More first-hand testominy as to the uselessness of torture

Ali Soufan, an FBI agent who had been tasked with interrogating captured terrorists before the implementation of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (ie. torture), served a testimony before a Congressional committee last week that pretty much obliterates any and all arguments used in favor of torturing prisoners for information as opposed to using tried & tested methods of proper interrogation. The contrast illustrated between "regular" interrogative techniques and the CIA-condoned torture, along with their compared results, is really quite striking.

Early in his statement, he describes the successful interrogation of a prominent terror suspect, using those traditional interrogation techniques.

There are many examples of successful interrogations of terrorists that have taken place before and after 9/11. Many of them are classified, but one that is already public and mirrors the other cases, is the interrogation of al Qaeda terrorist Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri, known as Abu Jandal. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, together with my partner Special Agent Robert McFadden, a first-class intelligence operative from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), (which, from my experience, is one of the classiest agencies I encountered in the intelligence community), I interrogated Abu Jandal.

Through our interrogation, which was done completely by the book (including advising him of his rights), we obtained a treasure trove of highly significant actionable intelligence. For example, Abu Jandal gave us extensive information on Osama Bin Laden’s terror network, structure, leadership, membership, security details, facilities, family, communication methods, travels, training, ammunitions, and weaponry, including a breakdown of what machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-tank missiles they used. He also provided explicit details of the 9/11plot operatives, and identified many terrorists who we later successfully apprehended.

The information was important for the preparation of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. It also provided an important background to the 9/11 Commission report; it provided a foundation for the trials so far held in Guantanamo Bay; and it also has been invaluable in helping to capture and identify top al Qaeda operatives and thus disrupt plots.

He then describes just what these tactics, called the "Informed Interrogation Approach", were made of.

It is an approach rooted in experiences and lessons learned during World War II and from our Counter-insurgency experience in Vietnam – experiences and lessons that generated the Army Field Manual.

This was then refined over the decades to include how to interrogate terrorism suspects specifically, as experience was gained from interrogations following the first World Trade Center bombing, the East Africa Embassy bombings, and the USS Cole bombing. To sum up, it is an approach derived from the cumulative experiences, wisdom, and successes of the most effective operational people our country has produced.

Before I joined the Bureau, for example, traditional investigative strategies along with intelligence derived from human sources successfully thwarted the 1993 New York City Landmark Bomb Plot (TERRSTOP), a plot by the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to attack the UN Headquarters, the FBI’s New York office, and tunnels and bridges across New York City, — as a follow-up to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. That remains to this day the largest thwarted attack on our homeland. I had the privilege of working with, and learning from, those who conducted this successful operation.

The Informed Interrogation Approach is based on leveraging our knowledge of the detainee’s culture and mindset, together with using information we already know about him.

The interrogator knows that there are three primary points of influence on the detainee:

First, there is the fear that the detainee feels as a result of his capture and isolation from his support base. People crave human contact, and this is especially true in some cultures more than others. The interrogator turns this knowledge into an advantage by becoming the one person the detainee can talk to and who listens to what he has to say, and uses this to encourage the detainee to open up.

In addition, acting in a non-threatening way isn’t how the detainee is trained to expect a U.S. interrogator to act. This adds to the detainee’s confusion and makes him more likely to cooperate.

Second, and connected, there is the need the detainee feels to sustain a position of respect and value to interrogator. As the interrogator is the one person speaking to and listening to the detainee, a relationship is built – and the detainee doesn’t want to jeopardize it. The interrogator capitalizes on this and compels the detainee to give up more information.

And third, there is the impression the detainee has of the evidence against him. The interrogator has to do his or her homework and become an expert in every detail known to the intelligence community about the detainee. The interrogator then uses that knowledge to impress upon the detainee that everything about him is known and that any lie will be easily caught.

For example, in my first interrogation of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who had strong links to al Qaeda’s leaders and who knew the details of the 9/11 plot before it happened, I asked him his name. He replied with his alias. I then asked him, “how about if I call you Hani?” That was the name his mother nicknamed him as a child. He looked at me in shock, said “ok,” and we started talking.

The Army Field Manual is not about being nice or soft. It is a knowledge-based approach. It is about outwitting the detainee by using a combination of interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional strategies to get the information needed. If done correctly it’s an approach that works quickly and effectively because it outwits the detainee using a method that he is not trained, or able, to resist.

So the interrogators used to resort to nonviolent, non-invasive interrogation methods to coax information out of suspects and detainees before they began using torture, and these methods actually worked? Talk about sliding down a slope.

