Sleepless in Midland

Junior Jihadists in Philly -- maybe Islamophobia is a realistic attitude afterall

We've been hearing for years that Islam is a religion of peace and that Islamophobia was reactionary and politically incorrect. Yet the ancient Islamic teachings are anything but peaceful toward those who don't accept those teachings.

So here come these children being taught to sing a call to battle the infidels. Shocking video of children in Philadelphia Muslim Society: 'We will chop off their heads' for Allah. Excerpt:

Disturbing footage of Muslim kids saying they would sacrifice themselves and kill for the "army of Allah" surfaced from an Islamic center in Philadelphia.

The Muslim American Society (MAS) Islamic Center in Philadelphia posted the video to its Facebook page celebrating "Ummah Day" in which young children wearing Palestinian scarves sang and read poetry about killing for Allah and the mosque in Jerusalem.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a watchdog group, alerted Fox News to the video.

"These are not isolated incidents; they are happening in major centers of the country – including in Pennsylvania," MEMRI said in a statement.

In the video, translated by MEMRI, kids can be heard singing: "The land of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey is calling us. Our Palestine must return to us."

It's a chilling reminder of what James Mitchell disclosed about Islam's true believers in his book "Enhanced Interrogation."

He [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ] said the terror attacks were good, but the practical way to defeat America was through immigration and by outbreeding non- Muslims' He said jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the united states, taking advantage of the welfare system to support themselves while they spread their jihadi message. They will wrap themselves in America's rights and laws for protection, ratchet up acceptance of Sharia law, and then, only when they were strong enough, rise up and violently impose sharia from within. He said the brothers would relentlessly continue their attacks and the American people eventually would become so tired, so frightened, and so weary of war that they would just want it to end. "Eventually," KSM said, "America will expose her neck to us for slaughter."

Happy Ramadan.

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1:25 PM 5/5/2019

Fact check: McCain really did break under torture

There are ample reasons to be against torture as a government sanctioned practice. Chief among them would be that people inclined to actually conduct the torture may be doing it for the wrong reasons.

However, the excuse, "because it doesn't work," is wrong. Enhanced interrogation conducted on terrorists when it was legal actually produced useful information that likely saved lives.

And of course, we can't talk about torture without bringing up John McCain. He has routinely denounced the practice, and he has good reason, having been subjected to some form of it while being held prisoner by the Viet Cong. But he should be the last person to say it doesn't work. Here's a snippet from his speech at the 2008 Republican Convention:

A lot of prisoners had it much worse... A lot of -- a lot of prisoners had it a lot worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as many others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me.

It's doubtful that he had any intelligence that would have been useful to his captors. But if he did, they would have gotten it. In his own words, "they broke me."

That doesn't excuse the crude remarks made by Thomas McInerney about McCain on TV. See Fox News Bans Guest Analyst Who Said Torture ‘Worked’ on John McCain. His words could have been a little more artful and less insulting even though some of what he said was true.

Disclosure: Although I'm currently not a McCain fan, I did donate to his presidential campaign a decade ago.

Related: Speaking out on torture and a Trump nominee, ailing McCain roils Washington.

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12:21 PM 5/12/2018

Reminder -- Dianne Feinstein outed the architects of enhanced interrogation

Maybe the voting will be complete by the time this post gets published. But as of the time of this writing, Dianne Feinstein claims she will vote against the confirmation of Gina Haspel as CIA director. The issue has become another partisan cause for those who want to oppose anything and everything Donald Trump proposes.

Whatever happens, it's useful to recall that Ms. Haspel was the one who implemented the destruction of the video recordings that may have existed of the actual enhanced recover techniques in operation. The reason for the destruction was to protect the identity of those who participated in the project.

In that connection, it's also useful to recall that Feinstein or someone in her office leaked enough information to the media that allowed them to identify at least one of the psychologists who came up with the enhanced interrogation techniques that eventually go put in place. That psychologist had to go undercover for a while to avoid potential assassins. Read the story in James Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation." The book was reviewed at How the Use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Saved Thousands of American Lives.

