Saturday, January 21, 2012

Mayer,"The Experiment -- The Military Methods Misused At Guantanamo?" 米軍の拷問実験


A Pentagon-funded program known as SERE, which stands for “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape” was created by the Air Force, at the end of the Korean War, to teach pilots and other personnel considered at high risk of being captured by enemy forces how to withstand and resist extreme forms of abuse. After the Vietnam War, the program was expanded to the Army and the Navy. Most details of the program’s curriculum are classified…

…after September 11th several psychologists versed in sere techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially “tried to reverse-engineer” the sere program, as the affiliate put it. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. Interrogators and bsct members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the sere program. Ideas intended to help Americans resist abuse spread to Americans who used them to perpetrate abuse. Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of state-sponsored experiments on humans. He says, “If you know how to help people who are stressed, then you also know how to stress people, in order to get them to talk.”

….James Mitchell worked for years as a SERE administrator…According to a counter-terrorism expert familiar with the interrogation of the Al Qaeda suspect, Mitchell announced that the suspect needed to be subjected to rougher methods. The man should be treated like the dogs in a classic behavioral-psychology experiment, he said, referring to studies performed in the nineteen-sixties by Martin Seligman and other graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. The dogs were placed in harnesses and given electric shocks that they could not avoid; they were then released into pens and shocked again, but this time they were given a chance to escape the punishment. Most of them, Seligman observed, passively accepted the shocks. They had lapsed into a condition that he called “learned helplessness.” The suspect’s resistance, Mitchell was apparently saying, could be overcome by inducing a similar sense of futility. (Seligman, now a psychology professor at Penn, has spoken at a SERE school about his dog research.)

Mitchell’s position was opposed by the counter-terrorism expert, who had not spent time at a SERE school. He reminded Mitchell that he was dealing with human beings, not dogs. According to the expert, Mitchell replied that the experiments were good science. The expert recalled making the argument that the U.S. should not “do things that our enemies do, like using torture.” When asked about this incident, Mitchell confirmed that he admired Seligman’s research.

At SERE, trainees in the Level C course are given the choice of seeing a Bible desecrated or revealing secrets to interrogators. “They are challenging your faith,” the SERE affiliate explained. “The Holy Book is torn up. They say they’ll stop if you talk. Sometimes they rip the Bible and throw it in the air.” The goal is to make detainees react emotionally to the desecration. Some trainees who are devout Christians become profoundly disturbed during the exercise.

On the blog, the graduate offered a detailed account of a SERE training exercise. (He confirmed the account’s details with me.) He wrote, “One of the most memorable parts of the camp experience was when one of the camp leaders trashed a Bible on the ground, kicking it around, etc. It was a crushing blow, even though this was just a school.”…

The graduate wrote that his experience with the “Bible trashing” took place “towards the end of the camp experience, which was 2-3 days of captivity…He brought out the Bible and started going off on it verbally—how it was worthless, we were forsaken by this God, etc. Then he threw it on the ground and kicked it around.

 
…..According to Falkoff’s (a lawyer defending several Guantánamo detainees) clients, a mass suicide attempt at Guantánamo, in August, 2003, in which two dozen or so detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves, was provoked by instances of Koran mistreatment—including one in which the text was allegedly wrapped inside an Israeli flag and stomped on.

Although the sere affiliate said that many of the program’s officials were careful and dedicated people, he said that “some of the folks” associated with the program seemed to enjoy using manipulative techniques. “They’d play these very aggressive roles, week after week,” he said. “It can be very seductive.” Although there is no scientific basis for believing that coercive interrogation methods work better than less aggressive ones, the affiliate said that some of the sere psychologists he knew believed that to get someone to talkyou have to hurt that person.”

     Retired Army Colonel Patrick Lang
had attended a sere school as part of Special Forces training, and had found the experience disconcerting: “Once, I was on the other side of the exercise, acting as captor and interrogator,” he said. “If you did too much of that stuff, you could really get to like it. You can manipulate people. And most people like power. I’ve seen some of these doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists who really think they know how to do this. But it’s very easy to go too far”….

