INTERROGATION is what is more complex and what is effective, not torture. Watch or read the interview with Sufan.
Yes, torture has "worked extremely well for centuries"; but worked well for what purpose? For
, crimes of which they had already been deemed guilty but for which a confession was required: that is what it has been used for for centuries, not to extract truthful and useful information.
This is what was done in the INTERROGATION which PRECEDED the waterboarding. THAT was when useful information was extracted from him.
NO, IT IS NOT! By this one sentence you show that you have no fucking idea what you are talking about. The fallacy is so blatant it is ridiculous.
Your false dichotomies and straw-man arguments are puerile. Please just watch the interview with Sufan or go to some other knowledgeable source and learn some FACTS about interrogation and how it is effectively done. Here are some things that I turned up with ten seconds of Googling:
Just one week after 9/11, Soufan and his partner found themselves face-to-face with Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, Abu Jandal. He'd been caught and imprisoned in Yemen nearly seven months before 9/11, but now that bin Laden had attacked on U.S. soil, it was important to see if Abu Jandal could help the FBI build a case against those responsible.
Soufan described Abu Jandal's initial behavior toward American interrogators as hate-filled and dismissive, but Abu Jandal gradually began to open up.
"We were able to build a rapport with him," Soufan said.
Abu Jandal was fascinated by the history of revolutions, and Soufan said he talked with him about the American Revolution. He gave Jandal a book in Arabic about George Washington and the American Revolution.
According to Soufan, Jandal stayed up all night reading the book, "but he's practicing typical counter-interrogation techniques, where he gives you what he thinks you know so you will think he's cooperating," Soufan added.
When Abu Jandal looked at a book of photos of known al Qaeda members Soufan said that he identified very few and kept passing over a photo of Marwan al Shehhi - one of the 9/11 hijackers. Soufan knew Abu Jandal had cared for al Shehhi years ago when he was very sick and the fact that Abu Jandal was not identifying him was a signal that Abu Jandal was not being honest.
Extra: Identifying the 9/11 hijackers
Soufan told Logan that he reminded Abu Jandal of the time he spent caring for el Shehhi in Kandahar during Ramadan in December of 1999. Soufan painted a vivid picture of Jandal "nursing (al Shehhi) and putting soup on his lips."
"I said, 'Let me make it very clear to you. You don't know how many people in the book [of photos] works for me. You don't know how many people in the book we caught and they're cooperating,'" Soufan continued. "I said, 'Why don't you look at the book again?' He identified almost everyone in the book."
Among those Abu Jandal identified as al Qaeda members were seven of the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Abu Jandal didn't know they had been involved in the 9/11 plot because he'd been in prison. Soufan said that Abu Jandal was adamant that al Qaeda and bin Laden were not behind the attack.
"I said, 'Well, I know that al Qaeda did that. Someone told me,'" Soufan said. When Abu Jandal asked who, Soufan replied "You did."
"'I said, 'Do you know who flew the planes in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?' And I took the seven photos that he identified and put it in front of him," Soufan said. "I said, 'Those, my friend, are not my sources. Those are the people who flew the planes.' He totally collapsed."
Soufan said that when Abu Jandal realized he had given up bin Laden and al Qaeda he put his hands on face, collapsed and started shaking.
"After that, the level of cooperation was very different. We ended up spending days and days with him," Soufan said.
Abu Jandal provided nearly 100 pages of information, according to Soufan's FBI report, including intricate details about al Qaeda's training facilities, communications and weaponry. It was quite an achievement for someone who might best be described as an accidental FBI agent.
[. . .]
Soufan says he was making good progress with Zubaydah through traditional methods of questioning, but he was told that a CIA contractor, hired for his interrogation expertise, would be taking control. Soufan then watched on a closed circuit monitor as a very different approach was used.
"The plan at the time was to go in and tell Abu Zubaydah one question. Tell him, 'Tell me what I want to know.' And if Abu Zubaydah said, 'What do you want to know?' or ask any questions about that, the person is to walk out. And say, 'You know,' and walk out," Soufan said.
After the person who asked the question walked out, one of the harsh new techniques would be used, Soufan said.
Soufan said that it started with nudity and then escalated, "Then you have noise and you have sleep deprivation. And it goes from one stage to another, until he decided to cooperate," he said.
Logan asked Soufan why the individual who was now directing the interrogation was put in charge.
"I don't know," Soufan replied. "Supposedly, he's an expert in the field. So I ask him, 'Do you know anything about Islamic fundamentalism?' He said, 'No.' 'Have you ever interrogated anybody?' 'No.' He basically said, 'No, he knows human nature.'"
When asked how Zubaydah's reacted to the new approach, Soufan said that he stopped cooperating and the information dried up.
According to Soufan, after several days with nothing from Abu Zubaydah, he and his partner and a CIA interrogator were allowed to start talking to him once again, and they obtained information that led the CIA and the FBI to capture Jose Padilla, the American citizen accused of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb" in the U.S.
Soufan said that even though new information was now being elicited, he and his partners were once again told to stop talking to Abu Zubaydah.
"Suddenly, out of the blue, they said, 'Wait a second, you guys are gonna be out because we believe he's not cooperating anymore.' Which was really shocking for us to hear," Soufan said.
"So what did you do?" Logan asked.
"What can we do?" Soufan said. "We're watching time pass by with nobody talking to a detainee, day after day."
"No one even spoke to him?" Logan asked.
"No, they go in. They say, 'Tell me what I want to know.' He says, 'What do you want to know?' And you walk out. Period. That's it," Soufan said. "That's the whole interrogation plan, if you want to call it."
Soufan told Logan that for him the last straw was when he saw a "confinement box" at the site where Abu Zubaydah was being interrogated.
"That sounds like a coffin," Logan said.
"A confinement box," Soufan said to Logan. "I thought at the time we had the guy cooperating. So what's goin' on? I mean that box was not made overnight. There's something goin' on [that] we don't know about."
"What was the box for?" Logan asked.
"I don't know," Soufan said. "I mean, definitely it's, it's for, for Abu Zubaydah."
"But that was not the kind of technique that you were prepared to stick around for?" Logan asked.
"No," Soufan said. "I just felt that, literally, we're playing games...And I really cannot be part of this."
Soufan claims that he was not the only person that felt that way and that a CIA agent also left the location.
"Actually, he left before me," Soufan said. "And then we finally reported to headquarters that, you know, 'This-- what's happening' as I called it in the D.O.J., Department of Justice inspector general report 'borderline torture.' And FBI headquarters said, 'You know, you know we don't do that.'"
"Eventually, after that, they pulled all FBI agents from high-value detainees interrogations," he continued.
