Have you ever wondered just where Bush/Rumsfeld's cronies found the techniques for questioning prisoners being held at Guantanamo and the various CIA prisons around the world?
In 2002 a group of trainers arrived to teach Guantanamo interrogators how to gain information.
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
there's a bit of disingenuous leaping to conclusions, there, in that the fact that these techniques were used for, among other things, getting false confessions does not mean that they can only be used to get false confessions, or that they can't be used responsibly and intelligently to get true confessions.
that said, i have a hard time believing that these techniques--and probably others--haven't been and aren't used to obtain false confessions for the benefit of american interests.
motorfirebox said:
there's a bit of disingenuous leaping to conclusions, there, in that the fact that these techniques were used for, among other things, getting false confessions does not mean that they can only be used to get false confessions, or that they can't be used responsibly and intelligently to get true confessions.
that said, i have a hard time believing that these techniques--and probably others--haven't been and aren't used to obtain false confessions for the benefit of american interests.
Oh, I'm not leaping to conclusions about the false or true confessions. I'm just amused by the source. Of all the places to look for inspiration . . .
the article pretty strongly intimates that the confessions gained at Gitmo are all invalid because of the techniques used. but, yeah, it is kinda funny. i guess it's better than finding out we came up with and perfected these techniques on our own.
i used to believe the techniques were necessary because, for all of Bush's horrible power-grabbing, we were facing a genuine threat. considering the long-term implications of this sort of behavior on our part, as well as considering the increasing likelihood that this is a permanent change in how we deal with the world--rather than a temporary band-aid to shore up our defenses--has led me to condemn them.
Coyotemike
USA
May 2006
JUL 02, 2008 01:49 PM