The general turned himself in to try and free his sons. He walked into custody. He was cooperative initially, but his interrogators wanted more, so they escalate:
"In an interrogation that could be witnessed by the entire detainee population, Mowhoush was put into an undescribed "stress position" that caused the other detainees to stand "with heads bowed and solemn looks on their faces," said the document." The prisoners' response to the general's humiliation was of profound humiliation and solidarity. As the individual was debased the group was unifed in opposition.
If you listen to the complaints of Muslims from London, to Israel, to Iraq, and throughout the Islamic world, you will find a constant preoccupation with humiliation. Everyone can relate to humiliation, but it has a special intensity among Muslims. Humiliation on the street, at checkpoints, etc. It keeps blood boiling and conflicts escalating.
So to use humiliation as a cornerstone of our presence in Iraq, is mind bogglingly stupid and counter indicated. To have it promulgated as official policy for detentions and interrogations is mad. It's not simply a betrayal of our national principles, on a practical level it makes things worse. From a cynical perspective one could argue that using humiliating techniques or the threat thereof might help to break key individuals in private (or not), but public, collective humiliation galvanizes and inspires resistance to the death. When our probelm is the proliferation of people willing and eager to die in their fight against us this is a nakedly self destructive strategy.
After the general was humiliated publicly, "He did not deny he was behind the attacks as he had denied previously, he simply said because I had humiliated him, he would not be able to stop the attacks." The implication is that the general could have stopped attacks had he not been humiliated, but since his dignity had been so debased he would rather die than cooperate. Sadly, Americans obliged. Humiliating the general rather than negotiating with him as a leader and as a father led to the loss of operational intelligence, endangered our troops, and strengthened the insurgency.
A powerful sense of humiliation is almost always cited as a key motivation by suicide bombers. In this case it turned a potentially cooperative secular Iraqi into someone willing to die in opposition in order to protect his sense of dignity. While we should not shrink from taking strong stands that might offend, and while our interrogators should have a range of options available to them, that a policy of humiliation has become so integral in our operations around the world is not only a crying shame but a cause for alarm. There is no doubt that our systematic humiliation of Muslims and secular nationalists alike is generating armies of life long enemies of the United States. It is unprincipled, unnecessary, and every day makes us less secure.
