Along with “24,” guess who else the Bush administraton learned interrogation from?

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.
....

Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods,” sometimes in conditions of “extreme cold.” Such passive methods, he wrote, were more common than outright physical violence. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold have both been used by American military and C.I.A. interrogators against terrorist suspects.

The chart also listed other techniques used by the Chinese, including “Semi-Starvation,” “Exploitation of Wounds,” and “Filthy, Infested Surroundings,” and with their effects: “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist,” and “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns.”

The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”

We can now proudly add Communist China to the list of countries that gave us “Enhanced interrogation.” Yes, the same Red China that we fought against in the Korean War, that used these same techniques against our own soldiers. Well, we sure have the moral high ground in the WOT now, don’t we?

Go ahead. Tell me again how this kind of crap is justifiable. Go on. I dare you.

Update by Lee: Remember, everyone, it’s only torture and immoral when they do it, because they do it for the wrong reasons. It’s righteous and virtuous and completely in the spirit of what America purports to stand for when we do it because we do it for the right reasons.

Anyone remember when moral relativism was something conservatives used to (rightly) criticize liberals for supporting?

Fire Under the Snow is the dramatic story of Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk since childhood, who was arrested by the Chinese Communist Army in 1959. He spent the next thirty-three years in prison for the “crimes” of demonstrating peacefully and refusing to falsely denounce his teacher as an Indian spy. He was humiliated, tortured, starved, and forced to perform hard labor. He watched his nation and culture destroyed and his teachers, friends, and family displaced, jailed, or killed by the Chinese occupiers. Fire Under the Snow reveals the contours of a stunningly dramatic and inspirational story: the survival of a mind and a soul under unthinkable duress.

Some of the enhanced interrogation methods used by the chinese: standing barefoot in a frozen floor, where the feet’s skin adheres by cold, tied over a bonfire where chili was added to increase the pain, forced blood extractions to increase feebleness, sleep and food deprivation (sounds familiar?), forced work, beatings, a$$ rapings with electric canes designed to be used with cattle…

Nice join venture you have there.

The USA is now human rights partners with China. Not only that, but the USA does some of the abuse that is too dirty for China.

As the Bushies like to invoke the Bible, what happened to Israel when it was apostate (see almost any of the Old Testament Prophets).

I’m all for keeping Gitmo open so we can put Shrub and lil ****-boy in there forever next January.

Yes, we use old Soviet torture camps in eastern Europe and now we team up with those human rights loving Chinese. What a country of which to be proud

I guess Im gonna have to do this by myself LOL

“sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

Wow, real bad stuff there.

And, I want proof. There isn't even a source named at all in this one. They don't even use a 'top unnamed Pentagon' or 'top CIA' source. There is no mention at all.

To just believe anything you are told to believe is ridiculous. Much more so than the profile picture of yours.

Dont take my word for it. Its all over the news about U.S. interrogators working with and using Communist Chinese torture techniques. The same torture that was used on American POWs in the Korean war. Dont believe me, look it up yourself.

Why dont we do the American thing? Why dont we be the good guys? Why dont we do the right thing no matter what just like we used to. Its what made this country great. I am against torture because my GOD was tortured and crucified and I dont want anyone, even evil men to be tortured. Why should we drag ourselves into sin with them?

I did not write that, its a quote and of course I dont want anyone even those two men to be tortured.

That's not what I said. I watch the news 24/7 so I know it is on there, its all over the cable and newspaper media. But, who are the sources for this report? They don't even use the unnamed sources in the article. There is no mention of where this came from.

Its troubling that the accusation would even be made. This is not the America I read about in the history books. We are better than that (or used to be).

What is troubling is that you would immediately believe any accusation anyone would state. That is what you just said.

This isnt the first time this has been said.

Yes it is. Never heard about these Chinese torture techniques before. We've waterboarded three guys, Khalid Sheik Mohammad and two other big timers along with him. But, we have not heard about this Chinese thing before.

By the way Starsailor, I respect you and Lindyy. I hope that you dont dislike me personally.

They apparently copied the Communist Chinese manual for torture verbatim.

Apparently, according to who? A newsreporter? Because that's all we have from that article. I'm going to guess it was a 'top Pentagon official who will go unnamed' as they usually do to get away with anything. Who knows there even was an unnamed source?

Going so gungho off of reports that have no named source or evidence to support it is very weak.

Its being reported by many reliable sources. All of the major television and print media

Yes, that is because it is fireworks of news. Do remember fantastic news was reported first by the New York Times and then carried elsewhere on numerous stories that were later retracted because of horrible journalism.

And, DO REMEMBER the case of the scientist, Steven Hatfill, who was immediately accused and found guilty by all press, all major media, as being behind the anthrax case. He was guilty before even a trial and with practically no evidence to pin it on him. He has now been found 100% and is receiving $5 million in damages from the federal government. Steven Hatfill was an innocent man and the reliable sources ran with the firework story to destroy his life and reputation.