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posted by takyon on Saturday April 16 2016, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the involuntary-sleep-deprivation dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday April 17 2016, @10:19PM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday April 17 2016, @10:19PM (#333435)

    Oh? It is?

    I think so, yes. I don't care what hypothetical scenarios you put forth, either. I'd rather we go down sticking to our principles than become barbaric torturers.

    Seems pretty straight forward to me. But sure, your millage may vary.

    That's the best part about the social sciences.

    Sure you do.

    It's foolish for you to tell other people what they think. The same can be done to you. For instance, by telling you that you don't actually believe any of the arguments you've put forth and that you agree with me in your heart.

    All I can say is that your characterization of me is incorrect in a number of ways and many of your examples simply do not describe me.

    And no person should be punished for doing something most other people would likely do if they were in their shoes.

    It's a popular course of action, so we shouldn't punish them? I don't think so. We're not going to fix the problem by letting people get away with engaging in the bad behavior, that's for sure. Cultures can and do change, and we should try to change the bad aspects of our culture.

    Do you also think that the results of the Nuremberg trials were wrong, or is that magically different because the people using the 'Just following orders' excuse happened to be in positions of power? The logic is the same, and the situations are mostly the same. Maybe most people would have even done the same thing, which, as we all know, absolves them.

    I didn't demonstrate pigs can't fly either by throwing each and every one of them off the roof.

    I don't see your point.

    I'm against punishing people for the sake of revenge.

    Well, so am I, but this isn't merely for revenge. It's part of the reforms to make torture less likely.

    It only excuses keeping things as is since the system worked and justice prevailed at the end.

    Right, right. It's either one or the other, because you said so.

    But really. I'm done. If you can't see how much gray there's in this issue and how damaging it is to set the standard for morality as low as "You shouldn't because it's not nice and you wouldn't like it done to you" then I really don't know what more to say.

    Well, if you don't think that torture is bad or think that we shouldn't punish individual torturers, then our goals are simply irreconcilable.

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 18 2016, @08:57AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Monday April 18 2016, @08:57AM (#333667)

    It's foolish for you to tell other people what they think.

    I'm using plural you and me. Most people trust authority and feel violated when it fails them. And to be clear, I was the troublemaker that was disobeying orders when I was in the service over what I thought was right which eventually got me kicked out. But I would never presume to hold other people to my personal convictions or expect them to follow what they know is right when it means standing up to the whole chain of command as a simple grunt. I would, however, hold high ranking officers and politicians accountable since, at that point, they're in the positions of power and influence to do something about it.

    if you don't think that torture is bad

    I don't think it's immoral. I think it's impossible to regulate since proper oversight and check and balances failed and fail so I'm in favor of banning torture altogether which is inline with your goals.
    However, the laws, rules and regulations at the time, and now, allow it. And there are morally justifiable conditions for it. So I'm not in favor of witch trials.
    But for the sake of writing enforceable and practical laws, I'm willing to risk the odd criminal getting away \ terrorist blowing himself up. However, it's not a moral position. It's a technical positions that relates to my personal experience with how rare it is for people to step up and do the right thing when facing direct orders as well as everything I read on the subject.

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    • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday April 18 2016, @09:54PM

      by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday April 18 2016, @09:54PM (#333968)

      I would, however, hold high ranking officers and politicians accountable since, at that point, they're in the positions of power and influence to do something about it.

      Not always. Also, your standard was: "And no person should be punished for doing something most other people would likely do if they were in their shoes." Since it's based on how popular a given course of action is, if we find out that those high-ranking officers and politicians took actions that most other people would take were they in their shoes, we can't hold them accountable.

      And there are morally justifiable conditions for it.

      I reject this altogether.

      So I'm not in favor of witch trials.

      The difference between a witch trial and this is that the torturer is real.

      It's a technical positions that relates to my personal experience with how rare it is for people to step up and do the right thing when facing direct orders as well as everything I read on the subject.

      And we have to discourage that type of behavior as best we can. Punishment is simply part of that.