Book Review: How to Break a Terrorist

4 out of 5 stars

What worked:

• Great examples of how approaches work a layperson would get
• Quick read
• Gets you involved in the fate of the subjects
• the Randy-isms

What didn’t work:

• Too short
• Only discussed the hunt for al-Zaraqwi from the point of view of his unit

2 years ago I was having breakfast with some friends of my uncle’s before a Christmas tree hunt. On the TV a story popped on discussing waterboarding and its use in interrogations. One of the fellas at the table popped off that waterboarding isn’t torture and was the best way to “get them to talk”.

When I tried to interject that waterboarding was great for scaring the crap out of someone but would give you crap information, I got what I call the “Jack Bauer argument”. You know, <play some really tense music please and read this with a gravely voice of Don LaFontaine> you have a bomber in custody who knows where a nuclear bomb is planted. There is only one way to get him to talk before it is too late <end with a close up of Jack who has the GUTS to do what must be done>.

How to break a Terrorist by Matthew Alexander with John R. Bruning details Alexander’s role in using the ‘new school’ of interrogations techniques based on rapport, respect of culture and approaches that play on the subject’s hope that proved invaluable in the hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The book is a quick read (finished in about 2 nights) and discusses in very understandable prose how these techniques and approaches arose from ones used in criminal investigations and car sales (ever have a sales person go ‘get their boss’ before you leave? This is an approach), how rapport is built using doppelgangers regardless of what the subject has done, and the frustrations with those who still believe that harsh interrogations are the way to go.

It also talks about the dilemma faced when you have built rapport with the subject and have offered them hope as a way to get them to cooperate but know that in reality the subject’s crimes has sealed their fate.

Yet even with this book detailing how more information was pulled out of a subject in 6 hours using the new techniques than was extracted in a month of the old techniques of fear and control, you still get the believers of the Jack Bauer arguments like Sean Hannity shooting their mouth’s off in this interview with Alexander. If it wasn’t for Ollie North blabbering about al Zarqawi at the opening of the interview, I would have loved to seen Alexander look at Hannity and say “I broke a senior Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader in the 6 hours using rapport! You still thing torturing someone who is expecting it is going to get information faster than that?” when Hannity cut him off for time at the end.

Sad that a comedy show did a better interview with him than a news show.