Report: CIA interrogations informed by bad science

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — The CIA's harsh interrogation program likely damaged the brain and memory functions of terrorist suspects, diminishing their physical ability to provide the detailed information the spy agency sought, according to a new scientific paper.

The paper scrutinizes the harsh techniques used by the CIA under the Bush administration through the lens of neurobiology. Researchers concluded that the harsh methods were biologically counterproductive to eliciting quality information because prolonged stress harms the brain's ability to retain and recall information.

"Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or enhanced interrogation," according to the paper published Monday in the scientific journal, "Trends in Cognitive Science: Science and Society."

In the paper, Shane O'Mara, a professor at Ireland's Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, wrote that the severe interrogation techniques appear based on "folk psychology" — a layman's idea of how the brain works as opposed to science-based understanding of memory and cognitive function.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ij-XF4zu-AF4LZq8waEsX2Hn0HOgD9ARQB1G0

[EFerrari]

1. Or, as one DUer posits, they did this on purpose to damage memory

and executive function.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

If I thought screaming would do any good...

[calimary]

3. No shit.

:banghead:

[frebrd]

4. Well, I hope they get sued.......

by the people whose brain and memory functions were damaged.

[scubadude]

5. They did it to make the prisoners "pliable"... nt

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, sabra.

[Selena Harris]

7. Faux Noise =Torture techniques

Damaging brains and memory functions...hmmm... NOW I know why the media wants to keep everyone in a perpetual state of high alert!

[bobthedrummer]

8. K&R+ "CIA Torturers Running Scared" by Ray McGovern (9-21-09 Truthout)

http://www.truthout.org/092109C?n

The Torture Archive (8-25-09 The National Security Archive)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torture_archive/index.htm

[midnight]

15. Thanks for the links.

[Festivito]

9. Bad!? Worked great. No one left to testify against Bush admin about 9/11.

Warnings were sent! What warnings? Can't remember anymore. The other guy who sent warnings..., hmm, he's,.. he's dead.

What were you asking again?

[Piewhacket]

10. informed by bad science? Thats an insult to science.. and it was 'informed' by criminals.

[Eric J in MN]

11. K & R (NT)

NT

[TriplD]

12. And the 9-11 Commission's report was based on

stories tortured out of "al Queda" detainees:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/189251

The 9/11 Commission and Torture
The bipartisan panel that investigated the terrorist attacks was widely praised. But did its final report rely on suspect information?

By Philip Shenon | NEWSWEEK

Published Mar 14, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Mar 23, 2009

//

Information from CIA interrogations of two of the three—KSM and Abu Zubaydah—is cited throughout two key chapters of the panel's report focusing on the planning and execution of the attacks and on the history of Al Qaeda.

//

Commission members note that they repeatedly pressed the Bush White House and CIA for direct access to the detainees, but the administration refused. So the commission forwarded questions to the CIA, whose interrogators posed them on the panel's behalf.

//

Former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat on the commission, told me last year he had long feared that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking. While he thought the commission's larger narrative about the September 11 attacks held up, "there's reason now to suspect that we may have gotten some of the details wrong" about the 9/11 plot and about Al Qaeda.

//

[bemildred]

13. Interrogation is all about intimitation.

"Collecting information" is just an excuse for sadism.

[wildbilln864]

14. k&r! nt

[Winterblues]

16. Wonder how they gathered the "evidence"

While I agree what they say is probably the absolute truth, I wonder how they came to their conclusions..How many brains got destroyed making the study?

[derby378]

17. And still there are no prosecutions of the torturers or those who enabled them

Color me :mad:

[Amonester]

18. The cheney's don't believe in shy-ance.

"these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or enhanced interrogation," according to the paper published Monday in the scientific journal, "Trends in Cognitive Science: Science and Society."

In the paper, Shane O'Mara, a professor at Ireland's Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, wrote that the severe interrogation techniques appear based on "folk psychology" — a layman's idea of how the brain works as opposed to science-based understanding of memory and cognitive function.

*duh*

Why aren't they all rotting in jail already?

:grr: