“Revealed: the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to useâ€
Standby for some morning “fisking.” Here we go:
“Revealed: the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to useâ€
Ed Pilkington in New York and Clare Dyer
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian
Details emerged yesterday about the seven interrogation techniques the CIA is seeking to be allowed to apply to terror suspects. Newsweek magazine reported that a New York lawyer, Scott Horton, who has acted as an adviser to the US senate on interrogation methods, had acquired a list of the techniques. The details were corroborated by information obtained by the charity Human Rights Watch.
Good. I’m glad to know the resources of Human Rights Watch are on the issue. It’s probably because there is nothing else in the world worthy of their focus, everyone but the American’s being all peaceful and loving….
The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation;
Does 21 months serving under a man who slept during the day and stayed up all night, yelling at us staff guys count? If so, maybe he really worked for the CIA, not the Navy. 2-3 weeks on an hour a sleep a day wasn’t unheard of.
What about “port and starboard†bridge watches? 2 years aboard an oiler and I wasn’t the Captain, or Executive Officer, so…no chair on the bridge for me! Steel decks and 4-6 hours periods of standing, oh my!
a technique called “the attention grab” where a suspect’s shirt is forcefully seized;
All but grabbing the shirt happened, but I’m sure it was considered. On the other hand, maybe this will get HRW to go after Hollywood because lots and lots of shirt grabbing happens in movies and in TV series.
the “attention slap” or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the “belly slap”;
I can’t claim to have had this happen, but, yes, we show it in US TV and movies all the time and we have the in the vernacular “I’m gonna bitch slap you!†used, not only in movies, but on the street and all over in society…we need HRW after the rest of the society, too.
and sound and light manipulation.
Does sleeping under #2 Jet Blast Deflector for 4 ½ months count as sound manipulation? I did, however, figure out after three days, you sleep or you don’t, so may as well sleep and count it as the sound of freedom. Taking off on this point, maybe it’s the intent of the sound manipulation, or how it makes the “detainee†feel that’s ever more important. Rock concerts are very loud, and people pay money to go and have the opportunity to destroy their hearing for the future. Top that off with too loud iPods and other .mp3 players. Think about it: People actually make a living taking money from people who want to have really loud music played to them!
Several of those techniques chime with information gleaned about interrogation methods used against some serious terror suspects. The New York Times recently reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al-Qaida member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue, and later assailed with loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music.
I recall nights on a bridge wing in the winter where, after watch when you peeled off the bulky heavy weather gear and your clothes, parts were pale or blue. I had a duty to stand out there, because that was the nature of my commitment, but now, I ask: Did the American people torture me? Yeah, right…what a specious argument.
I have also been known to assail myself with loud music. As a senior, before Friday afternoon formation for parade, my roomie and I, living large in the 4th Division Alcove room, would routinely “inspire†our fellow cadets with 200W cranked music played over the “Quad†of Padgett-Thomas barracks. Favorites were “No More Mr Nice Guy†and as the year was coming to an end “Schools Out for the Summer.†We had others, with selections from Pink Floyd, too…Talk about a motivator before marching out in a wool uniform to stand in the heat and humidity of South Carolina’s Low Country, looking forward to the gnats who would hang around your ears throughout the experience…
The debate on how far the CIA should be allowed to go in aggressively questioning suspects has divided the Republican party after prominent senators led by John McCain of Arizona rebelled against the administration’s plans to change Geneva Convention to meet the CIA’s demands. Mr McCain told ABC television yesterday that “there is a war we are losing in some ways and that’s our standing in the world because of our treatment in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo”.
Well, it’s all about the spin, Senator. It seems the boys at Abu Ghraib are begging for the panties on the head treatment. It seems to (pardon my pun) “beat†the treatment their fellow Iraqis seem to be using….I bet if you took a survey, they’d trade dogs with bad breath barking at them and naked pyramids back in a heartbeat
The British attorney general warned the US that its plans would face international condemnation. Speaking to lawyers in Chicago at the weekend, Lord Goldsmith said he had thought hard about interfering in a “sensitive, domestic political debate”, but had concluded that the Geneva Convention was “an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations”.
The Geneva Convention document the British use allows the summary execution of those who are not in uniform and actively participating in the combat…minor detail, I know…it just offend the sensibilities of the “civilized world†to actually hold the guilty accountable anymore it seems. If you’re in the “uncivilized†category, then you can stone people to death and hang teenagers from cranes, and it’s ok…you don’t get it, so you get a pass.
Oh, yeah…thanks for one more lawyer thinking a lawless bunch of murders will follow published law. I thought lawyers trafficed in evidence, but that seems to be left behind as a professional method for the rest of us people to have to deal with.
Guantanamo Bay had become “a symbol” which “the long American tradition of justice and liberty deserves to see removed at the earliest moment”.
Many would argue our troops in the field don’t get the food service, free time, nor clean and comfortable living conditions the people who have been gathered from an active battlefield. As noted above, the “normal†treatment of the enemy combatants (that’s what you are when you fight in a war) in GTMO is superior to what we provide to those who have to be shot at by such men. Talk about justice….
Thanks for your attention.
Update 9/22/2006: And I never had to attend Survival Escape Rescue and Evasion (S.E.R.E.) School, either.
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Categories: Geo-Political, History, Political
Yeah, the 3rd Geneva Convention, 4th Article clearly lays out who’s entitled to POW status, and terrorists (as civilian combatants) don’t fit the bill, so to speak. Even McCain has admitted as much. Our “image in the world” is an intangible, but one can’t argue that terrorists are legally entitled to be treated as prisoners of war.
by Jason Lomberg on Sep 20, 2006 at 11:26 am
“…induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation;”
Yeah, that about describes my tour as ‘gator on IKE…
-SJS
by Steeljaw Scribe on Sep 20, 2006 at 11:46 am
“…induced hypothermia…”
Sounds like any ONE of the many nights atop our mountain on the NorK DMZ, wresting intel from the paranoid, xenophobic Stalinist state 800 meters across the Han River estuary…
Torture? TORTURE?
You don’t like the ‘hand slap’? Fine. We’ll let them use 1500 micrograms of LSD, followed by sodium pentothal and a native-speaker interrogator. Triptout Terrorist will NEVER be the same!
by Karridine on Sep 23, 2006 at 1:18 am