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To: Steel Wolf
I don't know, it seems to me that if the worst you can do is take away comforts, it would be relatively easy to resist giving interrogators information.

I can sleep in pretty much any conditions, with any background noise, if I am tired and overdue for it. And I can stand freezing showers, lack of entertainment, and cold meals too. Although I have no idea whether I could resist actual torture (infliction of physical pain), I am certain that if all the enemy could do to me was what you describe, I'd never "break"; nor, I expect, would most combatants who had been well-trained.

I wouldn't even break under Abu Ghraib style "torture", which goes further than what you describe. Physical pain or threats to my family are the only things I'm not sure I could hold up under.

42 posted on 07/03/2004 10:09:08 PM PDT by VeritatisSplendor
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To: VeritatisSplendor
I don't know, it seems to me that if the worst you can do is take away comforts, it would be relatively easy to resist giving interrogators information.

I know it sounds easy. Just consider these things.

Most people, when their lives are transformed into a seemingly endless cycle of exhaustion, fear, and misery, will opt to break and accept the rewards. Most Americans don't know the understand exhaustion, fear and misery more severe than the cable going out, and think that they could shrug off most any discomfort while in enemy hands.

Right.

I've also known many people who have gone to Army SERE school with the attitude of 'screw em, I'm not tellin them jack'. They've all come back with their tails between their legs. All of them. The reality of being a prisoner, under the 24 hour supervision of trained, intelligent interrogators isn't something most people can adjust to, be they jihad hardened terrorist or fearless Green Beret.

The difference is we use harsher tactics at SERE school, i.e. in TRAINING, than we do in real life. No real terrorist is going to break under harsh language. No results can be expected with kid gloves.

There are some people that simply won't break. You may be one of them. Statistically, we can and have gotten the results we've wanted out of the majority that do break, with tools that are not brutal or violent.

I'm not an interrogator. I realize I can't accurately convey what they do, and I wouldn't if I could. I do work with interrogators, though, and I know they're smart people used to making do with less than most other countries, and still getting results. What's going on now, is that they have no tools, nothing.

43 posted on 07/03/2004 10:39:11 PM PDT by Steel Wolf (Iran almost has nuclear weapons. They will get them unless we stop them.)
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