Milgram Excuse
There ain’t no substitute for the truth
Either it is or isn’t
You see the truth it needs no proof
Either it is or it isn’t
--The Truth, India Arie
Stupidity is an often fatal disease
--R. A. Heinlein
It may be we are meant to mark
with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing.
It may be beer is best
--The New Unhappy Lords,
G.K. Chesterton
Yesterday's Washington Post reported the 2002 military memo to the Pentagon advising against the use of "torture" because it doesn't work.
The military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency advice to the Pentagon was,
"the application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) [JPRA term] has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information (In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture)."
It doesn't get any clearer than that. "Eyes Wide Shut" comments on the Bush administration's dismissal of military dissent against "enhanced interrogation techniques" [EIT], and "Interrogation Memos Detail Psychologists' Involvement" reveals the medical establishment' collusion. It amounts to a nice confirmation of the Milgram experiments, for all our high-falutin' protestations of being better than "them".
Techniques like extreme sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, dousing with cold water, sleeping on concrete and waterboarding were not employed because they "didn't cause organ failure," but because they don't leave marks on the body. Instead, they scar the psyche, a mark that America must also bear.
Watch for the Department of Defense to release at least 21 photographs by May 28, showing detainee abuse in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan other than Abu Ghraib. They are meting it out to us in assimilable parcels so that we may process our outrage before the next onslaught of offense.
One can be assured we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Labels: consequences of phony war on terror, enhanced interrogation techniques, PWOT, stanley milgram, torture, torture memos, waterboarding
posted by rangeragainstwar at 5:37 PM
6 Comments:
oh.... it actually gets better than this. professionals have known forever that not only is torture against everything truly American and illegal in National and International Law (the latter largely at the behest of the United States and its Western allies), BUT INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM TORTURE IS UNRELIABLE BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL SAY WHATEVER TO MAKE THE PAIN STOP. Saying that is/was an essential "intelligence" tool is drivel.
torture is a tool to extract confessions for propaganda and to feed illegitimate "witch hunt" legal authoritarian legal systems that abuse human rights.
but 'ya know...... dig this:"......The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.
In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections......"
our lips are sealed
G.D.,
Yes -- long-suspected, now verified: the ticking time bomb was the need to find linkages to add value to the PWOT in Iraq. Alas, came none.
Ah, the Go-Gos...
Good articles about this at the following too:
the Independent - "so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11" the Telegraph - "no additional "actionable intelligence" was gained from the extreme tactics." And McClatchy wire service - CIA official (IG): No proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks on America Like I said in the comments somewhere about this - This isn't anything that anyone trained in counter-insurgency or intellegence gathering didn't already know.
Of course torture does not elicit true information. Tens of thousands of were tortured by the church, many if not most confessed to witchcraft and pacts with the devil.
Shall we believe those persons actually were flying on broomsticks and having tea with a red goat hoofed gentlemen?
Off Topic, Lisa I enjoy reading your reasoned and calm posts and comments on various blogs. Keep up the good works.
G. Gene,
We welcome a new voice of reason on board!
But -- you mean, there was no goat-hoofed fellow at the full moon fests? Reminds me of a great "Raising Arizona" quote about the man hushing the reporters on their suggestion that aliens had absconded with their son:
Don't print that, son. If his mama reads that, she's just gonna lose all hope You and I will keep shining the light at Lt. Nixon's!
Gene,
p.s. -- Good site.
I'll put you on the blogroll, if you'd like.
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