….Another sere technique that has apparently surfaced at Guantánamo is the use of “noise stress.” The sere affiliate told me that trainees often think that the interrogation portion of the program will be the most gruelling, but in fact for many trainees the worst moment is when they are made to listen to taped loops of cacophonous sounds. One of the most stress-inducing tapes is a recording of babies crying inconsolably. Another is a Yoko Ono album. Detainees at Guantánamo have reportedly been subjected to blaring audiotapes of loud music, cats meowing, and human infants wailing.
….Banks (a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi) replied, “I’m not saying people don’t do some stupid things sometimes. Some people who received sere training may have sometimes done things they shouldn’t because they misunderstood what the training was about. I’m not going to tell you it didn’t happen. I can’t say that someone didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s try waterboarding’ because they’d seen it at sere.” In fact, the problem was pervasive enough so that, last year, Banks introduced a new requirement at sere: graduates must sign a statement promising not to apply the program’s counter-resistance methods to U.S.-held detainees. “We did this when we learned people were flipping it,” he said.

Mayer, Jane. "The Experiment -- The Military Trains People to Withstand Interrogation. Are Those Methods Being Misused At Guantanamo?" New Yorker, July 11, 2005, 60.

Original Text:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4?printable=true ]

5 comments:

n said...

Lang: “Once, I was on the other side of the exercise, acting as captor and interrogator,” he said. “If you did too much of that stuff, you could really get to like it. You can manipulate people. And most people like power. I’ve seen some of these doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists who really think they know how to do this. But it’s very easy to go too far”….

上記文中で、米軍の学校の訓練に於いて拷問する役になったものは好んで非道な行ないをするようになったことや医者・心理学者が拷問方法の手引きをしている事が証言されている。このときの虐待者たちの心理的変化の様子についてアメリカの大学で広く使われている社会心理学の教科書Myers, David G. Social Psychologyにもこの証言を裏付ける論証が載っている

During the early 1970s, Greece’s military junta used this “blame-the-victim” process to train torturers. There, as in the earlier training of SS officers in Nazi Germany, the military selected candidates based on their respect for and submission to authority. But such tendencies alone do not make torturer. Thus, they would first assign the trainee to guard prisoners, then to participate in arrest squads, then to hit prisoners, then to observe torture, and only then to participate it. Step by step, an obedient but otherwise decent person evolved into an agent of cruelty. Compliance bred acceptance.
As a Holocaust survivor, University of Massachusetts social psychologist Ervin Staub knows too well the forces that can transform citizens into agents of death…Too often, criticism produces contempt, which licenses cruelty, which, when justified, leads to brutality, then killing, then systematic killing.
Myers, David G. Social Psychology

http://gangstalking-crime-databease.blogspot.com/2011/04/social-psychology-myers-david-g.html

n said...

上記記事"The Experiment"には次のような告発も載っている:
"a mass suicide attempt at Guantánamo, in August, 2003, in which two dozen or so detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves, was provoked"
ここから覗えるのは、精神科医や心理学者も協力しているこの米軍の「拷問方法を開発する実験」では、何を何処まで行なえば被害者を自殺に追い込めるかまで研究しているという事実だ。

この事実を踏まえて、東ドイツにおいて国家規模で行なわれた集団ストーキング犯罪の事例を振り返ってみると、集団ストーキング犯罪の目的のひとつは被害者を自殺させることであり、その犯罪の実行犯らに理論的な手引きをしているのが精神科医や心理学者であるという構図が見えてくる(ちなみに米国コインテルプロの被害者キング牧師も自殺を強要するような嫌がらせを受けていた)。

参照:
<<「抵抗する」人々に対して徹底的にダメージを与える方法について諜報員たちに出されていた指示>>
    “心(精神)を殺す・・・、社会的、個人的、仕事の面において、健康面、政治に関していずれの点において葛藤を抱いたとしても解消できない状況を作り上げる・・・、恐怖心を起こさせる・・・、失望させる・・・、才能や能力を制限する・・・、行動能力を低減する・・・、以上の目的をもって、意見の相違や矛盾を利用する。”
   “匿名の手紙などを利用して特定の人物に関する噂を広める・・・、事実を混乱させることで相手にとって不名誉になるような状況を作りあげる・・・、相手がヒステリックになったり落ち込んだりするよう仕向ける。” (p.379)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010『監視国家―東ドイツ秘密警察(シュタージ)に引き裂かれた絆 』
Anna Funder.
http://gangstalking-crime-databease.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post_20.html

東ドイツの集団ストーカー犯罪実行犯に出されていたこの文書に書かれている被害者を精神的に追い詰める「方針」は、まさしく米軍の拷問実験に参加した心理学者セリグマンの提唱した「学習性無力感」理論が包括的に応用されたものであることにお気づきだろう

"Learned Helplessness"「学習性無力感」
Learned Helplessness has also been related to certain forms of depression (Seligman, 1975). People who suffer a series of uncontrollable aversive events – loss of a job, pysically illness, divorce, and so on – may become extremely passive and despondent.

