Memos: CIA pushed limits on sleep deprivation

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — A year after the Bush administration abandoned its harshest interrogation methods, CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation tactics against a terror detainee in late 2007, keeping him awake for six straight days with permission from government lawyers.

Interrogators kept the unidentified detainee awake by chaining him to the walls and floor of a cell, according to government officials and memos issued with an internal CIA report. The Obama administration released the internal report this week.

Though the detainee's name and critical details are blacked out in the memos, there is only one detainee known to have been in CIA custody at that time: Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, an alleged al-Qaida operator and translator for Osama bin Laden.

The documents show that even as the Bush administration was scaling back its use of severe interrogation techniques, the CIA was still pushing the boundaries of what the administration's own legal counsel considered acceptable treatment.

...

According to the documents, the sleep-deprived prisoner was kept awake by being forced to stand with his arms chained above heart level. He wore diapers, allowing interrogators to keep him chained continuously without bathroom breaks.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iOTk5mUIVTPTRGU5hoR5JJrr38BAD9AB36L00

[Soylent Brice]

1. sick. all of this, just sick.

K&R

[Wizard777]

2. As a chronic insomniac I can assure you that is a most cruel and insidious torture.

My longest bout was 5 days without sleep. Both me and my doctors though I was going to die. It didn't take a whole lot of external stimulus to cause me extreme distress. My doctors didn't speak to me unless they had to and then they whispered. Talking in a normal tone. Every word was like a hammer pounding on my sore, raw and extremely irritated brain. Light bothered me. I was hallucinating. It was a pure living hell.

[No Elephants]

6. And you were probably able to survive because you are used to insomnia. If you think of staying

awake as an athletic (physical) event, chronic insomnia is probably like always being in physical training for that event. In other words, you can probably survive more sleeplessness than could people who are not insomniacs.

Just my theory.

[Wizard777]

8. Not really. I'm used to a day or two. Three tops. But Five was new ground for me.

Once you hit Seven days without sleep. Thats when the risk of it being fatal begins. Basically your overloaded central nervous system burns up and your dead. My doctors were sweating bullets when I hit Day 5. They took this guy to Day 6. That just blows my mind. My doctors had hit me with some of the most powerful sedatives there was. It didn't even phase me. They were debating inducing a coma. Then one of them wanted to try treating it like hyperactivity and give me a stimulant. I was out like a light. I slept for almost two days. But being used to day one and two does not prepare you for day 5. I don't think anything can do that. It's a little bit worse a peyote trip. Even having reached day 5. I don't think I can imagine what day 6 is like. It wouldn't surprize me one bit if his brain was bleeding.

[Edweird]

3. I recall an incident a few years back where a researcher died from sleep deprivation.

I have tried recently to find the article, but haven't been able to.

Sleep deprivation is rough.

[Wizard777]

9. So he made it to Day 7 or beyond. The risk of fatality begins at Day 7.

So by taking the POW to Day 6. They took him real close to the line where it begins to become fatal. I went to day 5. It was pure hell. After that I now understand the ancient Greek Demon Sobrius a whole lot better. Sobrius was the antagonist to the Protagonist Morpheus. Sobrius demanded labors and great suffering from mortals. Sobrius worked the mortals by day and at night they laid down and died. They would wander the shores of the river Styx until morning. They they were ushered out of hades back to the mortal world to serve the demon Sobrius. Morpheus took pity upon the mortals and created the dream world for them to escape into at night and rest. He placed that dream world between the mortal world and hades. So at night they began to sleep and wandered Morpheus' dream world instead of dying and wandering the Styx.

[libodem]

4. After about 24 hours

your bones, muscles, and joints start to ache and cause constant debilitating pain. No bruises or cuts but I imagine the inside must feel like a bag of burning, throbbing, cramping, stabbing, mush. They kept some of those guys awake for weeks. Can you imagine the migraines they must have caused.

I also have suspicion that they must have driven some of the prisoners permanently insane. What a horrible abuse. I'll bet that is why they can't place some of the Gitmo guys, legs frozen off in the freezing water buckets, isolation until your mind is broken, beatings until revenge is all you care about, depression until all you are about is ending it all, humiliation until you can never tell anyone of the unspeakable debasement of having your dignity stripped away with your clothing, being violated sexually in painful and humiliating ways, being mentally and emotionally tormented until you are so frustrated and angry all you want to do is lash out. All those guys were hurt and tortured. Some of them to death. They are the lucky ones.

Cheney fucked up and now he's going to pay. Hope they strip all his war profits out of his off shore tax exempt bank accounts. I despise that sinister bastard.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[No Elephants]

7. And one of the lawyers who said this was OK is a federal judge today--probably

BECAUSE he said it was OK. He asked for a seat on the federal bench and Gonzo said, "um, why don't you come work here for a while first and then we'll see."

If nothing else, Bybee needs to be impeached. Contact your Senators and Representative.