Patterico's Pontifications

2/9/2007

An Interrogator’s Nightmares

Filed under: General,War — Patterico @ 10:30 pm



A former Iraq interrogator describes nightmares from his memories of abusing detainees:

A man with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I’m afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.

That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I’ve long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

He describes this as anything but an isolated incident:

I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

This is a disturbing piece, which corroborates similar reports through the years. Read it all.

UPDATE: Jules Crittenden disagrees:

I feel bad that this guy is having nightmares, and I hope he is getting the PTSD counseling he needs. A lot of people can’t forget what they saw and did in Iraq. I could describe for you in detail the faces of the middle-aged Iraqi soldiers on whom I directed 50. cal fire, and exactly what they looked like when they died 30 feet away, as I directed the gunner’s fire from one to another until they were all dead. For a long time, I saw them every day. I examined their faces for clues about who they were, and to divine the exact moment and exact manner in which life exits the body. I also wept once, and asked forgiveness, because no matter what else they were, they were also human. I was a reporter. Some people didn’t think I was supposed to be doing what I did, and called me a murderer. Screw them. Those were people who didn’t even know the truth they thought they knew. Guess what: War is hell.

I think the difference is that, under the admittedly perverse rules of war, we’re supposed to be shooting the enemy. But once we’ve captured them, we’re not supposed to be physically abusing them. I imagine the trauma the participants later feel has less to do with whether they followed the “rules” (although I imagine that’s a factor) and more to do with what they actually did. But there is a difference there.

For me, the power of the piece comes not from Fair’s description of his internal distress. It comes from the corroboration he gives, as someone with no apparent axe to grind, to many other reports of similar wrongdoing over the years.

78 Responses to “An Interrogator’s Nightmares”

  1. I’m really not sure whose memories I’d rather carry through for the rest of my life — those of the interrogator, or the detainee.

    Aplomb (b1076c)

  2. My feelings are really important. Not fighting terrorists. Not that. It’s my feelings that are important. Because my feelings are the foundation of truth and justice. Those mean people did mean things. I mean, not the enemy. Not them. No. It was us who were mean. That’s what I say. And that makes me feel good to say that we were mean. Is my outlook on the world a twisted mess of narcissism?

    David Parsons (a82970)

  3. Truck bomb in a market place killed 140 people last week. The insurgency is trying to force out the U.S, which will result in a genocide of the sunni and a wider war. Literally millions of lives are at stake and this nancy is whining because he had to make someone stay up all night? Call off the war, some douche is having a bad dream.

    This is ridiculous. We deserve to lose. Let the barbarians slaughter one another. Get out.

    Amos (76b564)

  4. I was surprised at Patterico’s thoughtful response to this disturbing article from the Washington Post. I had been hoping to see how some of my favorite conservative bloggers would respond. Excellent work, Patterico. For a moment I thought that perhaps we’ve turned another corner… Then I read comments #2 and #3.

    Support the troops, guys! Come on!

    The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2)

  5. Disturbing and unfortunate, but I’m not going to lose sleep over detainees losing sleep, being cold, standing in the dark, and the occasional punch/kick.

    But if coercive interrogation lets even ONE IED through, IT ISN’T WORTH IT AND DOESN’T WORK EVER.

    I feel sorry for the interrogator, but I hope the knowledge that the suffering of these detainees saves lives is some small consolation.

    OHNOES (3f4332)

  6. I feel sorry for the interrogator, but I hope the knowledge that the suffering of these detainees saves lives is some small consolation.

    Suffering of these detainees kills lives. If you’ve turned a civilian into insurgent by beating him up and humiliating him, you’re partly responsible for the deaths of people he killed in return.

    NN (f82c0b)

  7. NN,
    How did these poor luckless souls happen to wander into such a predicament? Buying a soda at the 7-11?
    The interrogator needs some therapy, some meds yes. But there are all different prices paid in war.
    Maybe the insurgents should give up. Maybe we should stop the fighting because of the bad dreams the Medics are having TWENTY FIVE years later.
    Truth is I’m sorry our interrogator friend has some guilt. But he’ll need to get over it.

    paul from fl (967602)

  8. paul from fl,
    So, you support torture just because you like the violence? The idea of the soldier blown up by the IED because somebody was turned into insurgent because of the humiliation makes you happy?

    The insurgents can’t give up, because it would mean letting genocidal Iran-sponsored Shia government have its way.

    NN (f82c0b)

  9. NN,

    You repeat the silly idea that Paul criticized. It is a huge leap with no evidence to say that we are taking innocents off the street and turning them into insurgents through torture.

    The author presents one side of the story. He talks about what he and his group did, but he doesn’t talk about the rules that govern his work. He didn’t talk about the value of the information that was obtained.

    I still believe that there is not a better country than the USA to handle difficult situations like this. If he wasn’t obtaining information that was saving lives, aggressive interrogation would be discontinued.

    If everything he says is true (and I have no basis to doubt him at this point) then it sounds like they went too far in their harsh treatment. There should be no punching or kicking of detainees.

    Let’s not forget that the detainee has the power to stop the harsh treatment. All he has to do is give up the information that will prevent future attacks on US soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

    Mike S (8fe747)

  10. Support the troops, guys! Come on!

    If only you cared as much about the detainees as you do about the opinions of conservative bloggers.

    kl (15574e)

  11. My god ‘liberals’ are catastrophically, terrifyingly stupid. But I believe more and more these days that Iraq’s sunni have got it coming to them and you can’t force civilization on people who are fundamentally savages. There is no way to deal with people who are willing to cut off their own arms and legs and slice open their own children’s throats just for a chance to spit in your face. Sooner or later the ‘insurgency’ will get it’s wish, the U.S will leave, and then there will be nothing standing between them and the Shia.

