N.B.

[pecunium]

For those of you who stumbled in here because ginmar, matociquala, geekchick, patgreene or some other person I know not; who chose to link to me, welcome.

Read the info page for an idea of who I am. Read the rules for some idea of how to take part (and please take part, this is just wanking if no one comments).

I said something in that last post which was meant to tell the regular readers of this thing how strongly I feel about this. I trust most of them saw it, and that it had some (if only subliminal) effect.

I'm an interrogator, for the U.S. Army. I convince people to betray their friends, so my friends can kill their friends. And that's OK with me. I sleep well at night (mostly, but that's not what wakes me up and haunts my dreams).

I hate torture. It doesn't work. I would not mentally; nor morally, able to sit on a jury where torture is the charge. I would be too prone to convict. I'd want to hurt convicted torturers. I am not completely rational on the subject.

If you doubt me, just google my name, and interrogation, or my name and torture.

So when I say this is worse than torture, I mean it's as bad as bad can be.

Torture warps and destroys those who use it. That's bad.

It gets bad information, which leads to bad intel, which leads to bad decisions. That's bad.

Bad decisions leads to the wrong people getting killed. That's bad.

This is worse.

Comments

[honormac.livejournal.com]

*grin* I stumbled in here because of you, dear... although, to be fair, it was in [Unknown site tag]'s journal that we began talking, if I remember correctly.

You remain one of those fairly few I am damned glad I bumped into electronically, and hope to bump into physically some time.

[honormac.livejournal.com]

oops... forgot the quotes. ginmar

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, since you are one of those not new, it wasn't aimed, primarily, those who've been around awhile. You folks were supposed to see all the nuance I was trying to put in.

But I know of at least one person, not on my friend's list, who picked this thing up, and of at least one person who followed one of those secondary links.

And my traffic was up.

So I just thought I'd take a moment for some periodic housekeeping.

I think physically bumping into you might be a swell idea.

TK

[honormac.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it wasn't directed at me... It just got me thinking about where and how it came to pass that we are linked by this strange electronic community... And that seemed as good a time as any to comment and thank you for doing what you do. :-)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The world is small. This post has been interesting in the things which came to light from the response it got (I'll go weeks without anyone new seeming to show up, and then something like this happens and 15 people add me in 24 hours).

When I look at my f-list, the ones who post regularly enough that I feel I know them (and isn't that a crock... you could put me in a room with them and I'd recognize about 20) are a mixed bunch.

Some post all the time. Some (e.g. you) don't post often, but have posted in enough depth that some visceral connection exists. Some are incomprehensible. They make posts I find disjoint, or repsonses which lack the most basic of sequitoral connections; in my mind, at least.

And I can't tell you how I found most of them, or vice versa. Which is one of the odd wonders of LJ, an odd sort of intimacy. Everyone I've met through this medium became acquainted to me in my mind. Many of them while I was sitting in my home (though a lot of them were met while I was in libraries, education centers or hospitals).

So there isn't as much of the sense that I'm forcing my way into a groups, as I am at the center of one, which I think is the way everyone else feels. It makes LJ cosier than a blog, where I feel I am on someone else's turf. This is sort of like a big house party; or perhaps gathering at an Club, in England, where we all keep rooms.

TK

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to tell people this, but arguments against what you and I say generaly go "blah blah ticking time bomb, blah blah not really torture, blah blah must use all tools at our disposal, blah blah our troops can do no wrong."

It's horseshit. But nothing I say seems to get through to people who support torture.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

Torture is evil and wrong. Full stop.

It's ineffective, too.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

I wish our dear leaders would get that memo.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

No kidding, huh?

When they guys whose job it is to get information out of people say "Um, yeah, that doesn't work so well," you'd *think* someone would get the message.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Just keep repeating it.

If they voted for it, just keep repeating it.

It's kind of like the start of de-programming someone, first you have to get them to a state of semi-compliance; by which I mean they have to become receptive to the idea of really talking about it, rather than knee-jerk defense.

Bush lied, we know this; but lots of people will try to shade his mendacity with explantations of how it wasn't really lying, after all he has more intel than we do, and lots of other people thought there was a stockpile of WMD, and Hussein's agents talked with the plotters of That Tuesday, and, and, and.

All of which is flummery. Once you get them past the point of defending these things (some of which is going to be in self-defense, they after all were duped) you can show them the facts, but first they have to be willing to listen.

Torture is wrong. It doesn't work.

Those are more useful points than it's being against a whole lot of laws.

Torture is wrong. It doesn't work.

