Torture

(Warning: I'm using shitty ass IE so I don't have spell check, oh no's)

So I finally got around to starting my psych paper on torture. It's amazing how common one of the cruelest forms of torture really is for prisoners of all types, isolation.

I read a report from Physicians for Human Rights about the stuff going on at Gitmo and other places. Pretty horrible stuff. Now I'm starting in on the US torture instruction manual. Ok so its not called that, its called "The Manipulation of Human Behavior." What it is is a book from 1961 that lays out the most "modern" use of psychological knowledge for the purposes of interogation. I'm willing to bet that at the time they didn't realize the long term effects of such interogation. They thought of it simply as techniques, not torture. Oh and in the report I found it interesting that one of their major sources of info about the goings on at Gitmo et all besides the Red Cross was the FBI that was a bit stunned by what they saw, not so much because it was cruel and illegal, it is the FBI after all, but because it's not an effective way to get information. What I didn't see in the report is the real purpose of torture (admittedly I'm only 50 pages into that report) which is intimidation. Pure and simple, you don't torture people for intelligence purposes, you torture people to scare the shit out of everyone aligned against you, its the bully mentality of showing that you're the baddest motherfucker on the block. What the fuck has happened to this country when we need to flex like that? There was a time when you wanted to be our friend cause we'd help you out when you needed it, hook you up with shit if we really liked you, even fight wars for ya, and you didn't want to be our enemy cause we had the ability to crush anything that moved. Now (although not for much longer) we kinda sorta help our friends (other than Israel who's still our friend with benefits), and lets face it no one is nearly as scared of our military as they once were. Don't get me wrong, army vs. army, no country is stupid enough to face us. I made this point in the last post, but partially because of that, we don't see "real" wars anymore. Countries don't dare fight, instead they have to turn to ideological mad men, aka the enemy or terrorists or patriots or freedom fighters depending on the time and which side you're on. So whats my point? I have no idea anymore. I've been stuck doing fucking data entry for way to long and my mind has turned to mush. I'm a little surprised that we haven't started inflicting forced data entry onto prisoners, guess theres still some things that are just too cruel.

But on that note I need to get back to work on this evil ass paper.

Was McCain Tortured?

This is an interesting perspective. The question is was John McCain tortured, but it's not questioning his version of what was done to him as a POW. The point is that under the Bush Administration those same acts that McCain rightly defines as torture have been called "enhanced interrogation techniques." The real question to McCain is does he think that what was done to him is acceptable to be used on others? It would have to carefully worded, the North Vietnamese did do shit that we don't, such as trying to set broken bones with no pain-killers, thats gotta suck ass and is in line with what most people think of as torture. Even so He'll be forced to either say that he wasn't tortured and was simply interrogated in an enhanced manner, or he will have to say that the US has been torturing people as a matter of policy. Or he'll lie/ not answer the question.

I agree with the authors note at the bottom that this isn't something that can be brought up by the Obama campaign, but I disagree that the blogsphere can't take advantage of it, and I think that a very careful moderator could bring this up at a debate.

Ok actually I'm currently reading McCain's narrative on his time as a POW, and yeah that fucker was tortured, and while there are parts of it that can be compared, I'm quite sure we don't do a lot of the shit they did. But if you focused on the mental torture then you might be able to make a point but now I agree with the author this would be a very difficult question to raise with any sort of tact. So yeah, avoid this.

Waterboarding

Not just for kids anymore! Just ask Christopher Hitchens

UPDATE: they taped it....

Cults

Ok cults are generally a bad thing, this one takes things to another level. I'm rarely at a loss for words but right now I'm having trouble putting together any sort of cognitive thought. Good luck to the children, I'm not sure you can recover from this, then again some people are pretty damn resilient, I hope this kid is. Read the article, but its not pleasant....

No i'm not going to blame religious indoctrination on this one, this is just some very very fucked up people, no matter what happens with the world there will always be the sick ones, but damn, thats really sick.

Torture

Ok My stance on torture is pretty well established. I, as anyone who knows anything about it or simply possesses a shred of moral fiber, am completely against the torturing of anyone. What makes it all the worse is when those who's job it is to study interrogation techniques say that not only is it ineffective but that as a whole we are far behind where we were during WW2 when it comes to interrogation. In WW2 the interrogators spoke the language of those they were interrogating, that seems like a good minimum step. Knowing the history and the culture would be useful as well. I want to go on and on about how horrible this practice is, the fact that the Second in command of the "free world" said that torture is necessary in so many words the other day is appalling. The fact that torture simply does not work as a means of gathering information means that this debate shouldn't even be going on. IF torture worked I could understand a debate, those with morals vs those who value security at any cost. Even at that point you can argue that the security from increased information is out weighted by the anger created by the torture itself. But thats not the case, you have the increased hatred but no valuable information. It's tough to try to look at both sides when I simply cannot see what the other side as to stand on. Seriously what do we gain from torture, is it simply retaliation for 9/11? We've bombed to nations back to the stone age, we've been killing roughly 3,000 civilians a month in Iraq, or a 9/11 a month, for the last four years. Our thirst for blood should have been quenched by now, if not then we are a sick society indeed. Of course maybe the blood of the innocent is just too sweet, maybe its just that our blood lust continues unabated because the fucker that actually did the crime has not been brought to justice. That was 2087 days ago as of this writing, or 2081 days since Bush said he would capture Osama dead or alive. Where was your infamous resolve on that one George? I'm done, there's nothing left to say.

Oh and a big Hat Tip to FireDogLake again today for some great articles, the last three were inspired by (stolen from) FLD, Thanks.