    Somehow I doubt making them stay up all night is what the deathsquads have in mind for them.

    Amos (76b564)

  12. I have this terrible skin condition that keeps me up at nights. Itching and stuff. Cool temperature makes the iching decrease.
    I go through simular “torture” all the time.
    This interogator needs to get over himself.

    papertiger (e7adac)

  13. LA #4,

    This is a civilian interrogator who was chosen for his job because of his willingness to abuse helpless prisoners. He is no soldier. I would call him a “freak” and I have read that reference to “interrogators” made by others as well. I would not call our troops freaks. They are well-trained and well-disciplined and face armed men at the risk of their own lives. The commenters who mock him for now developing a conscience are right to do so.

    nk (06f5d0)

  14. It is a huge leap with no evidence to say that we are taking innocents off the street and turning them into insurgents through torture.

    Well, if you’re willing to listen to the Red Cross for evidence, 70-90% of the people in Abu Ghraib were arrested by mistake.

    Let’s not forget that the detainee has the power to stop the harsh treatment. All he has to do is give up the information that will prevent future attacks on US soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

    If you don’t know anything, how can you? That’s one of the more perverse failures of “detainee’s dilemma” – making shit up is likely going to make the torture worse.

    This post makes me think even more highly of Patterico. Even if he has a bit of a vicious streak, he’s one of the few truly highly principled righty bloggers out there.

    fishbane (3389fc)

  15. How about the nightmares that the survivors of 9/11 have. How about the feelings of the hundreds who took the huge leap to their death.

    I don’t feeel sorry for the interrogator one bit.

    rab (d915f7)

  16. Fishbane,

    The author talks about one specific high value individual who was subject to harsh treatment. If he had an example of a man off the street who was abused, I believe he would have used it.

    I don’t believe that we are treating the average detainee harshly, let alone anything that rises to the level of torture.

    Mike S (8fe747)

  17. Mike S.,

    I was only satisfying the first part of your statement, “It is a huge leap with no evidence to say that we are taking innocents off the street and turning them into insurgents through torture.”

    If you accept the Red Cross report, we are “taking innocents off the street”. I have no documentary evidence about the second part, but I know how I would react were my country invaded, and I or a family member detained and abused for no reason.

    I don’t believe that we are treating the average detainee harshly, let alone anything that rises to the level of torture.

    Believe what you like. If you want me to agree, please provide a cite or two.

    fishbane (3389fc)

  18. How about the nightmares that the survivors of 9/11 have. How about the feelings of the hundreds who took the huge leap to their death.

    I don’t feeel sorry for the interrogator one bit.

    You might make a good Hezbollah or Hamas warrior with that kind of logic.

    NN (d035f8)

  19. “You might make a good Hezbollah or Hamas warrior with that kind of logic.”

    Guessing you will make a good dhimmi.

    Old Coot (581b7e)

  20. You’re kidding … right?

    They had their beauty sleep interrupted? They had to sit in the dark?

    Oh, the horror.

    Meanwhile, the enemy mutilates women and deprives them of their rights, decapitates prisoners with rusty blades, attacks children with suicide bombs, and all this in honor of a now-dead and deeply lamented dictator who institutionalized rape rooms and fed people through plastic shredders …

    But let’s worry about those poor perfectly innocent people that had their beauty sleep interrupted …

    Sigh. And you’ll notice that your liberal trolls don’t spare a thought for all the real victims of actual torture, the women who were subjugated, all of those who never had any rights at all …

    … in other words, your liberal trolls don’t actually advocate one single thing they claim to stand for. It’s almost as sadly funny as cheering a couple bloggers who just publicly repudiated everything they’ve ever said.

    There are no principles. No core values. And now it appears liberals don’t even pretend to believe what they pretend to believe.

    No. It’s about self-loathing America bashing and those poor guys – all innocent, of course – who had their beauty sleep disturbed. It’s about them.

    Yup.

    You know who must really hate modern neo-libs?

    The real liberals. The people out there who once supported civil rights and womens rights and the rights of those who are actually oppressed and actually tortured.

    Those people must look at people like your neo-liberal trolls and just weep. What a bunch of lost souls.

    PP (c65bfa)

  21. link

    “You know your empire’s crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, ‘extraordinary rendition’ (a.k.a. kidnapping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.”

    RJN (e12f22)

  22. I have been forced to go days on end without sleep by the U.S. Military. I have been denied food, kept isolated and pushed to the point of physical and psychological collapse by the U.S. Military. I have been forced to take part in backbreaking labor which put me in the hospital. Several times I almost died. All of this was done by the U.S. Military.

    I am not a terrorist, a radical Muslim or one of their supporters or sympathizers. I am an ex Army Ranger who was put through these “tortures” as training.

    Because that is the nature of war. It always has been and always will be.

    And we are going to loose this war because too many in the West do not understand this. While the enemy understands it only to well.

    PA (32e8a6)

  23. Anytime we fight a war, we will necessarily lose, so let’s just surrender and get it over with.

    J. Peden (5d874d)

  24. One thing is clear from the comments: not a one of the “support the troops” crowd has ever tortured anyone. I can only tell you from a dust spec of experience that hurting somebody just to hurt them, no matter who your target may be or what they are supposed to have done, stays with you for a lifetime. The guy quoted was involved in long time prisoner interrogation that he doesn’t feel good about. How many of us have heard people scream for mercy for days on end because of pain that we are causing? How many of us have had to look at people in agony for days at a time knowing that we are part of the instruments of the agony?

    None of the commenters have, that’s for sure. “Support the troops” has nothing to do with it.

