History of CIA Interrogation

"A new expose gives an account of the CIA’s secret efforts to develop new forms of torture spanning fifty years. It reveals how the CIA perfected its methods, distributing them across the world from Vietnam to Iran to Central America, uncovering the roots of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture scandals. The book is titled "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror."

Here is one of three interviews broadcast today by Democracy Now. All three deal with the recently released Abu Ghraib photos and videos, but this particular one deals with the history that led up to it. This page gives the transcript of this one, as well as links to the video stream and audio MP3 of the whole show.

Of special note in this segment is the description of "sensory deprivation" and "self-inflicted pain", both long used torture techniques by the CIA. Those techniques, when compared to some of the earlier photos from Abu Ghraib, as the interview explains, pretty much eliminates the argument that the people convicted for those crimes, were doing so without any official supervision or instructions.

The photos show that those low-ranking soldiers who were supposedly acting on their own, were using the same methods that the CIA had long ago found to be the most effective. That certainly cannot be coincidence. We're supposed to believe that those soldiers, out of enthusiasm, misguided patriotism, frustration at seeing their fellow soldiers killed and wounded on a daily basis, or any excuses that came out in their trials, just happened to stumble onto the exact methods used by the CIA. Their orders came from a lot higher up, and those orders came with instructions to use those same methods.

But, like I said in another post, nothing else will come out of these photos. As far as the government is concerned, the case is closed.