[cryptome] CIA Torture Program: Vietnam & Nguyen Tai
- From: doug <douglasrankine2001@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: cryptome@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 19:50:52 +0000
see url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program
for a brief description. Nuffink new then...
see url:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no1/article06.html
The start of a remarkable story of a remarkable man...Nguyen Tai... The
Man in the Snow White Cell. Well worth reading the man's own story
too. "Face to Face with the CIA.
Am I making the moral argument for pro-torture...no.
Am I making the legal argument for pro-torture...no.
Am I making the ethical argument for pro-torture...no.
Last, and the most difficult argument of all in the torture/no torture
conumdrum, in my view, am I making the "immediacy" argument...no.
Why not. Because for years this man (and I don't support his methods,
he is no hero of mine, and I know that war removes all rules on
civilised behaviour) was detained and tortured...by the South Vietnamese
and by the C.I.A. Once again the USA had an undeclared and poorly
hidden war going on. He was held in their absolute power for years and
years...but he never confessed right up until the end, when he was no
longer useful and at a time and programme of his own choosing.
According to the article the CIA is very proud of its officers who
conducted the interrogations...and according to them they accomplished a
lot. But there you are, there are always different versions of history,
and the ruling ideas in history rule in history and are lost with the
vanquished. It is why the Vietnam war was important...for the first
time the USA and American ideas and views of history were defeated...and
its ruling circles have been fuming ever since. (a personal view)...
There was no war under the latest CIA torture programme. The USA govt
is not at war with the rest of the world, and its people certainly
aren't. There was no immediacy under the latest CIA torture programme.
(Or if there was, I am still waiting to hear and see evidence of it,
rather than some made up stories and myths)...and even then...I will
never support torture. Why? Because it does not work, and there are
other better ways eliciting information. Torture is not a way of
getting at the truth. It has more to do with satiating some basic
instincts in homo sapiens, drives, irresistible impulses, dressed up in
learned behaviour which wears the frock of civilisation.
One wonders whether CIA torture methods were "better" then...or more
"sophisticated" today...On second thoughts...I will stick to being
wonderless...there are more important things in life to dwell upon.
ATB
Dougie.
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