The CIA's Torture Porn

Now that there are criminal investigations underway, we’re going to hear a lot about knowledge and complicity in the CIA and the White House about the destruction of the torture tapes. But we should be taking a moment as well to consider why exactly they were made. Tom Englehardt of tomdispatch.com makes an obvious point that I haven’t read elsewhere: that one purpose of the tapes was training.

If you lived in South America during the 1970s or ‘80s, you heard a lot about how people are tortured, most of which you wish you could somehow wash out of your brain afterward. But the human rights organizations also researched how the torturers became who they were. After all, even for a seriously sick element, some of this stuff takes a strong stomach. How did their bosses create a cadre of human beasts who wouldn’t flinch at it?

One way found to desensitize them was by showing videotapes of torture, starting with animals. (I’m not making this up.) After the video was over, the instructor then quizzed the group with specific questions about how this or that organ was successfully tormented or the precise way the various techniques and instruments were applied. This procedure gets the group to distance itself from the victim and concentrate on the techncial aspects of the ‘performance.’

If this sounds repulsive and nauseating to you, then you remain a human being for now. However, it very probably describes exactly the scenario that has been playing out in secret camps run by agents of the United States of America with the enthusiastic support of the very highest levels of its democratically elected leadership.

How does that make you feel?