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Eric Fair served as an interrogator in Iraq working as a military contractor for the private security firm CACI. [...] Fair writes about feeling haunted by what he did, what he saw and what he heard in Iraq, from the beating of prisoners to witnessing the use of sleep deprivation, stress positions and isolation to break prisoners.
[...] Raad Hussein is bound to the Palestinian chair. His hands are tied to his ankles. The chair forces him to lean forward in a crouch, forcing all of his weight onto his thighs. It's as if he's been trapped in the act of kneeling down to pray, his knees frozen just above the floor, his arms pinned below his legs. He is blindfolded. His head has collapsed into his chest. He wheezes and gasps for air. There is a pool of urine at his feet. He moans: too tired to cry, but in too much pain to remain silent.
[...] Sleep deprivation, as I've said before, can be accomplished in a matter of hours. You can let someone go to sleep in a dark room with no windows, and you can wake them up in 15 or 20 minutes. They have no idea how long they've been asleep. And with no windows, they have no idea what time of day it is. You can let them go back to sleep, and you can wake them up in 20 minutes. They still have no idea. And they've since—within 45 minutes, they've lost all sense of time. Two or three hours later, you can convince this person that he's been living for four or five days, when it's really only been an hour.
[...] [The purpose of sleep deprivation:] The complete lack of hope. It is to strip away someone's hope and to insert a different way of thinking into their mind, which would be my mind into theirs, so that they're going to cooperate with me.
Part 1: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/7/a_torturer_s_confession_former_abu
Part 2: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/7/ex_abu_ghraib_interrogator_israelis_trained
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Saturday April 16 2016, @07:56PM
This is not about feeling sorry for him. He is a whistleblower and his use here SHOULD be to get to the people responsible for this.
In this case CACI and the people who employed them. They should all be tried for war crimes including the heads of state responsible for overseeing this.
For that, a plea deal is PERFECTLY acceptable, just like it is elsewhere.
Of course none of this will happen because most of the super power countries are run and somewhat populated by bloodthirsty nutjobs who don't have the empathy to fully grasp what they are endorsing - or even how little it actually achieves.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 16 2016, @08:17PM
You know what I'm tired of? Heterosexual males raping and sodomizing young girls. That's what I'm tired of.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2016, @12:36AM
Then stop doing it. Oh wait, I missed the part where you said heterosexual.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday April 17 2016, @01:31AM
I know you are just a useless troll, but even at that it appears you are useless.
The raping of anyone is illegal almost everywhere under almost all circumstances. (unfortunately not all)
Torture by the state, rarely so.
So again, you are a fail-troll of the douchiest order.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2016, @07:24AM
Deuteronomy ch 22 v 28-29, hebrew.
Faggot.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday April 17 2016, @07:27PM
A religious quote coupled with hate, ignorance and bigotry?
You may be a mouth breathing moron, but you certainly know the perfect accompaniments for religion. Good on you, if he existed I am sure your god would almost certainly proud
And if you can tell me where this practice is legal then you can have a cookie. No? Then perhaps you can stop pretending that spouting ancient religious nonsense has anything to do with the law.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2016, @07:26AM
It is what girls are for.
Read the old testament.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2016, @04:55AM
I think there is a law that was passed that gave military contractors a free pass from other things done during this time, free as in made as difficult to sue or prove standing, both legislstively and through court decisions supporting those things or justifying putting kibbosh on the cases that have come up.
which sucks.
what sucks is we have at least two presidential candidates who'd order it to be turned back on. two who are doingvquite well.
what is sad is that noone who seems for this has even contemplated at all that they themselves could be subject to such treatments. in their minds, the notion is totally inconceivable. their belief that they just arent one of Them, could ever be one of Them, is absolute. and they believe that almost everyone else is one of Them, even if they havent outed themselves yet.
Dick Cheney wrong? (ok, he's kinda had to keep a low profile about the Gays...) If anything, we were too soft about it. Yu, the lawyer who drafted the document that set "legally" it in motion? Unrepentant. and so on.
As nutty as Sen. John McCain has been sonetimes, it is sad when he and his cohorts were summarily dismissed from the conversations. Or even taiNted/smeared by Donald Trump about it. Yet McCain's voice on this has been clear and consistent.
in a way, they're like the Indonesian military members who are proud of what they did in the 50's (there's a recent, chilling documentary about it).
I thought we Americans were better than that.
I'm sorry, rest of the world...we failed you.