Not actually "tortured"

monument

The "not actually "tortured"" techniques which are now used in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc etc etc were used in the north at the time of the internments. People being tortured and then being released without charge, talk about history repeating it self...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1417226,00.html
…

Jim Auld, now director of a human rights organisation in Northern Ireland called Community Restorative Justice, was one of the men seized by the army. He was 20. In Crumlin Road prison, he was savagely beaten. He had been beaten up by British soldiers once before, but what happened next, in retrospect, is the link between Canadian experiments in the 1950s and Afghanistan-Guantánamo-Iraq in the 21st century. He was hooded, stripped, put into a boiler suit, handcuffed behind his back and put into a helicopter. After a 30-minute ride he was thrown out and run across a grass field till he hit a concrete post and was knocked unconscious. When he woke up he was being dragged along a wooden floor. He was made to stand with his legs spread, his hands flat against the wall. There was an amplified hissing sound in the background. His hands quickly became numb but whenever he tried to move he was beaten with a baton.

"After a while the noise in the background started becoming more prominent I couldn't concentrate, this noise was in the centre of my head. I had **** myself and pissed myself a couple of times at this stage. They sat me down, lifted my hood to the bottom of my nose and gave me a piece of dry bread. I just couldn't take it. They pulled the hood down, put me back against the wall and beat me again."

At intervals, Auld was taken to be interrogated and asked who he knew in the IRA. "If you talked, the hood stayed off, and you stayed in the interrogation room. I learned to talk ****e for hours." He reckons he was on the wall for seven days and seven nights.

"When you're on the wall, you start hallucinating. I thought I was at sea, looking out the front windows of a ship, and somebody was standing beside me, a soldier who kept standing to attention, and he came down on my toe and it was sore. They'd realise I was sleeping and the bastards were standing on my feet. When I came out of the place I had no toenails."

To this day, Auld has never been charged with any crime. The episode left him, and the other men subject to what later came to be known as the "five techniques" of sensory deprivation, mentally scarred. "For months afterwards, if I heard a helicopter, I shook, broke out into a sweat and ran into a corner," says Auld. He believes he was a guinea pig for the techniques the Americans are using now, with tacit British support.

"It certainly makes me very, very angry," says Auld, about news reports about the treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Guantánamo. "It justifies the opposition to America and Britain in Iraq. What they are doing is wrong, they know that, and no matter what noble reasons they are giving, they are prepared to corrupt them by engaging in that sort of process."

...And people say internment was in the past and the British (government / security agencies) have changed…

In 1977, the British government gave a solemn undertaking to the European Human Rights Commission that it would never again use the "five techniques". Yet British prisoners released from Guantanamo have testified that British soldiers and intelligence officers interrogated them at the US base and in Afghanistan while they were being subjected to hooding, noise and sleep deprivation, as well as beating and short-shackling.

true

Does the same Mr. Auld write other fiction much ? Lets nominate him for the Adams / McLoughlin "Best work of Fiction / propoganda " prize 2005 , sponsored courtesy of a certain bank.

Its a pity he could not picture the scene when so many " informers " were questioned unside down in south armagh, before being shot and dumped somewhere. What about poor Jean McConville, are there any words about her torturers and murderers ?

sceptre

true wrote:

Its a pity he could not picture the scene when so many " informers " were questioned unside down in south armagh, before being shot and dumped somewhere. What about poor Jean McConville, are there any words about her torturers and murderers ?

Given that he's takling about his own experiences I rather doubt dragging experiences that he didn't witness into the statement would be all that relevant. No chance of you keeping your own pet-discussions in the relevant threads then rather than dragging them into something not related? As one of the forum moderators, I'm formally telling you to.

sovtek

From what I can tell it's not as interesting to discuss, on this board, the criminality of the British prison services/security services/military/para-military in NI as it is to slime the IRA/Sinn Fein.

pwd

1. Hood - sight
2. Hiss - hearing
3. boiler suit - touch
4. smell? Hood again?
5. dry bread - taste? Cos it doesn't taste of much?

