interrogation

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Waterboarding Is Torture: Hitchens' First-hand Account

Originally posted 2008-07-06 07:17:27 - a sobering but informative video - standingup

via MAL Contends - Christopher Hitchens, on assignment from Vanity Fair, arranged to be tortured by waterboarding and write a first-person account. He lasted for 17 seconds during the exercise. From Vanity Fair (video follows below here), Hitchens writes: Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, 'waterboarding' was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict. [Read the entire piece at Vanity Fair.] The video is not for children to watch, but very much for adults to watch and act against this obscenity of our government.

Wanted: Military interrogation cases for ethics casebook

Cross-posted from Unbossed. A team of psychologists, retired intelligence professionals, and ethicists are preparing a casebook on interrogation ethics and have asked for help in getting out the word to anyone who might be willing to contribute information about military interrogations, including the role played by psychologists. The Interrogation Ethics Casebook is a project of the End Torture Committee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and a really important step in the process of eliminating torture.

One of those working on the project is Dr. Donald Soeken. Dr. Soeken is well-known for his efforts to stop a government practice of orchestrating abusive psychiatric examinations as retaliation against whistleblowers. Below, with his permission is a more detailed description of the casebook project, along with contact information, from the Integrity International website.