A newly uncensored report, forced into the open by a British court, reveals that British intelligence agency MI5 knew about torture of a British citizen by the United States. This information comes along with the revelation that top British judges covered up MI5 knowledge of the abuses at the request of the British Foreign Secretary.
There was no foreign security need to cover up what MI5 knew about torture by the United States. The techniques used to torture Binyam Mohamed weren’t some kind of sophisticated routine that needed to be kept from the eyes of Al Quaida. They were brutally simple: Mohamed was prevented from sleeping for long periods of time, shackled, and threatened with extraordinary rendition into a secret torture prison from which he would never be allowed to leave.
MI5 agents concluded that the American torture of Mohamed was illegal, “causing him significant mental stress and suffering,” and “at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities”. The mental disturbance caused by the techniques were so great that American authorities concluded that Mohamed likely wanted to kill himself.
Coercion, as well as torture itself, is against the law. Beyond the legalities, however, such tactics are known to be ineffective. Prolonged sleep deprivation causes resistance to weaken, but also leads to delusions, so that people being interrogated using sleep deprivation techniques provide unreliable information when they crack. American interrogation was both criminal and incompetent.
Compare that to the results that were gained when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the incompetent wanna-be terrorist who couldn’t explode his way out of a paper bag, was interrogated in a legal manner. He was read his miranda rights, placed within the legal American justice system, and debriefed without any torture or coercion. As a result, Abdulmutallab is cooperating, providing reliable information about the individuals and organizations who helped him attempt terrorism.
