Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Morsels of Truth - Cookies Beat Torture

The Dickster is of course lying about the torture he authorized and it's effectiveness. He can't help it, he lies out of reflex now the habit is so ingrained. And he's a frightened and pathetic little man. But it turns out that what really worked, what really provided the most and the best actionable intelligence was a cookie, sugar free cookies to be precise: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901491,00.html

One of the FBI's top experts on terrorism and interrogation and a harsh critic of the bu$hite tactics of torture, Ali Soufan, interrogated the man closest to Osama who has ever been in custody, his bodygaurd Abu Jandal. A man charged with protecting Bin Laden and ensuring that he was never captured alive. He got nowhere until he gave the diabetic man sugarfree cookies. He thereby showed him respect and became a human being in his eyes instead of an evil westerner.

Soufan has testified before congress about the ineffectiveness of torture and says that contrary to Cheney's claims that torture was used succesfully it was these types of methods, not the harsh techniques, that prompted al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to give up the identities of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attack and Jose Padilla the dirty bomber. Soufan says that once the CIA brought a private contractor to start the rough stuff, Zubaydah stopped cooperating.

Apparently, top experts in the field of interrogation agree with Soufan that resorting to torture, means you've lost control of the situation and leads to poor results compared to standard techniques. I know personnally I'd spill my guts for some oatmeal scotchies warm from the oven. But I can't help but wonder, if the recruiting pamphlets that Al Qiada is handing out all over the middle-east showed Americans bearing cookies instead of chains, electrical wires, sexual/religious humiliation and water-boarding might they not be having the success they've had at demonizing us with our own actions.

Anyway you can't be a beacon of light when you're working on the darkside like the slimebucket war criminals, Cheney and friends.

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