http://www.usaid.gov/

Get your t-shirts here, comrade!

http://www.che-mart.com/

For LINK and NES: Again, on torture, since Paul Ausseresses is mentioned. When reviewing Algeria, it is helpful to keep in mind the reality of 1956-57, when the 10th Airborne Division took over Algiers. First, they were part of the government, not a “foreign” force. Second, the first thing they did when given the mission was to sieze all pertinent police files. Thus they had a data base to begin with. Third, there was a screening and validation process, using snitches and turned captured terrorists, that that weeded down the prospects for enhanced interrogation techniques, which led to the identity of those who most likely had the information needed. These received the heaviest interrogation methods. This is not to say that mistakes weren’t made, but it was not a willy-nilly process, or some Reservist prison guards acting out their fantasies. Fourth, the use of such techniques split the French Army from the beginning. In some biographies, former paras note that those who excelled in hard interrogation techniques tended to be from among the worse elements of any unit. And no less a personage that GEN Paris de la Bollardiere came out publicly against it, thereby ending a career that included SAS service in WWII and Indochina. Ironically, one of the female Algerian bombers went on to marry a prominant attorney and lives in France today. She intended to “liberate” a country that she had no intention of remaining in.

I’ll begin my rant with this:

1. I am against torture and find it morally objectionable.

2. I do not accept assertions that the US Military is engaging in the torture of detainees at Gitmo and will not accept such assertions without conclusive evidence.

That being said:

Linkd provided a litany of quotes from references to social science studies made by people who are against torture that in the end provided no evidence or conclusive data and therefore proved nothing. (To Linkd’s credit, he admitted as much.) Most social science studies, like polls, are designed by the authors, who are almost always socially liberal academics, to come up with a predetermined conclusion through loaded questions, incomplete data that ignore important factors, and data massaging. There are rare exceptions when a study is designed in a truly unbiased, scientific way. Even in the hard physical sciences, most scientists consider about 50% of the literature to be garbage, 80-90% if you ask a professor from a top-tier institution. If one asks the same question to physical scientists about social science literature, then the number is more like 99% garbage. While my statements here are purely anecdotal (based on actual statements made directly to me by three different US university professors), so are most of the social science studies in the literature.

Given the social science anecdotes, I feel free to provide my own anecdotes:

John McCain described in his autobiography, “Faith of My Fathers,” how he fractured both arms and a leg when his plane was shot down over Hanoi, he had his shoulder crushed with a rifle butt and was bayoneted by an attacking crowd, and then his Vietcong captors exploited his injuries to extract information.

“Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate,” he wrote.

“I thought they were bluffing and refused to provide any information beyond my name, rank and serial number, and date of birth. They knocked me around a little to force my cooperation.”

“Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant.”

Recalling how he eventually broke and yielded information to his captors, McCain said: “I regret very much having done so. The information was of no real use to the Vietnamese, but the Code of Conduct for American Prisoners of War orders us to refrain from providing any information beyond our names, rank and serial number.”

McCain underwent severe torture beginning in August of 1968 in the form of repeated beatings and rope bindings, all while suffering from dysentery. In an interview with U.S. News & World Report entitled “How the POW’s Fought Back,” John McCain described the day Hanoi Hilton guards beat him “from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes.”

After only four days, he made a confession that supported Vietcong anti-American propaganda. “For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards… Finally, I reached the lowest point of my 5 1/2 years in North Vietnam. I was at the point of suicide, because I saw that I was reaching the end of my rope.” [I’m sure no pun was intended]

McCain was taken to a room and ordered to sign a document confessing to war crimes. “I signed it,” he recalled. “It was in their language, and spoke about black crimes, and other generalities.”

