[lbo-talk] Re: CIA torture techniques

[Chuck Grimes]

There's just one huge problem with this theory: even if you do return
people to the infantile state, there's one thing everyone agrees about
that theoretically constructed state: that people, when in it, can't tell
the truth from fiction. Michael Pollak

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You should look over the manual and see what you think. They deal with
the above objection by saying that the point isn't to reduce people to
an infantile state, because apathy sets in. The preferred state is
found some where above apathy, but below the subject's normal
abilities to resist. (I would add, in the case of totalitarian terror,
or prison, or long term detention however, apathy is the preferred
outcome.)

Most of it was pretty convincing to me. Also remember that the methods
were preparation for interrogation and didn't deal with interrogation
as such.

So, add both parts up. The basic outline of the process is trauma,
disorientation, confusion (to induce to regression) followed by
questioning, questioning, questioning, which usually leads to
compliance. Just repeat the same steps as necessary and pretty soon
you get what you want.

Beyond preparations for questioning there is a whole world and art of
interrogation: police and detectives, FBI, CIA, prosecutors, lawyers
doing depositions. All these people are experts at getting out
whatever information needed in questioning. They can and do break
people down all the time, find out what they know, expose lies, ferret
out knowledge and re-construct events, people's relationships, guilt
or innocence and all sorts of other things. In some respects it is a
very normal business.

Let's take the hostile deposition as an example of how to do an
interrogation. I've been through several of these, so this is mostly
personal experience. I am going to exaggerate, but basically
this is the way these things work.

Every aspect of the rooms, lighting, temperature, seating, supply of
amenities like water, tolite, and breaks, plus time and location are
all controlled by your enemy. The purpose of the deposition is
supposed to be to get at the truth of something and collect
evidence. In fact the point is to destroy the truth, destroy the
credibility of your testimony and destroy evidence by destroying you.

The questions, particularly the timing, scope, the apparently random
and searching nature of the questions, the neutral or dis-believing
pretense of the questioners, their seeming confusion and pretended
inability to understand some answer, their use of contradictions in
your `versions' which don't exist---which they, themselves have
created, the repetitions, the circumlocution, the obviously trivial
and petty nature of many questions, the attempts to work every angle
of the same basic question that has already been answered over and
over, then the use of the angles as the means to point to
contradictions in `different' `versions', endless and meaningless
verbal traps that set you up as a liar, and the extreme of tedium and
tension are all orchestrated to position you in a subjugated and
compliant position---and they all work very well to that effect. To be
deposed, to be interrogated by detectives or FBI agents who are
experts at manipulating human nature is an experience nobody should
miss.

There is also a basic concept as well as a process. The idea is to use
the person's own emotional state against them. In effect, make them
their own tormentor.

Everybody has emotional reactions to these situations. From the
interrogators point of view these reactions are the key to how to
conduct the questioning. The basic idea is to use whatever the
subject's normal reactions are, against them, so that their own
emotions and their ability and inability to control them are the
source of the torment. It's a little difficult to understand how this
works unless you've had this technique used against you in a
systematic and deliberate fashion. 

How to explain it? As an interrogator you look for reactions and test
them to see how they work. You figure out how to evoke them and
assuage them, how to turn them on and turn them off. You manipulate
this on-off aspect, all the time you are questioning, often about
trivial matters that have little to do with content you are
seeking. When you figure out how to turn on and turn off the emotive
system of the interrogatee, then you can use it against them. You can
frustrate their ability to control their own reactions so that these
reactions no longer match the immediate question or circumstance. You
can force them to lie about trivial and already known information just
to cover the `truth' of their own reactions and some earlier supposed
lie on some equally trivial matter, then expose them to their own
contradiction and lies---which you have forced them to create on their
own. They go crazy trying to work their way out of it. No matter what
they say, they face a lie they have created and have to admit in order
to cover some other lie they also created. (Of course you have created
all these lies through the questioning---not them) If you want too,
at some point you can begin leading the subject into your `version'
and get them to support it with their own eagerness to escape some
earlier contradiction they thought they made, but in fact which they
have been trapped into creating for themselves. (I am telling you
this shit is mind boggling)

These sorts of traps destroy the subjects emotional control, which in
turn ruins their critical judgment independent of whatever is at
issue. Pretty soon they can't keep track of what is true and what is a
false. They think their job is to keep focused on what is true (or
what they might really be lying about). But that's a mistake. The more
they try to keep focused on what is true (or try to hide), the more
you can destroy them by showing it is unbelievable, it isn't true,
can't be true---and since they have contradicted themselves already
this is just another one of those times. So even if what they say is
in fact true, they can no longer really adhere to it as sincerely as
they want. They will argue in frustration that `you' don't
understand. That's also a mistake. Their emotional reactions are
taking over and tormenting them. Now you turn them off at the height
of their frustrated annoyance and let it simmer, by moving on to
supposedly `new' territory. Of course you are headed right back to
building up the same emotional self-destruction all over again via a
different route.

There are additional considerations. For example most of the `truth'
may probably be known and understood and (probably) most
interrogations are used to confirm, reject, or fill in additional
information, or may be completely unrelated to what the subject thinks
is at issue. Most subjects are probably blind to the purpose,
intention or motive, and blind to interrogator's state of knowledge. As
an interrogator your subject will not know what you know, while you
probably already know most of what they know. So it doesn't matter too
much that the subject loses track of what is fact and what is
fiction. More importantly, they are losing control of
themselves. (Part of the regression process is losing emotional
control) Your job is to sort out what's probably true or false
(probably later)---but you make them thrash back and forth until they
can't sort it out any more for themselves. If you are careful and keep
track you can usually re-construct what really is truth from what is
most likely false, plus you collect all sorts of details that may come
in handy later.

And there is something else that most people don't realize at all. Few
people have listened to themselves on tape or have read in writing
what they said in answer to extended questioning. In other words, most
people don't know what they are saying a lot of the time. They think
they know, but that is much different from reading it. Plus, most lies
are so transparent they are laughable. Interrogators, cops, and lawyers
understand all this very well.

Anyway, most people starting off fresh, calm and awake can't take more
than a few hours of this sort of thing. If you add some trauma and
disorientation and the person is not expecting to be questioned, the
effect is overwhelming.

CG