Who could have possibly known torturing people will infuriate them and cause them to join together to kill their torturers? Certainly not the United States, whose prison / torture camps in Iraq radicalized thousands and led inexorably to the rise of jihadism, in yet another example of vicious, counter-productive American militarism which invariably makes things worse for the US, not better.
Many members of ISIS were members of Saddam Hussein’s secular Baath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons.
The Baath Party despised Islamists. Saddam was a thug however he kept the boot on religious extremists. He understood the threat. The US didn’t, until it was too late. By torturing captives in prison, the US pushed them into the only resistance still standing, the Islamists. Worse, upwards of 90% of those detained were there by “mistake.” They weren’t radicals when they went it – but were when released.
The rise of ISIS confirms what we’ve been saying for years ”¦ torture reduces our national security:
A former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically that torture turns people into terrorists
A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, says torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.
Gosh, it’s almost like our war machine wants to create adversaries so it can continue to roll on. “There’s plenty good money to be made / By supplying the army with the tools of the trade.”