nerdgirl 0 #76 April 24, 2009 Quote...live nerve agent training? Yes - VX & GB. Quote Have you ever had the pleasure of attending NBC training or more specifically, the CS chamber? Strangely, it's one of the things I miss most about my time in service. Although the gassing we received at bootcamp was rather torturous... the gas was so thick we couldn't see to the other side of the room. Have not been in a CS or other riot control agent chamber. Used stannic oxide to test seals on M40. Heard (apocryphal?) stories about Marines at Quantico doing push-ups in CS. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jcd11235 0 #77 April 24, 2009 QuoteHeard (apocryphal?) stories about Marines at Quantico doing push-ups in CS. We always had the option to do so at our permanent duty station at Schofield Barracks. A few people did, but I never saw the point. One guy in our unit set the post record (at the time) for the most pushups in there. Of course the concentration of the CS gas was much lower than it was in the gas chamber in basic training.Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ryoder 1,590 #78 April 24, 2009 A new article today in the TimesOnline: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article6150151.ece"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #79 April 24, 2009 QuoteA new article today in the TimesOnline: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article6150151.ece Thanks for passing that along. Altho' I've mentioned the specific case before (actually a few times), it's probably worth re-iterating: torture produces bad intelligence. Policy makers make decisions (like to go to war) based on intelligence. Bad intelligence makes the process of making good policy decisions more difficult. "The key example is Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan al-Qaeda trainer captured in Pakistan in 2002. He denied knowing of any links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, but, under torture, 'remembered' that Iraq had trained Islamic terrorists in the use of weapons of mass destruction. His evidence formed the centrepiece of George W. Bush's pre-invasion speech: 'We've learnt that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases.' Al-Libi's 'confession' was entirely false, but by the time the CIA retracted the claim, the war was under way. It's not notional or hypothetical: torture produced bad/faulty intel that was passed on to US policymakers. One more reason torture, waterboarding, "enhanced interrogation," and other euphemisms for torture is bad policy. The other reasons include but are not limited to: wasting time & money; increasing risk of reciprocity on US service members and deployed civilians; fueling insurgency; impedance of US foreign policy and national defense goals; morals/ethics, and it doesn't work: "The Allies in the Second World War learnt that lesson early on. While the Gestapo employed verschärfte Vernehmung (“enhanced interrogation techniques”, ) British and American interrogators adopted far more sophisticated methods, using psychological pressure that produced extraordinary results." Sixty years + of experience -- across Democratic and Republican administrations, across multiple organizations, across intelligence, military, and law enforcement -- recognized the ineffectiveness of torture, waterboarding, "enhanced interrogation," and other euphemisms for torture. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
downwardspiral 0 #80 April 24, 2009 Quote Heard (apocryphal?) stories about Marines at Quantico doing push-ups in CS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z5E-QiNZ7I Considering the bellies and inability to do pushups, they aren't the best examples of Marines. They're probably admin in the air wing. Suggestion: The day you go in the CS chamber, don't shave your legs or other vital parts. www.FourWheelerHB.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Capt.Slog 0 #81 April 24, 2009 Quote torture produces bad intelligence. Policy makers make decisions (like to go to war) based on intelligence. Bad intelligence makes the process of making good policy decisions more difficult. Since SERE training has been mentioned by a number of the torture apologists here, it should be remembered that SERE traing was designed to help US personnel resist methods the USSR, Chinese etc had developed to produce propaganda from false confessions. These torture techniques were not designed to produce the truth. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jerryzflies 0 #82 April 25, 2009 Quote It's not notional or hypothetical: torture produced bad/faulty intel that was passed on to US policymakers. One more reason torture, waterboarding, "enhanced interrogation," and other euphemisms for torture is bad policy. The other reasons include but are not limited to: wasting time & money; increasing risk of reciprocity on US service members and deployed civilians; fueling insurgency; impedance of US foreign policy and national defense goals; morals/ethics, and it doesn't work: Sixty years + of experience -- across Democratic and Republican administrations, across multiple organizations, across intelligence, military, and law enforcement -- recognized the ineffectiveness of torture, waterboarding, "enhanced interrogation," and other euphemisms for torture. /Marg An FBI interrogator was interviewed on NPR (All Things Considered) this afternoon. I don't have a link but the gist of it was that the CIA's waterboarding produced no useful intel, contrary to the self-serving claims of the CIA. OK, found a source: In the NYT he wrote “One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use. It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another FBI agent, and with several CIA officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence. We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.”If you can't fix it with a hammer, the problem's electrical. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
