WTF? New Army Interrogation Manual Promotes Torture!
Mon Sep 18, 2006 at 01:15:09 AM PDT
Everyone's talking about how the new Army Interrogation Manual is so good about listing prohibited interrogation techniques, and following the Geneva Conventions. Here's one example from
CBS News:
It also explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking them with electricity, burning them, causing other pain and a technique called "water boarding" that simulates drowning, said Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence.
So, I looked at the new manual, titled "Human Intelligence Collector Operations", it's looong. It's in the very last appendix, over 300 pages in, that I had my WTF moment: they're still torturing!
It's entitled
"Appendix M -- Restricted Interrogation Technique -- Separation".
Briefly, it allows for complete separation, sometimes with forced wearing of goggles and earmuffs, for up to 30 days (after which approval for more must be sought). It allows for keeping sleep to four hours a day, for 30 straight days. It allows for the use of other concurrent techniques, including "futility", "incentive", and "fear up" (It does ban "hooding").
Maybe you heard of "fear up" and "futility"? They're listed in CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy, authored by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in 2003:
Fear Up Harsh: Significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee [usually through invoking a detainee's phobias, if known]....
Fear Up Mild: Moderately increasing the fear level in a detainee.....
Futility: Invoking the feeling of futility of a detainee.
The new Army manual describes the new "restricted" policy of separation, which they say is meant for non-legitimate non-prisoner of war Al Queda types.
M-26. The purpose of separation is to deny the detainee the opportunity to
communicate with other detainees in order to keep him from learning counter-resistance techniques or gathering new information to support a cover story, decreasing the detainee's resistance to interrogation. Separation does not constitute sensory deprivation, which is prohibited. For the purposes of this manual, sensory deprivation is defined as an arranged situation causing significant psychological distress due to a prolonged absence, or significant reduction, of the usual external stimuli and perceptual opportunities. Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior. Detainees will not be subjected to sensory deprivation.
M-27. Physical separation is the best and preferred method of separation. As a last resort, when physical separation of detainees is not feasible, goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs may be utilized as a field expedient method to generate a perception of separation.
M-28. Objectives:
* Physical Separation: Prevent the detainee from communicating with other detainees (which might increase the detainee's resistance to interrogation) and foster a feeling of futility.
* Field Expedient Separation: Prolong the shock of capture. Prevent the detainee from communicating with other detainees (which might increase the detainee's resistance to interrogation) and foster a feeling of futility.....
�� Custody and Control: The interrogation chain of command must coordinate the interrogation plan with the Detention Operations Commander. The Detention Operations Commander (in conjunction with the MI commander) may convene a multidiscipline custody and control oversight team including, but not limited to, MP, MI, BSC (if available), and legal representatives. The team can advise and provide measures to ensure effective custody and control in compliance with the requirements of applicable law and policy.
The BSC mentioned above means Behavioral Science Consultant, and is either a psychiatrist or psychologist. The Army has said it prefers psychologists these days, probably because the American Psychiatric Association refuses to let its members participate in interrogations, while the American Psychological Association sets some ethical guidelines, but allows participation. The APA even allows as part of its ethical guidelines the right to submit to unethical demands by "lawful authority".
What does separation or isolation do to an individual? In a review by Lawrence Hinkle Jr, written back in 1961, it was understood how debilitating this technique was, causing "disordered brain function". The Army lies when they say this is not sensory deprivation: that is exactly what it is. From the essay (and you can read more about this essay and the research it stemmed from in my last diary, Frankenstein's Children):
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its features to the "brain syndrome"... they cease to care about their utterances, dress, and cleanliness. They become dulled, apathetic, and depressed. In due time they become disoriented and confused; their memories become defective and they experience hallucinations and delusions. In these circumstances their capacity of judgment and discrimination is much impaired, and they readily succumb to their need for talk and companionship; but their ability to impart accurate information may be as much impaired as their capacity to resist an interrogator.
Classically, isolation has been used as a means of "making a man talk," simply because it is so often associated with a deterioration of thinking and behavior and is accompanied by an intense need for companionship and for talk. From the interogator's viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal way of "breaking down" a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires... However, the effect of isolation upon the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved, or deprived of sleep.
"Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject" in The Manipulation of Human Behavior, 1961, John Wiley & Sons.
To get the idea of the effects of isolation, rent the movie "Papillon" with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. You can distinctly see the neurological and psychological effects on these two men when they suffer prolonged isolation. It also demonstrates the differential effect of this treatment on different individuals.
I think there's even more in this Army Interrogation Manual that is dubious, such as the conflation of different definitions of "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment", but I'll leave that for another time.
So as you listen to the common wisdom, and the airbags pontificate, don't forget: they intend to keep on torturing, unless we rise up and demand they stop!
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