Torture doesn't work as an interrogation device because people will say what the interrogator wants to hear rather than what is actually true. There are loads of examples of this.
The correct way to obtain the truth from somebody is to dominate them psychologically and make them feel you can see through them anyway.

sovtek

pwd wrote:

Torture doesn't work as an interrogation device because people will say what the interrogator wants to hear rather than what is actually true.

Nevermind morally indefensible and illegal.

The correct way to obtain the truth from somebody is to dominate them psychologically and make them feel you can see through them anyway.

In the "civilized world" that is supposedly done through fair trials.

monument

Just in case anyone wants to question British involvement in such torture…

A British official was involved in drafting rules permitting extreme interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, centre of the controversy over the use of torture by US forces against Iraqi prisoners.

Last night it emerged that the government has been forced to retract claims that no British military officer had seen or been involved with the crucial document allowing guards to subject detainees to interrogation methods including the use of dogs, sleep deprivation and stress positions, in breach of the Geneva Convention.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1418624,00.html

toiletduck

pwd wrote:

Torture doesn't work as an interrogation device because people will say what the interrogator wants to hear rather than what is actually true. There are loads of examples of this.
The correct way to obtain the truth from somebody is to dominate them psychologically and make them feel you can see through them anyway.

im no authority on this but i assume they wouldnt waste their time if torturing suspects if it didnt yield results?

pwd

I'm no authority either, however there was a section on interrogatin in either Focus or the New Scientist recently. An expert interrogator from the Israeli secret service dismissed torture as a tool on these grounds. An interview with a tortured prisoner had them support it. The very account abocve supports it " I learned to talk ****e for hours."

monument

sovtek wrote:

From what I can tell it's not as interesting to discuss, on this board, the criminality of the British prison services/security services/military/para-military in NI as it is to slime the IRA/Sinn Fein.

It doesn’t matter; none of this is/was happening in the Utopian Republic, back then apparently the worst think the guards did was play Daniel O’Donnell music to IRA suspects, and now we're just letting CIA aeroplanes (full of nothingness, mind you) stopover at Shannon.

SpabSFW

The Bush Administration has directly adopted the methods for his 'war on terror' from the British methods in NI.

As to the British themselves in Iraq, anyone else catch that fleeting article early on in the Iraq war in which it was reported that British soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed protesters? Tried and true technique I suppose. If anyone had raised a fit, which didn't happen since that news got buried up pretty quickly by the joint British-American press, they could always take 30 years to sort the matter out in their own favor. Maybe they could jail one of the unarmed guys they were shooting at.

daveirl

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A Dub in Glasgo

daveirl wrote:

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The evidence of the British involvement in Ireland does not agree with that assessment

monument

daveirl wrote:

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Did you happen to read any of the above?

daveirl wrote:

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What this thread about? Would it be the British and US use of torture? Not just a few solders. Not one-off cases. What the soldiers’ court cases are is the political equivalent of green-washing.

daveirl wrote:

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Meanwhile people like your self will trust the British security forces. It wasn’t in my back yard. (sic)

Slutmonkey57b

It shouldn't be in anybody's back yard.

But the point that the british are more likely to hold things to account than sf/ira can't be ignored either.

Have you noticed that your link is to an English newspaper? Nobody pretends that the British army is perfect, or blameless. But there's a hell of a lot more people prepared to expose what they get up to than there is on the equivalent republican side. I can't see An Poblacht writing stories about how IRA murders have been hushed up?

But again, that's a side topic so I'll drop it.

The point I'm trying to make is that in a thread about British Army/intelligence torturing or interrogations, there isn't a large group of people pretending that it doesn't happen, or that the Army is the victim of some smear campaign. That's why there's fewer posts. Unlike IRA threads where even the most obvious criminal behaviour has at least 3 muppets prepared to pretend that the IRA aren't vicious scum.

monument

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

But the point that the british are more likely to
hold things to account than sf/ira can't be ignored either.

And the north would be a good example of this, would it?

