Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob
Rather amazing at the list of topics which you seem to have some expertise...
Well, Bob, at least amazement is more polite than calling me a liar, as Trevor and Pissyboy have effectively done recently. To save you (or them) the trouble of checking, as far as I can recall the only areas I have mentioned here in which I have "some expertise" are as follows (if you can find more please add them, with a link):
I was trained as an architect - never practiced.
I am a trained and qualified B2 Medic, with minor additional specialist training - never worked as such.
I am a qualified instructor in aikido - never worked as such, although I did instruct occasionally.
I have considerable international expertise in Counter Insurgency and Internal Security; there are no qualifications in this field except at a considerably lower level than my own.
I was involved in the establishment of a specialist SAR team, as both a specialist skill qualified instructor and as a team leader.
In addition to my normal job, in one country I was put in national charge of all Vietnamese refugees, from arrival to departure (only 2 boatloads, fortunately).
I am a qualified and experienced tactical questioner and screener (what you would probably call an interrogator).
That, as far as I am aware, is all that I have mentioned here. Although doubt has been cast on my honesty and integrity I have no reason to doubt yours (although I would not extend the same courtesy to some others), so if you have some doubts feel free to contact me by PM and I will send you a fully verifiable, confidential and extremely boring CV.
John McCain, as far as I know from what he wrote and what is reported, did not actually know anything worth telling and what little he did know he apparently did not tell until long after it would have been of nothing more than propaganda value. He, if anything, is an example of torture not working as a method of extracting information but working as a method of getting the subject to admit to things he did not do (unless, that is, he deliberately bombed schools, as he admitted to but which I doubt he did - whatever his politics, I do not doubt his integrity).
The problem with torture, as I pointed out and you yourself have put your finger on (possibly unwittingly), is precisely that "99% of tortured prisoners crack and tell them whatever they want to know" - what the interrogator wants to know (or, more to the point, what the subject thinks they want to know) and accurate, useful and timely information which can be acted on very often end up as totally different things under torture.
Oh, and about the nipple twisting - I am sure you would probably tell me everything you thought I wanted to know, but what if you did not know anything? If you are prepared to accept nipple twisting (for example) as a valid method of questioning, then why would I waste time on you when it would probably be far quicker and more effective to apply it to your mother/wife/sister/daughter instead while politely questioning you? Enough of this before it gets brandumb and his friends excited.
Litefoot2,
you say "Read the Koran - the real ugliness is there"; I have read the Koran, several times, and found its sentiments similar to but no less liberal than the Bible. As you must also have read it, maybe you could quote some references, in context, of what you refer to? I can only guess that you are referring to some of the more radical interpretations, which are no more unpleasant than those of some Christian extremists.
Water boarding was developed and perfected by the Khmer Rouge, taking a prisoner bound to a board to the brink of drowning and then reviving him and repeating the process until he "confesses" to anything; the only difference was that the Khmer Rouge then executed the "guilty" prisoner, while the US put them on military trial using the same "evidence". How "precise" do you want it? Modern methods of sensory deprivation are as permanently damaging to the mind as medieval methods were to the body and they are no less methods of torture.
The Islamic treatment of gays (and the often incorrect view of it put forward by some gay groups) is a totally different subject, which has already been discussed here before, extensively.