US Air Force pilots are said to have undergone massive training after the Korean War in which they were trained to resist the psychological pressure of the enemy. They also say that psychological torture is much more effective than bodily torture: the human psyche recovers for a long time after such an impact … And they also say that the CIA has developed a whole system of "non-bodily impact". Here are just a few examples from the Torture Report.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee in 2014 published an abridged version of its study on the use of torture at the CIA. The document released to the public contains 528 pages describing the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques."
The methods of psychological and physical impact on prisoners were developed by psychologists who previously worked with the US Air Force Emergency Survival School.
According to the Center for the Study of Human Rights of the Americas, psychological torture must meet the following four criteria:
1. Suffering;
2. Punishment;
3. Duration;
4. Lack of direct physical violence.
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Lack of sleep
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture where a prisoner is deprived of sleep for extended periods of time. Sleep is vital to humans and animals. It is not yet clear how long a person can stay awake. Today the record set is held by Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for 264.4 hours without using stimulants.
Sleep deprivation techniques include loud explosive music, bright strobe lights, and placing a person on a pedestal step from which they fall and receive an electrical shock … After a period of time without sleep, hallucinations begin. If sleep deprivation persists over several months, it leads to mental illness.
Other, milder consequences may include a deterioration in the emotional state. David Dinges, professor of psychology and director of experimental psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that “when a person is deprived of sleep, he stops experiencing positive emotions. He may claim to be happy - but he is not really experiencing anything."
Ostracism
Public censure is a form of psychological torture that has its roots in the Middle Ages. Remember the expression "pillory"? Here we are: the first mention of this beautiful device dates back to 1274. So this torture has a long history.
A pillar with holes for the head and hands of a person was installed in the most crowded place: in the marketplace or near the town hall. This made it possible to humiliate the culprit, scold him, throw stones at him and even beat him sometimes.
An interesting incident occurred in 1703, when Daniel Dafoe was sentenced to a "pillory of shame" for libel. However, public opinion of him as a hero was so high that he was pelted with flowers rather than mud or excrement.
In the days when Saddam Hussein was still in power, one of the most famous prisons in the world was Abu Ghraib. After Hussein was overthrown, a US military prison was located there. It turned out that members of the US Army mocked the captured Iraqis. A nationwide scandal erupted and eleven soldiers were convicted of crimes.
One of the types of torture used in Abu Ghraib is forced nudity. The male prisoners were forcibly undressed and forced to stand in front of others in what their mother had given birth to.
In Arab culture, nudity and exposure in front of others is demeaning for men.
Insulation
One of the favorite methods of psychological pressure is prolonged isolation of the prisoner. A former prisoner, Gairat Bakhir, recalled:
- If you do not cooperate, they close you in a long, like a coffin, box, where there is no oxygen. No light. You feel like you've been buried alive.
Isolation, or solitary confinement, is used in some US prisons.
What are the consequences of such a conclusion for a person? In the infamous 'pit of despair' monkey experiment in the 1950s, psychologist Harry Harlow found that after a day or two the animals “became deeply restless, indifferent, or anxious. They wandered around the cage, mutilating themselves or swinging madly from side to side without responding."
Sound
Sound torture is used to influence prisoners with loud music or white noise. Compared to physical torture, the so-called “touchless” torture could be considered more humane, but it is no less effective.
Like a pillar of shame, sonic torture has a long history - let's just say we know the Aztec form of torture called the "death whistle."
The CIA playlist often contains singles like Metallica's Enter Sandman, the hit Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name Of or even Deicide and their memorable F * ck Your God. What's the most popular song in Guantanamo? - "I love you" from Barney.
Rudyard Kipling's "Footsteps" are played continuously at the school of survival in difficult conditions.
Sergeant Mark Headsell of Psychological Operations argues that if a person has never listened to heavy metal, he cannot endure the whole day with this music - “the brain and body begin to lose their functions. The train of thought slows down and the will is broken."
Drug manipulation
The use of drugs, especially hallucinogens, has been frequently used in psychological torture. On an infamous program called Project MK-ULTRA, the CIA experimented with mind control. These experiments contained drugs to "weaken the will of the individual through the control of mental operations."
MK means the project was organized for CIA technical services, while "Ultra" is commonly used to refer to classified intelligence from World War II.
The most common drug is LSD, although the agency has also experimented with developing truth serums. The CIA's own website provides an account of the types of drugs used to find the truth: different sera, including scopolamine and various barbiturates.
- There is no such magic remedy as in the cinema. Barbiturates, by reducing defense mechanisms, can sometimes be helpful in interrogation, but even in the best cases they will cause illusions, fantasies, distorted speech, etc.
Fake death
Remember how the great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky described his experiences when he was awaiting the death penalty, which at the last moment was replaced by exile? This experience changed his whole life …
Until now, this type of psychological influence is considered one of the most effective and is widely used in practice in various countries. From dramatization of execution and hanging to partial "strangulation" or "drowning".
Another form is the "expectation" of death - being on the so-called "list of those sentenced to death." They say that the consequences are irreversible - prisoners become suicides or acquire all kinds of mania.
