US Using Communist Torture Techniques At Guantanamo

New York Times:

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

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.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret "alternative" interrogation methods.

Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.

But committee investigators were not aware of the chart's source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[americanalien]

Boy, have we flirted with Soviet style Totalitarianism under Bush. This is not an administration, its a Regime. When is this madness gonna end? IMPEACH NOW!

[CC1]

Of course the American news outlets haven't paid attention to this. It's pathetic.

[LibRS]

Yawn yawn. Like i care if they waterboard a terrorist.

[Chavez08]

What will you do if a radical leftist takes over the military and there's a new initiative to eradicate right wing flying monkeys and they come through YOUR door with a bucket and a camera at 3am?

Think reaaalllllly hard Limbaugh fan.

[scouserinlondon]

NOOooooooo. Of course she wouldn't.None of them would.They are all good little boys and girls.
And if you believe that , you can knit fog.

[DonDavis]

The Tell-Tale Sign Gitmo Interrogators Were Using the Communist Chinese "Playbook"
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=1973

[wayoutleft]

the important question for congress and civil libertarians is whether warranties on chinese torture equipment can be enforced in us courts... . hearings will begin immediately after the christmas holidays. congress can get a deal if it indemnifies the chinese against punitive damages; however cheney feels if the chinese are sued for faulty torture equipment, american cities will certainly be destroyed. you need a lot of legal training to identify issues like this. i hope i haven't lost any of the FISA hysterics.

[MajorKong]

Well at least our government doesn't spy on us like the Communists used to. Oh wait....

[po]

Surprised, why? The Chinese are funding the GWOT and using the US military to assist it in making sure they get their oil form the ME. Why shouldn't we borrow from their playbook and use for them what they used against us. Outsourcing in reverse.

[LeonBNJ]

As I have often said on the use of torture and other anti-Consitiutional and anti-Geneva Convention actions by the USA on alleged terrorists - much of the American public agrees with their use. Much of America, especially those most vocal and have the President's ears have clearly stated they consider terrorists who attack America, our allies (especially Israel) physically and with words, who are affliaed with any Anti-Western hate group (like al-Queda) to be undersiving of any of those rights. They see such persons as less than humans and fully deserving of torture and the most inhumane treatment. This is also a common belief as to violent criminals too.
Until we get most Americans to condem such acts and beheaviors of revenge and intimidation then no President will ever back off.

[LibRS]

You can forget getting "most" americans to sign on to the insane garbage about waterboarding. When a terrorist wants to blow up me or my family as far as i am concerned, he just gave up his rights the moment he made that decision. Long live waterboarding.

[rwe]

wow what an enigma for prograssives... Using your beloved communism to keep the country safe since Sept 11... ... coercion , enhanced and harshed do not necessarily = torture...

[MajorKong]

So you mean it wasn't torture when the Communists were doing to our guys?

BTW - The Communists found it a much better tool for gathering forced confessions for propaganda purposes than for actually getting good intelligence.

[Lautenberg]

George Bush is and has always been a card carrying RED.

He even copies their torture and 1984-esque Big Brother tactics spying on us.

F Him

[VoteLibertarian]

All the Stalinists on this website should be thrilled..It must be a great day!

[helonias]

Protecting the motherland comrad

[cryingeagle]

Are we becoming like the Chinese and the Russians?

[jeersforfears]

all of you who responded earlier this morning to my commie pinko remark, it was sarcasm. It was meant to needle, a little. IT WAS A JOKE! Lord knows you people "needle" people who disagree with you.

[Knowbetter]

No one's laughing.

[jeersforfears]

Of course not. You're being made fun of.

[S1m0n]

There is no such thing as a 'communist torture technique'. There's just torture.; it's an ideology-free exercise.

[jpopphan]

Thank you! You beat me to it! Torture is torture, no matter who is doing it. Enough with the propaganda already.

[SLCPunk]

Ditto.