There have been many other Feinstein leaks. Is there any doubt that if those enhanced interrogation videos still existed they would eventually appear in terrorist propaganda videos?

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2:49 PM 5/11/2018

Feinstein's leak -- not the first time

What would Diane Feinstein not leak? Anything that might harm Democrats. That seems to be a reasonable observation based on her media leaks.

Her release of the transcript of the interview with Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS wasn't the first. Her reason is known to her. But at least one Senator made the observation that the release would provide a way for future witnesses to get their stories coordinated. See Chuck Grassley: Dianne Feinstein's leak could make people 'more reserved' about testifying.

Another Feinstein leak was the outing of James Mitchell, one of the psychologists who implemented enhanced interrogation techniques on captured terrorists. See Hypocrisy alert -- Democrats feigned outrage over alleged Valarie Plame outing by a Republican but go silent when one of their own does it in this blog.

There's one thing we can probably count on, and that's that she won't leak anything that could harm Democrats. However, anything that can harm Republicans is fair game.

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2:38 PM 1/12/2018

OUT: Enhanced interrogation. IN: Rapport with interviewee

We've talked on these pages about James Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation." And in it, Dr. Mitchell provides a convincing case for enhanced interrogation of captured terrorists to elicit information that might save lives in the future. Much has happened since he practiced that art, including his getting sued by the ACLU. The case ended in a settlement, so there will be no transcripts of sworn testimony made public.

Enhanced interrogation fell out of favor rather quickly as Democrats discovered one more reason to condemn President Bush. So now to get someone hostile to your way of life to divulge information you have to be nice to them.

Here's a glimpse of that process at The scientists persuading terrorists to spill their secrets. Some excerpts:

The best interviewers are versatile: they know when to be sympathetic, when to be direct and forthright. What they rarely do is impose their will on the interviewee, either overtly, through aggression, or covertly, through the use of “tricks” – techniques of unconscious manipulation, which make the interviewer feel smart but are often seen through by interviewees. Above all, rapport, in the sense used by the Alisons, describes an authentic human connection. “You’ve got to mean it,” is one of Laurence’s refrains.

The Alisons named their research project Orbit (Observing Rapport-based Interpersonal Techniques). Part of its purpose is to provide an anatomy of rapport, the better to understand what creates and destroys it. At the heart of the Alisons’ model is an insight from a neighbouring field. During the years when she worked on police cases with Laurence, Emily Alison had come to see interrogation as a close relation of addiction counselling. Both involve getting someone who does not want to be in the same room as you to talk about something they do not want to talk about.

... One of their most striking findings is that suspects are likelier to talk when the interviewer emphasises their right not to. “The more pressure you put on a person, the less likely they are to speak to you. You need to make them feel responsible for their choices,” said Laurence. “You can’t bullshit, you’ve got to mean it.” He slips into character. “Ian, you don’t have to speak to me today. Whether you do or not isn’t up to me. It isn’t up to your solicitor. It’s up to you.

“These are powerful tools to get inside someone’s head,” said Laurence. “But they’re not tricks. You have to be genuinely curious. There’s a reason this person has ended up opposite you, and it’s not just because they’re evil. If you’re not interested in what that is, you’re not going to be a good interrogator.”

If it works better than waterboarding, then all the better. And now that the Obama administration is out of office, maybe more high value terrorists will be captured and given the opportunity to spill their guts.

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12:56 PM 11/23/2017

Google company dogma has a lot in common with Sharia law

In the archives of this blog are a few posts about James Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation." That book contains a trove of information about Islam, terrorism, Sharia law, and other subjects the detainees opened up to him about.

In one of the chapters he relays a conversation in which one of the captured terrorists explained that Sharia law equals freedom. The rationale was that because the rules are laid out plainly, it freed the people from making decisions.

Compare this with the fiasco at Google in which an employee was hounded out of the company because he didn't subscribe whole heartedly to the politically correct mindset in the company.

I didn't make the connection until Michael Barone's use of the word "dogma" drove it home in his article, Google's 'tolerance' requires repression. To wit:

And Google's tacit endorsement of the quasi-religious dogma that a fair society must produce gender balance and proportionate ethnic representation is at war with both experience and logic.

