Coercive Interrogation is Bullshit

I just finished reading a fascinating article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19032165/site/newsweek/page/0/

In which the Steven Kleinman, a veteran interrogator from as far back as WWII, argues that coercive interrigation techniques (read: torture) are indefensible on grounds of effectiveness, rather than any particular moral or legal problem. This is something that has made common sense to me for quite some time, and I was glad to see a mainstream publication giving voice to the position.

Kleinman favors instead the use of empathetic techniques, the defusal of resistance postures through counter-intuitive, overly friendly and helpful stances that create rapport and a desire to please on the part of the subject.

In one of the article's most interesting exchanges, the interviewer suggests that the level of fanaticism found in terrorists today would render non-coercive techniques ineffective. Kleinman pushes against this point by insisting that Nazi fanaticism (during the period he was cutting his teeth with these techniques) was commensurate with terrorists devotion to Osama bin Laden today.

It seems to me that, even if he is wrong, and the terrorists today are greater fanatics than the Nazis, that only makes his case stronger. Fanaticism (defined by me as the willingness to suffer and inflict suffering for a person or cause) is more help in resisting torture than in resisting empathetic techniques.

Kleinman's techniques involve more subterfuge and deception than coercive techniques, and those weapons are more likely to circumvent fanaticism than a head on challenge. In fact, physical suffering plays directly into the fanatics hands by allowing him to "offer up" that suffering to his God or figurehead.

A friend of mine who was an on-the-ground interrogator attached to an infantry unit in Iraq told me that by far the most effective technique he has seen used on the terrorists was a religous reversal. That is, convincing a religous fanatic that Allah had intended for him to survive whatever battle he had been captured during, and that Allah's will now was for him to cooperate with the US. (Otherwise, Allah would have allowed him to die) The point about this technique is that when it works, it works all the way. No disinformation, no withholding, as opposed to coercove techniques which force interrogators to fight tooth and nail for every gain.

Kleinman also made an interesting point with regard to the assumed effectiveness of coercive techniques. He said that shows which depict torture (most notably "24") show it (falsely) to be such an effective method, that even the opponents of torture tend to oppose it on legal or moral grounds rather than pressing on the expected results. This is a huge mistake.

The question is whether the creators of such shows bear any responsibility to the public trust, in terms of spreading this disinformation. I have the same question about shows (I was watching "Mission Impossible III" last night, and they did this.) that depict someone performing CPR, pressing sharply on someone's chest, and restarting a stopped heart. This is medically impossible, that technique is only useful for keeping minimally oxygenated blood flowing through the veins until actual medical help can be obtained. Do people actually try this? And if so, should the creators of such shows be held responsible for creating this dangerously fictional perception?

Finally, I fail to understand why opponents of torture (Notably John McCain. There isn't even really a debate in the Democratic Party.) fail to utilize these arguments in their opposition to torture. During the last debate, McCain said "We could never gain as much from torture as we would lose in international opinion." (That quote is close, it may not be on the money.) Those kinds of arguments are inherently weak, because A) loss of international opinion is a hypothetical future event and B) It should be clear from the 2004 election that 51% of this country doesn't give a shit about international opinion. If McCain (and others) would step up and make the debate much more about the ineffectiveness of torture rather than the abhorrent nature of the means, they wouldn't come off as such wussies. And they would still be right.