Why did we torture in the first place? Here's why:

[Jackpine Radical]

Remember that the techniques we used were first promulgated in a military training program called SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). The basic purpose of SERE was to inoculate our troops against the torture methods used by Communist countries to secure FALSE confessions. Why did we want to torture people? Obviously for pretty much the same reason--to extract FALSE information. Like FALSE linkages between Al Quaeda and Saddam, thereby justifying the war. And FALSE reports of WMD. Etc. The point was never to secure accurate information. Torture is not useful for that purpose. It is only useful for getting FALSE confessions--a fact that America has known since the 1680's, when we first used torture to extract FALSE confessions from accused witches in Salem, whom we then hanged.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. That's a very good reading of it ...........

Frankly, my theory is more sinister, more personal.

I just think they're psychosexual dandies who get off on torture - writing about it, planning it, hearing about it, seeing it, and knowing they're so powerful they can make it happen.

That's their turn-on and, given what is beginning to happen, I would venture that those thugs - I'll skip on Condi Rice for now because, well, she's just disgusting - have now experienced their last erections. No chubbies in their futures, poor twisted pricks ......................

[leftstreet]

3. "No chubbies in their futures, poor twisted pricks"

:spray:

You do have a way with words.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

5. Thank you............

That's what my agent and my publisher say. Then they tell me to quit dicking around on DU and get the hell back to work.................

[lapfog_1]

15. I can pretty much guarantee that there are some

heavily encrypted files on Dick Cheney's personal computer... and likely some others as well.

Just because they got rid of the tapes doesn't mean that those images are really gone.

[Patchuli]

6. I thought Jeff Gannon was their dish of the day? nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. And not a word about that one, either........

Every time I'm reminded of another of the outrages that took place these past eight years, I could just puke.

Liberal media, huh? Can you imagine what would happen if anything like Gannon took place in President Obama's White House?

[Patchuli]

23. I would have wanted to fumigate

the WH if I were Michelle...what a different place it is now!

[sabrina 1]

11. I think you're right.

Donald Rumsfeld sat in on a few 'interrogation' sessions personally, and I wouldn't be surprised if Cheney conducted a few personally in his 'undisclosed location'. I always wondered why no one thought it was extremely weird for Rumsfeld to be watching people being tortured. It shows how low this country went that it wasn't even questioned.

I do agree with the OP though, that they did it to obtain false information. But it's a bonus if you also enjoy your work.

Only very sick people get off on torturing innocent people. This country was in the hands of some of the sickest people ever over the past eight years. What I don't understand is how so few can gain so much control over a country that is supposedly a democracy. I suppose instilling fear into already selfish people really does work. And that's scary because it means it could happen again and again, even if some of these criminals are prosecuted.

[Psychic Consortium]

17. PC agrees with you, the torture was very widespread and systemic.

In part trying to get false confessions, but
also a big psychopathic sadistic element to it.
Also some paranoid ideation on Cheney's part.

Sociopathy
Paranoia
Sexual perversion
Sadism

[Grinchie]

19. And they prey on the Millions of other Psycho Sexual Neurotics

That are raised to be compulsive followers from birth.

It's kind of frightening that Wilhelm Reich writes of nearly an identical Phenomena of the rise of Fascism in Germany in the 30's. Although many of Reaich's books were burned by the FDA (Yes, the FDA), you may be able to find a copy of "The Function of the Orgasm", which describes that Society, through repression the most natural function human beings posess, create mass neurosis and an obediant society.

After reading his interpretaion of Fascism, and the methods employed to get elected, I got chills. It's a great book, and the simplicity of the premise makes a lot of sense, especially when you see how totally messed up American's are when it comes to Sexuality. What was the finally tally for Janet Jackson's breast on national TV for 9/16's of a second? $550,000 Million dollars. If that isn't a sick society then I don't know what is.

They suppress and subvert the one primary instinct we have that gives us pleasure, and force it out in unnatural ways to further their political goals, just like Hitler did.

[Jackpine Radical]

21. Yes, I'm familiar with Reich, Orgone and all that.

The FDA really went big-time bananas on him. Makes you wonder if there was "something to it" that threatened the living shit out of them.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. I would certainly not dispute your theory.

There is room for both, and I have in fact made the same suggestion elsewhere that you did here. I've been having to dig around in the sexual sadism literature lately for some consulting work I'm doing (technical stuff on the etiology, reliability of diagnosis, treatability, etc.), and of course it all fits.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Rec'd, for those who haven't read between the lines...

I just figured that out recently, but its good to hear it explicitly stated. I think you're absolutely right.