    Let’s hear from some “commenter” who has actually participated in prisoner interrogation tell us to shut up and support the troops. A Jewish guy who had WWII experience with captured Gestapo thugs told me that he just couldn’t bring himself to do what some others were doing because of the look in the eyes of the Gestapo guys. Our humanity, or Christian upbringing, or just plain parental influences act to stop us from doing things that offend our collective and individual consciousness.

    The guy doesn’t like what he has done. The Washington Post, with an agenda, eagerly printed his anguish. So?

    Duke (4ba8d4)

  25. I’m too nauseated to read all the comments. I worked for 10 months in a theater internment facility in Iraq… we did not do interrogations. It was jihadi daycare. 3 hot meals, plus bedtime “snack”, free korans, prayer rugs, nice painted arrows in each room pointing toward mecca, Sickcall 7 days a week, free catarac surgery, when they complained they didn’t get enough salt in their diet… the bleeding heart MP commander took the salt from OUR dining facility and gave it to them. They played volleyball and soccer, had flatscreen TV’s in their cells, we lived in wide open 60 person bays with 1 TV for 800 people.

    We’d be nice to them, they’d try to kill us, we’d get in trouble for defending ourselves. Fuck those animals. Our own naivety and the liberal idea that we can be nice to our ruthless enemies is why the arabs laugh at us and think we are a “paper tiger” who will fold up at the first sign of hardship.

    devildog (93996a)

  26. test

    Abraxas (db3144)

  27. NN,

    Just curious –

    You say: “If you’ve turned a civilian into insurgent by beating him up and humiliating him, you’re partly responsible for the deaths of people he killed in return.”

    Since you seem to intimately understand the mentality of terrorists, could you please tell us, exactly, what treatment of yourself (coercive and/or tortuous) it would take for you to strap on a suicide vest and walk into an open market place and detonate it killing untold numbers of men women and children?

    Thanks in advance.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  28. As to the bigger picture;

    “Our long national nightmare is over”

    Gerald Ford 8/9/74

    I do hope the real nightmare of this failed Presidency is not tenfold the nightmare of another
    wrong-headed administration.

    semanticleo (ec1279)

  29. We owe no quarter to those that offer us none.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  30. “As to the bigger picture;…” = I’ll flamethrow wildly about in the hopes of distracting people from the fact that my side is losing an argument based on logic and merit (yet again).

    Abraxas (db3144)

  31. Why are we over there murdering Iraqis? They had nothing to do with 9/11.

    RJN (e12f22)

  32. RJN is right because, history as we know, didn’t start until 9/11/2001.

    jpm100 (851d24)

  33. “Why are we over there murdering Iraqis? They had nothing to do with 9/11.”

    Really? The previous regime had nothing to do with terrorism?

    Oh, please.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  34. The problem is this is likely a manifestation of a form of delayed stress syndrome.

    The soldiers are being drilled constantly by the media about how the purpose of their war is a farce. Any moral sense of justification they had at the beginning of the war is being undermined by their countrymen.

    His actions, right or wrong is a separate issue. The latent nightmares are a consequence of one side flip-flipping on their support for the war.

    jpm100 (851d24)

  35. jpm100, Abraxas: We don’t have to be stupid about this. 9/11 was the pretext for invading Iraq. We all know, now, that it was lies that excused the invasion of Iraq.

    We should know now, also, that the real reason we are in Iraq has always been to give us a strategic position in Iran’s back yard. Any lie, any day, would be freely told to the American people if it would facilitate putting us in Iran’s back yard.

    RJN (e12f22)

  36. Why are we over there murdering Iraqis? They had nothing to do with 9/11.

    No one officially authorizing the war in Iraq ever said the Iraqis did have something to do with 9/11. Go read the AUMF against Iraq.

    Oh wait, for Faux Liberals history begins and ends solely with the last minute of their lives, which “memory” contains only the then perseverated holy mantras of their “leaders”, whose acts instead historically contradict these very mantras.

    Iow, show me where the net acts of Congressional Democrats do not really support the conclusion that they are in fact in favor of the Iraq war – again if judged by their practical, historical acts.

    Perseverating suckers, indeed?

    I do hope the real nightmare of this failed Presidency is not tenfold the nightmare of another
    wrong-headed administration.

    A sucker’s hope is nearly all you really have.

    Even if you swallow the validity of the “Iraq is Vietnam” mantra, you will likely lose the next Presidential election 49 States to 1. After that, if your Democrats vote to cut off funding, you will incur the same consequences following from the defunding of the war in Vietnam, added upon which will be the increased strength of the sadomasochistic Jihadists. And the Congressional Democrats know it.

    Now, carry on, suckers.

    J. Peden (5d874d)

  37. “jpm100, Abraxas: We don’t have to be stupid about this.”

    Then stop.

    “We all know, now, that it was lies that excused the invasion of Iraq.”

    Ah yes, “the lies”. Interesting thing about that line of “reasoning”; after all of the claims of “lies” have been debunked, the left simply says it again, without offering any backup – because the backup to that accusation has been destroyed. Your sad, vain hope that all the public will remember is the accusation and not the debunking of it is just that: sad and vain. How just like a Leftist.

    And 9/11 was an inside job. Really. No proof needed.

    “We should know now, also, that the real reason we are in Iraq has always been to give us a strategic position in Iran’s back yard. ”

    Yes, because God knows, if Ahmadinejad would just *SHUT THE HELL UP* about his nuclear final solution for Israel (and America) for 5 seconds, there wouldn’t be a need to look critically at going in and dealing with him.

    Quite frankly, Ghaddafi has been a pain in the ass far longer than Ahmadinejad, and we’re not talking about going in after *him*, now are we? Why would that be, I wonder?

