Pentagon ‘Migrated’ Soviet Cold War Torture Techniques to Guantanamo, Iraq

Photos

Pentagon ‘Migrated’ Soviet Cold War Torture Techniques to Guantanamo, Iraq

see larger image

uploaded by angryindian

Jack Bauer types and wannabes should read this entire article.  It's sobering.  - The Angryindian

------------------------------------------- 

From Think Progress: 

Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE)
is a program designed to train U.S. soldiers to withstand torture if
they are ever captured as prisoners of war. Developed during the Cold
War, U.S. solders are subjected to techniques based “on how the Soviet Union and its allies
were believed to treat prisoners,” including “prolonged use of stress
positions, exposure to heat and cold, sleep deprivation and even
waterboarding.”

A recently declassified investigation from the Department of Defense’s Inspector General confirms “how the military training was ‘reverse engineered‘ for use by American interrogators,” training interrogators on more “effective” ways to elicit information:

Counterresistance techniques were introduced
because personnel believed that interrogation methods used were no
longer effective in obtaining useful information from some
detainees. … On at least two occasions, the JTF-170 (interrogators)
requested that Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (the agency conducting
SERE training) instructors be sent to Guantanamo to instruct interrogators in SERE counterresistance interrogation techniques.