Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sophisticated “Message Management” Has Torture Coming from U.S. TV Shows

The devil’s spawn of television is yet to blame for another problem the United States faces worldwide, our use of torture. This comes right after Defense Chief Robert Gates used Jon Stewart like comedy to deflect stinging criticism from Russian President Vladmir Putin. Did Carlyle’s Neilson Media come up with this one two punch to knock the world silly over President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s use of torture? Oooopss, I mean tough interrogation techniques!

Listen to this excuse promulgated on the “info-space”. The web is something the U.S. military must rule according to the PNAC.

Torture in Iraq is being blamed on the Fox news show “24”, where Jack Bauer stages fake executions to get the information he needs. Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army specialist who questioned prisoners in Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison and several other facilities around Iraq, said he saw instances of mock executions like that in "24." Once, some fellow interrogators asked an Iraqi translator to pretend he was being tortured to strike fear in a prisoner, after they had just watched a similar scene on a DVD.

Television is hardly the only factor at play; Lagouranis said many American interrogators are young, receive little training and are pressured by commanders to extract information from prisoners as quickly as they can.

But it's enough of a concern that one professor at a military academy told Savitt that Jack Bauer represented one of his biggest training challenges.

Did anyone notice how the nation’s finest trained military sends young interrogators with little training under high pressure to do its most important job of getting information to prevent future terrorist attacks? This is bunk, part of sophisticated message management.

TV and poor training are not the cause of what America witnessed at Abu Ghraib. Highly refined CIA methods were in full display. Sensory deprivation, self inflicted pain and humiliation are intended to break prisoners and can do so within 48 hours. The science exists and the United States clearly applies it systematically.

The Jack Bauer cause of Iraqi prisoner torture belongs on Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart as it is laughable. Unfortunately many will buy this assertion. Will Fox TV be encouraged by Robert Gates to change one of their most popular shows or are they part of the con? The messengers already sucked in Human Rights First on this story…

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