posted
Have you heard of this place, Ft. Huachuca? It is the United States Army Intelligence Center. This is the place where they train all US Soldiers that are learning jobs in the intelligence fields. You have analysts - both imagery and intell - UAV training, and most notably the Human Intelligence Collectors (Lets call them HUMINT Collectors) just to name a few.
People, every other month or so, go to the east gate (they go there because the east gate is closed on weekends, when protests are held) of the base to protest. The main concern of the protesters is the torture techniques taught to the HUMINT Collectors. These people come from all around the state of Arizona, perhaps even farther, to protest the injustices that young soldiers are being prepared to commit on the base. Here, have a look and see the highlights of one of their latest protests.
These people have really good intentions. I mean, torture is bad, m'kay? Torture is real bad. And it is a valiant effort that they put up trying to raise awareness of such goings on. I know I would not want to have the US government teaching our soldiers to torture anyone. The whole idea of the war is (aside from the whole oil game, which is a moot point because nothing good oil wise has happened since the Iraq invasion) to bring stability to a historically unstable region. This makes sense, especially if we are there for the oil. I mean, we would want the place we get our livelihood from to not be a total mess. How on earth would we be able to accomplish this if we tortured the people over there? No one would want to cooperate. So the fact that we torture them is counterintuitive to accomplishing our goals.
But there is one thing bothering me about these people. What if they are wrong? What if torture is not being taught to the HUMINT Collectors? What if they are wasting their time? What if, instead of protesting something that is not going on, they could be doing something more productive with their lives besides planning and attending rallies against fictitious goings-on?
And that is what bothers me the most about these people. They indeed are wasting their time. It pains me to see these people out there, month after month, clogging up traffic and spreading awareness of falsehoods, enticing others to waste their time. Because they are wasting their time. During my entire training as a HUMINT Collector, not once was I taught to torture. In fact, during practice, if someone looks like even hinting at torture, that someone has to start the course over again. Obeying the Laws of Land Warfare is drilled into us from the first day of class.
So, I have a plan. My plan is to go out next protest and try to convince just one person that we do not torture. One person is all I need. Not for some grand purpose driven by the army, but because freeing one person from their shackles of misinformation will relieve the pain I feel every time I see this going on. And who knows? Maybe they will convince someone else to go home. It just makes me so sad to see these peoples' lives controlled by a lie.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Wow. I never thought I'd hear of Ft. Huachuca again. I used to live on base there when my dad was in Army intelligence.
Anyway, how do you think you'll convince them? Aren't they going to just assume you are lying? A lot of people just don't trust the government to be upfront about its activities these days.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
I have not worked it out, yet. Though, it seems like a good practical application of my skills. Think about it: my job is to convince insurgents/terrorists to roll on their buddies and give up secrets. If I can get one of these protesters to convert, either they are week willed or I am good. Either way, good practice, no?
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
How do we know you aren't brainwashed to say that I wish you luck. I can't even get a friend to quit talking to me about the JFK assassination; let alone get him to stop wasting significant amounts of time on conspiracy books and forums filled with fantasies about events that happened so long ago that it wouldn't matter even if they were all true.
posted
Mmm, Fort Huachuca. Grandpa is interred there. The McDonald's used to have sausage gravy and biscuits, after like all the rest of the McDonald's got rid of theirs.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:What if they are wrong? What if torture is not being taught to the HUMINT Collectors?
Isn't this even more disturbing? We've got people torturing prisoners (at the least with waterboarding and the like) who aren't being officially trained in the techniques and situations to use them in.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Sobertillnoon- when were you trained? I watched a documentary on torture and they interviewed some US officers and they had never been trained. They also said that things deteriorated. When they started, they had clear cut rules and there was nothing even remotely questionable. And then they would push the line for some reason. What scared the man they talked to was that the new guys coming in didn't see this as pushing the line, they saw it as expected. And then they would push the line from there, so every time new guys came in, things got worse.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I am not saying that torture does not happen. It is true and unfortunate that sometimes people decide that they are going to torture. But when that happens people get in trouble all the way up. Remember abu-ghraib? The First Sergeant there did not know anything about it. You know where he is now? Taking care of the broken people that are leaving the army because of it in my training company right now at a lower pay-grade. So, the army does try to prevent things like this.