Defenders of that dogma say that rejecting it would justify gender and ethnic discrimination. But that's exactly wrong. Just follow James Damore's advice: "Treat people as individuals, not just as another member of their group."

The dogma is needed to justify the elaborate apparatus of gender and racial quotas and preferences and the lavish campus and corporate diversity bureaucracies to enforce them and stamp out heresy. As a reliable transmitter of free thought, Google seems headed down the path toward the Spanish Inquisition.

Freedom, in the minds of many of the techies on the West Coast -- as well as many on college campuses these days -- is freedom from associating with anyone who isn't of the correct mindset. Just like Sharia.

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11:23 AM 8/10/2017

We should take Linda Sarsour at her word as she calls for jihad

She's got a right in the U.S. to say whatever she wants. And we should pay attention, because although some might try to say she's on the extreme edge, she probably speaks for a lot of Muslims. See Linda Sarsour Calls for ‘Jihad’ Against Trump Administration. She said this in an address to the Islamic Society of North America, “the largest umbrella group of Muslims in North America.”

We would do well to remember some passages from James Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation" in which he recounted some of his conversations with detained terrorists. Beginning on page 180 he describes the four types of jihad, to wit:

They [KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and the other detainees] told me there are four kinds of jihad: jihad by the heart, jihad by the tongue, jihad by the hand, and jihad by the sword. ...

They said that each True Muslim man was obliged to take up the sword to defend Islam and that deception to distract one's enemies or put them off guard or gain some other fighting advantage was permissible.

They said that those who cannot take up the sword are obliged to promote Allah's will through jihad by the hand. Usually this refers to acts other than fighting. Again deception is acceptable. One could, for example, conduct jihad by the hand by using money collected for charity to fund jihadist terror attacks or by establishing outreach programs that are intended to promote Islam but also radicalize fighters. A third example would be establishing mosques that promote their brand of Islam in infidel territory.

Deception in jihad by the tongue can entail pretending to promote acculturation into Western democracies while behind the scenes promoting the establishment of Sharia law. KSM told me he could see Muslim brothers after 9/11, condemning the terror attacks in the media while celebrating in their hearts.

Finally, KSM said, deception also has a place in jihad of the heart. Individuals who because of adverse circumstances must say and do things that are contrary to their true beliefs and cannot engage in any of the other forms of jihad can practice jihad of the heart by struggling to keep faith with Allah while surrounded by enemies of faith.

That chapter ended on this terrifying note:

He said the terror attacks were good, but the practical way to defeat America was through immigration and by outbreeding non- Muslims' He said jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the united states, taking advantage of the welfare system to support themselves while they spread their jihadi message. They will wrap themselves in America's rights and laws for protection, ratchet up acceptance of Sharia law, and then, only when they were strong enough, rise up and violently impose sharia from within. He said the brothers would relentlessly continue their attacks and the American people eventually would become so tired, so frightened, and so weary of war that they would just want it to end. "Eventually," KSM said, "America will expose her neck to us for slaughter."

Linda Sarsour was calling out to the troops. And while she appeared to target Donald Trump, she's probably merely hoping to take advantage of the anti-Trump mania we're seeing in the media. More likely, she would wage that jihad against the whole of the United States. We should appreciate her honesty, after all, deception is an acceptable jihadi tactic. But we should also be mindful of her warning and endeavor to guard against the Sharia oppression she would so happily inflict on us.

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2:28 PM 7/7/2017

Book review of James Mitchell's Enhanced Interrogation

We've talked about Dr. Mitchell's book in previous posts. It was a very enlightening book about his work as a CIA contractor implementing the approved enhanced interrogation techniques on captured terrorists with the objective of thwarting future attacks. The full title is Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying To Destroy America.

Janet Levy posted a review at How the Use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Saved Thousands of American Lives where she provided numerous factoids in an easily readable piece. And she mentioned one thing I had forgotten, to wit:

Another little-discussed side benefit of EIT was that terrorist detainees were conditioned to cooperate in interrogations when they expected that harsh techniques might be used, even when they weren’t going to be used.  Mitchell explains that this type of Pavlovian anticipation meant that EIT could be tapered off after an average of 72 hours.