While feeling that his statement was dishonorable, he later wrote, “I had learned what we all learned over there. Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.” [emphasis mine]

Now, it was claimed that those who are tortured also give false information, and that much is true. McCain also told a lot of lies to his captors, such as giving the names of American football players when asked who his commanding officers were. Ultimately, the Vietcong did not have a sophisticated enough international intelligence network to invalidate false claims and for the most part were more interested in intentionally producing false confessions for propaganda purposes. Most effective interrogators are well aware that false information will be provided and that information must be vetted. Information can be tested and liars can be tortured again and again under the accusation of lying until they finally break and give real, verifiable information. Despite what one might think, it does not require chasing thousands of false leads (and lie detection of one sort or another can be integrated). Furthermore, interrogators will include asking questions that they already have the answers to based on intelligence or ask multiple prisoners the same questions individually in order to catch lies. Only one lie needs to be found and the captive severely punished for that lie. After a few iterations of this, the captive realizes that he must provide verifiably true information in order to avoid further torture. Put simply, torture is only as effective as the torturer (methods and means).

For my next set of anecdotes, I will quote from the ever anti-American al-BBC, or Pravda-UK (PUKe), the British version of NYT. The following are from: “The truth about torture” BBC News, Kate Townsend, April 5, 2005

…many of the people who’ve dealt out near electrocutions, mock drownings and beatings believe such techniques are effective - that torture works in getting people to talk. And some retired torturers insist they would not hesitate from doing the same today.

…

Like many former torturers, [French Resistance fighter Paul Aussaresses] still believes it is the most effective way to gather intelligence in a so called “ticking bomb” case. He claims to have stopped Algerian bomb makers from killing French civilians by extracting confessions though electric shocks and suffocation with a water saturated towel. They were methods he’d adapted from the Nazis.

…

The belief that torture works is justification enough for most torturers. Some experts claim that information divulged under force is always unreliable, but many who’ve practised torture say they have the experience to prove otherwise.

He has no doubt the beatings he inflicted on detainees forced them to talk: “The people will never give you anything without torture, that I can assure you.”

…

Former colleague Paul Van Vuuren lost count of the number of people he tortured under apartheid, but is still proud of his skills.

“There are all these movies about Rambo and stuff where they put electricity on his bodies and he’s not talking. That’s bullshit. There is no-one in the world; I haven’t yet seen one guy that don’t talk. I can take anyone on and make them talk, that’s no problem.”

Now, I don’t put a whole lot of trust into the BBC, but I figured I would include these quotes from torturers anyway to add to the anecdotes. I conveniently ignored the other parts of the article that don’t fit my point of view. This is my “study,” after all…

For my last anecdote, I invoke something that should hit home with most of you. How many here have been on at least one side of a big brother/little brother dispute that involved some small amount of “torture.” It usually doesn’t take too much nipple or arm twisting for a big brother to coerce desired information out of a little brother. Sometimes the little brother lies, and that is usually followed up by more of the same until big brother receives verifiable information.

Torture can be an effective method to extract information from a captive. The success depends on the effectiveness of the torturer in inflicting pain and fear, chemical/drug enhancement, the usefulness of the questions being asked, the ability of the torturer to verify information through intelligence and/or instrumental means (lie detector), the level of importance to the captive that the particular information not be revealed, and the physical and mental endurance of the captive being tortured. I think there are certain people who can withstand torture, and I think that there are certain things that certain people are not willing to say or do even under torture. However, I think that such exceptions are few and far between. That being said, however effective or ineffective torture is, it should not be used because it is immoral.

You quote the US Army Field Manual as saying, “The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government.” Is this the same US Army Field Manual written in Chinese and based on torture techniques from a 1957 report?

You also gave a quoted section about the torture of Abdul Hakeim Murad by police in the Philippines with the following reference:

Ref: C.I.A. Taught, Then Dropped, Mental Torture in Latin America, NYT, TIM WEINER, January 29, 1997

However, the quoted section is nowhere to be found in the article. I read it a few times over to make sure.

The closest reference I could find to your quote was this:

Ref: “If a Terror Suspect Won’t Talk, Should He Be Made To?” NYT, PETER MAASS, March 9, 2003

However, the story of his torture comes from his defense team during his court hearing. I suppose that we can all take the word of a terrorist and his lawyers as fact. From your source of choice:

Two medical experts testifying in defense of one of the three men accused of plotting to blow up American jetliners overseas said yesterday that his behavior supported his claim that he had been tortured while in Philippine police custody.

