The experts on extracting information from enemy combatants say that
torture
doesn't work, and doesn't do much except create more enemies.
Now, a former US Air Force interrogator who has just
released a book called How to Break a Terrorist, told
Keith Olbermann:
"It's extremely ineffective, and it's counter-productive to
what we're trying to accomplish."
"When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve," Alexander explained.
"The information that you get is unreliable. ... And even if you do
get reliable information, you're able to stop a terrorist attack, al
Qaeda's then going to use the fact that we torture people to recruit
new members."
"How long is it going to take to undo that damage?" Olbermann asked,
referring to Alexander's observation
that "I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked
there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
"
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
And yesterday, a group of prominent
retired generals and admirals met with President-elect Obama’s
transition team to demand that he act immediately to put an end to Bush’s
torture policies.
“Fundamentally, those kinds of techniques are ineffective.
If the goal is to gain actionable intelligence, and it is, and if
that’s important, and it is, then we have to use the techniques
that are most effective. Torture is the technique of choice of the
lazy, stupid and pseudo-tough.”
So not only does torture not work, and not only does it create more terrorists,
it is for the "psuedo-tough". In other words, real
men don't torture.
Its Also Illegal
Congressmen Conyers and Nadler pointed out today in a letter
to the Attorney General, the torture-facilitating lawyers were well
aware they were breaking laws.
Indeed, two prominent experts on the law of war - Professors Jordan Paust
of the University of Houston and Tony D’Amato of Northwestern University
- wrote
in the Chicago Sun Times yesterday that the Obama administration
has a duty to go after the Bush
torture team for war crimes:
Under the U.S. Constitution, the president is expressly and unavoidably
bound to faithfully execute the laws, and the Supreme Court has recognized
in many cases since the founding of our government that such laws
include U.S. treaty law and customary international law. In fact,
every relevant federal judicial opinion over the last 200 years has
affirmed that all persons within the executive branch are bound by
the laws of war, a point famously recognized by President Lincoln’s
attorney general in 1865. Moreover, Obama has assured the American
people that he will work to restore the rule of law and integrity
in our government, which have been among clear casualties during the
Bush Administration’s “war” on terror.
The 1949 Geneva Civilian Convention, which is considered treaty law
of the United States, expressly and unavoidably requires that all
parties search for perpetrators of grave breaches of the treaty and
bring them “before its own courts” for “effective
penal sanctions” or “if it prefers . . . hand such persons
over for trial to another High Contracting Party.” The obligation
is absolute. The United States must either initiate prosecution or
extradite to another state.