The book is well worth reading. Or if that's too much to ask, Ms. Levy's review serves as a good summation for anyone interested in the positive aspects of the program.

10 Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

The other day I mentioned James E. Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation." And in it he listed and described EITs on pages 52 and 53. To wit:

This is a list of the techniques that finally were approved:

Attention grasp. Grasping the detainee with both hands, with one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the detainee is drawn toward the interrogator.

Walling. The detainee is pulled forward and then quickly and firmly pushed into a flexible false wall so that his shoulder blades hit the wall. His head and neck are supported with a rolled towel to prevent whiplash.

Facial hold. The interrogator places an open palm on either side of the detainee's face with the interrogator's fingertips kept well way from the detainee's eyes.

Facial or insult slap. The interrogator's fingers are slightly spread apart, and his hand makes contact with the area between the tip of the detainee's chin and the bottom of the corresponding earlobe.

Cramped confinement. The detainee is placed in a confined space, typically a small or large box, which is usually dark. Confinement in the smaller space lasts no more than two hours, and in the larger space it lasts for up to eighteen hours.

Insects. Harmless insects can be placed in the confinement box with the detainee.

Stress positions. The detainee sits on the floor with his legs extended straight out in front of him and with his arms raised above his head, or kneels on the floor while leaning back at a 45-degree angle.

Wall standing. The detainee may stand about four to five feet from a wall with his feet spread approximately to shoulder width. His arms are stretched out in front of him, and his fingers rest on the wall to support all of his body weight. The detainee is not allowed to reposition his hands or feet.

Sleep depredation. Not to exceed eleven days at a time.

Waterboard. The detainee is bound to a bench with his feet elevated above his head. The detainees head is immobilized, and an interrogator places a cloth over the detainee's mouth and nose while pouring water onto the cloth in a controlled manner. Airflow is restricted for twenty to forty seconds, and the technique produces the sensation of drowning and suffocation.

Meanwhile, the Convention against Torture defines torture as follows:

To provide the requisite clarity for purposes of domestic law, the United States therefore conditioned its ratification upon an understanding that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.

The issue has gotten very political, but readers should decide for themselves whether they think any of those interrogation techniques constitute torture for purposes of the Convention.

Enhanced Interrogation-- watch EIT architect on CSPAN2

James Mitchell authored the book, "Enhanced Interrogation," which is an insider's view of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on terrorists.

He was on CSPAN the other day, and that program will be re-run Monday, 1/30/2017, from 3am til 4:30am Central on CSPAN2. If that's inconvenient, visitors who don't mind allowing CSPAN2 to plant cookies, it can be watched at this link.

I'm currently reading his book which I'll go into at a later date. But for starters, he provides some valuable lessons about EITs. First, they work. Second, they were used by the CIA not to punish, but to obtain intelligence that would prevent future attacks. So when politicians get high and mighty about EITs, it's useful to remember that the alternative might be a terrorist attack.

Set your VCR.

Hypocrisy alert -- Democrats feigned outrage over alleged Valarie Plame outing by a Republican but go silent when one of their own does it

I started reading James E. Mitchell's book, Enhanced Interrogation -- you can tell by the title what it's about. And I got p*ssed off before even getting through the preface. No, I'm not p*ssed because Mitchell was involved in the process. It's because Diane Feinstein or her staff outed Mitchell to the media.

Recall how Democrats made such a huge deal over the possibility that a Republican had outed Valarie Plame as a CIA operations officer. Based on the press coverage one would have thought some evil Republican was out to destroy reputations, careers, and lives. They were wrong, and it became a non-story once the real leaker turned out to be someone they didn't want to ruin.

However, outing Mitchell really could have been a life ending leak considering that ISIS called for his beheading. Luckily he survived. And apparently either he is currently well hidden or the threat has subsided.

But the double standard is breathtaking. Little wonder that so many people find it so easy to ignore Democrats' outrage these days, whatever the outrage of the day happens to be.