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Have you noticed that your link is to an English
newspaper?

Your point being?

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Nobody pretends that the British army is perfect,
or blameless. But there's a hell of a lot more people prepared to
expose what they get up to than there is on the equivalent republican
side. I can't see An Poblacht writing stories about how IRA murders have been hushed up?

If the UK Labour party has their own publication or newsletter I cant see them publishing what the Guardian does.

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

The point I'm trying to make is that in a thread about British Army/intelligence torturing or interrogations, there isn't a large group of people pretending that it doesn't happen,

Saying it doesn’t happen, and ignoring it and trusting the word (and the word alone) of the security forces – what’s the real difference?

BTW the UK (and the US) are trying to give the view that torturing is a matter of a few rogue soldiers, otherwise why would the UK (and the US) put soldiers to trial while what they were doing was clearly planed orders?

Maybe you think a little torturing is ok but a few went over board? Maybe you think sensory deprivation is not torture?

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

or that the Army is the victim of some smear campaign.

I believe the Guardian has in the past being called “anti-British”, non-patriotic for similar reports.

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

That's why there's fewer posts.
Unlike IRA threads where even the most obvious criminal behaviour has
at least 3 muppets prepared to pretend that the IRA aren't vicious
scum.

You mean no one has supported any action by the UK security forces? Or is their torture and killings ok enough to not make them “vicious scum”?

Victor

His hands quickly became numb but whenever he tried to move he was beaten with a baton.

I'm wondering how this isn't "torture"? whether in the traditional or new sense.

SpabSFW wrote:

As to the British themselves in Iraq, anyone else catch that fleeting article early on in the Iraq war in which it was reported that British soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed protesters?

You mean the crowd that subsequently shot the soldiers dead? Yes, "Really Bad Things"™ have gone on, but lets not confuse them.

Slutmonkey57b

monument wrote:

And the north would be a good example of this, would it?
....

Your point being?

Read both points one after the other - they're linked do you see?

If the UK Labour party has their own publication or newsletter I cant see them publishing what the Guardian does.

Still missing the point or just refusing to read the post? The point is that British people hold their government to account as much as they can - unlike the Nationalist community which is told what kind of treatment it can expect if it steps out of line.

BTW the UK (and the US) are trying to give the view that torturing is a matter of a few rogue soldiers, otherwise why would the UK (and the US) put soldiers to trial while what they were doing was clearly planed orders?

Maybe you think a little torturing is ok but a few went over board? Maybe you think sensory deprivation is not torture?

Still trying to railroad my point away from what I actually said, eh? What I said was that when a thread about the British Army is started, you don't have apologist muppets pretending it didn't happen, or saying that it's only to be expected really.

Show me where exactly I stated that I supported the British Army's actions?
Ah. You can't, so you just rewrite what I posted to fit more in line with whatever conversation is going on in your head.

monument

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Read both points one after the other - they're linked do you see?

They are not linked very well if you’re trying to equated An Poblacht as a equivalent to the Guardian in Ireland.

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Still missing the point or just refusing to read the post? The point is that British people hold their government to account as much as they can - unlike the Nationalist community which is told what kind of treatment it can expect if it steps out of line.

And the north would be a prime example of this apparent accountable? Or maybe Guantánamo, Iraq, or Afghanistan?

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Still trying to railroad my point away from what I actually said, eh? What I said was that when a thread about the British Army is started, you don't have apologist muppets pretending it didn't happen, or saying that it's only to be expected really.

I was responding to your apparent comparisons of An Poblacht and the Guardian.

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Show me where exactly I stated that I supported the British Army's actions?
Ah. You can't, so you just rewrite what I posted to fit more in line with whatever conversation is going on in your head.

They were questions; I will repeat them in a proper format…


Do you think a little torturing is ok but a few just went over board?

Do you think sensory deprivation is not torture?

Is the torture and killings carried out by the British ok enough not to make them “vicious scum”?

monument

Slutmonkey57b, is there any chance that you might answer the above questions?