Pacific Views

Waterboarding: Yes, it really is torture

Waterboarding Too Dangerous, Internal DoD Memo Reveals, by Jeffrey Kaye

Jeffrey has a very important piece this week in Truthout which shows that the use of waterboarding is dangerous to military personnel subjected to it. Indeed, the excuse that since waterboarding is used on American soldiers means it can't be torture is just bunk.

According to the documents that Jeffrey examined, military reports showed that waterboarding is damaging to those who are subjected to it, even when they are being subjected to it as a training exercise. In fact, the reports said that subjects waterboarded to help them learn to resist torture by the hands of an enemy, found that rather than learning how to resist torture, the lesson taught subjects that they too could be broken.

The water board has always been the most extreme pressure that required intense supervision and oversight because of the inherent risks associated with its employment.... Forcing answers under the extreme duress of the water board does not teach resistance or resilience, but teaches that you can be beaten. When a student's ability to develop psychological resiliency is compromised... it may create unintended consequences regarding their perception of survivability during a real world SERE event. Based on these concerns and the risks associated with using the water board, we strongly recommend that you discontinue using it [underlined in the original].

Jeffrey notes in the piece (emphasis mine):

The paper indicated that waterboarding continues at the California SERE School because it is "an emotional issue with former Navy POWs."

So what emotional issue would arise in the matter of waterboarding that keeps the military from stopping the practice? From my perspective, it is for the same reason that hazing persists from one class to the next and why sexual abuse is passed from one generation to the next. Because when someone is ashamed of their own weakness they can become obsessed with a need to make sure that they are not alone in their victimization. The pathology induced by being horribly abused (especially by those you trust) is that someone else must pay. And what better way to make someone else pay than by showing them that they too can be abused?

In the case of the Navy POWs, they endured being waterboarded, so others must too. Yet because this practice doesn't teach resistance (which is what soldiers are told beforehand), but instead shows how easily one is broken and can be subjected to some else's will, they believed it was their own personal weakness at fault when they were broken. And their response to their recognition that they were weak is to bury this shame by shaming others in the same way. This is why the sins of the father are passed down to the sons: because shame begets shame and bequeaths shame unless and until there is an intervention.

It's Snow News

... by Walter Brasch

Up to two feet of snow hit the Mid-Atlantic and New England states last week, the second storm within two weeks. Wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour and temperatures in the 20s created severe wind chill and extreme hazardous driving conditions. Pennsylvania ordered all commercial trucks off many of its major highways and Interstates. Schools and colleges throughout the Northeast cancelled classes, many for two days.

We were warned that this would be a severe storm, because days before we received minute-by-minute predictions from TV weather persons. The snow will be two feet deep. Or maybe only 3 to 5 inches. No, wait, that was last hour's prediction. It's now going to be 5-9 inches. Or, maybe 10 inches. No, wait. That's wrong, it'll be 15 to 20 inches. It'll bury buildings and wreak a path of destruction unlike anything seen in the past four thousand years! It might also be only a half-foot. We'll be revising our prediction to some other number as soon as our assignment editor throws a dart at the Snow Inch Board.

Most residents, unless they were forced to work, were smart enough to stay home. Also smart enough to stay indoors were TV news directors who sent their reporters and camera crews into the middle of snow-covered roads. Deep-voiced anchors introduced us to the infotainment promotion that has become TV news: "Now, LIVE from the middle of the Interstate, and bravely facing blizzard conditions with EXCLUSIVE coverage ONLY on Eyewitless News 99, your hometown station for LIVE EXCLUSIVE weather coverage is our LIVE reporter, Sammy Snowbound."

Reporters and meteorologists were soon entertaining us with wooden rulers, which they pushed onto snow-covered tables and snow banks to report snow accumulation, not unlike a radio reporter doing play-by-play announcing for a high school basketball contest.

The previous week, the local news stations and TV all-news networks identified a crippling snow as "Snowmageddon" and "Snowpocalyse." This week, with its winds, we learned about "Snowicane."

And so for two back-to-back snow-somethings, we had almost unlimited Team Coverage. The teams interviewed business owners—"So, how's the snow affecting your business?" They interviewed residents—"So, how's the snow affecting your plans?" They even interviewed public officials—"So, how's the snow affecting your budget?"

If Jesus came to the Northeast, he'd be watching all-snow all-the-time coverage, and waiting in a green room for his one minute interview. "So, Jesus, how you surviving the snow?"

The problem of the extended coverage is that when there isn't any snow, local TV news gives us a five minute weather report on the Evening News. Excluding commercials, teasers, and mindless promotion, that's more than one-fourth of the news budget. We learn all about highs and lows, Arctic clippers, temperatures in obscure places, and the history of snowflakes. When a weather "event" occurs, TV has to ramp up its coverage, 'lest we think we can learn what we need to know in only five minutes.

Every weather person will tell you there are no two snowflakes the same. But, we can always count on the same coverage, storm after storm, from the same flakes covering the weather. While the reporters are in the middle of a blizzard showing us snow—and how brave they are—they aren't giving us significant information about how to prepare for and then survive a storm, which may cut off electricity for up to a week. Nor are the TV crews telling us what happens to the homeless, or how the storms are affecting everything from insects to black bears.

Long after the storm passes, we'll still be seeing TV weather reports of about four or five minutes—"It'll be sunny tomorrow, and here's a history of sun." It would be nice if local TV news would spend as much time as it does delivering semi-accurate weather reports to discuss significant governmental and social issues along with its diet of car crashes, fires, and the latest Pickle Festival.

[Walter Brasch was a reporter and editor before becoming a professor of mass communications and journalism. He is an award-winning syndicated columnist and the author of 17 books, including the recently-published third edition of Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture.]

Fair & Balanced

As only a professional news organization can deliver it.

Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse: Sleeper Traitor Cells In The Government!

Thanks to the intrepid Rachel, we finally know the full story of this terrible conspiracy.

Rethinking your assumptions

One of the greatest failings of today's Conservatives (and many Democrats who have bought into the market is always right philosophy) is the inability to look at the actual facts and reconsider your beliefs. Yet, one Conservative critic of the Public Schools has shown that the real world data is more important than her original assumptions.

Listen to this piece on NPR where Diane Ravitch, the assistant Secretary to Education for Bush I, comes out against No Child Left Behind as a failing program because the underlying assumptions were shown to be wrong and that the way the program works is damaging our children and our schools. One hopes that someone in the White House is listening.

[Note: this is a very human flaw and is one to which everyone is susceptible. The only real defense is to be able to use critical thinking to give appropriate weight to what the data says and having the ability/humility to say I am not fallible and am willing to learn from real world observations.]