Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Confession Under Torture Is Useless

Finally a news story I can speak to with some authority. Let’s talk about torture. Now the kind I am familiar with is a kind of "play" torture. It is consensual, and for the most part safe. I have done interrogation "scenes" quite often, and though the people I am interrogating are not terrorists or criminals, they do their best to avoid giving me the information I want. That is they way we play our game.

They know that if they tell me what I want to know, the torture will stop. Usually, we have prearranged some bit of information that is the goal, but sometimes they may not realize I planted that information until the scene begins. For example, one person who wanted to do this kind of scene met me for dinner one night. I began talking about the events of WWII and specifically the research being done by German physicist Werner Heisenberg. They seemed interested and I gave them lots of details about his work in quantum physics as well as a possible conversation he may have had with Niels Bohr on a visit to Denmark during the war.

My friends know I have a variety of interests but I suspect this conversation seemed a little out of place, so it stuck with them. When we did the interrogation scene a few days later, I assumed the persona of a Nazi and the whole scene was done in a combination of German and English. What I wanted to know was whom Heisenburg had spoken to when he visited Denmark.

OK, so we had a little theatrical role-play going on, but the interrogation session was far from theatrical. I used real posture techniques and very painful torture in my questioning. The partner who I was playing with was very stubborn and the game was to see if they would break and tell me the info. After several hours which included such activities as electrical shocks with a cattle prod, rough body play including slaps to the face and punches to the body, and a variety of other nasty and painful techniques, they broke.

I got not only Neils Bohr’s name but they agreed they were part of the conversation and knew details they could never have known. Later, after we had a chance to decompress and come down from the scene, my friend told me they didn’t even know what they were saying. They were just agreeing to anything to make the pain stop.

For those of you who may be already questioning the sanity of this kind of play, I can assure you that both my partner and I had a great time. We were both very exhausted but happy afterward, and agreed to do it again sometime, albeit in a different kind of arrangement.

The point of this story is to let you know that even the kind of torture dished out in a consensual SM scene, which is mild compared to "water-boarding" and other CIA nastiness can elicit a confession that is completely false. Granted what we were doing was a "scene" but while it was going on, the body’s fight or flight mechanisms were working at full capacity and the reactions were identical to someone in a real torture situation.

CIA operatives who have been through torture situations to understand what they might be up against usually break in a few minutes. That word "break" is key. A person being tortured enough will confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby if put under enough stress. After a while, your mind screams, "tell them whatever they want you to say to get them to stop!"

That said, the confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are pretty much useless. He was tortured and we will never know how much since the government has redacted the details. Confessions made under torture are useless, and every military expert knows it. That is why the recent announcement that Mohammed has admitted to everything from 9/11 to plots to blow up the Sears Tower is not only useless, but also way too convenient. This comes as the Bush administration is beginning to undergo the scrutiny it deserves for its dirty dealing involving the use of torture and various misdeeds including scrutiny of Alberto Gonzales. This is another example of the Bush tactic of "look over there". It’s misdirection from the real story and should be treated as such until all the facts come out, if they ever do.