    Your pathetic, delusional rantings about “lies” doesn’t make up for the fact you have no answer to the proven links between Saddam’s regime and terrorism, which is the point you raised in the first place.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  38. Patterico,

    How do you think America or any nation factually decides whether harsh techniques (and I use those words on purpose, because this article does not describe torture) are effective in eliciting useful intelligence? We can commission academic studies and experiment on our own troops, and perhaps those methods are instructive, but we never know for sure until we try various techniques during war on our enemies. Even at that, any experience gained so far is undoubtedly a small sample to make final decisions on the value of these techniques in interrogation.

    It may be that some techniques work on all people, some on a few people, and some don’t work at all. I, for one, applaud the military for trying these techniques. I would condemn them only if they failed to learn useful lessons from their experience.

    DRJ (605076)

  39. Patterico,

    Getting away from these moronic moonbats for a moment…

    I take your point

    I think the difference is that, under the admittedly perverse rules of war, we’re supposed to be shooting the enemy. But once we’ve captured them, we’re not supposed to be physically abusing them.

    is from a moral rather than a legal position?

    Rather – to the exclusion of the Geneva Conventions?

    Should there be a set of published regulations dealing with the capture and treatment of non-uniformed combatants (rather than shooting them outright as violators of the GCs)? Should those captured know the lengths to which our armed services and intelligence agencies will go to obtain information? Or should there be an unwillingness to say what we will or *will not* do to those detainees, as an additional tool or technique to use in information gathering?

    There have been some major failures of coercive techniques in the Iraq front of the war – most notably Abu Ghraib. No one to whom I’ve ever spoken was happy about *that* screw up – unless you count the leftists who were happy that it “proved” … something … about George Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton … something … toke hit … giant papier mache head … Zionism …

    On the other hand, you have Camp Sunshine Guantanamo which, quite frankly, sounds a great deal like an ideal vacation to me, based on insider reports. I’m not exactly sure *what* new coercive techniques they’re using there, but I, for one, could use some of that tender loving interrogation.

    Ahem: Allahu Ackbar, and all that.

    But, to return to the point, not even the Leftists were pleased that Iraqi terrorists had panties put over their heads. Well, I don’t *think* they were pleased about the panties, but with all the thong-snapping that goes on in the Progressive side these days, who can tell?

    I guess the broader point is this – when you give a soldier a gun, or an interrogator a syringe, you give them the power to make policy. When that policy is disastrous, you hear about it (Abu Ghraib). When it is successful … ? Well, the only way you hear about it is if you go and look for it through the reporting of the very well written military blogs out there, because Pinch Sulzberger will be damned if he reports on any more successes in Iraq than he absolutely has to.

    I guess what I’m saying is yes, sometimes war is very unpleasant and nasty, and we should be uneasy if those who undertake the very serious business of questioning detainees *don’t* have moral anxiety about doing necessary things for our, our allies’, and their fellow soldiers’ safety. But given all reported accounts, we don’t have those people in those jobs, or at least, they don’t last long at all; even the amateur hour at Abu Ghraib got exposed – exactly as the system was designed to do.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  40. Surely by now no one can even quibble with the sacred perseverating use of the holy word “lie” to describe the method and nefarious intent behind the reasoning which brought us to the Iraq war, leaving aside for now the matter of its thus necessarily “failed” nature.

    For “lie’s” use itself is an epitome of the yet higher holy operating principle, to wit, that we must employ “the audacious distortion of reality in order to achieve a higher truth”. No one can deny that. It is written. Case closed.

    And a very well intentioned tin-foiled Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm to everyone.

    J. Peden (5d874d)

  41. Abu Ghraib is still with us. I wonder if any of you noticed that a number of the published photos are obvious fakes. In particular, we see the same “human pyramid” with three different backgrounds, and not an iota of difference in the pyramid – including the angle of the cloth headcoverings. I don’t know what happened. I do know that the conventional wisdom is to some degree wrong.

    [How about the links to the pictures? — P]

    Roy Lofquist (cb8e2f)

  42. “Why are we over there murdering Iraqis? They had nothing to do with 9/11.”

    We aren’t retaliating for 9/11, we are trying to prevent the next one.

    Mike S (8fe747)

  43. Abraxas: Drooling invective, yours, doesn’t make an argument.

    Do you think we would have invaded Iraq without 9/11, or something like it?

    FYI the only Democrat I ever voted for was JFK. From that we got LBJ, and I never voted for any Democrat again. The best presidents I have voted for were Eisenhower and Reagen; they knew what being President was about.

    You seem to have the foolish notion that one must be a bloodthirsty asshole in order to be of the right. And, speaking of bloodthirsty assholes, why don’t you chickenhawks sign up and go torture some of those juicy Iraqui’s just waiting for you.

    [This comment serves almost no purpose other than as a cry of self-righteousness. — P]

    RJN (e12f22)

  44. Since you seem to intimately understand the mentality of terrorists, could you please tell us, exactly, what treatment of yourself (coercive and/or tortuous) it would take for you to strap on a suicide vest and walk into an open market place and detonate it killing untold numbers of men women and children?

    No idea. The suicide bombings are, as far as I understand, mostly done by the genuine Al-Qaeda crazies that come from abroad. I don’t believe any kind of hostile “treatment” could turn somebody into a suicide killer — it’s usually a result of a heavy brainwashing, leading to the loss of personality.
    Blowing up military vehicles with IEDs, however, has nothing to do with terrorism, it’s an act of genuine guerrilla warfare. If I was forced into joining insurgency, I would do this, of course.

    NN (9c16c2)

  45. NN,

    Your comment #44 suggests that you might decide to be an insurgent in the right circumstances. Similarly, some people – like me – believe that circumstances require the American military to use harsh interrogation techniques to obtain wartime intelligence. Perhaps you and I don’t have the same cut-off point for when circumstances require an exceptional response, but in theory your position really isn’t that different from mine.

