All posts tagged "Interrogation Techniques"

The United States has appealed an order from a military judge at the U.S. jail in Guantanamo that they turn over information on secret CIA interrogation centers.

It's long been known that Nazi scientists helped the U.S. in its quest to secure its military might and space program at the height of the Cold War. Wernher von Braun, for example, a Nazi rocket scientist, led a team that helped the U.S. develop the vehicle employed for the first nuclear missile test, and aided efforts to launch first Western satellite in 1958. Hundreds of Nazi scientists were given citizenship between 1945 and 1955. But what's been unknown -- until today -- is the extent to which former Nazis were employed to test LSD and other interrogation techniques on captured Soviet spies.

[rebelmouse-image 24749268 original_size="300x300" expand=1]In the meandering thread about Inglourious Basterds below, I made a comment about how much TV and movies dictate what our reality is, in America at least (this was in service of pointing out that Tarantino's project is to poke a stick at that, in part). I was reminded of how true that is while reading this commonsensical post from Matt about how much more effective rights-respecting interrogation techniques are on suspected terrorists than the "beat the shit out of them and give them no rights" method preferred by conservatives. The last episode of the Rachel Maddow show touched on similar points---conservatives are squawking about how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was read his Miranda rights, as if this somehow signals insufferable pussydom on America's part that will make him shut up forever. But what's actually happened is that normal, rights-respecting interrogation techniques have convinced the would-be terrorist to cooperate, in part because his family got involved, which Matt points out was unlikely to happen if you tortured the guy.