As if decades of civilian mass murders via illegitimately obtained drone technologies, and serial rapes committed by operatives backed by US-led armed forces and R&D groups, weren't problematic enough, here are details about the types of biochemical and electromechanical experimentation conducted on captive groups and individuals.
Who other than R&D groups with researchers involved in neurology, cognitive sciences, and cybernetics would be tasked with finding the psychological triggers and breaking points, of captured suspects and enemies? Who else, other than "the egg-heads and the boffins" would be tasked with coming up with new torture techniques that do not leave marks on a captive person's body?
Around February-March of 2009, I was given a project briefing at CSL, on the subject of developing "enhanced interrogation techniques," from a human factors perspective. Newly developed tools, techniques and methodologies from the project were to be used on prisoners of war, and on other captives held by US national security and armed forces, within and outside US territorial boundaries. The main aspects of the project focused on the uses of: drugs, electroshock, sleep deprivation, audio and visual signals, combination of odors and scents, haptic vibrations, dialectics, and other emotional triggers that could be used for making terror suspects, and so-called criminals including women and teenage children being held in detention — more pliable — without leaving discernible evidence or marks on their bodies.
It was obvious that torture techniques like water-boarding were being labeled as "enhanced interrogation," and that the military along with its intelligence agencies and groups, needed techniques other than water-boarding, to interrogate detainees. Those types of Blue Sky Projects for creating new interrogation methods were given to labs with expertise in psychology, neurology, and "cognitive engineering." CSL was only one of many labs and units doing those kinds of "advanced" R&D work, alongside other ones affiliated to universities located in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.
Merely looking into the project specifications was a horrifying and crushing blow to my conscience, CSL was not the kind of place I wanted to stay in, or be affiliated with. By the end of March-2009 I had stopped going to my allocated desk in the office at CSL. I then mounted a stronger series of arguments with my supervisor against the type of work I was made to do in CSL. Consequently, I was fired from the lab in June, 2009.
Here are some of the details I remember from that final project:
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Its main purpose was to use "Abstraction Hierarchies", and "Work Domain Analysis", to identify legal and physical constraints that defined "torture." After identifying those constraints, the project was to develop new methods and techniques, that would achieve the general function of making a detainee comply with given instructions and suggestions, for the purposes of obtaining intelligence from the human subject. The new methods and techniques were to have no such attributes or features that would make them legally defined as torture.
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The concepts of "pain" and "suffering" were identified as key markers of torture and hazing techniques. The new methods had to avoid "the perception and recollection of experiencing pain during 'enhanced' interrogation." The new methods were to also avoid, "physical marks like cuts, burns, and bruises left on the body" that could provide evidence of bodily harm inflicted upon the detainee.
So, the following were the initial set of things that fit the project's requirements:
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Biochemicals (especially anesthetics and tranquilizers), as well as electrical shocks and nerve agents like tear gas that can act upon the body's neuro-endocrine system to subdue the targeted individual
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Psychoactive drugs (especially sedative, hallucinogenic, neuroleptic, or entheogenic drugs), as well as hypnosis, and suggestions that can induce a shift in the detainee's behaviors, attitudes, and belief system
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Sociological and environmental pressures, or triggers, to make the subject more compliant with given instructions and suggestions
The above methods can be made more readily acceptable to a captive or targeted person, when such methods are presented as a positive thing being provided as a privilege, or a therapeutic benefit.
Toxic chemicals prescribed as "medicine," which can be quickly metabolized, and electrical shock prescribed as "therapy," tend to cause muscular, endocrine, and neurological damage. The harm done to reproductive as well as central and peripheral nervous systems, is pernicious and often irreversible. The biochemical harm done to victims by such methods, occurs at a molecular level. And in the case of electroshock convulsions administered under anesthesia, the brain damage produced is at micrometer or millimeter level. As such, these types of hidden, and pernicious bodily injuries, cannot be detected or identified by any tools or methods available in most hospitals, or mortuaries.
Likewise, psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and suggestions (especially suggestions via talk therapy and other audio, visual, haptic, and olfactory signaling) can be used for making the target person submissive, and torpid. Such drugs and psychological techniques can even be used for pushing the targeted person towards suicide.
The physical pain and emotional torment, thrust upon the human subject or patient, by the principal investigators or clinicians, is circumvented via the use of prescribed painkillers, sedatives, anesthesia, and/or methods of suggestion and hypnosis. The physical harm done to the person by such clinical methodologies, anyways cannot be easily identified by direct observation, or even through the use of most forensic techniques. Within cases of alive and somewhat functional survivors of such stealthy abuses, the survivors become unable to note any "physical pain" during and after such procedures of mistreatment.
Instances of suicide can also be used for covering up stealthy abuses and pernicious harms. Additionally, in some cases, a victim's suicide can be used as misdirection, or as a cover up of potentially discernible physical marks of abuse on the victim's body. In such cases, abuses or mistreatment suffered by the victim, prior to any forms of self-inflicted harms and injury, that eventually lead to the death of the victim, are all together covered up by the mere label of "suicide" ascribed to the case by the investigating authorities.
These invasive, methodical, and insidious types of harms also hinder a debilitated victim's overall mental functions, if the so-called "neutralized target" remains alive. The debilitation in turn causes the victim's comprehension abilities, memories, speech, writing patterns, as well as their testimonies to become unreliable. This type of medically induced physical harm and traumatic experiences suffered by victims is usually followed up with suggestions, stigmatization, and psychological pressure from authority figures, clinicians, friends, family, and community members to:
"Just accept it, let it go, and stay silent. Be grateful and happy for other things in life. And stop complaining!"
This is similar to the experiences of victims who may have fallen prey to sexual assault, violence, or abuse via date-rape-drugs, or through psychological and sociological manipulations by trusted persons in a position of influence, authority, or power.
Worst of all, most victims lose the ability to understand that they were being tortured, abused, and mistreated due to the molecular, cellular and venial scale of the injuries and bodily harm produced by aforementioned methods. Even family members, and conscientious practitioners usually cannot identify the damage done via these kinds of pernicious and tortuous clinical methods, as the damage is masked by other confounding physiological, bio-mechanical, psycho-social, or behavioral issues that are caused by the clinically induced, visceral harms and injuries.
These are only some of the ways in which enhanced interrogations, conducted using sly and stealthy techniques, neatly circumvent the applicability of the technical definition of "torture" that hinges on the idea of pain, and suffering, caused via "physically evident" abuse.
Abbreviations:
CCAD - Center for Computer Aided Design (University of Iowa, USA)
CSL - Cognitive Systems Library (University of Iowa, USA)
R&D - Research and Development
UIowa - The University of Iowa
UK - United Kingdom
US - United States (of America)