See how effective it is.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Have you written anything that you could direct me to about why torture is still used, considering its ineffectiveness (of which I was convinced long before reading your powerful words about it)? I'm not so interested in why people would obey orders to inflict torture (some interesting studies on that one), nor why people who make the decisions would themselves engage in torture (too many possibilities there, most of them sick), but why people who are in a position to know that it's ineffective still order it done or condone its being done.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Torture is still used because weak-minded people think it works, despite evidence and testimony to the contrary, despite what it does to the people and societies which practice it.

They believe in the fantasies of television, and the myth of pain.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I was afraid you'd say that (or something like it).

Sometimes I wonder how the human race has managed to survive this long. I'd hate to think that deliberate, wilful stupidity is a survival trait for the race, but some days I can't see any other answer.

a possible answer

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Monday, November 14, 2005 CommonDreams.org
Why Torture Makes Perfect Sense to the Commander-in-Chief
by Steven Laffoley

While listening to the President denying its use, I find myself thinking about American torture. And I ask myself, "At what point does a tortured man 'break'? Is it the moment when he hears his twisted arm snap behind his back? Or is it, perhaps, the moment when he sees the frayed electrical cord draw blood from his beaten skin? Or maybe it's when he feels the creeping dread of pain promised after hours without sleep, squatting on a cold cement floor, hearing the sound of footfalls moving menacingly down the hall?"

These questions are not born of morbid curiosity. Rather, these are practical questions, the banal stuff of present day American politics and policies. Because, despite the President's pale claims to the contrary, the American government does, in fact, condone the use of torture. The President himself makes this clear when he promises to veto any bill that "makes it illegal to practice the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment" of people. And certainly his Vice President makes no apologies for the American use of torture, when he bluntly says, " Sometimes you gotta play rough."

So, why does the American government use torture? When I consider the question, two possible answers occur to me: 'dark logic' and 'madness.' In the 'dark logic' answer, torture is not so much a means to an end as it is, in fact, the end itself. Consider, no one in the Bush administration truly believes that torture yields timely or even useful information - nor would they care if it did. The only true value of torture - a value well understood by thugs like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and now George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - is that torture terrifies people. Lots of people. It creates a deep, lasting, irrational fear of national authority: a fear felt both by the enemy abroad and by citizens at home. And, historically speaking, it is disturbingly effective.


But the 'dark logic' theory suggests that the Bush administration is rational - albeit darkly rational. And, frankly - and let's be honest here - there's not enough evidence of 'rational behavior' in the Bush Administration to support this. The other, more plausible, reason for the existence of American torture is this: 'madness.'

However, the more I consider 'madness' as the reason behind American torture, the more I am disturbed by what this 'madness' has to say, not only about George W. Bush and his administration, but also about the American people since September 11, 2001.

When I think of America's new embrace of torture, I am reminded of Bob Dylan's Tombstone Blues. Listen as Dylan sings: "John the Baptist, after torturing a thief, looks up to his hero, the commander-in-chief, saying, 'Tell me great hero, but please make it brief. Is there a hole for me to get sick in?'"

Americans in the post 9/11 Age of Unreason are Dylan's metaphoric John the Baptist after their mass conversion to President Bush's absolutist religion: 'You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.'

cont'd

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Lest we be deemed 'with the terrorists,' we marched blindly behind the Commander-in-Chief, a would-be messiah who promised us deliverance from our perceived enemies and fears. Under his leadership, we willingly destroyed nations and murdered people - by the thousands, and then by the tens of thousands - in the hopes that our enemies would be vanquished and our fears finally dispelled.

But instead, over time, the Commander-in-Chief only dredged up more enemies and more fears from our collective imagination. And consequently, over time, the dead bodies only continued mounting. And consequently, over time, we descended into an immoral black hole, with no way out.

It was then, with blind rage and near religious righteousness, that we started torturing others. It was then, in the darkest of ironies, that we become the enemy we feared.

Searching for the hole to get sick in, Dylan's John the Baptist looks up. "The Commander-in-Chief answers him, while chasing a fly, 'Death to all those who would whimper and cry.' And dropping a barbell, he points to the sky, saying, 'The sun's not yellow; it's chicken.'"

As with Dylan's John the Baptist, we also look up after torturing the enemy, and stare into vacuum of the Commander-in-Chief's eyes. And as he looks back at us, we suddenly understand the President madness: he thrives on our fears.

And our gorge rises.

We look back into the hole and find ourselves getting sick, left alone with our innocence and ethics gone, left alone with only Macbeth's lament to speak: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" And we weep when we realize - no, it won't.

Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax. He is the author of Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason.
E-mail: stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca
or steven_laffoley@yahoo.com

the fact that you are doing it in support of a war

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

of conquest, that was founded on a lie, a war that by the standards of the Allied Tribunal in 1945 falls under Crimes Against Peace as well as subsequently violating "the laws and customs of war" - does not trouble your conscience?

That's how we *get* to places where Habeas Corpus is quickly going to be "streamlined" away, as a democracy. Because it's none of a good footsoldier's business to worry about that sort of thing. And it's the business of civilians to shut up and not interfere with those who "protect" them.

Until, as with Murtha - as with people my grandfathers served with in the early 70s - their *own* kids or kids of friends and coworkers start coming home in boxes...then they start fretting about this war. Nothing more. (Unless you're named Ann Wright.)

And the wheel goes round and round and no one ever breaks out of maya.

Re: the fact that you are doing it in support of a war

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

You're being vague in your pronouns - doing what?

I'm assuming that you're talking about military interrogation. While I'm a dedicated hippy-liberal of the peacenik variety, the fact that pecunium's job is to question people for military intelligence purposes doesn't bother me. I'm against this war. But I don't see that being in the war in a half-assed fashion would be an improvement on being in the war in the fully-assed fashion that we are. If we're going to have soldiers on the ground, we need intelligence to make good decisions about what to do with them. If we don't have intelligence, lots of our guys get needlessly killed (more of them than are being needlessly killed with good intelligence, submitting, as I do, that all deaths in this war are needless). I'd rather we be OUT of the war. But if we're IN it, I think we should be in it to the best of our ability.

I don't see that pecunium has a choice about being in the war - he was active military when the whole thing started, if I recall correctly (I might not recall correctly - if I'm wrong, I presume someone will tell me so). So his available choices weren't go to war or don't, they were to either do the job he was given to the best of his ability and hope for the chance to do good, or not. There's really only one good choice there.

Re: the fact that you are doing it in support of a war

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I had a choice. Everyone has some level of choice. I could have refused, or deserted, or any number of things to get out of it.

I chose not to. I swore an oath, and that oath was to certain ideals, one of which is the following of lawful orders. Not pleasant ones, but lawful ones, and the ones we got in Feb. 2003 were lawful. It may have been some of the ugliest of sauasage-making laws, but the House and Senate gave him the power to go to war (though he didn't live up to his end of the bargain, as required by those resolutions, but I digress, and that part I wasn't in any position to know, much less do anything about when he got around to sending people to the front) and he used it to send me.

By the continuing funding of that war I must presume the House and Senate still believe he has done what he needs to do to make the case for maintaining it.

I have been asked, more than a few times why "someone like you," would join the Army; what with being smart,and reasoned and intelligent. I try not to take offense, and comment that as armies are sadly needed (much as I would like to see the day we, "aint'a gonna study war no more," I don't think we're there yet) and that if armies are needed said armies need people who are like me.

Since I don't have an absolute problem with killing people, it only seems right (for some values of right) that I do my part.

I was (and am) in the National Guard. The reasons for that are complex, but not that different from what I just said.

I'd rather see us, if we're going to do this sort of thing, doing better than the half-assed way we are, though I can see points (from a realpolitik point of view for preferring the mess we have over something that delievered on the fantasies of PNAC, since we aren't likely to engage in such a venture again, anytime soon.

Pretty steep price to pay for something I thought all along, but there you go.

TK

Re: the fact that you are doing it in support of a war

[chris-goodwin.livejournal.com]

I have been asked, more than a few times why "someone like you," would join the Army; what with being smart,and reasoned and intelligent. I try not to take offense, and comment that as armies are sadly needed (much as I would like to see the day we, "aint'a gonna study war no more," I don't think we're there yet) and that if armies are needed said armies need people who are like me.

I wish there were more "someone like you" in the Army, especially in the enlisted corps (which is where I gather you are? Interrogators are enlisted, right?).

[hundakleptisis.livejournal.com]

One of the new faces that followed a link from matociquala's pages here. *waves*

Fairly newish to LJ, and the concepts of it, and still building up a friends list of journals of folks who have interesting things to say and interesting ways of saying them.

Hope you don't mind me tagging along and throwing in my tuppenceworth every now and then (when I can unclog the brain enough to think of something to say).

In the meantime, hi, and thanks for the interesting posts.

S.J.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I wish your voice could make it all the way up to where the decisions get made.

[red-silk-robe.livejournal.com]

There are different ways to do a job.

