How do we make a terrorist talk? Pizza and ice cream!

[mgc1961]

What is the best way to break a terrorist? Waterboarding? Stress positions? What about pizza, ice cream, or sugar-free cookies?

The most surprising element of former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan's memoir, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda, is how receptive terrorists are to food. When Soufan takes L'Houssaine Kherchtou, an Al Qaeda fixer, out for pizza, Khertchou tells him he's "not an Al Qaeda guy anymore." Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali, who helped facilitate the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998, spills the beans after being plied with cookies and Meals Ready to Eat. Tariq el-Sawah, captured at Tora Bora and currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, has a fondness for ice cream. And in the desperate hours immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Soufan wears down the diabetic Abu Jandal, a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, with sugarless cookies, establishing that Al Qaeda was indeed responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

There are other levers Soufan uses, of course, to get information out of his subjects. Khertchou is furious over bin Laden's refusal to pay for his wife's cesarean section. Owhali is overwhelmed by the quality of information the FBI has assembled. Abu Jandal, despite his fondness for bin Laden, is shocked at the scale of the attacks—particularly after Soufan manipulates him into believing that hundreds of Yemenis died in the assault on the towers. Soufan also exploits regional resentments between Al Qaeda members; the "Gulf Arabs" were frequently resentful of Egyptian members' superior influence and financial benefits, to the point that Al Qaeda would divide into Egyptian and Gulf teams for their Friday soccer games. Soufan leverages their ignorance of the Koran and uses their fidelity to extremist ideology to manipulate them into talking.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/ali-soufan-book-review?page=1

[Crazy Dave]

1. Some of the most successful interrogation methods have nothing to do with torture

Reading true stories from WWI and Vietnam, several commanders used to give their prisoners alcohol and cigarettes to loosen their tongues and guess what??? The information they got was more true and accurate than beating them just to get answers they wanted to hear. Some would get so drunk they would boastfully give out information on troop numbers and tactics.

[saras]

3. Not some, but ALL the successful interrogation methods have nothing to do with torture.

What works is to get the person to believe, truly or falsely, that you and them are on the SAME SIDE, against their REAL enemies, who they will happily collaborate with you against.

[Crazy Dave]

4. Exactly

One book I read told of a German intelligence officer who used to talk to the captured American pilots like friends. Over a bottle of wine, a good meal and a couple cigars they would talk about their families at home, how many kids they had, give him and his fellow prisoners extra blankets that evening, etc. and they would talk, boastfully as I mentioned about things and also for their own self-preservation and the extra benefits. The story went into great detail of how that officer rejected and despised the harsher and sadistic practices of his SS and Gestapo peers. Wish I could remember the name of the book where I read this but it's been over 20 years and the titles are so similar and generic.

[Historic NY]

5. Coffee, cigarettes and a sympathetic ear.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Duh. Tell that to the idiots running the show. nt

If torture even remotely worked then Romans would still be running the world. Or any other barbaric governemnt.

[Uncle Joe]

6. That would be logical, if the terrorists had been brainwashed into believing the entire U.S. was

nothing but the "Great Satan," treating them well at the most and humanely at the least would cause some internal discomfort with their emotional/mental programming.

On the other hand using water torture and other means of abuse can do nothing but reinforce what they already have been trained or brainwashed to believe about the U.S. as nothing but evil, making said terrorist less likely to be candid.

Thanks for the thread, mgc.