Fwd: Some Kind of 'Manly'

[Henk Vreekamp]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Aardig verhaal uit de NYTimes: neolibs en commis even erg inzake verhoor 
van gevangenen.

> >Doing Unto Others as They Did Unto Us
>
> >By M. GREGG BLOCHE and JONATHAN H. MARKS
> >November 14, 2005
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/opinion/14blochemarks.html?hp
>
> >Washington - How did American interrogation tactics after 9/11 come to
> >include abuse rising to the level of torture? Much has been said about the
> >illegality of these tactics, but the strategic error that led to their
> >adoption has been overlooked.
> >
> >The Pentagon effectively signed off on a strategy that mimics Red Army
> >methods. But those tactics were not only inhumane, they were ineffective.
> >For Communist interrogators, truth was beside the point: their aim was to
> >force compliance to the point of false confession.
> >
> >Fearful of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of
> >intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Pentagon
> >officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a
> >school for torture. That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C.,
> >known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies
> >of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE
> >was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might
> >face in enemy custody.
> >
> >The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE's teachings on their head,
> >mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation
> >methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern
> >Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went "up to our
> >SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile,
> >high-value" detainees. General Hill had sent this list - which included
> >prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical
> >assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias - to Secretary of
> >Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December
> >2002.
> >
> >Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture,
> >but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to
> >their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month.
> >
> >When internal F.B.I. e-mail messages critical of these methods were made
> >public earlier this year, references to SERE were redacted. But we've
> >obtained a less-redacted version of an e-mail exchange among F.B.I.
> >officials, who refer to the methods as "SERE techniques." We also learned
> >from a Pentagon official that the SERE program's chief psychologist, Col.
> >Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for the "behavioral science
> >consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy
> >(we've been unable to learn the content of that guidance).
> >
> >SERE methods are classified, but the program's principles are known. It
> >sought to recreate the brutal conditions American prisoners of war
> >experienced in Korea and Vietnam, where Communist interrogators forced
> >false confessions from some detainees, and broke the spirits of many more,
> >through Pavlovian and other conditioning. Prolonged isolation, sleep
> >deprivation, painful body positions and punitive control over life's most
> >intimate functions produced overwhelming stress in these prisoners. Stress
> >led in turn to despair, uncontrollable anxiety and a collapse of
> >self-esteem. Sometimes hallucinations and delusions ensued. Prisoners who
> >had been through this treatment became pliable and craved companionship,
> >easing the way for captors to obtain the "confessions" they sought.
> >
> >SERE, as originally envisioned, inoculates American soldiers against these
> >techniques. Its psychologists create mock prison regimens to study the
> >effects of various tactics and identify the coping styles most likely to
> >withstand them. At Guantánamo, SERE-trained mental health professionals
> >applied this knowledge to detainees, working with guards and medical
> >personnel to uncover resistant prisoners' vulnerabilities. "We know if
> >you've been despondent; we know if you've been homesick," General Hill
> >said. "That is given to interrogators and that helps the interrogators"
> >make their plans.
> >
> >Within the SERE program, abuse is carefully controlled, with the goal of
> >teaching trainees to cope. But under combat conditions, brutal tactics
> >can't be dispassionately "dosed." Fear, fury and loyalty to fellow
> >soldiers facing mortal danger make limits almost impossible to sustain.
> >
> >By bringing SERE tactics and the Guantánamo model onto the battlefield,
> >the Pentagon opened a Pandora's box of potential abuse. On Nov. 26, 2003,
> >for example, an Iraqi major general, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was forced into
> >a sleeping bag, then asphyxiated by his American interrogators. We've
> >obtained a memorandum from one of these interrogators - a former SERE
> >trainer - who cites command authorization of "stress positions" as
> >justification for using what he called "the sleeping bag technique."
> >
> >"A cord," he explained, "was used to limit movement within the bag and
> >help bring on claustrophobic conditions." In SERE, he said, this was
> >called close confinement and could be "very effective." Those who squirmed
> >or screamed in the sleeping bag, he said, were "allowed out as soon as
> >they start to provide information."
> >
> >Three soldiers have been ordered to stand trial on murder charges in
> >General Mowhoush's death. Yet the Pentagon cannot point to any
> >intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished
> >America's image. That's because the techniques designed by communist
> >interrogators were created to control a prisoner's will rather than to
> >extract useful intelligence.
> >
> >A full account of how our leaders reacted to terrorism by re-engineering
> >Red Army methods must await an independent inquiry. But the SERE model's
> >embrace by the Pentagon's civilian leaders is further evidence that abuse
> >tantamount to torture was national policy, not merely the product of rogue
> >freelancers. After the shock of 9/11 - when Americans desperately wanted
> >mastery over a world that suddenly seemed terrifying - this policy had
> >visceral appeal. But it's the task of command authority to connect means
> >and ends rationally. The Bush administration has too frequently failed to
> >do this. And so it is urgent that Congress step in to tie our detainee
> >policy to our national interest.
> >
> >M. Gregg Bloche is a law professor at Georgetown University and a visiting
> >fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jonathan H. Marks, a barrister in
> >London, is a bioethics fellow at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins.

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