Blowback: How Torture Leads to Terror

Arabian_Judenbusta
Published on Apr 15, 2021
Does torture lead to terror? Has the decadeslong abuse of political prisoners across the Muslim-majority world â€” not to mention in CIA black sites, U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, and the prison camp at GuantÃ¡namo Bay â€” fueled radicalization and extremism? Or is it a coincidence that some of the major figures in the jihadi movement â€” Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb; Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; Al Qaeda in Iraq founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi â€” were all victims of horrific torture?

As Mehdi Hasan points out, torture is also a recruiting sergeant for terrorist groups. It allows them to act as a vehicle for angry and outraged young men and helps bolster their propaganda war against people in power. For example, Cherif Kouachi, one of the brothers who carried out the horrific attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015, said it was â€œeverything I saw on the television, the torture at Abu Ghraib prison, all that which motivated me.â€

Hosted by Mehdi Hasan (https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan), â€œHow Torture Leads to Terrorâ€ is the fourth episode of a six-part Blowback series for The Intercept. Throughout this series, Mehdi Hasan examines key examples of blowback in greater detail and explores how foreign policy decisions by the U.S. and its allies often produce blowback and so-called unintended consequences.

The Intercept is an investigative nonprofit news organization dedicated to producing fearless, adversarial journalism. We believe journalism should bring transparency and accountability to powerful governmental and corporate institutions.

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