Interrogating Khalid Shaikh Muhammad

washingtontimes ^ | 3.5.2003 | Jack Wheeler

[swarthyguy]

With the capture of top al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (known as "KSM"), getting him to disgorge the contents of his brain quickly and truthfully is critically necessary before his network has a chance to vanish undercover.

What, then, would the most efficient and effective form of interrogation be? In 1995, the Philippine State Police captured an al Qaeda agent. They knew he was planning some terrorist act, but didn't know what. So they tortured him

[sheik yerbouty]

Use Taliban methods. There are many thousands of lives at stake. He is not a POW, he is "an unlawful combatant"!

[Maceman]

I agree with what this guy says, except for how to handle the execution.

Here's my idea:

Remember when they found Mullah Omar's house in Afghanistan? I say buy it, dismantle it and bring it back in pieces to Ground Zero, where it will be reassembled as a BBQ restaurant.

It will be called "Omar's" and will feature a big gaudy flashing neon sign out front, with a grinning and winking animated pig in a chef's hat and apron -- holding a grill fork full of dangling sausages.

By the time opening night comes around, the US will have gotten whatever useful information we're going to get from Kalid.

So at the grand opening we bring him to Omar's, drench him with rendered pork fat, wrap him in a sheet, bury him in dirt up to his navel, and have a good old fashioned public stoning.

Then we finish burying, after which the restaurant can have its ribbon cutting ceremony, and the celebrating public can go in to enjoy blues music and complimentary ribs.

Omar's would be one of the bigget tourist attractions in the world. The money it makes could be put into a fund for victims of terrorism.

[Recovering_Democrat]

If this can be done, it would no doubt yield a great many results.

[ewing]

The risk would be too great of Sheikh giving up and dying.

We need all the intel that he has got.

[xm177e2]

In 1995, the Philippine State Police captured an al Qaeda agent. They knew he was planning some terrorist act, but didn't know what. So they tortured him — the old-fashioned way, right out of the movies with putting out cigarettes on his testicles, breaking his ribs, the whole brutal nine yards. It took two weeks and finally he broke, revealing a plot to hijack 11 airliners. By exposing and unraveling the plot, the torture saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, so it was clearly justified.

Actually, the Filipinos weren't able to break him through honest torture. He wouldn't talk, even as they did unspeakable things to him. They got some people to pose as Mossad agents, and the Filipinos pretended to be making a deal with Israel to turn him over to the Mossad. He broke down and started talking immediately.

[TexasRepublic]

Stake him to an antbed for a few hours.

[swarthyguy]

Khalid, meet Mr. Shapiro from the Lower East Side, New York. He divides his time between Tel Aviv and Greenwich Village. You do know where those areas are, don't you? Here, have a bagel.

[xm177e2]

It is terrifying to think of the complete destruction of an individual that is now possible with modern technology; it extends far beyond mere killing, but to the point where we are able to thwart someone's will totally. This sort of power is not something I want the government to use--I'm not even sure I want the government to have it. We have to be very careful, but I think we can torture Al-Qaeda without creating a slippery slope.

[river rat]

This kind of enemy...terrorist....is entitled to NO humane considerations..
The writer sounds like my kind of guy....
The terrorist and his family, friends, neighbors and allies - should all pay the price for his terrorist activity.

Until their society suffers for the actions of their Jihadists....there will be support and supply.

Terrorist's actions should equate to significant consequences for their home bases..

Semper Fi

[Uncle Miltie]

Damn fine approach. They hang pirates, and Al-Quaeda is just a twisted muslim version.

Might want to keep him around awhile. Bounce a few more ideas off him from time to time. I suspect he won't need hooking up to the apparatus a third time.

[swarthyguy]

I think the lack of an outcry about handing over jihadis to countries for info extraction pretty much says we have started slipping, so to speak.

Handing over jihadis for what is well known would happen to them but cannot for various reasons, do ourselves, gives those countries we hand them over to, a measure of leverage against us. We become beholden to them.

[Daus]

It will be called "Omar's"

I think I may be overtired, but THAT cracked me up.

[FairOpinion]

"The ethics of torturing KSM should not be an issue. As a practical matter, the question is: How to torture him in such a way that it takes hours, not days or weeks, for him to break; and when he does, you know for sure he is telling the truth."
-----

I htink this is the key.

As for torturing him, I think all they have to do is show him the article which talks about Bin Laden having put a price on his head (there was a genuine article which said that because Bin Laden is afraid of what Mohammed knows, Bin Laden was promising a fortune for the suicide bomber's family who would take Khalil out), and he'll sing like a canary. Why should he protect those who are out to kill him now.

[onehipdad]

Stake him to an antbed for a few hours
Yikes, reminds me of the Nevada Smith section of the Carpetbaggers - pretty creepy reading for a kid in junior high!

[CaptRon]

Oh, so it's to be the kid glove treatment, eh?

[Stopislamnow]

Ask Putin to send some of his ol KGB pals over?

[CaptRon]

Do you suppose the all have this image of standing before allah after we cap them saying "I sure told them, didn't I"?

[PatriotGames]

This is a good idea.

However, everyone should read what Gen. Pershing did to dead muslims in the Phillipines at the turn of the 20th century.

[Billthedrill]

Always the Mister Nice Guy, huh?

The KGB had several effective methods of gently persuading a prisoner to part with information. One involved a trip down seven levels under the Lubyanka to an unpleasant little room in which the prisoner was left, naked and secured. One starving rat at a time was let into the room. It was supposedly very effective.

Another involved a vise and the prisoner's thumb entrapped therein...or other, rather obvious body parts. A third, somewhat similar method involved the interrogator simply standing over the prisoner and politely asking for the information, which the prisoner, as a reasonable human being, gave the interrogator openly and without further coercion...after which the interrogator would remove his jackboot from standing upon the prisoners genitals...sometimes right away, sometimes not...