    DRJ (605076)

  46. Your comment #44 suggests that you might decide to be an insurgent in the right circumstances.

    Well, I guess anybody would join insurgency in the right circumstances. If a foreign force would occupy my country and declare that I have no future here (Bremer’s de-Baathification order), joining insurgency would probably be the only option.
    But yes, I agree with you that “harsh interrogation” is, to a certain degree, ethically permissible. It just seems to me that in most cases it’s pragmatically counterproductive.

    NN (9c16c2)

  47. “But yes, I agree with you that “harsh interrogation” is, to a certain degree, ethically permissible. It just seems to me that in most cases it’s pragmatically counterproductive.”

    Maybe that’s why we don’t do it in most cases.

    Mike S (8fe747)

  48. I find many of the comments by the Liberals here pathetic.

    To the beheadings of innocent, pleading captives, the bombings of innocent civilians, the throat-cuttings of stewardesses, the murder of pilots, the slaughter of 3,000 human beings, not to mention the beheadings of Buddhist Monks in Thailand, the bombings of Israeli teens in pizza joints, or the cold-blooded murder of little children in places like Beslan, Darfur, Tel Aviv, or Baghdad, what precisely do you liberals advocate?

    Answer: LAWFARE.

    Lawfare (and lawyers) are a disaster, a disaster that enabled 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali, and doubtless eventually the nuking of an American City.

    Patterico you are part of the problem because as a lawyer you do not see where the Law FAILS.

    The Law had nothing to say, no appeal, no rules, no process, on 9/11. To whom might the murdered and their families appeal? How can they become “un-murdered?”

    The whole point of terrorism is to show the utter failure of laws, rules, regulations, and the society that produces them to function. Thus the MOST brutality is introduced, on the most innocent of victims (children being preferred, if not an elderly man in a wheelchair like Leon Klinghoffer will do).

    Liberals of course embrace the brutality, celebrate it, as they share with terrorists the goal of breaking down the society so that only the strong and ruthless can rule with an iron fist (the end state being Cuba’s hereditary dicatorship).

    No application of law, the rule of law, rules, regulations, or any other nonsense can work in Iraq UNLESS AND UNTIL the STATE has a monopoly of violence and the terrorist actions by Sunni Al Qaeda / Baathist terrorists and the Shia counter-Sunni death squads have been crushed.

    Because LAW only works when a civil society exists. LAW in a place like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia (or Putin’s Russia today) or Iraq or Afghanistan is a stupid farce wherein Lawyers believe that Law has any meaning at all.

    Our troops ought to be able to do anything that is reasonable within the situation itself (as was done in almost all previous wars) to bring the killing to an end as SWIFTLY AS POSSIBLE. Thus in WWII after Japanese and German soldiers pretended to surrender then shot US troops, very few captives were taken. German “werewolf” activity in US zones of occupation resulted in the summary shooting of suspected guerillas. Towns with hard-core SS fanatics and Hitler Youth were leveled with heavy artillery. No lawyers, no rules, no regulations applied.

    Because the Law must rule supreme in the US itself, but stay away from the battlefield.

    Need I point out Patterico the manifest failure of the LAW in San Francisco in the 1850’s and the formation of the Committees of Vigilance? Not even Sherman dared take them on once the idea of Law failed. Hanging most of the Irish gang leaders the Committee could get it’s hands on seemed to settle the issue.

    Yes it’s regrettable men with natural human sympathies do not like inflicting pain on others. Men like killing others even less. Yet how else other than total war was the Holocaust to be STOPPED? “International Law” (give me a break).

    [Note Liberals have no objection to Saddam having videos of cutting off hands, feet etc for his amusement, or his son’s raping and murdering girls taken off the street, or the mass graves filled with small children, women, and old men. The Anfal campaign which resulted in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Kurds is something they look back on in nostalgiac desire. Witness Chait’s “We should bring back Saddam” column.]

    Utopian, naive, and stupid desire to push Law into places it can’t go will only prolong the killing and is therefore IMHO both stupid and evil in effect.

    Jim Rockford (e09923)

  49. Well boo freakin hoo. Poor baby, can’t sleep cause he kept someone up all night. Perhaps “Iraq interrogator” should be vetted by B. G. Burkett, the author of Stolen Valor. This guy sounds like one of the many phony Viet Nam “I was a prisoner in Cambodia” asshats. Or maybe he’s a Code Pinker with his panties in a wad.

    songdongnigh (e85f2a)

  50. Well, I’m glad he’s not having nightmares about forcing sons to rape their mothers, pulling out fingernails with pliers, impaling children with bayonets in front of their parents, or just simply shooting people in the head for ‘trying to escape.’ However, it’s rather clear that Ayman al Zawahiri doens’t give (if ever) a damn about Americans committing atrocities, or simply inconveniencing or discomforting prisoners, which, on a purely rational level, was wrong simply because it wouldn’t have gotten decent information from them. The easiest solution for a prisoner in that situation is to lie. Everyone has enemies. Blame them. Look at the record of jailhouse snitches in, for example, the LA area or New York. Our interrogator gave in to demans for thuggish behavior from people who should have known better, but who never seem to learn.

    For an example of this from ‘the greatest generation,’ I recommed a book called “The Questionazire [Der Fragenbogen]” by a German author named Ernst von Saloman (1902-1972,) one of the founders of 1920s ‘Stormtrooper’ literature, who really made his first mark in the world as one of the murderers of Walther Rathenau, for which the Weimar Republic gave him a slap on the wrist. He was arrested by US intelligence at his hideout in Bavaria in 1945 (along with his Jewish mistress, whom he was hiding from the Nazis) and interned in a POW camp while they tried to find ways to bring him to trial for murder — they couldn’t, because of double jeopardy. The book is an apologia pro via sua, but an invaluable source for studying the thinking of his generation; it takes the format of the Questionaire given to all adult Germans as part of the denazification procedure. The American writer who introduced the 1950s English edition dismissed his description of the behavior of American guards at POW camps.

