you information? Take pictures, and threaten to post them in his neighborhood-you can even threaten to bring "gifts of thanks" to his family as a reward for his collaboration. |
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No this is how it needs to be: The terrorist is led into a comfortable room and offered a cup of tea and a sandwich. He is offered to sit down and enjoy his sandwich, or maybe to read a magazine, while he waits for the interrogator to enter the room. When the interrogator enters the room, the dialogue goes something like this: INT- So you like that sandwich huh? TER- It's really good. INT- Ever have bologna before? TER- No, what is it? We have none in my native land. INT- Oh, just a little mixture of chicken, turkey, beef and PORK!!! TER- Oh shit! |
Jack Bauer wouldn't think so. |
Exactly. You can even use grainy video of mock executions or mock rape of family members portrayed by actors. No harm comes to their family but the psychological torture to the terrorist is priceless! |
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So, you know this fellow in front of you has exact knowledge as to the location of a 20 kiloton, shielded nuke hidden somewhere in downtown Manhattan that is going to go off sometime today. How far would you go? I would not hesitate to kill any living relative of his, if it would keep 3 million people from getting killed. |
"How can you kill women and children?" "It's easy. You just don't lead them as much!" 
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We as Americans tend to believe that everyone else thinks like us and has the same morals we do...they don't. Tribal peoples (this includes those from the Middle Aast, Asia, Africa and Central/South America) only recognize strength and weakness. To not wipe out your enemy in war is weakness (this is why Saddam was hailed as a hero after we kicked his ass in Desert Storm 1991...we didn't kill him then/he survived, we were perceived as weak). To show compassion is weakness. To admit you are wrong is weakness. To show a willingness to negotiate is weakness. |
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Back during Vietnam, there were stories of taking two Viet Cong prisoners up in a helicopter. Questions were then asked. When they stopped answering questions, one of the prisoners got pushed out of the helo. Funny how the remaining one all of a sudden wanted to cooperate. The problem with the public torture debate is that the asshole terriorists watch TV as well. So, if they know that we are not going to torture them, they will just sit back and eat our food and think of new ways to kill Americans once they are released. This is clearly the wrong approach. We need to have the reputation (even if not the reality) of being the meanest torturing assholes that ever asked a question. Let's pull out a few toenails, pour a little sulphuric acid on feet, have some underwater hold-your-breath-for-20-minutes sports, make them eat pork, jack off on a few kurans and the like to get our point across. How about hunt down the prisioners' family and torture his parents? Give me a little while and I will think of something good. Is torture something I approve of? In the abstract, no. However, if I am engaged in a war (or a game for that matter) and my opponents use tactics that are outside the normal rules of engagement, then I believe in modifying my own rules to be just as nasty (or even more so) that my opponent is. The real point here is that the US prides itself on always taking the high road, under the theory that by not torturing our captured enemies, the enemy at large will go easier on our captured soldiers. Well, from what I have seen, beheadings are not going easy on prisoners. So, if strapping electrical cables to the genitals of a terrorist will save one American life, I have only two comments: (1) red is for positive and (2) black is for negative! |
One option available to us is to say "If you won't talk with us, perhaps you will talk with our friends in Jordan". I understand that scares them quite a bit. |
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When it comes to non-domestic terrorists or enemy non-combatants, nothing is too ruthless. I only matters what you want to do to the mind and soul of the interrigator. Remember, the mental affect is on both. I think doing something like sticking them in a freezer is effective enough. You stick them in long enough to get really cold, without giving them frost bite. You would be surprise what a cold, hungry, solitary man will do for you. Especially when they are told that they have not began to suffer. |
| The game is still being played under their rules and under the mistaken belief that we are not at war. If the US is hit by a WMD then the game changes everywhere. Tangos who believe that we are kind and soft and will not respond with vengence and horror should read their history. Recommended reading should include the Dresdan Firebombing and the Atomic Bombs in Japan. The Western Societies now under attack are the people that fought on the Somme and Verdun we are not afraid of slaughter,it is our history and our skill at it is why we rule the world. The Radical Terrs are still alive only because of the West's restraint and that restraint at some point will be unleashed if attacks continue. |
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"Too ruthless" Nothing that has been revealed in how American soldiers treat or interrogate prisoners amounts to torture. Torture means torture. Peeling someone's skin competely off their arms and legs is torture. Burying someone hand-bound and leg-bound in the desert sand up to their chin so that scavenger birds eat-their-eyes-out is torture. Cutting-off someone's hands and feet is torture. Tearing out someone's intestines is torture. Dammit, people used to know what torture was. Nowadays, playing rap music and having a female guard in a bra walking in front of a terr prisoner is "torture". This country used to know how to kick ass and fight-to-WIN a war too... Socialist liberal sheep-thinking will certainly cause us to lose this war and those yet to come. |