Former Enhanced Interrogator is Haunted

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/4/12/13127/0630

Former Enhanced Interrogator is Haunted

by BooMan
Sat Apr 12th, 2014 at 01:01:27 PM EST


Eric Fair was an Arabic linguist in the U.S. Army from 1995 to 2000 and then, in 2004, he worked as a contract interrogator in Iraq. He remains haunted by what he did there.

In April 2004 I was stationed at a detention facility in Fallujah. Inside the detention facility was an office. Inside the office was a small chair made of plywood and two-by-fours. The chair was two feet tall. The rear legs were taller than the front legs. The seat and chair back leaned forward. Plastic zip ties were used to force a detainee into a crouched position from which he could not recover. It caused muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings and calves. It was torture.

The detainees in Fallujah were the hardest set of men I’ve ever come upon. Many killed with a sickening enthusiasm. They often butchered what remained of their victims. It is easy to argue that they deserved far worse than what we delivered.

Still, those tactics stained my soul in an irrevocable way, maybe justifiably so. But as members of our government and its agencies continue to defend our use of torture, and as the American people continue to ignore their obligation to uncover this sordid chapter, the stain isn’t mine alone.

Jose Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, insists that those who suggest we question more gently have never felt the burden of protecting innocent lives. I’ve felt that burden. And when the time came, I did not question gently.

I’m dealing with my own burdens now. My marriage is struggling. My effectiveness as a parent is deteriorating. My son is suffering. I am no longer the person I once was. I try to repent. I work to confess. I hope for atonement.

As a country, we need to know what happened. We need to confess. We need to be specific. We need to open the book.

Not much to add, other that I agree with everything that Mr. Fair had to say.

[rhett o rick]

1. We cant put this "behind us". "As a country, we need to know what happened. We need to confess.

We need to be specific. We need to open the book."

President Obama is a good man, I hope he understands that this must be recognized, discussed and dealt with. My fear is that he will pardon the key players as a means of putting this "behind us". I believe trying to suppress our collective guilt will bring about a national psychosis.

[RainDog]

4. Chile and South Africa provide good examples

Chile has created online archives to document the assassination of leftists by the Kissinger-supported Pinochet - who was considered the pet of Milton Friedman as an example of his economic ideas.

South Africa granted "amnesty" for crimes against humanity for those who participated in the Apartheid regime - killing citizens, etc. IN RETURN for their public testimony about their actions - which included naming those who gave them orders.

And, of course, Cheney was all-in for apartheid, while calling Mandela a terrorist.

We need the same thing here.

It's obvious the elite power structure will protect Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. with crimes against humanity - so, instead, let us create a public, online accessible archive to document their crimes so that conservatives cannot engage in the "rehabilitation" of monsters who made the U.S. a criminal state.

[rhett o rick]

7. How do we create an online archive that the PTB can't edit. I have seen it happen in

Wikipedia. The rich have people whose business is to see that their employer's wiki is "clean". And they have more resources to "fix" entries than we do to try to keep them accurate. The wealthy control history.

[RainDog]

8. anyone can create a site if you can pay to host it somewhere

The National Security Archives, btw, is a great organization that has written books based on FOIA documents - which they also host online.

Paul Thompson, who used to be here, did a great site to keep track of news articles, etc. around 9.11. Someone published a book, later, based upon this work. I don't know if it's still in print.

Libraries have all sorts of archives - some materials are online, some have descriptions and you have to physically copy (or ask someone to do it for you, for a fee, at an archive - whether it's a presidential library or university one that houses the papers of particular people.

you can create annotated bibliographies that keep track of books according to the subject they address (the annotation part means, beyond listing a title, author, pub, isbn, etc. you also includes a couple of sentences of summary about the title.

Those other places did these things as govts. (SAf) or orgs that had govt. approval. (Chile, afaik).

But any information that is available to the public can be used for an archive, as long as it's attributed (source, whether it's a book or website, etc.)

[rhett o rick]

9. I am thinking you are missing my point. My fault. It's my opinion that whatever

attempts the 99% make to preserve history as we see it, can be bought and changed by the 1%.

[RainDog]

10. they can't shut down all the information out there

the problem with our society so often is that the truth is only revealed after the principles involved are dead.

[rhett o rick]

14. I truly hope you are correct, but "they" have such resources that I think they can eventually mold

history to their benefit.

[WillyT]

2. K & R !!!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

[rhett o rick]

15. And because of what Freddy N. said, it causes me some turmoil. If one believes Freddy then

what does one do? Mahatma Gandhi had an answer, I just dont know if I am strong enough.

[JJChambers]

5. Strapping someone to an uncomfortable chair is torture?

[hobbit709]

6. Why don't you try it and get back to us.

It was a bit more than an uncomfortable chair.

[Boreal]

11. YES

The chair was two feet tall. The rear legs were taller than the front legs. The seat and chair back leaned forward. Plastic zip ties were used to force a detainee into a crouched position from which he could not recover. It caused muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings and calves. It was torture.

[JJChambers]

12. I'm just sayin'

If I had to pick between bamboo chutes under the finger nails, a car battery clamped to the testicles, or an uncomfortable chair, I would pick the chair. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just sayin'.

[Boreal]

13. those first two things

you mentioned are well known torture "techniques". While I don't know, I'd bet the US was trying to skirt around what is understood to be torture and create new methods which might be *iffy* (in their minds, anyway).

[rhett o rick]

17. But what is your point? There is always something worse. That doesnt diminish that it

still is torture.

[Ohio Joe]

20. Torture is torture...

If it's the few seconds of bamboo... Or the few minutes of the car battery... Or the hours and hours in the chair... It is all torture.

[rhett o rick]

16. If you have something to say, please do so with more than a question. Your question

by itself is absurd.

[WhiteTara]

18. May we send the war criminals to the Hague now?

It is time to wash ourselves clean.

[Tom Ripley]

19. Better late than never, I guess

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. kick