My only point is that it is not taught.
PSI: And the Dairy Queen is still a seasonal restaurant that has a primary focus on ice cream, no dining room, and a non-ice-cream menu of like 4 items. The way it should be.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:I am not saying that torture does not happen. It is true and unfortunate that sometimes people decide that they are going to torture.
Right, but certain torture has been officially approved and ordered. We're not talking about what rogue soldiers are doing. We're talking about official policy that utilizes torture.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Look, I am not saying that I know the army completely. Maybe in some dark seedy places, the army secretly teaches and sanctions torture. I don't know. All I know is that my job does not include it. You know, we cannot even threaten to send an Egyptian national terrorist back to the Egyptian government because egypt is a known place of torture.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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This isn't dark, seedy places. The use of waterboarding at Guantanamo has been confirmed in the full light of day as something ordered by people in the upper echelons.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
As far as I am concerned, upper echelons are dark and seedy places.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: How do we know you aren't brainwashed to say that I wish you luck. I can't even get a friend to quit talking to me about the JFK assassination; let alone get him to stop wasting significant amounts of time on conspiracy books and forums filled with fantasies about events that happened so long ago that it wouldn't matter even if they were all true.
If they are true then the organizations responsible need to be dismantled, history revised and the villains shown publicly to be what they really are.
There is no statutes of limitations on murder.
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posted
Theoretically, brainwashing would be a bit ineffective if the victims went ahead and just told everyone about it Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
could you brainwash someone so that in the end they knew that they had been brainwashed and still have it hold?
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:could you brainwash someone so that in the end they knew that they had been brainwashed and still have it hold?
Depends on how you define brainwashed. I have a religious friend that openly acknowledges that he was no reason to believe the things he believes other than the fact that those ideas were so pervasive throughout his childhood and adolescence. He thinks none of it makes sense but he sill believes it just because it was what he was taught. He refers to his own religious education, slightly tongue-in-cheek, as brainwashing.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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Actually, I thought some of the original protesters here were not protesting against our training methods, but the fact that we were training dictatorial governments and certain members of right-wing militias (death squads) on how to best use intensive interrogation techniques. In other words, some of the worst atrocities committed by our "allies" in the Cold War were done by graduates of this school.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Back to the original question... the protest does seem a bit poorly aimed.. while i admit my own Ft Huacuaca experience was about six years ago.. they didn't actually train anyone to physically torture anyone there. Interrogation techniques, verbal abuse, witholding and granting favors... that kind of stuff.. but not the physical torture techniques.. where training for that kind of stuff takes place? Who knows.. most likely its OTJ or impromputu. Either way protesting the teaching of torture at that particular army base is a bit meaningless. But it does send a clear message to people who are not protesting that those who are conducting and organizing the protest are clearly lacking important information or simply don't really care if they are protesting at the right location. Kind of takes away from their credibility.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
If someone vocally and repeatedly says something that you know is not true, don't you start to doubt (at least a little bit) their ability to reason or their knowledge about other things, thus making you less likely to believe what they say?
(I'm not saying whether they're right or they're wrong or anything like that. I don't know. The hypothetical is still valid.)
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Honestly, I don't know that torture isn't trained there. I do know that torture is being employed as a matter of official policy. So far, I've got the word of someone who appeared ignorant of and brushed off the confirmed official usage of torture. That's not exactly earning my trust.
I'm not all that aware of these protests, but I'm willing to bet that a lage number of them are primarily aimed at the idea of the official usage of torture as a whole. If so, an army intelligence training facility is an appropriate place for this protest. If the meat of their protest is more of "We are upset that they are training people to torture here." I could see how this would damage their credibility, although, as I said, all I have is someone else's word that they don't teach torture there.
If it is true that they aren't official training people in the use of torture, these protests can (and have) prompt an admission of this, which leads to a better understanding and the disclosure of the extremely troubling situation where the people who are directed to torture are not officially being trained in how to do so.
When dealing with dishonest people, I'm not immediately turned off by the use of dishonesty as a mans of getting to the truth that they would otherwise conceal.
Also, when dealing with an organization that directs its people to torture, I believe that the center where these people are trained is a symbolically appropriate target for protest, even if they are not trained to torture there.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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