My job is to discover the one you want to talk to and become that one.
A U.S. Army interrogator.......
Those lines in the song you are about to hear sum up the job of a U.S. Army interrogator. Recognizing that everybody wants to spill their guts to someone, an interrogator has to figure out who that person is, and become that person, so that the detainee/prisoner, talks to the interrogator.
What would you do if you had a man who was alleged to be one of Osama Bin Laden's closest associates in your hands just days after September 11th and you needed to interrogate him? What would it take to get this accused Al Quaeda operative to talk? Electrodes on his genitals? Waterboarding? Sleep deprivation? Blowing off his kneecap? Shoving a broom handle somewhere it shouldn't be?
Everybody wants to talk to someone..... everybody wants to talk to someone...... the job of an interrogator, U.S. Army or otherwise, is to figure out who that someone is and become that someone. By showing Abu Jandal, who knew TONS about Al Quaeda, a little respect, interrogators from the FBI and NCIS got all the information they needed, WITHOUT torture.
John Crigler, performing his original composition, "A U.S. Army Interrogator."
Terrence Karney - former Army Interrogator and Trainer - An Interrogator's Perspective About Torture
Ray McGovern - former CIA anaylst now with Church of the Saviour in D.C. - A CIA Analyst's Viewpoint About Torture
In Ray McGovern's talk, he mentions General John Kimmons, who held a press conference on the same day former President Bush held a press conference about torture. In President Bush's talk, Bush claimed that harsh interrogation tactics had worked to protect America.
"No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices," Kimmons said. "I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the past five years, hard years, tells us that." He argued that "any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility." And Kimmons conceded that bad P.R. about abuse could work against the United States in the war on terror. "It would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used," Kimmons said. "We can't afford to go there."
Kimmons added that "our most significant successes on the battlefield -- in fact, I would say all of them, almost categorically, all of them" -- came from interrogators that stuck to the kinds of humane techniques framed in the new Army manual. "We don't need abusive practices in there," Kimmons said. "Nothing good will come from them."
BUT!!!! What if?????
What if you had Abu Zubaydah locked up in a cell? What would it take to get him to give up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, and "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. According to Ali Soufan, all it took was, once again, good old tried and true interrogation techniques, legal ones. Abu Zubaydah gave up lots of information, that is, until, other interrogators started torturing him. After that, he gave up no useful information.
What's This All About?
On June 26th and 27th, 2009, the anniversary of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, a two day workshop was held exploring Torture as a Moral Issue. This page will contain information from this event including videos and study materials.
Our goal is to produce a DVD and learning guide so that people can study the issue of torture, come to their own conclusions, and advocate for policies that match their beliefs.
Yes - we start with a bias. We believe that torture is immoral, illegal, and ineffective. We further believe that throughout history, those who resort to torture are not necessarily trying to get at the truth, but more often than not are instead trying to force people to say things that match a story the torture-orderers are trying to tell. The Bush Administration, for example, needed detainees to say three things:
Iraq, and specifically Saddam Hussein, were somehow involved in planning and executing the September 11th attacks against the United States
There were close ties between Al Quaeda and Iraq
There were weapons of mass destruction buried/hidden in Iraq and Iraq was continuing to develop nuclear weapons
When detainees who were being interrogated using legal and in other circumstances generally successful means were NOT confirming any of those storylines, the Bush Administration (specifically Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) ordered the interrogators to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques that any trained military interrogator would have believed to be illegal. Many rightfully refused to apply the techniques that the White House had ordered and others who had witnessed torture reported it up their chains of command. To overcome growing reluctance to commit these brutal acts, the Bush Administration produced documents from Justice Department lawyers that gave some legal cover to the interrogators.
One of those lawyers, Justice Department counsel John Yoo, infamously responded this way during a debate with Doug Cassel, director of Notre Dame Law School's Center for Civil and Human Rights:
Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
An exchange like the one above is shocking to the senses, but actually happend. In the materials we will develop around this topic we promise to always provide solid references to everything we say. We will produce study / discussion questions appropriate for people of faith and those who view the world through a more secular lens.
We invite vigorous discussion but we ask that any claim made about the issue of torture be made with real data, real and verifiable sources.
