That
interrogation techniques are right now such an evident part of the public discourse in America, confirms what is good about the country: That all of her citizens can discuss and debate these issues openly and with impunity.
The context on the other hand -- locked up in loaded terms like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the Bybee memo, and waterboarding -- suggest darker themes, implying an extreme
abuse of power not historically associated (overtly at least) with the United States. The issue has been thoroughly politicized but remains at heart whether, or to what degree, the CIA's interrogation and torture techniques applied to suspected terrorists have subverted the authority and reputation of the U.S. in the world. Or, whether these techniques have reaffirmed the nation's manifest might.
As the debate continues, we present five things you didn't know about interrogation techniques.
1- You can't train to endure some interrogation techniques
The first thing you didn't know about interrogation techniques is that no amount of training can prepare you for some of them. Darius Rejali, a political science professor and author of
Torture and Democracy, notes that this is one of the myths associated with torture techniques. While plenty of secret government manuals have been written and distributed, including the IRA's
Green Book, the anti-Soviet
Manual for Psychiatry for Dissidents and Torture, the Iranian guerrilla manual
Interrogation Experience, and the CIA's
Human Resources Exploitation Manual, none of them make the overt claim that there is any step-by-step method to endure some interrogation techniques, namely ones involving pain. "The thing that's most clear from torture-victim studies," Rejali wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press in 2007, "is that you can't train for the ordeal."
2- Jack Bauer has influenced U.S. interrogation doctrine
Dahlia Lithwick, writing for
Newsweek in 2008, regrettably calls
24 hero Jack Bauer (played by
Kiefer Sutherland) both "the prime mover of American interrogation doctrine" and "the most influential legal thinker in the development of modern American interrogation policy."
Lithwick bases this conclusion on two recently published books: Jane Mayer's
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals and Philippe Sands's
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. She writes that the legal team establishing U.S. policy, including primary author John Yoo, had a tendency to cite Bauer more often than the U.S. Constitution. Also, that people within the Bush administration, such as United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, as well as military personnel at
Guantanamo, consistently drew inspiration from the fictional Bauer's cutthroat techniques.
3- Some interrogation techniques harm the interrogator
Another thing you didn't know about interrogation techniques is that they may be just as hard on the interrogator. Former U.S. military interrogator Tony Lagouranis told London's
Sunday Telegraph that the techniques he applied to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Mosul -- including mock executions,
stress positions and implied terror -- left him a psychological mess, suffering from severe
anxiety and nightmares for his role in the interrogations. Perhaps most shocking, he says that at one point while he was still in the service, he began reading a Holocaust memoir with a view toward learning a thing or two about torture from the Nazis.
How far is too far? More things you didn't know about interrogation techniques after the jump...
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Reader Comments: 16 Posts
You wouldn't even believe the technology of God and the government. Start there.
Anyone Notice that once it was public knowelage that MOST Dumacrates including Nancy PlaJOKEsy knew torture was going on. The "witch hunt" agaist Bush & pals died a Quiet quick death???
well for what its worth we had too many deceptions and "outside the rules methods" all in the name of national security under the bush administration. the focus is on this administatrion and what approach it intends to apply which should conform to the rules as well as being effective.
I'd confess to anything if someone pried my toenails off. Physical torture is useless for the most part. I have no problem with using aggressive tactics on terrorists, but it would seem useless to destroy their bodies while trying to extract decent information out of them.
The jack bauer one is BS. There are explicit manuals out there that they use to teach these techniques. If you want to read "the book" that is used to start instruction - I suggest starting with the CIA's -KUBARK and "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983"
These will tell you info you want. As far as withstanding torture - its about making the information you have obsolete. if you can hold out of a certain period of time (48 hrs) the info you have is quite possibly no longer valid (things moved, relocated, etc) - in the end - everyone breaks. Physical interragation is unsuccessful because of two things - a) you can block out pain b) people say anything to get the pain to stop. It takes a combination of things.
Physical torture is NOT ineffective, but to get results you combine it with other stuff (some are mentioned here). We used it in the last Balkan Civil War, but the interrogations were conducted by common soldiers (non experts) - with much higher results. Actually, not everyone can become an interrogator, but the professional interrogators mainly go "by the book" and that's absurd.
Dick Cheney as a damn liar, so as the most politicians around the globe. Give a monkey a banana and he'll think he's a King of the jungle.
So the main theme I seem to be picking up on here is its OK to torture and go against some of the very values that supposedly make America what it is... But only if we are really, really scared!
As for torture working (in tequilas senario) so "Mr. Bauer" asking someone very "aggressively" were the bomb is, and is simply told to go to the opposite side of the city? He races off to save the city, stopping the torture: and to no avail! But just a thought...
If the tactics and moral approach is no different from those you fight, then were is the difference? You guys have bigger guns? Better technology? Or is it simply because your YOU and they THEM?
Hypocrites...
Oh and one last thought: say they torture the SUSPECT for info and waste all their time and energy on the WRONG guy?
Torture has always been used to generate propaganda not valuable information because when someone was tortured you will do anything and say anything to make the torture stop. During the witch hunts the tortured "witches" eventually admitted to witchcraft and identified other witches. Do the torture supports here really believe this was valid information? Taking the wrong side on such a serious issue without knowing any facts about it is unconscionable. Japanese who used water torture (AKA water boarding) in WWII were hung by the US. Yet now when it is done by the US the high-level perpetrators get a pass.
Torture has different meanings to everyone. With over twenty years as law enforcement I can tell you that I would never rely on any form of torture for confessions. Civilized people should not tolerate it in any form for this purpose. That said, when it comes to the magnatude of what we all witnessed in New York City and Oklahoma City, our country needs to have people trained in extrodinary tactics to deal with extrodinary situations. When barbarians strike who have no respect for life because they do not think the way we think by what we define as "civilized people"fl, we have to have people capable of preventing further loss of lives on our soil. If this means exceptional tactics have to be used, then we had better be ready to use them. It is they who crossed the line.
The real torture was reading this crap. Always looking for a chance to take pot-shots at Bush, huh? Grow up, and stop believing the lies, AM. By the way, it should be obvious that Jack Bauer didn't influence anything. He's a fictional character. His character has writers. Writers make things up. For an entertainment piece, it's an insulting hit piece. Oh, and yes, "torture" DOES work. We should use techniques that the rest of the world uses. After all, you don't hear many people in the US b*tching at those countries, you you?
What do you think?
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