1
For additional context, it may be worth citing what Rejali says about the experience of using sleep deprivation in the U.S.:
"American courts finally barred sleep deprivation for domestic policing during World War II. In 1941 Tennessee police subjected one suspect to sleep deprivation and interrogation for thirty-six hours until he confessed he had killed his wife".
"In 1944, the Supreme Court not only tossed out the confession as unacceptable in any democratic society," but drew a link between sleep deprivation and "the practices of certain foreign nations dedicated to"physical or mental torture."
Political Correctness
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured as the writers of the 9/11 Commission were preparing their report. If we think he was the mastermind behind the attacks, then ask him why he did it, was their understandable request. The answer was quite telling.
Mohammed had attended North Carolina A&T in Greensboro; thus, initial speculation regarding his motive centered on the supposition that he had suffered some gross indignity accounting for his hatred for America. Not so. Rather, as the 9/11 Commission reported on page 147:
"By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."
Yesterday's Washington Post article offers a revisionist view. It seems Mohammed's initial response was found to be politically incorrect by implicating "U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." Perhaps after a few more sessions of waterboarding or a few more days of sleep deprivation he came up with a more acceptable explanation of his motivation. Or perhaps the Post has been selective in picking and choosing among the various things that came out of reports from his interrogation.
In any event, without so much as a word as to why his story has changed, the Post now would have us believe that the following is the real reason:
"KSM's limited and negative experience in the United States -- which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills -- almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist," according to the [CIA] intelligence summary. "He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country."
A telling revision, indeed.
But let's also look for a moment at "debauched and racist" on its own merits. Could the hated Khalid Sheik Mohammed be speaking some truth here? If he and other Middle Eastern Muslims looked and dressed more like us, would it be so easy to demonize them -- and to torture them?
Would the Washington Post's editors be so supportive if representatives of a more favored ethnic or religious group were stripped naked before members of the opposite sex, put in diapers, immobilized with shackles in stress positions for long periods, denied sleep and made to soil themselves?
In my view, racism is very much at play here.
And "debauched?" Just read the CIA Inspector General report and decide for yourself.
And please: don't stop with a "Tsk, tsk; those interrogators were certainly debauched." We -- all of us -- let it happen. We -- all of us -- need to ensure that our country does not descend again into such depravity.