The next part of his testimony describes just how pointless, ineffective and downright immoral these "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" have proven themselves to be over time since their original implementation.

This Informed Interrogation Approach is in sharp contrast with the harsh interrogation approach introduced by outside contractors and forced upon CIA officials to use.

The harsh technique method doesn’t use the knowledge we have of the detainee’s history, mindset, vulnerabilities, or culture, and instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. The approach applies a force continuum, each time using harsher and harsher techniques until the detainee submits.

The idea behind the technique is to force the detainee to see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain. It is an exercise in trying to gain compliance rather than eliciting cooperation. A theoretical application of this technique is a situation where the detainee is stripped naked and told: “Tell us what you know.”

If the detainee doesn’t immediately respond by giving information, for example he asks: “what do you want to know?” the interviewer will reply: “you know,” and walk out of the interrogation room. Then the next step on the force continuum is introduced, for example sleep deprivation, and the process will continue until the detainee’s will is broken and he automatically gives up all information he is presumed to know.

There are many problems with this technique.

A major problem is that it is ineffective. Al Qaeda terrorists are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, the al Qaeda training prepares them for much worse – the torture they would expect to receive if caught by dictatorships for example.

This is why, as we see from the recently released Department of Justice memos on interrogation, the contractors had to keep getting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods, until they reached waterboarding and then there was nothing they could do but use that technique again and again. Abu Zubaydah had to be waterboarded 83 times and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times. In a democracy there is a glass ceiling of harsh techniques the interrogator cannot breach, and a detainee can eventually call the interrogator’s bluff.

In addition the harsh techniques only serves to reinforce what the detainee has been prepared to expect if captured. This gives him a greater sense of control and predictability about his experience, and strengthens his will to resist.

A second major problem with this technique is that evidence gained from it is unreliable. There is no way to know whether the detainee is being truthful, or just speaking to either mitigate his discomfort or to deliberately provide false information. As the interrogator isn’t an expert on the detainee or the subject matter, nor has he spent time going over the details of the case, the interrogator cannot easily know if the detainee is telling the truth. This unfortunately has happened and we have had problems ranging from agents chasing false leads to the disastrous case of Ibn Sheikh al-Libby who gave false information on Iraq, al Qaeda, and WMD.

A third major problem with this technique is that it is slow. It takes place over a long period of time, for example preventing the detainee from sleeping for 180 hours as the memos detail, or waterboarding 183 times in the case of KSM. When we have an alleged “ticking timebomb” scenario and need to get information quickly, we can’t afford to wait that long.

A fourth problem with this technique is that ignores the end game. In our country we have due process, which requires evidence to be collected in a certain way. The CIA, because of the sensitivity of its operations, by necessity, operates secretly. These two factors mean that by putting the CIA in charge of interrogations, either secrecy is sacrificed for justice and the CIA’s operations are hampered, or justice is not served. Neither is a desirable outcome.

Quite the indictment he poses against torture, no?

In case theoretical explanations and illustrations aren't enough to prove his point, he then continues with Abu Zubaydah'S interrogation story, how both techniques were used on him one after another as one was shown to work, and the other simply didn't, instead producing the exact opposite results.

The case of the terrorist Abu Zubaydah is a good example of where the success of the Informed Interrogation Approach can be contrasted with the failure of the harsh technique approach. I have to restrict my remarks to what has been unclassified. (I will note that there is documented evidence supporting everything I will tell you today.)

Immediately after Abu Zubaydah was captured, a fellow FBI agent and I were flown to meet him at an undisclosed location. We were both very familiar with Abu Zubaydah and have successfully interrogated al-Qaeda terrorists. We started interrogating him, supported by CIA officials who were stationed at the location, and within the first hour of the interrogation, using the Informed Interrogation Approach, we gained important actionable intelligence.

The information was so important that, as I later learned from open sources, it went to CIA Director George Tennet who was so impressed that he initially ordered us to be congratulated. That was apparently quickly withdrawn as soon as Mr. Tennet was told that it was FBI agents, who were responsible. He then immediately ordered a CIA CTC interrogation team to leave DC and head to the location to take over from us.

During his capture Abu Zubaydah had been injured. After seeing the extent of his injuries, the CIA medical team supporting us decided they were not equipped to treat him and we had to take him to a hospital or he would die. At the hospital, we continued our questioning as much as possible, while taking into account his medical condition and the need to know all information he might have on existing threats.

