Stress And Duress Edit Meaning

1.

Newspeak for torture, used by the CIA and its allies. "Stress and duress" tactics are used in interrogations, and refer to a variety of tortures and forms of mistreatment which the CIA thinks are OK. These include:

sleep deprivation

overload of light

complete darkness

stripping and sexually humiliating prisoners

threatening to torture and rape prisoners

threatening prisoners' families

making prisoners stand, sit etc. in uncomfortable positions to induce pain

denial of satisfaction of basic rights and needs such as food, bedding, clothing and exercise

deliberate cultural insensitivity and intolerance

verbal abuse

use of painful "restraint" techniques

beatings

These techniques are widespread also in US prisons, although nominally illegal. They are more widely used in deregulated offshore gulags such as Guantanamo Bay, abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.

Don't be fooled - these tactics ARE TORTURE, and are defined as such both by the UN and by experts in trauma. Their role is to break down the sense of personality of the prisoner and to deliberately induce psychological trauma and crisis.

They are directly referred to in CIA handbooks - so the photos from abu Ghraib show a systematic pattern of torture, NOT rogue acts by a few stupid/evil/misguided soldiers.

See Andy