    Von Saloman makes the point (not really complaining, by the way) that American soldiers (he did not have experiences with French, Russian, or British) rounded up anyone and everyone for whom they had any questions (his Jewish mistress went into a woman’s camp because she told the soldiers who knew she was Jewish he wasn’t a Nazi, which, technically, he wasn’t) and kept them there, starving for much of the time) mostly pointlessly (I really do not remember him mentioning the Werewolves)He was released finally because they decided they could not bring him to trial for Rathenau’s murder, which was purely political in nature (Rathenau signed the Versailles Treaty, and German nationalists murdered all its signers), because of double jeopardy. He went on to write the movie scripts to Hans Helmut Kirsch’s ‘Gunner Asch’ books and the Liane of the Jungle movies. The people he inspired to become stormtroopers and died in the next war, and the people they killed, stayed fertilizer.

    John H. Costello (416424)

  51. Follow up, the idea that the terrorism in Iraq is the result of “US TORTURE” is absurd on the face of it.

    Saddam’s willing executioners were not going to give up Iraq to the Shia they killed by the hundreds of thousands (Amnesty International estimated at the time between 300-500 K). And the Shia for their part had the Sunni’s penciled in for an accounting for that killing under Saddam.

    Removing Saddam would guarantee that fighting without the overwhelming force of the US military to pre-emptively crush any terrorism (by leveling towns and cities Hama style if need be).

    GWB deserves policy criticism for being too PC and weak and not understanding his responsibility to do what was needed after removing Saddam to get the killing over as quickly as possible.

    The proof of my statements can be seen by checking the casualty lists of the dead: most of the victims are Shia or Sunnis by the various sectarian and tribal militias.

    Jim Rockford (e09923)

  52. Abraxas: Drooling invective, yours, doesn’t make an argument.

    No, my arguments make arguments – such as the one I made to you that did indeed link Saddam to terrorism. You never engaged that argument. Wonder why not?

    Do you think we would have invaded Iraq without 9/11, or something like it?

    I think that absent the main course of 9/11 there would have been a 5/23 or a 7/04 or a 4/19 – with or without a side of fallout. Then, yes, the terrorist world would have been in another world of hurt.

    FYI the only Democrat I ever voted for was JFK. From that we got LBJ, and I never voted for any Democrat again. The best presidents I have voted for were Eisenhower and Reagen; they knew what being President was about.

    I don’t care what you say you’re voting record is. The only thing I and others on this thread know about you is what you write. And it’s pretty unimpressive.

    And if you’re going to use the great man as a figleaf, learn how to spell his name, m’kay?

    You seem to have the foolish notion that one must be a bloodthirsty asshole in order to be of the right.

    There you go again (that’s copyright Reagan, in case you don’t get the reference). I’m not sure what mental gymnastics you went through to start your post bleating about “… Drooling invective … doesn’t make an argument.” and then engage in it two paragraphs later, but I hope they weren’t tortuous, what with the subject of the discussion and all.

    And, speaking of bloodthirsty assholes, why don’t you chickenhawks sign up and go torture some of those juicy Iraqui’s just waiting for you.

    Ah. Fresh from having your “reality-based” lunacy bitch-slapped about “lies” leading to Iraq Liberation, now you frothily roll out the “Chickenhawk” line like it’s something no one here’s ever heard before.

    Let’s skip to the bottom line: you stopped pretending to make arguments about three posts ago – now you’re just being a putz. Don’t get me wrong – you’re still amusing, but you’re unoriginal.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  53. Dear Abraxas: Gosh. I mistyped R E A G A N.

    Moving on: You do write invective, and the energy you use causes me to envision a cascade of drool, and spittle, encircling you like the collar on a clown.

    Iraq was not a terror state, outside of its borders, prior to its being designated one in 2002. The “terrorist” 9/11 bombers were all Saudis, I think. Why didn’t we invade Saudi Arabia?

    The invasion of Iraq was never reprisal for terrorism. Fake claims of terrorist activity were merely the cover for our choice, for strategic reasons, to be in Iraq. If removing Saddam was our true reason, and terrorism our fake reason, we would have left two years ago.

    RJN (e12f22)

  54. Moving on: You do write invective, and the energy you use…

    You give yourself too much credit. No energy is required. It’s effortless to deal with trolls such as yourself.

    … causes me to envision a cascade of drool, and spittle, encircling you like the collar on a clown.

    Gosh, that’s almost poetic. Or something. A little hint – your “envisioning” says far more about you than it does about me. But I’m flattered that you fantasize about me.

    Really, I am.

    Iraq was not a terror state, outside of its borders, prior to its being designated one in 2002.

    Saddam never funded terrorism before 2002? Check the facts.

    Why didn’t we invade Saudi Arabia?

    Because Saudi Arabia wasn’t violating a cease-fire agreement and hadn’t used WMD as a weapon of war in the past 25 years? But heck, that’s just two of many reasons.

    The invasion of Iraq was never reprisal for terrorism. Fake claims of terrorist activity were merely the cover for our choice, for strategic reasons, to be in Iraq.

    Which claims, exactly, were fake? Again, you offer full-blown earth-shattering conspiracies without a shred of proof.

    If removing Saddam was our true reason, and terrorism our fake reason, we would have left two years ago.

    There can’t be more than one “true” reason? Perhaps advancing Democracy and removing a terrorist breeding hole cum funding source and Liberating the Kurds and other people of Iraq, etc. were all equally valid reasons, no?

    Got any more half-baked assertions that can be shredded with a cursory use of Google?

    Your ignorance is excusable. Your willful ignorance is not.