We were once again very successful and elicited information regarding the role of KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and lots of other information that remains classified. (It is important to remember that before this we had no idea of KSM’s role in 9/11 or his importance in the al Qaeda leadership structure.) All this happened before the CTC team arrived.

A few days after we started questioning Abu Zubaydah, the CTC interrogation team finally arrived from DC with a contractor who was instructing them on how they should conduct the interrogations, and we were removed. Immediately, on the instructions of the contractor, harsh techniques were introduced, starting with nudity. (The harsher techniques mentioned in the memos were not introduced or even discussed at this point.)

The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation.

We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence.

This included the details of Jose Padilla, the so-called “dirty bomber.” To remind you of how important this information was viewed at the time, the then-Attorney General, John Ashcroft, held a press conference from Moscow to discuss the news. Other important actionable intelligence was also gained that remains classified.

After a few days, the contractor attempted to once again try his untested theory and he started to re-implementing the harsh techniques. He moved this time further along the force continuum, introducing loud noise and then temperature manipulation.

Throughout this time, my fellow FBI agent and I, along with a top CIA interrogator who was working with us, protested, but we were overruled. I should also note that another colleague, an operational psychologist for the CIA, had left the location because he objected to what was being done.

Again, however, the technique wasn’t working and Abu Zubaydah wasn’t revealing any information, so we were once again brought back in to interrogate him. We found it harder to reengage him this time, because of how the techniques had affected him, but eventually, we succeeded, and he re-engaged again.

Once again the contractor insisted on stepping up the notches of his experiment, and this time he requested the authorization to place Abu Zubaydah in a confinement box, as the next stage in the force continuum. While everything I saw to this point were nowhere near the severity later listed in the memos, the evolution of the contractor’s theory, along with what I had seen till then, struck me as “borderline torture.”

As the Department of Justice IG report released last year states, I protested to my superiors in the FBI and refused to be a part of what was happening. The Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, a man I deeply respect, agreed passing the message that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out.

Does anyone seriously need more proof than that? Again: torture doesn't work.

But Soufran isn't even done exposing all the bullshit. He then elaborate and describes just how much bullshit has been spread around, particularly by those notorious reports on how torture supposedly foiled numerous terrorist plots, and explains how a minimum of research shows these reports to really be nothing more than utter bullshit and baldfaced lies.

As you can see from this timeline, many of the claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate. For example, it is untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn’t cooperating before August 1, 2002. The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him.

In addition, simply by putting together dates cited in the memos with claims made, falsehoods are obvious. For example, it has been claimed that waterboarding got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Jose Padilla. But that doesn’t add up: Waterboarding wasn’t approved until 1August 2002 (verbally it was authorized around mid July 2002), and Padilla was arrested in May 2002.

The same goes for KSM’s involvement in 9/11: That was discovered in April 2002, while waterboarding was not introduced until almost three months later. It speaks volumes that the quoted instances of harsh interrogation methods being a success are false.

Nor can it be said that the harsh techniques were effective, which is why we had to be called back in repeatedly. As we know from the memos, the techniques that were apparently introduced after I left did not appear to work either, which is why the memos granted authorization for harsher techniques. That continued for several months right till waterboarding was introduced, which had to be used 83 times - an indication that Abu Zubaydah had called the interrogator's bluff knowing the glass ceiling that existed.

What more can I say? Case closed. Let us never sink to the level of torture again, especially seeing as it simply doesn't work in real-life. This isn't 24 and the agents aren't Jack Bauer. Torture can only be used to perhaps cause vindictive pain – nothing more.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Continued ...»

Talk about giving the bastards some of their own medicine

Commander Ciro Pinto is the sort of man I'd like to have captain any ship I'm on, particularly in troubled waters such as the current coast of Somalia. What does he do when those pirate bastards try to attack his ship? He lets them know he's not gonna have any of their bullshit.

ROME -- An Italian cruise ship fended off a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia, with its security forces exchanging fire with the bandits, the commander said Saturday.

Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after security forces aboard the cruise ship returned fire.

Domenico Pellegrino, head of the ship-owner Msc Cruises, told ANSA news agency that all 1,500 passengers and crew aboard the Melody were safe, and credited Pinto for his "cool-headed" handling of the incident.

How's that for a victory? The bastards failed to seize the ship, got shot at (and, dare I hope, hit?) and forced to crawl back in shame, and the ship got to its regular port victorious. What more could you want?

