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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: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 18 2016, @07:56AM
You don't necessarily "got the guy"
Oh he\they take credit for it. I shouldn't have presented it as a hypothetical scenario when I know it happens regularly with botched suicide bombers. They come-in strapped with a bomb, you catch them, and then you're on the clock. Because they often operate in teams and another bomber is headed elsewhere.
At that point, there might not be another bomber. The bomber might be lying to you. It might be that the bomber was forced into to it... It doesn't matter. You have a few hours to apply as much force as you can while keeping the guy alive and get what you can out of him. You're right in saying many don't break. But enough do.
But again, this is a very tight exception. The way people were imprisoned for months and tortured throughout doesn't hold up to this exception. Still, it's a valid exception that should be brought before congress on a vote to regulate it. Because right now, it's left out in the hand of the executive branch and they tend to overstep their bounds without proper oversight.
There is no such thing under international law
First off, there's no such thing as international laws. Only treaties. Enforced through the force of individual nations and alliances.
Secondly, there's strict rules on the geneva convention and where it applies. It's specifically requires military uniform and insignia. Separately, there are human rights treaties that are often prerequisites to joining NATO. But they don't have real enforcement by-laws. Issues regarding nation level compliance are brought before the general assembly and are voted between the members on sanction or downright expulsion. Some treaties regarding human rights only allow fellow nations to submit grievances. Meaning, when a veto powered nation like the US does the violating, no nation will even bother with it. At best, they'll file grievances. At most, they'll quite NATO and break off the treaties.
compiling...