    To paraphrase Golda Meir’s “There will be peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate ours”, I would say “We will win this war when the Progressives hate terrorists more than they hate President Bush.”

    In closing, you are now both unoriginal and unamusing. Mazel Tov.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  55. Go Abraxas, Jim Rockford.

    Well done.

    Dennis (6352cc)

  56. Abraxas: It it clear to me that you are pleased that we are in Iraq because it is good for Israel. The destruction of Iraq is of no consequence to you. It seems to me that you are saying “if something is good for Israel it doesn’t matter what other country is destroyed”.

    To have that attitude is, no doubt, your right; but, your arguments had been, until the last, only that Iraq deserved to be invaded.

    Your last arguments, in fact, confirm that the reason we are in Iraq is for the benefit of Israel.

    Finally, and I hope I can stay away, the fake claims I mentioned are well documented. To list a few: 1) Bio weapons labs. 2) Uranium from Africa, 3) Large numbers of Scuds aimed at Israel. None of these things were discovered in Iraq; all were claimed as good reasons to invade.

    We were lied to. We were neo-conned into the invasion of Iraq.

    RJN (e12f22)

  57. I’ll wait a while before taking that “interrogator” literally. These stories tend to diminish with time and the ability to check their facts. The WaPo is not about to check them. They think Carl Levin is the DoD Inspector General.

    [Before I posted, I did a cursory check of the guy and found a couple of other pieces he had written. I didn’t see any obvious axe to grind. — P]

    Mike K (416363)

  58. Your last arguments, in fact, confirm that the reason we are in Iraq is for the benefit of Israel.

    I’m sorry – I was wrong.

    You are amusing!

    So wait … wait …

    First it’s the “Lies” myth.

    Then it’s the “Chickenhawk” slur.

    And now it’s the “neo-con Jew conspiracy” schtick?

    You’re a walking Tri-fecta!!

    Oh, and this …

    Your last arguments, in fact, confirm that the reason we are in Iraq is for the benefit of Israel.

    is just precious.

    Parse the idiocy for a moment – what you’re actually saying is that “Abraxas is so high up in the neo-con Vast Right Wing Chickenhawk machine, and his arguments therein taken as such gospel, that his inadvertent slip just proved that we’re in a war for the benefit of Israel!”

    I mean seriously, do you even read what you type?

    Of course, I could be Karl Rove, you never know. (Patterico, please check your email for tomorrow’s talking points).

    So your position is that there was never any Uranium, mobile (or other) labs never existed, and there were no missles aimed at Israel as there were in Gulf War I?

    … your arguments had been, until the last, only that Iraq deserved to be invaded.

    Let’s be perfectly clear – no one is saying the Iraqis deserved anything like what they’ve gotten in the past 50 years. What America’s involvement in their country is saying is that we think they deserve something better. You’re welcome to come on board that thought train, if you like.

    Doubtful you will though, you’re simply a buffoon with an internet connection. You’re also a probable Anti-Semite as well, based on your conspiracy-mongering about Israel, although I certainly don’t want to get to know you any better to find out for certain.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  59. I have only one question:

    if you caught a suspected terrorists in Chicago and you knew that he had intelligence of a impending attack that would kill your children, how far would you go to get that information?

    And remember one thing: Saddam was an expert on torture. If you think that anything less than the tactics of Saddam are considered torture by radical Muslims, you have little understanding of the Islamofascist mindset. While we lament over the treatment of detainees, they laugh at our weakness.

    Now, imagine your 12 year old daughter underneath the rubble that once was the Sears Tower.

    retire05 (f7a714)

  60. There’s a comment at Jules Crittenden’s website that casts doubt on Eric Fair’s motivations, as well as additional thoughts at the commenter’s website.

    DRJ (605076)

  61. Abraxas: You just can’t do it, can you. You just can’t lay out a straight forward line of reasoning. You are only good for reaction invective, the new century’s refuge of scoundrels.

    You aren’t as smart as you think; it shows. You work so fluidly, and effortlessly as a deceiver. You also revealed some fright in your desperate mischaracterizations of some of my points. Please piss off. Please grow up.

    RJN (e12f22)

  62. DRJ,

    Thanks for the links.

    Regardless of the “truthiness” of this particular account, this is a national conversation that we need to keep having, in my opinion. I’m just sorry that there are those who will hijack serious discussion to promote their obsessions that have nothing to do with such existential questions as – If we go to far in torturing, do we lose the essence of Liberty that is the hallmark of exceptional America?

    As retire05 pointed out a couple of posts ago, there may be situational ethics questions, with no hard and fast answers; and that should make us all feel at least a bit on edge when we confront these issues.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  63. Retire05,

    I agree with many of the points addressed in your comments but I rarely agree with how you reach them. In your last comment, you deliberately injected highly charged emotion – “imagine your 12 year old daughter underneath the rubble that once was the Sears Tower” – into the debate to support your point.

    There are societies that let victims or victims’ families decide if their attacker lives or dies, and I suppose we could make policy decisions about US national security based on the same emotional appeal. But I hope we are reasonable enough to make important decisions based primarily on logic rather than emotion and fear.

    DRJ (605076)

  64. Oh, and RJN – was there a refutation of my points in any of that white, hot, sticky ad hominem-ness?

    No?

    I’d thought it would’ve be easy, what with my being a not-so-smart, frightened, deceitful scoundrel and all.

    Have a good night.

    Abraxas (db3144)

  65. Abraxas,

    I agree that, regardless of Mr. Fair’s motivations, there are bigger issues presented. However, if Mr. Fair is not a neutral observer, it might affect his credibility concerning allegations of wrongdoing in Iraq.

