Many Believe “Torture Works” — Okay, Imagine You're On The Receiving End

Ask John McCain About Torture (Does it work or not)

On the Senate Floor 

(December 9, 2014)

A fine NY Times Essay on Torture follows below:

INTRODUCTION: The torture itself was horrific enough. Beatings, hangings, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, mock executions — a litany of abuse authorized by the U. S. government against terrorism suspects held in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and for which no one in any position of power has ever been held accountable.

But taking fuller stock of the damage inflicted during those dark and brutal days is a continuing task. A series by The Times that began this month (October 2016) details the psychological and emotional scars that haunt the men, potentially hundreds, who suffered at the hands of interrogators at secret CIA “black sites” around the world and at the military detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A disturbingly high number of these men were innocent, or were low-level fighters who posed so little threat that they were eventually released without charge. Yet despite assurances from lawyers in the DOJ that “enhanced interrogation techniques” (Note my insert: Enhanced interrogation is a fancy buzz word used to avoid saying torture) should have no negative long-term effects,

The Times found that many of the men still suffer from paranoia, psychosis, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to their abuse.

They have flashbacks, nightmares, and debilitating panic attacks. Some cannot work, go outside, or speak to their families about what they went through.

One doctor compared the psychiatric disorders he saw among the former detainees to what military doctors observed in former American prisoners of war after they came home from Vietnam, Korea, and WW II.

Continue article at the link.   

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