In the event we will be using as the core of this learning material, our partners in peacemaking brought together an incredible group of people.
A former Army Interrogator / Interrogation Trainer
A former CIA senior-level analyst
A social psychologist working on oral histories of interrogators from WWII through today
A professor of applied ethics from Santa Clara University
An award-winning politics/religion columnist and pastor
A musician who wrote a song based on his oral history work with former U.S. Army interrogators
We have a few horses in this race. Craig Wiesner, co-founder of Reach And Teach is a former Air Force intelligence analyst who served at a time and in a place where those in whom the greatest trust was placed, with top-secret-security-clearances, clear training was also given on what was legal and moral. Nothing the world has seen from Abu Ghraib and nothing in the infamous torture memos from the Justice Department would have been acceptable under that training in that particular time and place (yes, in some other places at the same time the United States was not following the same rules but that story will have to wait for a short while).
Both Craig and fellow co-founder Derrick Kikuchi have also spent significant time in El Salvador, living with victims of torture and learning first-hand that the scars, though not always physically visible, eat away at the victims for the rest of their lives. We have also been witness to the lifelong painful scars of those who were ordered to and actually carried out torture. This is one of the most critical moral issues of our time and we want to see the United States turn this page and put an end to sanctioned U.S. torture now and forever. To do that, we believe that those who ordered and committed torture must be held accountable. To achieve that, we need people to understand, clearly, that torture is and should be illegal and that those who order it are criminals with something other than national security in mind. Those who order torture are immoral AND incompetent, because people will see that when we torture we HURT national security, and any competent person in power should know that.
What Now?
This is day four (July 10th) of our effort to create a comprehensive learning guide on torture. Over the coming weeks we will edit and upload the rest of the presentations from this conference and create what we hope will be a comprehensive resource for studying the issue of torture.
Please share this page with others! Spread the word.
About the Event Which Started This Project
Below was the agenda for the two days.
Friday, June 26:Torture is a Moral Issue Panel 7:30pm, First Presbyterian Church, 1140 Cowper St., Palo Alto, featuring:
Ray McGovern - former CIA anaylst now with Church of the Saviour in D.C., on Engaging the Demonic: Where the Battle Rages; Terrence Karney - former Army Interrogator and Trainer; Jean Maria Arrigo - social psychologist working to end torture, on The Hard Road Ahead for U.S. Soldiers Who Reject Torture; Ben Daniel - pastor and writer of faith-based social and political commentary; David DeCosse, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University; and John Crigler, performing his original composition, "A U.S. Army Interrogator."
Sat., June 27: Torture is a Moral Issue Conference 9am-5pm, First United Methodist Church, 625 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto, with:
Terrence Karney - former Army Interrogator; Rev. Carol Wickersham - founder of No2Torture; Torture Survivor's Personal Testimony; Banafsheh Akhalghi - Amnesty International; Rita Nakashima Brock - Theologian and Activist; and more conversation with McGovern, Arrigo and Crigler.
Co-sponsors: Center for Survivors of Torture of Asian Americans for Community Involvement, Amnesty International Western Region, Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice, American Muslim Voice, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, Declaration of Peace-San Mateo County, Los Altos Voices for Peace, Action Council Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, Pace e Bene, St. Thomas Aquinas Human Concerns Committee, Catholic Community at Stanford, Pax Christi at Stanford, Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, Faith Voices for the Common Good, Code Pink & Global Exchange.
Special thanks to Patricia Neme Trujillo and Brian Good for videotaping the event. Video post-production and editing by Derrick Kikuchi at Reach and Teach.
What would you do if you had a man who was alleged to be one of Osama Bin Laden's closest associates in your hands just days after September 11th and you needed to interrogate him? What would it take to get this accused Al Quaeda operative to talk? Electrodes on his genitals? Waterboarding? Sleep deprivation? Blowing off his kneecap? Shoving a broom handle somewhere it shouldn't be?
What if you had Abu Zubaydah locked up in a cell? What would it take to get him to give up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, and "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. According to Ali Soufan, all it took was, once again, good old tried and true interrogation techniques, legal ones. 
