In the Crosshairs

There is some serious hyperventilation among the juiceboxers over information that has been out for a while on enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). Apparently they just got through the, not all that long, documents written in 2005 that detail how the interrogations were done and what the rules and safety requirements were. Here is where they predictably veer off a cliff. They interpret the safety guidelines and procedures to be the standard operating procedures, instead of the worst case scenario and how to deal with it. Let’s enjoy some quality outrage and inaccurate info. . First the inaccurate stuff from Attackerman at his day job.

A few years ago, a pal of mine named Malcolm Nance testified to a congressional panel about how he was waterboarded. Nance used to instruct Naval Special Forces in how to resist torture, and part of their instruction was, inevitably, to undergo it themselves. Since the CIA’s contract psychologists essentially reverse-engineered that training in order to build a brutal interrogation regimen after 9/11, Nance thought members of Congress ought to know what techniques like waterboarding actually involve. “It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water,” Nance wrote in the New York Daily News. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

If Nance actually did that he would have been violating every policy and procedure of the program. I have talked to a number of SEALs and while they certainly got waterboarded, it was not “the lungs are actually filling with water” as Nance is right that would be drowning. He was either a serial violator of Navy policy or full of it.

Next we jump to the outrageous outrage caused by a completely inaccurate reading of the source material from Mark Benjamin at Salon:

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show.

Well basically NO. They were not pumping them full of water, the doctors noted that since the detainee might swallow water as a countermeasure, that some water would be ingested and , it made sense to use saline.

The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

Again NO, as to the first point, it is designed to increase the fear that water will enter and although some does enter that is not the objective. The goal is a Jedi Mind Fuck in the animal brain that makes you think you are drowning. They are correct that the gurney is designed to tilt, not as a regular expectation but for safety in an extreme situation as a caution. More overwrought outrage.

Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth.

That is just a blatant misrepresentation. Here is what it says:

if a detainee makes an effort to defeat the technique (e.g. by twisting his head to the side and breathing out the corner of his mouth)the interrogator may cup the mouth….to defeat efforts of the detainee by holding his breath fro example beginning an application of water as the detainee is exhaling.

The idea is not to force water in but to force the detainee to be exposed to the sensation. Now of course some water would go in, but the perception is that the goal was to jam a hose in the mouth and flood the innards.

Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

Nowhere does it say this is common, it says the detainee might puke, so just in case put them on a liquid diet.

More than anything this sounds like an OSHA report on the worst possibilities in a factory. None of the outrages detailed are part of the designed program or regular happenings at all. Many never happened at all, this is just the safety precautions put in place, The Horror! But if you have already programmed yourself for outrage, well there you have it.

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