What are the long term effects of torture on the victim? The answers are easily obtained, from numerous reputable sources. Less readily understood by the average person is what the long term effects might be on the torturer.
In order to understand the terrible truths of that question, you first have to know what the torturer either already knows, or finds out very quickly. You have to know that torture is a poor method of interrogation. Were that not the case, our military would have taught those techniques in all their military police and intelligence units, everywhere on the globe. The only place they were taught by our military prior to this era was the infamous School of The Americas (in 2001 renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning, GA., a special training facility for Latin American military personnel.
Every torturer finds out sooner or later what many behavioral researchers already know - torture is an unreliable form of interrogation, but it's an excellent form of terrorism. If law enforcement or military personnel used torture on an american citizen in the course of an interrogation, they'd not only lose their job, depending on the severity of the torture - particularly if of the types taught at the WHISC - they'd likely face criminal charges with special circumstances. Torture is one of the most serious crimes a citizen can commit in the US, and it carries heavy penalties.
How does someone inflict so much pain on numerous fellow human beings, without changing themselves forever? They don't. How do torturers cope with those changes? Some smile, nod, and remain calm at all times. They stop feeling anything at all. While they can take or leave their occupation, they don't tend to initiate it on their own - nor do they initiate any other messy activity unless strongly compelled to do so by an authority figure. Some spend their whole lives dead inside. Easily identified, they're the ones who nod and turn away when their spouses, children, and everyone in their lives leaves them. Those are the "safe" ones, they only destroy the ones they're ordered to destroy, themselves, and their families. They have standards and practices, gruesome as they may be, and will never cross certain pre-established lines.
Others remain dispassionate only as long as they're under orders. In familial situations where they're the authority figure (as parents), or perceive themselves to be (as spouse), they can become volatile and dangerous. They expect to be obeyed without question or hesitation, and can mete out punishments to family members (and others they feel are under their authority) that strongly resemble their "work habits".
The most dangerous are those who actively come to enjoy torturing unwilling victims. America, I've got some really terrifying news for you. There are people in our country who ENJOY inflicting extreme pain and physical damage on innocent men, women, and oh God Help Us, yes, children. When I say "in our country" I mean they could be anywhere, but some are almost certainly in and around Fort Benning, GA ; Fort Hood, TX ; Arlington, VA ; San Diego, CA ; and Washington D.C.
People who live in the vicinity of those cities in particular need to watch out for their children. Don't assume that civilians are safe. The Fay/Jones Report lists 44 counts of abuse at Abu Ghraib. It includes head blows and other physical assault, sodomy, rape, stripping prisoners of their clothing, forcing detainees to masturbate and perform sex acts, the use of unmuzzled dogs and other atrocities. There were 44 tortures between July 03 and Feb 04. Interrogators from CACI International, Inc., of Arlington, VA, and translators from Titan Corporation, San Diego, CA, are connected to 16.
We need to find out who and where these torturers are. Some of them are human time bombs. Not everyone who tortures remains dispassionate or seeks help. Some develop a taste for it, and some specifically develop a fetish for torturing children. The annals of criminal psychology are abundantly clear on that point. Some of the torturers will torture one or more of us, and some of them will torture our children - unless we can identify them, and remove them from free society.
Why is this so imperative? Because unlike the twisted souls who suffer rampant sadism who are accustomed to sublimating their illness, into sex-play for pay and other quasi-acceptable pastimes, torturers of children, once so warped, tend to remain in the same mode. They don't hire a dominatrix or become sport hunters, they predate on children in the same manner in which they were taught and expected to carry out their "duty". Those who "overcome" the sickness on their own usually do so via suicide. Others seek out children, and torture them. In foreign military situations, killing the tortured children would be counterproductive to both the espoused goal of interrogation, as well as the actual goal of terrorizing a civilian populace. Here at home, a torturer will always know that after they're done, they can't let the victim live to identify them.
A last word on this, for now. If you're seeking medical or psychiatric treatment in those cities, well, go to another city.
Doctors and psychiatrists employed in Iraq and at Gitmo were apparently involved in the torture. Let's face it - are these people you want anywhere near your mind or body?
What was it Donald Rumsfeld wrote? "
Make sure this happens!!"
He
made it happen, not
just to the tortured, but also to vulnerable and impressionable young citizen-soldiers of our national guard, whom he has turned into torturers and made victims of his own inhuman barbarism.
RESOURCES :
The Achilles' Heel Of Torture by Karen J. Greenberg, TomPaine.com
Newly released memos show that the U.S. military opposed torture not only because it is illegal, but because it's ineffective.
US military in torture scandalUse of private contractors in Iraqi jail interrogations highlighted by inquiry into abuse of prisoners by Julian Borger in Washington
Friday April 30, 2004 The Guardian
Prison Interrogation for ProfitPrivate contractors face legal action for crimes in Abu Ghraib
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatchSeptember 15th, 2004
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIBAmerican soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2004-05-10Posted 2004-04-30
Torture and Its Consequences1-01-1995 by Hernán Reyes
Extract from TORTURE, Volume 5, Number 4, 72-76 p., 1995
An ICRC viewpoint
EIGHT LESSONS OF TORTUREBased on [The Center for the Victims of Torture]'s experience with torture survivors and understanding the systems in which they have been abused, CVT believes it is important that discussions about the U.S. use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment not be shaped by speculation but rather through an understanding of how torture is actually used in the world. There are eight broad lessons CVT has learned from working with torture survivors:
OLC's Aug. 1, 2002 Torture Memo ("the Bybee Memo")A Consequentialist Argument against TortureInterrogation of Terrorists
Jean Maria Arrigo, Ph.D.
Project on Ethics and Art in Testimony
Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics
January 30-31, 2003, Springfield, Virginia
The Torture Memo By Judge Jay S. BybeeThat Haunted Alberto Gonzales's Confirmation Hearings
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jan. 14, 2005
United States CodeTITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDUREPART I - CRIMESCHAPTER 113C - TORTUREhttp://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/CAT.C.SR.431.En?Opendocumenthttp://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0625torture-Huggins.pdfhttp://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/t/to/torture.htmhttp://www.harpercollins.com.au/drstephenjuan/0405news.htmhttp://www.survivorsintl.org/SI.1.2_overview.htmlhttp://www.survivorsintl.org/SI.4_resources.htmlhttp://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33479
