Ooh, look, actual reporting from the Washington Post. How refreshing.
In April 2002, as the terrorism suspect known as Abu Zubaida lay in a Bangkok hospital bed, top U.S. counterterrorism officials gathered at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., for a series of meetings on an urgent problem: how to get him to talk.
Put him in a cell filled with cadavers, was one suggestion, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the brainstorming sessions. Surround him with naked women, was another. Jolt him with electric shocks to the teeth, was a third.
One man’s certitude lanced through the debate, according to a participant in one of the meetings. James E. Mitchell, a retired clinical psychologist for the Air Force, had studied al-Qaeda resistance techniques.
“The thing that will make him talk,” the participant recalled Mitchell saying, “is fear.”
I don’t know how they forgot the old ‘lop off one digit at a time’ trick. One of the lessons I hope that we somehow manage to learn from this mess is that one of the greatest dangers from a massive terrorist attack is in the aftermath…in how we react to it and what he allow to happen to our common humanity and national values.
After 9/11, our government failed that test, as did our poorly-led citizenry. We may find ourselves facing a similar test in the future. We need to learn these lessons now, so we didn’t repeat these mistakes again.
