Mathematician
Reason, and reason again
We considered these techniques torture until we started using them. How wonderful. Looks like we've become our former enemy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/w...f746dcadd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
The results?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/w...f746dcadd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
The article describes basic Soviet N.K.V.D. (later K.G.B.) methods: isolation in a small cell; constant light; sleep deprivation; cold or heat; reduced food rations. Soviets denied such treatment was torture, just as American officials have in recent years:
The effects of isolation, anxiety, fatigue, lack of sleep, uncomfortable temperatures, and chronic hunger produce disturbances of mood, attitudes and behavior in nearly all prisoners. The living organism cannot entirely withstand such assaults. The Communists do not look upon these assaults as torture. But all of them produce great discomfort, and lead to serious disturbances of many bodily processes; there is no reason to differentiate them from any other form of torture.
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The Bush administration concluded that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Qaeda detainees. Similarly, the Soviets argued that international rules did not apply to foreign detainees:
In typical Communist legalistic fashion, the N.K.V.D. rationalized its use of torture and pressure in the interrogation of prisoners of war. When it desired to use such methods against a prisoner or to obtain from him a propaganda statement or confession, it simply declared the prisoner a war-crimes suspect and informed him that, therefore, he was not subject to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.
The results?
The cumulative effects of the entire experience may be almost intolerable. [The prisoner] becomes mentally dull and loses his capacity for discrimination. He becomes malleable and suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate. By suggesting that the prisoner accept half-truths and plausible distortions of the truth, [the interrogator] makes it possible for the prisoner to rationalize and thus accept the interrogators viewpoint as the only way out of an intolerable situation.