One would hope events like this would serve as a deterrent to these fucking reptiles, though sadly common sense – and a basic understanding of the stupidity and immorality of this sort of scum – tell us they'll always be back for more. It's high time they got their asses whupped, and I mean royally. I'd say, have a flotilla of U.S. warships just drop by and pay them a much-needed visit. You know, the kind with missiles and cannon barrels aimed at their filthy heads.

It's a universal truth that some pieces of evil like these nimrods just won't stop until they realize they've met someone who's willing to strike back with more force and brutality than they are. I know violence is inherently the wrong choice in resolving any given conflict, but sometimes it truly is all that works. These terrorists don't understand reason, and clearly, after half a year of attacks and hostage-taking, they don't plan to stop any time soon, not as long as fabulous ransoms are being paid.

It's as the expression goes: "The problem with being a bully, is that eventually, you will encounter someone who's bigger, stronger, and crazier than you are".

Continued ...»

This is why SEALS are the best, period.

Ed Brayton over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has just put up long excerpts from a New York Daily News column written up by Malcolm Nance, a longtime Navy officer and trainer of SEALs (SEa, Air, Land) – arguably the very best in military special forces – in which the honorable officer mentions his opinions on the CIA memos. This is worth the read. Brayton hasn't posted a link to the source, so here're the bits he quoted.

I have been engaged in the hunt for al-Qaeda for almost two decades. And, as I once wrote in the Daily News, I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people - as we trained our own fighting men and women to endure and resist the interrogation tactics they might be subjected to by our enemies. I know waterboarding is torture because I have been on the giving and receiving end of the practice.

This was during the last four years of my military career, when I served at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school. Working there, and helping protect our servicemen and women, was my greatest pride. We especially emphasized escape, because captivity by al-Qaeda's Jihadis would be severe, if not, final. Our methods of instruction were intense, but realistic and safe.

[...]

Now, at long last, six years of denials can now be swept aside, and we can say definitively: America engaged in torture and legalized it through paperwork. Despite all the gyrations - the ducking, dodging and hiding from the facts - there is no way to say that these people were not authorizing torture. Worse yet, they seem to have not cared a wit that these techniques came from the actual manuals of communist, fascist and totalitarian torturers. It is now clear how clearly - how coldly - Bush's lawyers could authorize individual techniques from past torture chambers, claim they came from the safe SERE program, and not even wet their beds at night. That many U.S. service members over the years have died as a result of these same techniques was never considered.

This is about more than one tactic, waterboarding, that has gotten the lion's share of attention. As a general rule, interrogations without clearly defined legal limits are brutal. Particularly when they have an imperative to get information out of a captive immediately. Wearing prisoners out to the point of mental breakdown; forcing confessions through sleep deprivation; inflicting pain by standing for days on end (not minutes like in SERE); beating them against flexing walls until concussion; applying humiliation slaps (two at a time), and repeating these methods over and over.

If it were aimed at a U.S. Pilot, soldier or diplomat, I have no doubt all those defending the Bush Administration now would label these tactics torture. At SERE, I learned and taught that breaking the prisoner for compliance and instilling "learned helplessness" was our enemies' terminal learning objective.

[...]

Working in the Middle East, daily I face the questions, disbelief and accusations about how Americans could violate the human rights which they once championed. No less infamous a personage than Osama Bin Laden himself has taunted us on this matter saying, "So I say that freedom and human rights in America have been sent to the guillotine with no prospect of return." That we can be lectured by a mass murderer on what should have been an unassailable pillar of American values is unbearable.

Have no doubt: As a counterterrorism practitioner, should I find bin Laden I will cut his heart out with a plastic spoon. That would be about justice and revenge, not interrogation. But that job - finding him and bringing him to justice - has been made incalculably more difficult for our soldiers and intelligence officers around the world by these documents and what they mean.

If America wants to win the war against al-Qaeda, we have to start anew. The Obama administration will have to forget about the pressure they are getting from Bush administration officials and Republicans to hide all further releases of torture memos they themselves defended for years.

Then, Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury - who, as Bush administration legal officials, have documented their own complicity to explicitly authorize crimes - will have to be calmly prosecuted, based on the evidence, with all the due process rights to which they are entitled. Who knows, they may well be acquitted.

The sooner the better, as al-Qaeda will recruit hundreds if not thousands more young men to fight, kill and gladly die once they absorb the depth of hypocrisy America stooped to over the last eight years.

Either we investigate our past errors and clean up our ship or we "look forward" and give Al-Qaeda a singular propaganda victory that will kill Americans for years to come.