欝を発症させる「学習性無力感」は環境を操作することにより人為的に生じさせるうることも実証されている。また日本で自殺者の90%が生前に欝を罹患している点も考え合わせると、この「学習性無力感」が被害者を自殺させるため集団ストーカーによって悪用されていることが明白になる

n said...

集団ストーキング犯罪の目的のひとつが被害者を自殺させることである傍証

証言1:
"Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back"
「・コインテルプロのエージェントたちはキング牧師に
自殺するよう脅迫した。
・女優のジーン・セバーグはブラックパンサー党(黒人支援団体)に寄付をしたためコインテルプロの標的にされ、FBIによる盗聴を元に捏造されたゴシップがロサンゼルスタイムズで公表された後、追いつめられ自殺した。」
http://gangstalking-crime-databease.blogspot.com/2011/02/static-government-liars-media.html

証言2:
『拝啓 日本のギャングストーカー犯罪者の皆様』
【集団ストーカー犯罪者たちの犯行声明】

2005年 夏

 父の死について調べはじめ、集団ストーカー関連の掲示板に被害告発をしていた際、
それに対し同犯罪に関与したと思われる者たちが以下のような書き込みをしてきた。

「ここは、やっちまったことを総括するスレか?」
「自殺は戦果として報告される」
http://americanobotsuraku.blog132.fc2.com/blog-entry-38.html

n said...

集団ストーキング犯罪の目的のひとつが「学習性無力感」を起こさせることによって欝にさせ被害者を自殺させることである傍証

証言3:
英語圏の集団ストーカー犯罪告発サイトに寄せられたコメント
【原文】
Guess Who (Los Olivos, CA) #25 Feb 6, 2008

And don't kill yourself, I know you feel like it, I do, too, but please don't do it. You are far too important.

It should be the gangstalkers and cops and politicians who kill themselves and the landlords and lousy neighbors who kill themselves, but don't you do it. Please.

My son committed suicide and my daughter has made several attempts and partly from the gangstalking and partly because of losing her brother and I feel like it, too, it is horrible to lose a child and a horrible thing to live with day after day to know your son is gone and you can't see him or talk to him and I could lose both children if my daughter does it, too.
名前:私は誰でしょう? (カリフォルニア州 ロス・オリボス) # 25 2008. 2. 6

・・それから皆さんは生きてください。死にたくなるのはわかります、私もですから。
でもお願いだから死なないで。あなたがたの命はあまりにも大切なのです。
自殺すべきなのはギャングストーカー、警察官、政治屋たちであり、そして家主や
近所の卑劣な連中であってあなたがたは死んではいけません、お願いだから。
私の息子は自ら命を絶ちました。
そして娘もまた、これまで何度か自殺未遂しています。ギャング・ストーキング被害と
兄弟を亡くしたことを苦にしてですが、死にたい気持ちは私も同じです。子供を失うのは
むごいことです。来る日も来る日も、もう息子はこの世にいない、もう見ることも話しかける
こともできないのだと思い知る日々を送るのは残酷なことです。これでもし娘まで
死んでしまったら子供を二人とも失ってしまうことになるのです・・・・
http://americanobotsuraku.blog132.fc2.com/blog-entry-60.html

n said...

The cutting-edge technologies on Neuroscience and communication have already realized mind–to-mind communication.

In fact, Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia and scholar of state-sponsored experiments on humans --he is cited also in the article above "The Experiment"-- introduces in his book these technologies of connecting one’s brain to another’s.

This news may sound bizarre, scarery, or amazing but anyway it is an ongoing incident. In March, 2011, President Obama held a public hearing on the issue of human experiments being illegally conducted by allegedly scientists, military and government officials.

Ref. [Report of the U.S. Presidential Commission for Bioethical Issues]
[ http://www.bioethics.gov/cms/node/203]

The question is whether our morality can catch up with these rapid development of the neuroscience and communication technologies.