Torture: it doesn't just hurt the victim

Osha Gray Davidson, blogging at Forbes:

A top United States interrogator in Afghanistan says that torture played no role in locating Osama bin Laden, and that claims to the contrary by former Bush administration officials recently amount to “propaganda [that] degrades our intelligence operations more than any other factor I can think of.”

Such talk also creates blowback — unintended consequences — that can be deadly, he added in an interview. “Simply the idea of our interrogators using torture or coercion recruits jihadists, facilitators, suppliers, supporters, and even suicide bombers, against us and our allies,” he said.

The man, who can’t be named for security reasons, has nearly two decades of experience as a military interrogator and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) specialist. He interrogated suspected high-value targets at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where he is currently stationed.

“Listen,” he said, “waterboarding and/or other coercive techniques did nothing to contribute to our attempts to track down UBL (Usama bin Laden). What did succeed was weeks, months and years of diligent, laborious, and dedicated work – all within the bounds of legal and ethical boundaries….No torture, no waterboarding, no coercion – nothing inhumane – is considered a useful tool in our work.”

On the subject of blowback, he continued:

I cannot even count the amount of times that I personally have come face to face with detainees, who told me they were primarily motivated to do what they did, because of hearing that we committed torture. Even the rumor of torture is enough to convince an army of uneducated and illiterate, yet religiously motivated young boys to strap bombs to their chests and blow themselves up while killing whoever happens to be around – police, soldiers, civilians, women, or children. Torture committed by Americans in the past continues to kill Americans today.

The recent talk justifying waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques,” he added, can leave an indelible mark on intelligence personnel who are just entering the profession.

“If right-wing news outlets and partisan pundits or politicians are allowed to continue to spread their completely bogus claims that torture is effective,” he said, “then we will have corrupted the beliefs of yet another generation of new intelligence recruits….It takes months and years of ‘intervention’ to get the next generation back on the track of quality work, specialization, and intelligence dominance – not quick and easy fixes. This is not an hour-long TV show.”

Via Sullyblog.