One of the mildest photos from Abu Ghraib.

One of the mildest photos from Abu Ghraib.

The people who get their knowledge of the world from watch FOX’s 24 and who want excuses to beat up on brown people have long touted the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM" for short) as Proof That Torture Works. Doesn’t matter that a host of persons specializing in the gathering of intelligence have shown scads of examples showing that torture doesn’t work and is in fact counterproductive and breeds resentment and resistance — the 24 fans point to the sole example they can find and "But KSM’s case proves it can work!"

Except that, as the writers of the latest Washington Monthly explain, KSM’s case doesn’t prove what the torture apologists say it does:

What follows is a set of 37 short essays by writers from all over the political spectrum, from Bob Barr on the right to Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter on the left. You can find them all here, and I’ll be highlighting a few of them throughout the week. In one of them, journalist Peter Bergen talks about the torture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

What is perhaps most astonishing of all is that the mistreatment of KSM and bin al-Shibh was entirely unnecessary. Before they were captured, they had explained the details of the 9/11 attacks in an April 2002 interview with Yosri Fouda, an Al Jazeera correspondent….The CIA provided summaries of the interrogations of KSM and bin al-Shibh to the 9/11 Commission. There is little or no difference between the account that KSM and bin al-Shibh freely volunteered to Fouda in the spring of 2002 and the version the commission published in its 2004 report. Nor was Fouda’s reporting difficult to find: he hosted a one-hour documentary on Al Jazeera, wrote a long piece in London’s Sunday Times, and coauthored a book, Masterminds of Terror, about KSM and bin al-Shibh. By the time CIA officials captured the pair, a full account of their operations was only a Google search away.

Obviously, then, it was unnecessary to waterboard KSM to find out what he knew about the 9/11 plot. What, though, of the administration’s assertion that coercive interrogation techniques have saved American lives? To assess that claim, we must examine the details of other terrorist plots that KSM gave up after his capture, presented in a document the government released in 2006:

KSM launched several plots targeting the US Homeland, including a plot in late 2001 to have … suicide operatives hijack a plane over the Pacific and crash it into a skyscraper on the US West Coast; a plan in early 2002 to send al-Qa’ida operatives to conduct attacks in the U.S.; and a plot in early 2003 to employ a network of Pakistanis … to smuggle explosives into New York and to target gas stations, railroad tracks, and a bridge in New York.

It all sounds very frightening, except that there is no indication that these plots were ever more than talk.

In other words, not only was torture unnecessary, but it was actually counterproductive. KSM produced no new information under torture, only a litany of false confessions — maybe out of vanity, maybe in an effort to protect other al-Qaeda operatives. Who knows. What we do know is that torturing KSM did no good, sent hundreds of agents scurrying after phantoms, and has made his prosecution far more difficult than it needed to be.

As Kevin Drum urges, share this story with your friends and relations and anyone else who is seduced by the "KSM proved torture works" lie. In fact, it proves the opposite.

Related posts:

  1. Fred Hiatt Wants to Know How Well Torture Works, But We Need a Volunteer
  2. Ramzi bin al-Shibh’s Lawyers Barred from Info on the Torture that Drove Him Crazy
  3. Do ABC This Week Panelists George Will et al Support Murder If It Works?
  4. Yoo’s Nightmare: A Trial Showing Torture was Unnecessary
  5. What If Civilian Trials Prove Torture Wasn’t Necessary?