[leftstreet]

4. K&R

[Muttocracy]

8. watching a clip of KO from earlier - he's saying the same thing...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#30355845

[bleever]

9. They said they'd make their own reality.

Not being fans of history, they were unaware of how that has historically worked out.

:(

[Cali_Democrat]

10. The torture tapes were also destroyed by BushCo

They videotaped the interrogations hoping to get a confession, a link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.

They failed to get their confession and subsequently destroyed the tapes because the tapes would have been additional evidence of their war crimes.

[regnaD kciN]

12. I can give you a simpler reason...

...because, while torture is ineffective at extracting information, it is highly effective at exacting revenge.

I think that, for most people, getting accurate "HumInt," although desirable, was secondary to making someone (and preferably "someones" of swarthy complexion) "pay" for 9/11.

That's why I think it's counterproductive to bring out the number of times an al-Qaeda leader was waterboarded, as opposed to how many times it was done to some average shopowner or cabdriver who turned out to be completely innocent. Because I can guarantee that the average American's reaction to hearing that Kahlid Sheik Mohammed had been waterboarded would be "Good! Now, can we waterboard him 183 more times, and figure out some other "enhanced interrogation" techniques to be used against him repeatedly, before executing him in as extended and agonizing a manner as possible?"

If we're to mount a campaign against torture, we have to emphasize the victims who didn't deserve to suffer our revenge for 9/11, not those who did.

[lapfog_1]

16. America (especially the morons that follow InHannity)

might have sought "revenge"... but I'm pretty sure the people who ordered this had no such motive.

They were HAPPY that 9/11 happened (and it still wouldn't surprise me to find out that they either helped
it along or, at the very least, let it happen).

They have no feelings for the victims of 9/11, none.

[RoyGBiv]

13. I believe this is correct ...

I've spent the last couple evenings reading news reports and analysis from prior to about 2007. I generally find this sort of thing a useful exercise, reading about an event before the event broke into a front-page story. Certain details tend to show up more clearly, which is interesting in and of itself.

In any case, one thing that has become clear is that a strong effort to implement these procedures took place in the run-up to Iraq. According to a 2005 NYT article, Rumsfeld is said to have approved, specifically, the program derived from SERE in December 2002.

Interesting timing considering what started flooding the airwaves in the following months.

Also of interest at the moment, and for the time being seemingly unexplored, is an almost lost story from around 2004 and 2005 of heavily conflict between the CIA and FBI. Many theories as to the origin of this conflict were offered, some more reasonable than others, and this all was tied in some way to a growing list of high-ranking military officers resigning, the origins of the decision to go into Iraq, the yellow-cake thing, etc. We often referred often to this as an orchestrated purge of the military, usually connecting it with disagreement over Iraq strategy, the implication being on battle strategy or even whether we should be there still in the first place. However, given recent revelations combined with what we already knew (often without making the appropriate connections) and some of what we suspected, the purge taking place in the military and CIA/FBI conflict now appear related directly to the torture policy and all that is derived from that. And, what is derived from that is, I believe, huge.

This CIA/FBI conflict story sort of got lost in the shuffle, but it seems key and perhaps is related, behind the scenes, to what is taking place today. At least as early as 2003, the FBI sent memos strongly objecting to the tactics being used. Memos to this effect were released back in 2005, but were heavily redacted. Some individual memos, one of which was obtained by a Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks of the New York Times, indicates that the program developed from SERE was specifically mentioned and that the matter of this producing false confessions was also highlighted.

Things are unraveling ...

[Mist]

14. Wow, excellent work you've done there Roy. Yes, that would all fit. I remember at the time thinking

that some of the CIA were leaving due to Porter Goss being put in place there. Bushco wanted a CIA more supportive of them. Yes, the FBI balking, and the military resignations would certainly tie in with Bushco implementing their torture policy.

I think that the CIA thing is parallel, and tied to Bushco wanting a more compliant CIA.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. It is useful if you want to terrorize a population into submission.

Or at least it is viewed as useful. Generally it isn't, but also generally the torturers then take the next logical step of outright slaughter of the same population, again under the theory that certainly enough brutality will bring compliance. This explains the situation in Abu Ghraib, where as far as I can tell the purpose of torture was primarily to subjugate the population, to terrorize them into submission. It didn't work. Nor did five years of brutality. Bribery, on the other hand, appears to have worked rather well.

[Jackpine Radical]

22. Yes, I think this too was part of it.

Especially for the things done to ordinary people at Abu G.

[Norquist Nemesis]

24. Well, geez! After that Niger uranium document didn't work out so well...

I still think they should go talk to Scooter and see if he his memory has recalled anything new. :evilgrin: