Senate CIA Torture Report

Torture is used against terrorist detainees and prisoners of war.

Torture has been used by the rogue nations of the world:  Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan (WWII), N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Russian KGB, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Syria.

And, now the U.S.A.

Yes, the U.S.A. now joins the rogue nations of the world who use torture.  We have stooped to the level of these rogue nations. Where we used to take the high road with our POW's and detainees, now we grovel in the torture mess of the world.

 We hear of the brutal interrogation tactics, nothing less than torture, in graphic detail in the recent Senate Intelligence Committee CIA Torture Report complied at the request of Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Many of the brutal interrogation attacks (torture) include but are not limited to:

• sleep deprivation
• sensory deprivation
• water boarding
• chained to walls and floors
• chained and then hung
• forced stress positions
• isolation
• threats
• rectal hydration
• ice baths
• wall slamming

If you saw the Osama bin Laden movie, Zero Dark Thirty, then you saw the use of some of these torture techniques against detainees in the movie.

Of course, former vice-president Dick Cheney, who coined the euphemism "enhanced interrogation techniques," (EIT) in place of the word torture, has weighed in by calling the Senate report of the CIA to be "bolognie".  He claims, opposite of the report, that the EIT was approved by the Bush administration.  The report claims torture of detainees was never approved by the Bush administration and further more, then President Bush was never informed of the torture techniques used from 2002-2006 during his presidency. 

Private, secret torture prisons were set up by the CIA around the world  because torture techniques could not be used in the U.S. prison system nor could they be used on military base prisons. Some prisons were built in the Middle East such as Abu Gharib, one in Thailand, and several in Afghanistan run by Blackwater, and of course, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  These prisons have no accountability or oversight and are free to use these torture techniques.  They are free to keep detainees as long as they wish without due process of a trial.

Coercive psychoanalysis techniques were used to induce psychological regression in detainees according to the Senate report.  The CIA interrogators hoped to bring a superior outside force to bear on the detainee's will to resist.

They used academic research on interrogation, "learned helplessness," or other methods that can't be tested in an ethical way in the real world and provide little guidance for effective questioning.

Military psychologists and the American Psychological Association are outraged that these types of techniques were used as methods of torture against detainees.  Psychological techniques are to be used to help not to torture.

The Senate report findings conclude that the brutal techniques used against detainees were torture and did not add valuable information to what had been already obtained through less coercive means.

Severe stress disrupts people's ability to think quickly and some experienced interrogators emphasize the value of establishing rapport with a detainee and obtaining information on the basis of trust rather than cruelty.

Under torture, a detainee will say anything the CIA operatives want to hear to stop the torture.  Torture also creates hate on the part of the detainee and causes more resistance to information wanted or completely false information given during torture.

Our country completely overruled the Geneva Conventions, partly written by the U.S., and is accepted internationally as the accepted treatment of prisoners of war and detainees.  No longer can the U.S. insist on the Geneva Conventions being followed for U.S. soldiers as prisoners of war because we have ignored it when it comes to our detainees.

The use of torture by the U.S. has opened the door for beheadings and torture being used against our soldiers and hostages.

To be fair, the report did not interview the interrogators or CIA operatives that used the torture methods and it is why there has been an outcry from the CIA that its side was not included in the report.

The CIA has come out with rebuttals and Republican politicians have come to the CIA's rescue by publicizing findings of their own.

But, the fact still remains, torture was used in secret for many years against detainees and we can't now complain when our soldiers and hostages are tortured or beheaded.

What values does the U.S.A espouse?  Do we want to be known as a rogue nation that tortures or do we want to be known as an humanitarian nation that that respects all life?