Monday, November 14, 2005

How did we learn torture?

According to the New York Times, America intentionally borrowed the interrogation methods used in Vietnamese prisons.

Under Bush, America has imitated those whom we have always opposed.

How did American interrogation tactics after 9/11 come to include abuse rising to the level of torture? Much has been said about the illegality of these tactics, but the strategic error that led to their adoption has been overlooked.


The Pentagon effectively signed off on a strategy that mimics Red Army methods. But those tactics were not only inhumane, they were ineffective. For Communist interrogators, truth was beside the point: their aim was to force compliance to the point of false confession.

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