CIA Releases Step-By-Step Guidelines for Torturing Detainees

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CIA records have revealed a graphic set of instructions for `breaking a detainees will`, according to the Washington post. The guidelines for the harshest treatment of prisoners is meticulously detailed and itemized in chronological order. The functions of various procedures are also listed. Here is how the prisoner torture sessions typically play out:

1. Detainee stands naked with a hood for his head. Guards collar the prisoner and chain his limbs. The collar will be used for head-slamming later.

2. The interrogator removes the hood and should slap the detainee across the face `to get his attention`. This is followed by head-slamming or walling, which may be tried once or repeated several times `to make a point`. The instructions permit the interrogator to do this 20 or 30 times in succession to obtain a `more significant` response.

The CIA also details harsher methods if the above proves unsuccessful.

Recently released documents explain how torture techniques were carefully monitored and designed by the CIA headquarters, Justice Department and other professionals. The methods used were meant to maximize efficacy by using physical and psychological stress. They included sleep-deprivation, daily calorie restriction, liquid diet, spending 8 hours at a time in a box, followed by two hours in a smaller box, enforced nudity, bright lights and white noise,  and depriving the prisoner of sight and sound using earmuffs and blindfolds. The CIA begins its psychological assault upon high-value detainees immediately after their arrest.

The CIA has standard guidelines for torturing prisoners sounded vaguely comforting as it suggested interrogator accountability for ill treatment. This list sounds more like some suggested torture bound to drive the detainee to some degree of insanity. It sounds to me as though the CIA is more interested in the efficacy of the torture methods than the humanity. The extreme nature of the guidelines make it sound as though no torture method would be too cruel if it worked, so what stops the interrogator from using his imagination?