In this space in the past, you\u2019ve seen reviews of other books by T.C. Fuller, a retired FBI agent I shot matches with back in the day. His latest is \u201cEmpathy For the Devil,\u201d focusing on his time interrogating terrorists at Guantanamo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first thing you notice is that the Bureau has redacted certain things in the manuscript. Fair enough: national secrets are national secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vignettes of daily life in Cuba are interspersed with T.C.\u2019s take on the enemies he worked with. It turns out that terrorist fanatics have some of the same ego needs as the rest of us. One of his most successful ploys was bringing things to warlords in their jail, in front of others. This gave them status: it made them look as if the Americans were doing their bidding. To keep that ego feed going, they in turn gave interrogators like T.C. the information they wanted and needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, he can\u2019t reveal the subtle tricks of the trade, but he does share this: \u201cWe were allowed to segregate them from other detainees, completely control their living environment, deprive them of sleep, lie to them, threaten them, show them videos of just about any subject, promise them the world, start rumors about them in the cellblocks, bribe them, shine bright strobe lights in their faces, and just about anything else that didn\u2019t involve physical torture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He notes also that most of the ruthless haters and murderers were treated better and lived better in American custody than they did in their homelands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n