It's always amazingly refreshing to read something on the Internet that I can safely say I agree 100% with every single line written or spoken. If this morality is present even in a hardened military man like this good Mr. Nance, how can it be so very lacking in Congress and the government?

I hereby nominate Malcolm Nance as the Head of the Council for Slapping Idiot Government Officials and Lawyers Over the Head. Oh, and for next President.

Continued ...»

Obama's revealing of the CIA torture memos: defining the limits between Right and Wrong, or erasing them?

Wow, this is by far the longest it's ever taken me to plan and write a blog post to date. It might end up being my longest too – who knows, I might even reach Orac's average. You know, those eight-mile-long posts that are so delicious to read you really don't even notice how you should've gone to bed eight hours ago. Etc.

One of the hot topics of the date, alongside those pesky Somalian pirates (wow, they really have some nerve, you gotta admit) or those stupid conservative tea parties that unfurled across America like a plague of the crazies, is last Thursday's President Obama's unveiling of four top-secret CIA memos regarding the torture carried out in the depths of Guantanamo Bay, memos that defined what was acceptable and what was not under American law. Specifically, the memos regarded the "appropriate" methods of "forced interrogation" – notice its pussyfooting around the term "torture" – of three particular inmates, including an Al-Qaeda second-in-command, and even the admitted master planner behind the 9/11 attacks.

You can see said memos here. (This post is gonna be long enough as it is, there's no way I'm posting those PDF images on this page.)

Now, considering the careful wordings found in said memos, some are using this to "prove" that America didn't torture its inmates, but merely subjected them to "mild" physical and psychological damages and coercion.

The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.

Interrogations were to be "continuously monitored" and "the interrogation team will stop the use of particular techniques or the interrogation altogether if the detainee's medical or psychological conditions indicates that the detainee might suffer significant physical or mental harm."

Ah. So just a "little" physical or mental harm is a-okay, then.

The first thing one would need to ask themselves: just what is "torture"? What actions constitute torture?

Is tying a chain to a man's neck and pulling him around forcefully to slam him into solid walls, torture?

Is strapping a man to a nearly-horizontal table, covering his face with a cloth, and pouring water over said cloth, which simulates the sensation of drowning, torture?

Is shackling an entomophobic man – someone with a horrific fear of insects – up in a tiny confined area with "stinging insects", torture?

Is forcing a man to be kept awake for up to 180 hours straight, torture?

Of course, anyone with the slightest shred of common sense – and the slightest sense of apathy – will have answered a resounding "well, DUH" to all those previous examples.

Just to be proper, let's look at the official definition of "torture", as given to us by the arguable greatest of dictionaries, dear old Merriam-Webster:

tor·ture Pronunciation: \ˈtȯr-chər\ Function: noun [Etymology redacted for length's sake] 1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain 2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure 3: distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : straining

So there. Torture is "anguish of the body or mind". Let's apply that definition/description of torture from now on, shall we?

However, inflicting anguish to a victim's body or mind isn't enough to be classified as "torture", according to a 2002 memo. No – in addition to causing pain and torment, there apparently also had to be a level of intent behind it, for it to qualify as "torture".

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping did not violate laws against torture when there was no intent to cause severe pain, according to a Bush-era memo on the tactics released Thursday.

"To violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering," said an August 2002 memo from then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee to John Rizzo, who was acting general counsel for the CIA.

"Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture. ... We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent," Bybee wrote.

That's the sort of crafty weaseling and conniving bullshitting that sends a pounding headache into my head. Damn.

Let me tell you something, A.G. Bybee: bullshit. Intent has nothing to do with what constitutes torture or not. Torture is torture. Whether you wanted to cause "physical or mental anguish" to a person is irrelevant to whether you did or didn't. If you did, it's torture, plain and simple, end of story.

One common method of torture forced interrogation, is "waterboarding". Waterboarding is strapping a victim to a board that's slightly inclined downwards, covering their face with a cloth, and pouring water onto said cloth. The cloth works perfectly well at distributing the water across the entire expanse, effectively "drowning" the victim. The experience is extremely torturous to the victim, who literally feels like they're drowning. Multiple injuries can occur, either from respiratory distress, mental anguish, or even broken bones from struggling against the restraints. (Here I try not to think about what it would be like, to me, to be strapped helplessly to a board while forced to simulate drowning.) Also, the memo states that the technique "could be used for up to 40 seconds -- although the CIA orally informed Justice Department lawyers that it would likely not be used for more than 20 seconds at a time". Because if the lawyers say it isn't used for more than 20 seconds, it has to be so.

