The Washington Independent » 24

Your One-Stop Shop for Non-Torturous Interrogations

Spencer Ackerman — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:27:44 +0000

Want to learn how Jack Bauer ought to get terrorists to divulge information against their interests? Check out Interrogations Central, a website launched last week by “Matthew Alexander,” a pseudonymous interrogator whose non-torturous interrogations contributed to the successful hunting and killing of the Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006.

Alexander pulls together an extensive library of resources on best practices in interrogations that effectively refute the dubious claim that interrogations have to be brutal to be effective. One of his featured documents is “Educing Information,” a multi-volume behavioral-science research study of legal interrogation methods from 2006 that in 2009 led the Obama administration to establish its High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, a group of the government’s best interrogators operating in accordance with the best-practices outlined in the study. (On a personal note, it was also the subject of my first-ever Washington Independent piece, way back in January 2008.)

Probably still best not to try any of this stuff at home.

Jack Bauer Does Not Exist, People

Spencer Ackerman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:45:47 +0000

One more thing about former MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller and her charges about being kept in the dark by the U.S. on torture. According to the Independent, Dame Eliza said that the Bush administration grew enamored of torture with the aid of a certain television show…

In her speech, highly critical of the US’s conduct during the war on terror, the former secret service chief implied that the leadership in Washington was inspired by watching the TV espionage thriller 24. She said: “Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld certainly watched 24″. Dame Eliza said: “The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing.” She insisted that she had been unaware of what was going on until her retirement in 2007.

That’s via Gawker.

Years ago, in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer explored the permeable membrane in the public consciousness between “24″ and actual counterterrorism.

Jack Bauer in Kabul?

Spencer Ackerman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:36:12 +0000

’24′ is hardly a template for counterinsurgency, as it glorifies brutality, particularly toward Muslims who may or may not be terrorists, rather than emphasizes protecting a population from brutality. But Center for a New American Security CEO-in-waiting Nate Fick just told a bizarre anecdote about talking with someone who was considering broadcasting ’24′ in Kabul. Fick was gobsmacked: Wouldn’t it offend Afghans to see Muslims being tortured by screaming blond Americans? Apparently not, said his interlocutor, who had polling data indicating that the only thing potential viewers cared about was whether the targets of the beating would be Afghan.

Fick was about contending that Afghans don’t really care so much about broader Islamic movements. But still: if it’s not so problematic to broadcast television shows about Americans beating the crap out of Muslims in the name of counterterrorism, the Obama administration might as well release those torture photos. Not that Fick thinks that it ought to; this is just a weird, weird anecdote.