Extreme temperatures
The use of extreme temperatures is one of the CIA and FBI options for "intensified interrogation". Although this torture involves physical impact, it is considered psychological because it has a mental impact.
Temperature reduction is also used for sleep deprivation. However, hypothermia is a common side effect; this form of torture has a high mortality rate of up to 50%. A drop in temperature can affect memory - prisoners suffer from amnesia. Using extremely high temperatures may result in heat shock. Even if the necessary conditions are met, heatstroke is usually accompanied by a fatal outcome, so this form of torture can no longer be regarded as only psychological.
Fear
Using fears and phobias in relation to prisoners can be effective, but not always feasible. Placing arachnophobes in the same cell as spiders is a form of this kind of torture. It assumes a deep knowledge of the victim, so it is unlikely to be used in an “official” setting.
Military psychologists interrogated the detainees at Guantanamo to understand which of the phobias were used: phobias of nudity, phobias of enclosed spaces, phobias of darkness …
Tactile deprivation
Sensory deprivation is an extreme form of psychological torture. This means that you cannot hear, see, and cannot touch anything. Imagine yourself trapped in a soundproof chamber.
Microsoft has one - they test equipment there. The noise level inside is a record -20.35 decibels. Making the camera even quieter, Microsoft says, is impossible due to moving air particles that collide with each other. It is very difficult to speak inside a room completely isolated from outside noise, it feels like you are screaming into your pillow. Microsoft is using the audio lab to improve its own products. For example, it can enhance the "hearing" of a voice assistant when a user is accessing a Windows device from across the room, and tablets and laptops can teach them to perceive subtle signals.
In the case of psychological torture, things don't look so cute. Jose Padilla was found guilty of aiding terrorists in 2007. In prison, he underwent sensory deprivation for several weeks. For 3.5 years, he was kept in a cell without natural light, there was no clock or calendar. According to the lawyer Padilla, he was so "broken" that he came to the conclusion that his lawyers were part of the torture program and saw defenders in his guards, and this is already called the Stockholm Syndrome.
Drowning
We now turn to more specific forms of torture. "Drowning" looks like this: a person is tied to a board, water is poured on his face to simulate being under water.
Physical effects include severe pain, lung and brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Although drowning is mostly a physical form of torture, the psychological effects can last for years.
The Bush administration allowed this form of torture after the September 2001 events. The Justice Department authorized the CIA to handle water under “enhanced interrogation.” Following a scandal in 2004, the state halted the “program.” Finally, in 2006, the Bush administration banned torture, including water torture, against detainees. President-elect Donald Trump wants return "drowning" as one of the permitted forms of torture.
Chinese water torture
Chinese water torture is less extreme than drowning, although just as effective. The prisoner is tied and dripped on his forehead with water. Despite the fact that no one has been able to confirm that the torture was born in China, the name clearly stuck. The inventor of this torture is considered Hippolyte de Marsilius: so we know for sure that the Spanish Inquisition already used this method in relation to not particularly loyal subjects.
KUBARK: manual on torture
In 1963, the CIA published the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation for use in the Vietnam War. Includes specialized forms of interrogation, such as electric shock interrogation, threat / fear, sensory deprivation, and isolation.
The second manual for conducting extended interrogation was the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual, expanded and supplemented, for the intelligence services in Latin America.
The manual provides clear instructions. For example, it recommends arresting suspects early in the morning, unexpectedly, blindfold criminals, depriving of clothes. The suspects must also be deprived of food and sleep. Interrogation chambers should be soundproof and lightproof.
The manual argues that some methods of torture can backfire and anticipating pain can be more effective than the pain itself. The manuals were declassified and made public in May 2004 and can be found on the Internet.
Decay, disorientation, disorganization, demoralization
The method, called in German Zersetzung (decomposition, disorientation, disorganization, demoralization), was perfected by the Stasi in East Germany, which used it extensively against dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.
According to former Stasi officers, the goal was to “shut down” dissidents by disrupting their social, personal or family life. The victim was ostracized, monitored, and developed paranoid mania and other psychoses …
The method of psychological decomposition included removing the picture from the walls in the absence of the owners of the apartment, replacing one type of tea with another, or something else. Usually, the victims were unaware that this was rigged.
Other Zersetzung methods included espionage, letter opening and wiretapping, tampering with private property in a threatening manner, car tampering, food poisoning, and "false drugs."
Propaganda
Perhaps the most subtle and insidious of all the methods of "additional influence" was and remains propaganda. It can be seen as a form of psychological torture. Modern "psychological attacks" began in the First World War. In the beginning, countries such as Great Britain and Germany began to use propaganda as one of the effective weapons. At the time, the British possessed one of the world's most authoritative news systems - and controlled most of the media.
Examples of British propaganda included the creation of brochures that were distributed from aircraft to battlefields. The brochures contained information about various atrocities, both real and fake, allegedly committed by the German army against civilians. With drawings and cartoons.
The Germans were able to successfully use propaganda to force the Ottoman Sultan to declare jihad, or "holy war" against the West. By the outbreak of World War II, Adolf Hitler adopted British propaganda methods and used them to influence the minds of the German people.