Let me ask you: what part of "feels like you're drowning", even if only for 40 seconds or 20 or whatever, is NOT "anguish of body or mind??? What part of feeling like you're stuck underwater until you asphyxiate or, well, drown, isn't cruelty by any definition?

One particular prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who claims credit for planning and masterminding the whole 9/11 disaster, was waterboarded a staggering 183 times in a single month. That's an average of over six times every day! Nooo, that's not torture!

Another prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda and close associate of Bin Laden, was put through 83 waterboardings in one month. That's about three every single day.

Another example of these "forced interrogation" methods used against suspected terrorists is the "walling" technique. This is actually unclear – previous reports usually stated that this meant strapping a chain onto a collar around a man's neck, and then swinging him forcibly and crashing him into a hard wall – hence, "walling".

However:

In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a "flexible false wall," designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades -- not head -- were the point of contact, and the "collar" was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.

The memo says the point was to inflict psychological uncertainty, not physical pain: "the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action."

Ah. So just as long as they believe their having their bodies shattered into bits, then all's fine. Because psychological torment isn't as bad as "actual" physical torture. Oh, and of course, nothing cruel about slamming a guy's back into a wall, anyway, to begin with.

But probably the worst, in my personal opinion, would have to be their sleep deprivation technique for coercion. You think having a sleepless night or two is hell? Guantanamo Bay-style sleep deprivation means keeping the victim forcibly awake for up to 180 hours straight. Anyone with math talents or a calculator, well point out that equals to just about 7.5 days. That's over a week.

Yes, the human body and mind can hold for about 10 days as a general rule of thumb before permanent damage, if I recall correctly. 10 days are 240 hours – 2.5 days less than the maximum 180 days allowed for forced sleep deprivation.

How would YOU be after an entire week without a second of sleep? Most people can't stay awake for 48 hours straight without dropping everything for a good slumber. (I haven't even been awake for 24 hours yet as I'm writing this, and already I'm yearning for my bed.) So tell me please: how exactly is forcing someone awake for an entire WEEK, not constitute psychological (and even physical) torture?

The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation.

Oh, bullshit. If common sense tells us anything, it's that no organization on the planet ever really cares about the "law", and that they only reason they obey it is to not get sued or crushed by others, certainly not out of respect for what's "right" and what's "wrong". Same deal here with the CIA (Coercive Interrogation Agency?). Sure, anything can be made legal, when you pussyfoot around proper terms, such as renaming "torture" into something more acceptable – like "forced interrogations" or whatever they're being dubbed – or keeping activities that normally would be quite frowned upon, under tight wraps.

I'm sure that the estimated half of Guantanamo Bay's population who are considered to be innocent bystanders who simply got caught up in fights and wars, will be thrilled to learn that it's really not "torture". Oh, the relief.

Now, don't get me wrong. If throughout this post I sound like I'm against punishing the actual terrorists and evildoers inside Guantanamo Bay, I'm only against torture itself as a form of punishment or coercion during interrogations. Of course, beasts like the one who masterminded September 11th do need to be punished, and as harshly as we can humanely permit. Personally, I'd say throw them in solitary confinement for the rest of their horrible lives and forget all about them, throw away the keys, that's it.

There's just something about torture itself – it's so hands-on, so personal yet impersonal at the same time, it awakens such primal fears and responses in us – not to mention being inhumane in every possible manner – that it truly has no place in our so-called "civilized" society. No matter how evil the perpetrators or their deeds may be/have been. There's just no place for torture, and that's that. Torture is torture no matter what you call it or how you approach it. Inflicting large amounts of pain on a victim, either for coercion or retribution, is simply disgusting.

After all, remember the platitudes: we need to be BETTER than them, NOT sink to their level of immoral debauchery. We are better than them; how is it "better" than these beasts if we indulge in the same acts of horror towards them? I do not give a DAMN what memos or other bullshit says about the "legality" of the issue.

After all, it's a widely-known fact that torture doesn't really work all that well to begin with. Real-life isn't an episode or season of 24. Torture doesn't always work in real-life. It's the interrogation of Michael Crowe all over again: they'll just say whatever their captors want to hear to end the pain and suffering.

We are the better society, and we need to show it to these dementially retarded bastards that we will not stoop to their levels of inhumanity.

Continued ...»