There are difficult jobs that others would not think of or choose to do. Those jobs are necessary and the people who do them are also necessary.

Still, as you have demonstrated, within the parameters of that job there exists choices and it is the choices made that define humanity on a personal level and on a much larger scale.

Good.For.You.

and thank you.

[chris-goodwin.livejournal.com]

Hi Terry. I did read your info page. By way of intro, I was in the Air Force from 1988-92 as a crypto linguist, what the Army referred to at the time (don't know if they still call it that; the AF has changed their AFSC designation system once or twice since I got out) as a 98G. The unit I was in was joint Army/Air Force. So I've got some idea of where you're coming from in multiple directions. I know for sure that when I was in I didn't feel anywhere near as free about expressing my opinions as you do, and I congratulate and commend you for that. I'm not quite a hundred percent sure where you're coming from politically; I am (and was when I was in) a libertarian, which made it even more strange, almost surreal at times.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

98G was (as of 93, when I was in) Signals Intercept. The AF equivalent was the same, though the job was different (one of my MLIs was an AF guy, spent way too much of his career in the backs of planes listening to four letter code groups, I am so glad I don't have to do that).

I walk the fine line of having personal opinions about public matters; some of which directly touch issues in the Army. I think I stay on the legal side of forthright.

TK

[luna-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Hi; again, I'm one of the ones who dropped in from matociquala's blog. I may stick around a while.

I've always thought that torture is inevitably a bad way of doing things, if not simply morally (especially because, well, what if you have someone who genuinely isn't involved and doesn't know anything?), but because there is so much evidence available that you can get a confession to absolutely anything that way, and most of it is likely to be rubbish. If all you are after is a scapegoat, hey, that works. If you actually want intelligence...not so good.

May I just state, for the record, how profoundly glad I am to run into evidence that there exists an army interrogator who sees this? I wouldn't do your job, not for all the money in the world. I understand the necessity for it. I am glad someone is trying to do it *right*.

Having said that...I have to ask. What is your "take" on the use of things like loud, repetitive, and constant music and/or sleep deprivation to make people break down? Isn't this torture too, if not the kind that leaves visible marks?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

There are many (I would go so far as to say most) interrogators who decry, and despise torture.

I've been doing this for some 13 years. I can get a confession from a watermelon, if he'll talk to me. But I'm not in the police game. I am not after a confession. I'm in the bottom, the very bottom, of the intel game (at least where I work, what I may know about things is irrespective of my job description, but I digress). I don't manufacture intelligence; I collect information. Someone else turns it into intel.

The best interrogator ever was probably Hans Scharff, a German in WW2. He introduced himself as "your interrogator" and then did a very soft approach. He might take a couple of weeks to get a piece of information, but he got something from everyone. Why? Because they started talking.

As to your last question: One, they are pretty much illegal, per Geneva. Many moons ago I was told of an interrogator in So. America who decided to play fast and lose with the spirit of the law. He gave his subject eight hours of sleep a night, in 20 minute increments.

He was relieved.

They don't work any better than any other technique. How does one train a dog? One gives it some reward to work for. This is the principle behind reins on a horse, when the horse turns the way one wants, the pressure of the bit/harness abates.

So, keep them from sleeping and then ask them questions. They want to sleep, they will tell you anything.

Yes, someone who is tired (not exhausted, but merely tired) will be more revealing, when he answers, but if he has nothing to say, and you won't let him sleep until, "he gives it up," he'll figure out what you want to hear and feed it to you.

At which point the interrogator has gotten positive feedback (and will get more, because he will get praise for his "information) and the cycle will build.

I probably know more about torture, in the abstract and the particular than you ever want to know. I have read accounts of what the Cheka/NVD/NKVD/KGB used to do. I have read medieval texts on it. I have, by way of perverse curiosity; and by way of professional happenstance made a more than trivial (but by no means exhaustive) study of the subject.

It gains nothing, and loses a great deal, because of both its inefficiencies, and its corrosive effects.

TK

[luna-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I'll be bothering you more later, no doubt. There are still things I would like to ask your opinion on; but that is an answer I entirely respect.

What sort of feedback do you get from your superior officers regarding this? Or is that a question you can't answer?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by, "feedback".

TK

[bastets-place.livejournal.com]

And all I can think, on reading your last paragraph is "Gee, my daughter is into torturing me; I had no idea."

Hi!

[damedini.livejournal.com]

I caught your Duck tape comment in Wicked Wish's LJ and had to come have a look. Between that and the self-portrait (way lovely parlour, btw), I am friending you. You, sir, are a geek. And I like that in a person. *nods*