Dr. Richard I. Frederick, a forensic psychologist, and Dr. Angela Haggerty, a neuropsychiatrist, said in separate testimony in Federal District Court in Manhattan that the defendant, Abdul Hakim Murad, exhibited symptoms of a post-traumatic stress disorder when they interviewed him in Federal custody recently.

[No shit. Getting caught and put on trial causes stress. Who woulda thunk it? I also hear he had an overbearing mother who didn’t love him enough. He’s a very sad terrorist…]

Dr. Frederick, who saw Mr. Murad during the 48 days that he spent in the United States Medical Center for Prisoners at Springfield, Mo., made clear that he did not know whether Mr. Murad had been tortured by Philippine police interrogators to make him admit to a role in the plot.

Dr. Frederick said the symptoms of post-trauma stress disorder include headache, nightmares, sleeplessness, weight loss and irrational anxiety about people and places, all of which Mr. Murad exhibited. But he acknowledged that the disorder could be feigned, and he admitted, “I don’t know anything about what happened to Murad in the Philippines.”

Ref: “Experts Say Plot Suspect Showed Signs Of Torture” NYT, CHRISTOPHER S. WREN, August 23, 1996

OK. He supposedly had broken ribs and cigarette burns on his testicles, and these injuries did not provide enough medical evidence (scars, misshaped bones, etc) for the defense team’s doctors to know what happened?! (Such medical evidence is typically found in the medical reports used by survivors of torture seeking asylum in the US.) I’ll venture a scholarly opinion and take this all to mean that the quoted section from the NYT article that you cited is complete bullshit. Who would have expected such from The New York Times, the paper of Jayson Blair, Maureen Dowd, and Walter Duranty.

Another problem is that the police in Manila didn’t need to torture him since they already had his laptop computer with the plans on it. They also rejected bribes from him for more money than they make in a year.

Evidence against Murad was no less compelling. Interrogation tapes played in court depicted Murad elaborating on the technical specifics of bomb making. He was also recorded talking about how much he enjoys killing Americans.

Ref: “Plane terror suspects convicted on all counts” CNN/Reuters, Brian Jenkins, September 5, 1996

I wonder how easy it was to understand his “torture” tape confession over the screams due to searing testicles…

Anyone ever see the German film, “The Lives of Others”? If so, would the first scene of the movie be considered torture?

Reading your # 37 was both tortuous and ineffective…

J/K!!!

Che was a Maoist… Che was an idiot. Che deserved to die at the hands of the Bolivians and CIA.

Here’s why. Maoism states that in countries that are not industrializing, communisim needs a helping hand. You see, communisim in an industrialized country will naturally happen because the proletarian will tire of their petty bourgeoisie overlords and throw off the yolks of slavery in a catharthic revolution of the proletariat. An agricultural society? Well, they need more persuasion. Communisim needs to be actively “missionaried” if you will.

So we have Che, who is a fire brand of a revolutionary always bothering Castro about instituting a more “truer” form of “communism” and Castro pretending to listen to Che but really asking himself why he has to listen to this idealist from Argentina.

So Che, knowing that most of South America wasn’t industrialized, decided to take the Maoist approach to revolution and wanted to actively institute it and starting in Bolivia. He was nothing more than a nusance. His biggest accomplishment was to bother Bolivian farmers with his talks of a socialist utopia while he stole, uh I mean liberated their chickens, goats and grain to feed himself and his few dozen “revolutionaries.” The Bolivians were more then happy to tell the authorities where Che and his self-declared “communist” bandits were. The CIA’s involvement was way over emphasised. It was essentially just one Cuban American who acted more as an observer than an advisor. It was pretty easy tracking and hunting down Che and his men since the local population saw them more as a gang of chicken thieves rather than anyone with a high political agenda.

Any ways. Che Guevara, fire brand revolutionary, idealist. Stupid stupid stupid Bolivia adventure that could only end in his certain capture and probable death.