Torture

[Bat-Man]

Originally Posted by asdf

Thank you, Bat-Man, that's exactly what I hoped to get at.

In addition, when and if the enemy does capture and torture our troops, what basis does our government have for condemning it?

Their basis is their belief that it is wrong.

Their problem is that nobody likes hypocrites, including terrorists.

[asdf]

Originally Posted by Bat-Man

Their basis is their belief that it is wrong.

But in all their memos and legal justification and television interviews, they are going out of their way to say it's not wrong.

Their problem is that nobody likes hypocrites, including terrorists.

Quite so.

[Trinity]

CIA Torture Just Bad Science, Report Says
Interrogation Techniques May Have Damaged Suspects' Ability To Provide Vital Information, Scientist Finds

(AP) The CIA's harsh interrogation program likely damaged the brain and memory functions of terrorist suspects, diminishing their physical ability to provide the detailed information the spy agency sought, according to a new scientific paper.

The paper by an Irish academic scrutinizes the harsh techniques used by the CIA under the Bush administration through the lens of neurobiology. Researchers concluded that the harsh methods were biologically counterproductive to eliciting quality information because prolonged stress harms the brain's ability to retain and recall information.

"Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or enhanced interrogation," according to the paper published Monday in the scientific journal, "Trends in Cognitive Science: Science and Society."

In the paper, Shane O'Mara, a professor at Ireland's Trinity College Ins***ute of Neuroscience, wrote that the severe interrogation techniques appear based on "folk psychology" - a layman's idea of how the brain works as opposed to science-based understanding of memory and cognitive function.
The list of techniques the CIA used included prolonged sleep deprivation - six days in at least one instance - being chained in painful positions, exploiting prisoners' phobias, and waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama has called torture. Three CIA prisoners were waterboarded, two of them extensively.

Those methods cause the brain to release stress hormones that, if their release is repeated and prolonged, may result in compromised brain function and even tissue loss, O'Mara wrote.

He warned that this could lead to brain lobe disorders, making the prisoners vulnerable to confabulation - the pathological production of false memories based on suggestions from an interrogator. Those false memories mix with true information in the interrogation, making it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fabricated.

Waterboarding is especially stressful "with the potential to cause widespread stress-induced changes in the brain, especially when these are repeated frequently and intensively," O'Mara wrote.

"The fact that the detrimental effects of these techniques on the brain are not visible to the naked eye makes them no less real," O'Mara wrote.

The paper also ***erted that forcibly exposing prisoners to what they are afraid of - the CIA got approval to use a suspect's fear of insects against him - is actually a method used to cure phobias.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5327342.shtml

Trinity

[Bat-Man]

Originally Posted by Trinity

...The paper also ***erted that forcibly exposing prisoners to what they are afraid of - the CIA got approval to use a suspect's fear of insects against him - is actually a method used to cure phobias.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5327342.shtml

I'd just like to add that you don't have to FORCE someone to confront their fears to cure them of their fears.

For example: To overcome a fear of bats, if you are afraid of them, you can simply choose to stand in the middle of a LOT of bats and eventually you won't be afraid of the bats anymore.

Of course, if they're vampire bats, you could end up dead due to a loss of too much blood, but at least you wouldn't be afraid anymore.

[Trinity]

Originally Posted by Bat-Man

I'd just like to add that you don't have to FORCE someone to confront their fears to cure them of their fears.

For example: To overcome a fear of bats, if you are afraid of them, you can simply choose to stand in the middle of a LOT of bats and eventually you won't be afraid of the bats anymore.

Of course, if they're vampire bats, you could end up dead due to a loss of too much blood, but at least you wouldn't be afraid anymore.

LOL

Trinity