More Effective Than Waterboarding: Cookies?

Image used from </em><a href="http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/ee212/not_dead_yet_2007/?action=view&current=cookie-monster.jpg"><em>Photobucket</em></a><em> under a Creative Commons license.</em>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In the week after 9/11, unleashed deep within a Yemeni prison was what might have been the most effective interrogation tool ever devised by the U.S. Government. It could be more powerful than waterboarding, sleep deprivation, naked photos, or barking dogs. It is a monster that resides within almost all of us, a shaggy, blue-haired beast with an uncontrollable urge to devour oven-baked sweets while growling, “Coooookie!”

From Time comes this account of FBI interrogator Ali Soufan’s successful attempt to win over  Al-Qaeda operative Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured:

He had no intention of cooperating with the Americans; at their first meetings, he refused even to look at them and ranted about the evils of the West. Far from confirming al-Qaeda’s involvement in 9/11, he insisted the attacks had been orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad. While Abu Jandal was venting his spleen, Soufan noticed that he didn’t touch any of the cookies that had been served with tea: “He was a diabetic and couldn’t eat anything with sugar in it.” At their next meeting, the Americans brought him some sugar-free cookies, a gesture that took the edge off Abu Jandal’s angry demeanor. “We had showed him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him,” Soufan recalls. “So he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures.”

All hail the Cookie Monster!  Seriously, his brand of monstrousness might be the the only kind we need:

Soufan, now an international-security consultant, has emerged as a powerful critic of the George W. Bush — era interrogation techniques; he has testified against them in congressional hearings and is an expert witness in cases against detainees. He has described the techniques as “borderline torture” and “un-American.” His larger argument is that methods like waterboarding are wholly unnecessary — traditional interrogation methods, a combination of guile and graft, are the best way to break down even the most stubborn subjects.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate