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From: "Oscar " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Excerpts from the Declassified Portions of the CIA Torture Manual
Date: 21 Oct 2000 20:40:03 -0000
On Sun, 8 Oct 2000 16:09:42 -0500 (CDT) Rich Winkel
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Excerpts from the CIA Torture Manual
As reprinted in Harper's Magazine, April 1997 issue.
--------------------------------------
Psychological Torture, CIA-Style
>From the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual--1983," a handbook
written by the Central Intelligence Agency and used during the early 80's to
teach Latin American security forces how to extract information from
prisoners. The manual was obtained in January through a Freedom of
Information Act request filed by the Baltimore Sun as part of an
investigation of the CIA's involvement in Honduras. In 1985, the CIA
renounced the use of coercive interrogation techniques (sic) and amended the
manual accordingly; in the copy obtained by the Sun, the original 1983 text
is legible beneath the agency's handwritten revisions and deletion marks.
--------------------------------------
THEORY OF COERCION
The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression
in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to
resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an
earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses, his learned personality
traits fall away in reverse chronological order. He begins to lose the
capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex
situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or
repeated frustrations.
COERCIVE TECHNIQUES
Arrest
The manner and timing of the subjects arrest should be planned to achieve
surprise and the maximum amount of mental discomfort. He should therefore be
arrested at a moment when he least expects it and when his mental and
physical resistance are at their lowest--ideally, in the early hours of the
morning. When arrested at this time, most subjects experience intense
feelings of shock, insecurity, and psychological stress, and have great
difficulty adjusting to the situation.
Detention
A person's sense of identity depends upon the continuity in his
surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others, etc. Detention
permits the questioner to cut through these links and throw the subject back
upon his own unaided internal resources. Detention should be planned to
enhance the subject's feelings of being cut off from anything known and
reassuring.
Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli
Solitary confinement acts on most persons as a powerful stress. The symptoms
most commonly produced by solitary confinement are superstition, intense
love of any other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as alive,
hallucinations, and delusions.
Threats and Fear
The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more
effectively than coercion itself. For example, the threat to inflict pain
can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain.
The threat of death has been found to be worse than useless. The principal
reason is that it often induces sheer hopelessness; the subject feels that
he is as likely to be condemned after compliance as before. Some subjects
recognize that the threat is a bluff and that silencing them forever would
defeat the questioner's purpose.
If a subject refuses to comply after a threat has been made, it must be
carried out. Otherwise, subsequent threats will also prove ineffective.
Pain
The torture situation is a contest between the subject and his tormentor.
Pain that is being inflicted upon the subject from outside himself may
actually intensify his will to resist. On the other hand, pain that he feels
he is inflicting upon himself is more likely to sap his resistance. For
example, if he is required to maintain a rigid position such as standing at
attention or sitting on a stool for long periods of time, the immediate
source of discomfort is not the questioner but the subject himself. After a
while, the subject is likely to exhaust his internal motivational strength.
Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, fabricated to
avoid additional punishment. This results in a time-consuming delay while an
investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this
respite, the subject can pull himself together and may even use the time to
devise a more complex confession that takes still longer to disprove.
Hypnosis and Heightened Suggestibility
Answers obtained from the subject under the influence of hypnotism are
highly suspect, as they are often based upon the suggestions of the
questioner and are distorted or fabricated. However, the subject's strong
desire to escape the stress of the situation can create a state of mind
called "heightened suggestibility." The questioner can take advantage of
this state of mind by creating a situation in which the subject will
cooperate because he believes he has been hypnotized. This hypnotic
situation can be created using the "magic room" technique.
For example, the subject is given a hypnotic suggestion that his hand is
growing warm. However, his hand actually does become warm with the aid of a
concealed diathermy machine. He may be given a suggestion that a cigarette
will taste bitter and could be given a cigarette prepared to have a slight
but noticeably bitter taste.
Narcosis
There is no drug that can force every subject to divulge all the information
he has, but it is possible to create a mistaken belief that a subject has
been drugged by using the "placebo" technique. The subject is given a
placebo (a harmless sugar pill) and later is told he was given a truth serum
that will make him want to talk and that will also prevent his lying. His
desire to find to find an excuse for compliance, which is his only avenue of
escape from his depressing situation, may make him want to believe that he
has been drugged and that no one could blame him for telling his story now.
This provides him with the rationalization that he needs for cooperating.
REGRESSION
As mentioned earlier, the purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce
regression. A few noncoercive techniques can also be used to induce
regression, but to a lesser degree than can be obtained with coercive
techniques:
* Persistent manipulation of time
* Retarding and advancing clocks
* Serving meals at odd times
* Disrupting sleep schedules
* Disorientation regarding day and night
* Unpatterned questioning sessions
* Nonsensical questioning
* Ignoring halfhearted attempts to cooperate
* Rewarding noncooperation
Whether regression occurs spontaneously under detention or is induced by the
questioner, it should not be allowed to continue beyond the point necessary
to obtain compliance. A psychiatrist should be present if severe techniques
are to be employed, to ensure full reversal later. As soon as possible, the
questioner should provide the subject with the rationalization that he needs
for giving in and cooperating. This rationalization is likely to be
elementary, an adult version of a childhood excuse such as:
1. "They made you do it."
2. "All the other boys are doing it."
3. "You're really a good boy at heart."
[end of article]
"What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either, 1st. destroyed by
infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or
starved, as among other nations whose population is commensurate to its
food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or 4th. it
overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is attainable."
-- James Madison, 1791
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