Shame, bitter, and painful

[pecunium]

I've been on vacation for about two months now, and I am glad my hair is long, and my face shaggy, because right now I am ashamed of my profession, and don't want the world to see me for what I am, unless I tell them.

It isn't that I'm a soldier, not exactly. It's that I'm an interrogator, and while only MPs and officers (who don't do interrogations) have been implicated, it was said to be in the interest of people in my line of work.

It's hard to write this... so much of my spleen has been vented other places. I feel dirty, unclean, with spotted hands. What has been alleged is indefensible, if it was done (and I am certain it was) they deserve public humiliation.

The Regiment in square: The NCOs and Officers called out; the NCO's stripes ripped from their sleeves, the epaulets from the Officers shoulders, the rattle of the drums, and the painfully brittle sound of swords being broken in the hard light of an afternoon sun.

The terrible roll of the drums as the offenders are read off the rolls and out of the Army, and away to the brig.

And the casing of the colors, no music to march away, just the funeral pace of the drums tattoo, dull and heavy at the slow march.

Comments

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how you felt - sympathy.

What do you think of the various conspiract claims going round that the British pictures are fakes? rozk has a particularly intersting theory that they were faked by the US administration to put Britain in the same boat and ensure we remained in Iraq even if Blair goes.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I've seen some of what Roz has to say (at http://nielsenhayden.com/) and in a word (because I've not seen her LJ)... bullshit.

Fact: Your lot smack prisoners around. We don't like it (well, I hope most of us don't, but that's the sticking point at the moment, eh?), but we take advantage of it, by being nice when you turn them over to us.

Given the nature of the fight, the frustrations (from the locals, and the administration) I am not as surprised as I should be. My anger is not that it happened, but that so many seemed to condone it. My grief is that so many still condone it.

So to hear that British troops have done the same, well I'm not surprised at that either.

TK

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I've been struck by how intelligent, informed, and decent your postings on Electrolite were. And I've been very grateful for the shock and disgust with which most serving military people have treated the revelations.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The new head of Abu Ghraib (who is the old head of Guantanamo), Major General Geoffrey Miller, has said that the use of "stress positions" and sleep deprivation will continue. (see here: http://www.iht.com/articles/518336.html )

Is this part of the Scharff method, or is it a recent deviation?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

In a word... no.

Scharff's account of his time as an interrogator is available, I commend it. The title is, "The Interrogator."

The nearest thing Sharff did to this was to make it unclear how time was flowing, and that briefly. Meal times were moved around, and the POW was not given anyone to talk to. That raised stress.

But real sleep dep, is (if you ask me, and I suppose you have) torture. Stress positions... they are in the realm of torture light. I have philosophical problems with them, because a lot of the use of them I know of is to reduce the frustration of the interrogator. "You've decided you don't wanna talk, OK... see how much more you don't like this."

Done in moderation, I suppose it isn't beyond the pale, but the problem of the slippery slope is there. The seductive sense of power is there, and I don't care what Miller says about approval, the fact of it's being allowed, and more frightening, the, "more active role in gathering intelligence," he wants the MPs to have.

One of the safeguards of the system was supposed to be the detached nature ofteh MPs. Making the booth the only place the EPW has any real concerns about is/was important.

When there is no isolated place, in which the gathering of information actively takes place, when the idea is that these people are to be worked on, without stop, by everyone they meet, I don't like it. I think it counterproductive, and I think, despite Miller's protestations, such an atmosphere at Abu Ghraib was no small part of what led to the systemic, and appalling, abuses there.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've ordered the book.

How can you keep the standards up?

[(Anonymous)]

Terry: this is Geoff Arnold (http://geoffarnold.com) from the ASML here). I was deeply moved by this piece. And I thought about the procedures and standards you've described for interrogation, and I imagined negotiating the zone between empathy and dehumanization. And then I found myself thinking about the article I read earlier this evening, here - http://tinyurl.com/3caaz - about Lynndie England, the young woman in the notorious photo from Abu Ghraib. And cognitive dissonance blew everything away. If people like Lynndie are involved, how can any of what you describe work? It's like sand in the vaseline, to quote David Byrne (or whoever).

Re: How can you keep the standards up?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't her, per se.

In case you'd not guessed, I've been doing a lot of reading, and no small amount of writing, on the topic.

Forgive me for not being more clever (and you can't imagine how happy I am this has not surfaced as a topic on ASML, because I would probably have to de-lurk and that could get very ugly), but I am going to point you to a few places I've been writing, and make you find the comments.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005106.html#005106

http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/005118.html#005118

http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/005107.html

The way it works is to not do what was done. Give the Englunds, and the Graners direction, keep them on a leash, and they won't do the things they did.

But let cowboys and idiots make them part of the process, reward them when they have terrorized people, tell them what good work they are doing, and the postive feedback cycle will destroy them, and everything they touch.

That is what was done. MG Miller came in and said they needed to be made part of the process. The MPs had to help in setting the stage for the interrogation (this is a bad idea, in so many ways).

Added to that the area they were in was isolated from the rest of the prison, and no one else was allowed in there. It was a recipe for disaster.

When the MPs are there to see the prisoners don't hurt the interrogators, not the reverse, and are charged with seeing to the well being of the prisoners, then the system works.

We get told not to tell MPs to do thing, like hit prisoners, because that ruins everyone. The MP, the interrogator, and the prisoner, because he is now uneasy everywhere he goes. The booth needs to be a special place, a world apart.

Ritual, and tradition are important.