The Real Horror of Torture
(Atlanta) The guy in the pointed cap and black cape looks like he’s getting ready for a KKK rally or a bad Halloween… but look closely at that image and the other photos leaking out from Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan and one can readily see that the US use of torture is well-researched, deliberate and systematic. These were not “accidental” events perpetrated by poorly trained and poorly educated loose cannons. If one knows what to look for, one can see consistent actions in almost every photo.
Dating back to the old Cold War days, American universities and researchers led the way in discovering new techniques for torture… techniques that went well beyond physical pain. These techniques were designed specifically to psychologically destroy the victim. The US spent hundreds of millions of dollars on research, the techniques were refined and the concentration camp at Guantanamo offered a perfect private testing ground. No surprise that the top guy at Gitmo got “bumped up” to Abu Ghraib.
As American spooks worried that our old adversaries behind the Iron Curtain were perfecting mind control techniques, the decision was made that we needed some counter measures of our own. Vast secret experiments were done on sometimes unwitting American citizens. Prostitutes were employed, LSD was administered and American university mind power was compromised. In the end, the interrogation techniques developed were simple, revolutionary… and the first real innovation in torture in hundreds of years.
While wearing a hood and standing in one place for hours on end may not sound like our most basic definition of torture, these simple acts are the building blocks of sensory depravation, isolation and self-inflicted pain that are the end result of our billion dollar tax expenditure to find out how to break a human being. The net effect on the people involved is devastating in as little as 72 hours. Mental and physical anguish ensues. Take a close look at the photos. These pictures are not accidents… but the result of an intentional, long-standing covet program of interrogation. Hoods, ear muffs, mittens, awkward positions, long term close restraint… piss and shit… isolation, humiliation, self-inflicted pain, cultural and sexual taboos. Is this what America stands for?
As more and more military experts and people of good will question the intelligence value of these actions… and as more and more evidence seems to suggest that a large percentage of so-called “enemy combatants” were low level dupes in the wrong place at the wrong time… these inhumane practices have done more to hurt America’s legal standing in the world than most people know. Those who watch such atrocities without speaking out are becoming active participants in the horror. Those who commit these atrocities on others are inviting atrocities on themselves. Good people need to speak out loudly and clearly… now!
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As a writer, Michael David McGuire has covered numerous news and feature stories from across North America, Europe and Asia.
