Mark Benjamin/Salon: The CIA's favorite form of torture

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23472

The CIA's favorite form of torture
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-06-09 02:46. Media

If the Bush administration forces the CIA to drop "tough" interrogation techniques like waterboarding, the agency will probably fall back on a brutal method that leaves no physical marks.
By Mark Benjamin, Salon

According to news reports, the White House is preparing to issue an executive order that will set new ground rules for the CIA's secret program for interrogating captured al-Qaida types. Constrained by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which contains a strict ban on abuse, it is anticipated that the order will jettison waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques.

But President Bush has insisted publicly that "tough" techniques work, and has signaled that the CIA's secret program can somehow continue under the rubric of the Military Commissions Act. The executive order will reportedly hand the CIA greater latitude than the military to conduct coercive interrogations. If waterboarding goes the way of the Iron Maiden, what "tough" techniques will the CIA use on its high-value detainees?

The answer is most likely a measure long favored by the CIA -- sensory deprivation. The benign-sounding form of psychological coercion has been considered effective for most of the life of the agency, and its slippery definition might allow it to squeeze through loopholes in a law that seeks to ban prisoner abuse. Interviews with former CIA officials and experts on interrogation suggest that it is an obvious choice for interrogators newly constrained by law. The technique has already been employed during the "war on terror," and, Salon has learned, was apparently used on 14 high-value detainees now held at Guantánamo Bay.

A former top CIA official predicted to Salon that sensory deprivation would remain available to the agency as an interrogation tool in the future. "I'd be surprised if came out of the toolbox," said A.B. Krongard, who was the No. 3 official at the CIA until late 2004. Alfred McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has written extensively about the history of CIA interrogation, agrees with Krongard that the CIA will continue to employ sensory deprivation. "Of course they will," predicted McCoy. "It is embedded in the doctrine." For the CIA to stop using sensory deprivation, McCoy says, "The leopard would have to change his spots." And he warned that a practice that may sound innocuous to some was sharpened by the agency over the years into a horrifying torture technique.

more, very worthy of reading...

[Augdog20]

1. Rudy G supports torture See wikipedia bio & Rolling Stone magazine article

Rudy supports waterboarding and takes a "whatever it takes" approach to interrogation See the wikipedia article on Rudy.

The June 14, 2007 Rolling Stone has a stinging article by Matt Taibbi on Rudy Giuliani’s 9/11 failures and his profiting from the disaster! He raced to get lower Manhattan and Wall Street back in business ; and now the cleanup people from the World Trade Center site are getting sick and dying early from cancer.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14952564/giuliani_worse_than_bush

[undergroundpanther]

2. Sensory deprivation

Can make you go psychotic.
If brain stimulation from sensory inputs is eliminated or greatly altered the brain begins to "fill in"/compensate for the change. Hallucinations likely result; all perceptual experience is being drawn from internal sources. Loss of identity, difficulty meeting basic survival needs, apathy, and depression have been known to occur in a total sensory deprivation environment. Research subjects typically find the experience intolerable within only 4 days .

http://www.enspirepress.com/hypnosis_information_articles/sensory_deprivation/sensory_deprivation.html

Some studies present clear evidence that isolation, depriving senses and restricted stimulation are very harmful to those with pre-existing central nervous system dysfunction which can lead to adverse psychiatric reactions. There are also studies that show those with pre-existing personality disorders relating to social function exhibit an increase risk of incapacitating fearfulness, paranoia, agitation and irrational aggression mainly towards staff. These very people along with those who have difficulty controlling impulses or have internal, emotional chaotic lives are the very people who are prone to committing infractions that result in more strict incarceration conditions; thus a vicious cycle has been set up.
http://www.danenet.org/amnesty/supermax.html
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.
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=168

Torture is defined as the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.
— World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo

I spent 18 months in a "quiet room" for most hours of the day, I was in a lighter form of sensory deprivation, no tanks or goggles involved at a mental hospital..I can say that it was torturous to go through.It messed me up.I still haven't recovered.

Maybe we should force any control freak that advocates torture to BE tortured themself as they seek to do to others,and then ask them if they STILL advocate it.

I don't mind shutting Guliani in a goddamn isolation tank for a few months,to make sure he fully realizes the impact of what torture he advocates really does to people.. if it makes him realize he is a fool.And it gets him off that power trip bullshit.. If you advocate torture you might as well know how it feels to be tortured before you go reccommending others suffer it.