    DRJ (605076)

  66. DRJ, how do you eliminate emotion from the debate? Remark about your 12 year old daughter was preceded by a question of a terrorist with the information of such a terrorist attack on the Sears Tower.
    So while I would like to think that we, as Americans, are above such tactics as torture, I am realistic that we are facing an evil in this world like none we have ever known. And that evil is growing daily.
    To assume that we can deal with that evil using our western/Judeo Christian standards is just plain foolish. The hoards are at the gates of Vienna and we will either do everything we can to stop them or we will perish. It is just that simple.
    So while we are show photos of suspected terrorists with ladies underwear on their heads the enemy is showing films of Nick Berg and celebrating.
    We are in a fight for our very lives.
    So imagine the films of Nick Berg but replace his face with that of your daughter, son, wife, sister, brother, mother or father.
    And there is your answer.

    retire05 (f7a714)

  67. When you solve a problem based on emotion, you are likely to pick the most emotionally satisfying option to solve it. However, there’s a good chance that the most satisfying solution isn’t the best solution.

    DRJ (605076)

  68. Abraxas, you kick ass. The problem is that it’s pointless. This RJN person is the poster child for the mental illness of the Left today. I take that back. Any of them could be the poster child, because they’re all exactly alike. They NEVER make a cogent argument that directly addresses the points being made. They always trot out the talking points and try to shoehorn them into the argument, or pick some irrelevant detail to harp on in order to try and sidetrack things.

    I didn’t know whether to laugh or get pissed off when RJN, desperate after having shot all his boilerplate bullets, finally went to the nuclear option: It’s the Joooooos. It’s beyond pathetic. They truly are a waste of air.

    CraigC (aa6a7c)

  69. The last refuge of the left does seem to be anti-Israel, which is a half-step from blaming the Jews for everything. Israel is the canary in the coal mine of the Middle East. If they can’t survive, we are in for much worse problems than some interrogator who has nightmares.

    The Arabs had better hope the oil doesn’t run out. They are doomed if it does, or if we find an alternative. The Saudis are certainly at the root of the radical Islam problem HERE. The Muslim Brotherhood began in Egypt, not Saudi Arabia. Khomeini took over Iran, not Saudi Arabia, and they are the closest thing we have to an enemy right now.

    The Iraq War has overtaxed the left’s ability to reason and they have retreated to bumper stickers. Now they are running Congress and I expect Hillary to be elected in 2008. Then we will see how well a mindless approach works. Maybe democracies just can’t defend themselves against existential threats. The Syracuse expedition was crippled by political maneuvering and Athens golden age ended. Maybe that is what we are seeing the first stages of here. The barbarians may yet win. The Chair of the House Intelligence Committee doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shia. That’s what I mean by mindless for the quibblers here.

    Mike K (416363)

  70. CraigC: Well, another piss ant heard from. What makes you think I am of the left? Never was. Make a clear rebuttal of anything I wrote on this post instead of making weenie, kiss ass remarks about your sweet love for Abraxas’ lyin’ ass.

    RJN (e12f22)

  71. I was just reading about the Waco incident and it struck me how little soul searching the media countinanced when the target of sleep deprivation and worse were innocent American women and children rather then Jihadi.

    papertiger (90f9f1)

  72. I don’t really see why additional corroboration is needed, it has been apparent for some time that this sort of thing was going on. And whatever the merits of torture in a real ticking bomb scenario this is not what is going on here. I suspect the abuse is mostly a product of frustration with the refusal of reality to conform with adminstration fantasies.

    James B. Shearer (fc887e)

  73. ” I suspect the abuse is mostly a product of frustration with the refusal of reality to conform with adminstration fantasies.

    Comment by James B. Shearer ”

    There are fantasies involved, for sure. Just not of the administration. The “abuse” of the Aby Ghraib case was not interrogation but misbehavior by some poorly trained dopes, most of whom have found new homes in the gray bar hotel. The army was far ahead of the media in the investigation until some private photos were released to the media.

    Mike K (416363)

  74. FYI: A link to what appear to be pleadings in a 2004 lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of California. I don’t know the status but page 3 of the pdf lists Eric Fair as a defendant.

    DRJ (605076)

  75. I wonder if this lawsuit was transferred or refiled in the DC district court and if some defendants have been dismissed? It’s hard to tell but the attorneys’ website links to this Order dated June 2006 that sounds like the same case. Of course, none of this is particularly germane to the point Patterico raised, so forget I even brought this up.

    DRJ (605076)

  76. I’m a bit late to the conversation, but the Red Cross is not the most trustworthy of organizations. Periodic fraud cases aside, these were the same people that said MRE’s aren’t fit for dogs and we shouldn’t be giving them to detainees. (Relayed to me by a buddy who was at Guantanimo) Another Kerry-esque insult to the troops. MREs might all taste the same after a while, but its hardly torture to live on them for months at a time.

    I dealt with detainees in Iraq, and yes, a lot of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We questioned them, fed them (though that might be considered inhumane since all we had were MREs), and sent them on their way. The ones who weren’t so innocent got sent up to higher.

    SecretSquirrel (99a05f)

  77. I’m a bit late too, but I’d have to agree with SecretSquirrel. More than anything, we created a bureaucratic system of shifting places from one place to another. Where they went had little to do with facts, because most of us interrogators weren’t allowed to talk to the prisoners more than once.

    I got about 20 minutes on average with a prisoner. In that time, I had to figure out who he was, what his story was, and whether he was guilty. Torture? I think not. Besides, over and over again, we’ve learned (or should have learned) that torture doesn’t work.

    You can read my story at myinterrogator.com slash MI_People , if you want.

    Some days were exciting, some were boring, but the dealings I had with prisoners (15 months) were a routine where twenty minutes of interview-style questions led to two hours of reporting and reformatting.

    jb (c4430d)


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