The unsavory details of torture techniques don't normally come up in polite conversations. Many people don't want to think about the subject. The average person devotes even less of their thoughts to the principles of resisting torture. To clearly understand exactly why the current leaders of our nation are guilty of war crimes the subject needs to be discussed. Only by examining torture from the perspective of the victim can the subject really be understood with full clarity.
Classified documents regarding torture have been released, with everything blacked out but "waterboarding." An astute person does not need classified material to learn about torture. The methods employed by the intelligence community today are not new. United States citizens suffered from all of these methods in the past, at the hands of other governments. It happened so regularly our military teaches courses in resistance techniques. The press may crave documents to point to as evidence, but they aren't necessary to learn the truth. References do follow the diary though.
Caution: Graphic and disturbing information after the flip.
Before proceeding with specific tortures it should be mentioned that just because each form must be described separately does not mean each one must be used separately. Sleep deprivation often accompanies all of the other tortures. Human degradation, such as refusal of hygiene needs, also very often takes place continuously throughout other torments. Less often used in tandem are methods that involve extreme pain, the rationale being that the human brain will shut down under the weight of too much agony. That is to say, electric shock usually stands alone; severe beatings usually stand alone. Prolonged forced stress positions usually stand alone, but in some cases that method is used in tandem with electric shock. Of course when dealing with the subject it is important to keep in mind that if an interrogator is sadistic, or if the interrogators are angry with the victim or feel they don't have much time, there really are no rules. They can do whatever they want to a human body, as long as nobody present will stop them.
Extremes of Heat and Cold:
In part one of this story a Western method of coping with torment was introduced. The idea of embracing hopelessness and using your own fatalism to your advantage is only one approach to defending yourself against the agony. An Eastern method involves the use of zen. Zen meditation represents the best solution to enduring prolonged extremes of heat. As a coping mechanism for someone locked in a deep freeze it doesn't work, because slowing down anything in your body could be suicide. If mobility were possible, the best answer to extreme cold would be to never stop moving. If mobility is not possible, singing a song has been said to have helped victims in the past. The abuse of prisoners with extremes of heat and cold illustrates how different situations warrant different methods for holding on.
Pharmaceutical Torture:
There isn't much a prisoner can do to resist the effects of drugs during interrogation. Mind altering chemicals make rational thought impossible in some cases, depending on the environment and which drugs were used. LSD was widely used during the later years of the cold war. One notorious story which got out to the public involved LSD and a carefully constructed room which made maintaining a visual perspective of reality impossible. The room was made out of glass. Water flowed over the outside of the cube while random lights created angles and nuances completely alien to natural reality. It is believed the Soviets originally came up with this idea. The first report of it was to an MI5 officer in London, years after the interrogation took place and the victim was finally released. He said that it felt like your mind was falling through space, with nothing to hold onto and no way to make it stop. He said that the audio accompanying the visual barrage was nightmarish, and that anyone who ever wanted to try drugs should have to endure just a couple of seconds of it.
This form of abuse will do no physical harm to the prisoner, but it could cause lasting psychological damage. Going into a zen state would provide a measure of protection against this warped idea. If the prisoner had never experienced a hallucinogen before it would be difficult to achieve the mental harmony necessary to withstand the madness. Advanced resistance training involves inflicting the torture on the trainee so that the trainee will be prepared if something like it ever happens. In the case of pharmaceutical torture, trainees are given drugs in likewise hostile conditions to prepare them as best as possible. After you have been exposed to the experience the potency of chemically aided interrogations is reduced to some extent. In the cases of truth serums such as scopolamine and sodium thiopental, however, building a tolerance doesn't work as well as in cases of barbituates, temazepam and hallucinogens.
Stress Positions:
The use of stress positions involves locking the prisoner in an uncomfortable position for very long periods of time. In one of the more painful methods, interrogators place the victim on their back on an elevated surface. The prisoner's hands and feet are locked in place down and behind them, and there is nothing to hold their head up. This torture, if done repeatedly, causes permanent spinal damage. The prisoner won't be paralyzed, but they will become hobbled for life. The pain won't be as intense after the torture ends, but it will stay with them forever. Zen meditation, once again, presents the best solution for coping with extended periods of severe pain.
Electric Shock:
Zen won't help somebody cope with electric shock. Shock and meditation can't exist in the same body at the same time. Screaming, laughing, singing... all of these things can help the victim cope with electric shock torture. If the interrogators gag the prisoner, or in any other way prevent the victim from making sound, carrying on a conversation in their mind can also help. Of course the victim can still scream, laugh, and sing silently as well.
Beatings:
There is no part of the human body that does not contain nerves. Abusing any of those nerves causes pain. The feet are particularly sensitive, and evil men have take advantage of that for the purpose of torturing people for centuries. Beating the feet, breaking bones in the feet... these are horrific acts of violence. By all accounts the pain is unbearable, and there really is no way to cope with it. In the case of foot torture, and all other hideous acts of brutality against the human body, coping must continue after the initial shocking pain wears off. Removing your mind from the immediate perception of the lingering pain, which can last a lifetime, must be of primary concern to the victim. Without medical treatment for the pain, which a torture victim would almost certainly not receive, the next best thing is zen meditation.
Human Degradation:
This form of abuse must have been invented by a truly twisted individual. Prisoners are forced to urinate or defecate on themselves, and then not allowed to get cleaned up. They are denied the ability to take showers or wash their hair or brush their teeth. Women are not given any way to staunch their menstrual flow. This "technique" really amounts to somebody's sadistic idea of a joke. Degradation can have a deep impact on very conservative, very dogmatic or religious people who hold cleanliness high among their ideals. There doesn't seem to be any specific approach to countering this, mostly because it's just sick, it's not really a torture. "Grin and bear it" seems to be what most people in the past have done.
Torture is like an elephant in the room that people don't want to look at. If every Democratic Representative and Senator were forced to watch real torture many of them would likely become ill. As a term, "waterboarding" has been sanitized and handed to the American people as an acceptable practice. Not only is waterboarding unacceptable, it's very, very brutal. Everything discussed in this diary has been done to United States citizens, and it's really no incredible leap to say that United States citizens have done these things to people of other nations. The documents proving it will likely never be made available, if they still exist at all. The victims of our torture programs have spoken out about what has been done to them, loudly, but their pleas for mercy have fallen on deaf ears.
Writing this diary was a terrible experience. The research could only be described as horrifying and sickening. There was a point during writing this that the option of abandoning the story looked very inviting. Getting the word out to people about what took place during the Bush years seemed too important to give up because of the disgusting subject matter. When people, including this diarist, call for criminal proceedings against our leadership in Washington, this ugly reality has a lot to do with it.
Reading List:
- American Torture by Michael Otterman
- Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S Involvenment in Torture by Jennifer Harbury
- A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror by Alfred W. McCoy
- Waterboarding Prisoners and Justifying Torture: Lessons for the U.S. from the Chilean Experience by Cristian Correa
- Pentagon Migrated Soviet Cold War Torture Techniques to Guantanamo, Iraq
These books were difficult to read. At least somebody provided them free of charge for research purposes. Some information here about the SERE program (though it's never specifically referred to) came from a cousin who served in the Navy Seals for 12 years. This is not a joke. This is not fiction. The information is sourced.