Comments on: The Dark Art Of Interrogation

The Dark Art Of Interrogation

patrickje — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:12:43 -0800

The Dark Art Of Interrogation Excellent article on the ongoing science of interrogation in the post 9/11 United States. For further reading, please consider the following seminal manuals by the CIA: The Kubark Manual [1963], and the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual [1983 - otherwise known as the Honduras Manual]

By: lowlife

lowlife — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:09:34 -0800

Agreed, a very interesting article. The only thing that soured me was the author's op-ed in the last two paragraphs. He could have allowed the readers to make up their own minds about whether or not torture, in whatever sense, is justified.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:48:42 -0800

I read it a few months ago when I got the issue and my reaction was much the same as lowlife's. The author of the piece essentially boils the whole debate down to "they should do it and not tell anyone because we need to be safe (!!) and people who don't like should keep protesting against it because that's good too and then we won't go too far." Then again, it was fairly clear he had that agenda from the beginning of the article so it wasn't surprising--I just don't think the evidence he suggested was altogether compelling or in any way supported the conclusions he seemed to draw from them. The Atlantic Monthly occasionally has some really good feature articles (the recent one about anarcy at sea is a great example), but all too often recently it has been reduced to being a mouthpiece for the upper class, defending American actions at all costs. That was likely a product of their former editor's support for the war, which he based on Friedman-esque logic (doesn't matter why it happens, it's good.) The editor-in-question was killed in Iraq, I believe during a humvee accident, before many of the indiscrepencies about the war came to light; by came to light, I of course mean in the mass media sense, since many of us knew about it well before that.

By: daver

daver — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:32:55 -0800

I thought he did better than that, TCG. The basic point was this: You can't control this by legislating what's OK to do. You control it by outlawing it. If an interrogator feels they must torture in a particular situation, they should know that they could go to court and defend their actions. He's got several examples (the German kid who was left to suffocate, and the Israeli 'moderate physical force' law) to back his point. I do agree that he does seem to have a bit of a pointed agenda, but I thought he made his case relatively well. Plus, an interesting read...

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:28:20 -0800

If an interrogator feels they must torture in a particular situation, they should know that they could go to court and defend their actions. And it's abundantly clear that they hardly, if ever, do go to court for these things, since none of the information about exactly what the interrogators are doing is ever made public (see: Guantanamo Bay). He doesn't really address that and goes on to draw the conclusions that it's still for the best if the government takes these things under its own discretion--secretly, even--because us mere citizens aren't equipped to deal with the nastiness of the real world. I agree that some of the arguments during the first 2/3 of the article are at least reasonable and worth examining, but they're worth examining in a more evenhanded way.

By: kablam

kablam — Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:04:31 -0800

Truly creepy. According to an unnamed CIA agent, one of the many Gitmo-like camps established by the US for "terrorists", and one of the nastier ones, is called "The Hotel California." This gives horrible torture and murder double-entendres to almost every line in the song. You can let your morbid imagination run wild... (Don't think about this too much if you like the song.) *************** On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim I had to stop for the night There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, 'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell' Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say... Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year, you can find it here Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget So I called up the Captain, 'Please bring me my wine' He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine' And still those voices are calling from far away, Wake you up in the middle of the night Just to hear them say... Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place Such a lovely face They livin' it up at the Hotel California What a nice surprise, bring your alibis Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device' And in the master's chambers, They gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives, But they just can't kill the beast Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before 'Relax,' said the night man, We are programmed to receive. You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:54:28 -0800

This post deserves more comments.