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Col. David Hackworth
former
military journalist
US Army soldier
(deceased)
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Amidst rising extremist attacks in the news, Sophie&Co
talks with veteran U.S. intelligence official
Excerpting from transcript, editing, end comment by Carolyn Bennett
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M
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ark Fallon is Senior Vice President for Learning and
Knowledge Development at The Soufan Group, a New York City enterprise that,
according to its website, “provides strategic security intelligence services to
governments and multinational organizations, training programs, security
services, and research insights … knowledge and skills to prepare for, manage
and respond to constantly evolving security needs; … applies decades of
operational experience, supported by academic research, to all of [its] training
programs and consulting engagements.… The Soufan Group’s representatives
regularly appear as featured speakers at security, business, diplomatic, and
social events.”
The her February 9, 2015 interview, Sophie Shevarnadze looks
at the “Terror … trend of 21st century,” tied to the US “War on Terror”, its flourishing
month by month as more and more people “from all strata of society” and from various
countries join the ranks of “extremists.” These are some of the questions she
ponders with Mark Fallon.
What
moves them to war?
How
can terror be fought?
Who’s
to blame for a world in which we have to live under everyday threat of
terrorist attack?
Should
we talk with those labeled “terrorist”?
Origin in prior crimes, human rights
abuse
The government in power created “misguided policies” and for
decades to come, Mark Fallon said, we will pay “an incredible price.” Among
the misguided policies he cited are “Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib” as “major
recruiting assets for terrorists groups.” Programs such as the “CIA’s RDI
program” and “EIT, which gravitated from the CIA to Guantanamo Bay”; individuals
such as “the general in charge of Guantanamo Bay who was sent into Iraq and is credited
with ‘Gitmo-izing’ Iraq and contributing to what happened at Abu Ghraib.”
RDI:
“rendition, detention and interrogation program” employed by US Central
Intelligence Agency
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| Notorious US Guantanamo Bay prison |
EIT:
enhanced interrogation techniques, “the U.S. government’s program of systematic
torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at
black sites around the world, including Bagram, (Bagram Airfield, the largest
U.S. military base in Afghanistan, located next to the ancient city of Bagram),
Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), and Abu Ghraib (a city in the Al Anbar Governorate of
Iraq just west of Baghdad’s city center, northwest of Baghdad International
Airport) authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration.”
Torture methods [criminal acts, human
rights abuses] included “prolonged stress positions, hooding, subjection to
deafening noise, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation
of food and drink; waterboarding, walling, nakedness, subjection to extreme
cold, confinement in small coffin-like boxes, and repeated slapping or beating;
also cases of forced rectal feeding and threats to harm family members” [Wikipedia]
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| Notorious US Bagram Airbase Afghanistan |
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F
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allon continued
“From my perspective, my professional opinion is that RDI
program was a significant threat to our national security because it actually
enabled Al-Qaeda and other groups to recruit terrorists to fight against us and
to raise funding to use against us.
“It was clearly, clearly, a terrible mistake [MISTAKE!?];
and it’s a price we’re going to continue to pay.”
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| Identity Once US allied during Cold War |
Origin in Human beings disaffected, needing
identity
Fallon said his investigations on the “terrorist” issue had
taken him around the world, into Northern Ireland, France, Southeast Asia, some
Scandinavian countries; he had participated in studies on the issue and had “talked
to a number of violent extremists and other combatants”; and on the basis of
this investigation, he concluded that “They all seem to want to belong to something,”
He said. “If you look at the backgrounds—if you look at that
generally, across the spectrum—they are from disaffected groups, populations.… They
all seem to want to belong to something.”
Talking to these individuals, he found, “there are triggers
that might set them off but it is generally, … with them that sense of identity
that drives them to group, and gets them to engage in the activities that that
group wants them to do. …” Recruiters capitalize on their being from
disaffected groups and needing a sense of identity “by giving them a source of
identity.”
This need vulnerable to exploitation cuts across socio
economic or class level and educational achievement, he said. “…Some people
might be highly educated, some might be uneducated, but generally, across the
board, it is that sense of identity that drives them.”
Seeming to bring the issue home to a shared humanity, Fallon
says “We are all individuals …. We are all human beings; and as despicable as
their actions might be…, they are human beings and the best way to approach
them is through understanding. Then capitalize on their nature, once you
understand where they are coming from.”
Negotiate with “terrorists”?
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| Round table illus. of equals not terrorists |
Mark Fallon said, “I think they have to enter into some type
of dialog. … I think there is room to have communications with ISIS.”
Elaborating further, he said that to say “we don’t negotiate with
terrorists” might be, for example, in a context of hostage exchange but “we certainly have developed assets within terrorist organizations: we are
listening to terrorists; we are creating counter-narratives to what they’re
saying. So, it is important that we hear what message they are
trying to send, and really determine the underlying messages that they are
trying to communicate.”
As to communicating particularly with ISIS, he explained, “It depends on your
definition of ‘negotiate with them’ Certainly,
there was some type of dialog at some point because there were discussions
about the pilot (the latest widely publicized incident) being released, although it seemed to be a ploy and a
subterfuge on the part of ISIS.”
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T
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he upshot is, Fallon says, “…You cannot expect to be totally
devoid of any type of communications. There will be contact. There will be
communications …in any type of conflict.”
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| US seat of misguided governance |
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| US seat of misguidedgovernance |
Any sane person can see what government officials refuse to see: That they must communicate. They must talk. They must negotiate—unless, of course, their intentions are anything but solving problems and resolving conflict.
Unless they want to perpetuate the terror their policies and
practices create. Unless they want endless conflict, endless war that fills the
personal coffers of corrupt leaders with military industrial complex kickbacks made
possible by fear-driven public funding.
Sources and notes
Pegged to killings and executions in Middle East (Jordan), Sophie
Shevarnadze speaks with Mark Fallon, veteran U.S. intelligence official,
interrogation expert: “CIA torture based on ‘voodoo science’ of advocates - US
intelligence expert”
February 9, 2015, http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/230475-cia-torture-terror-war/
Dissenter (2013): “A Comprehensive Look at the CIA’s
Rendition, Detention & Torture Program” by Kevin Gosztola Tuesday February
5, 2013: “A major report on the CIA’s rendition, detention and interrogation
(RDI) program was released today by the Open Society Justice Initiative. It is
one of the most comprehensive examinations of the program to date.”
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/02/05/a-comprehensive-look-at-the-cias-rendition-detention-torture-program/
The Soufan Group, http://soufangroup.com/
A prominent military journalist and highly decorated
United States Army soldier, Colonel David Haskell Hackworth (November 11, 1930
– May 4, 2005).
_______________________________________________________A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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