Torture Shrink: 'When You Apply Shocks To A Caged Dog/Prisoner-He's So Diminished-He Can't Resist '

[kpete]

Chapter 7 of The Dark Side, Jane Mayer’s study of the growth of the American culture of torture and extra-legal imprisonment, is entitled “Inside the Black Sites”. The following excerpt, which is concerned with the CIA interrogation of al-Qaeda logistics chief Abu Zubayda, is revelatory of the degree of degradation to which our neocon masters have subjected the rule of law and human decency:

From Chapter 7 Of Jane Mayer's The Dark Side page 156

XX “AZ,” an informed source said of Zubayda, “was talking a lot.” The FBI agents believed they were getting “phenomenal” information. In a matter of days, a CIA team arrived and took over, freezing out the FBI. The apparent leader of the CIA team was a former military psychologist named James Mitchell, whom the intelligence agency had hired on a contract. Oddly, given the Agency’s own dearth of experience in the area of interrogating Islamic extremists, he had no background in the Middle East or in Islamic terrorism. He spoke no Arabic and he knew next to nothing about the Muslim religion. He was himself a devout Mormon. But others present said he seemed to think he had all the answers about how to deal with Zubayda. Mitchell announced that the suspect had to be treated “like a dog in a cage,” informed sources said. “He said it was like an experiment, when you apply electric shocks to a caged dog, after a while, he’s so diminished, he can’t resist.”

http://rrrrodak.blogspot.com/2008/12/readings-weird-science.html

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R

[Stephanie]

2. Someone noted in another thread that in the actual study the dog just gave up.

The dog understood that he was to be tortured no matter what he did, so he stopped trying.

[Supersedeas]

13. does that sound like a sound American value to you?

[undergroundpanther]

3. it isn't 'giving up

It's more like ,admitting you cannot control what happens to you, So you make it like an endurance game, than,realizing mind games with yourself does not really stop the pain. Than you slip into a deep apathy/and deep mistrust. What you actually are "giving up" is the idea of control,that you yourself can do anything to change your bad situation.It isn't giving up it is facing the truth of the situation.And many people use many defenses to avoid the fact this world is often vicious,it makes no sense, has no purpose, and you don't have as much control as you think you have over your own body, mind or life ,even when NOT in a torture or captive situation.

Then if the captor decides to stop the torture and opens the cage door and says you are free to go,you don't bolt out of there fast..because you cannot trust that you finally have any of that illusion of control over your situation. That illusion is what goes away with trauma.For the psychiatrically wounded the world will never be the safe or the same again as it was before the trauma..
You are not"broken" you are wounded.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Very good post UP.

[Oregone]

5. Called "learned helplessness"

to refer to the actual experiment where they shocked the dogs, and they stopped trying to push the decoy button to abort it.

[Supersedeas]

8. and they call it science.

[backscatter712]

9. Oooh, can we do this to Republicans?

If we can drive the GOP to the point where they cringe in our sight and can barely manage half-assed resistance to our agenda, we'd get a lot more done.

[undergroundpanther]

10. if they can't stop the shocks..

It's CONDITIONED helplessness.Since the dogs had no control over the shocks they were conditioned to be 'helpless' the button did not work,and doing the same thing over and over did nothing,couldn't escape,couldn't get out or endure it. So for the dogs reality was crystal clear they were facing a situation where they WERE really helpless. Any inescapable abuse situation creates the same results be it in animals or people.

[Oregone]

12. But the term for this all is "Learned Helplessness"

Some of the dogs did have control, and they exercised it. The other dogs didn't, and their shocks stopped when the other dogs pressed their buttons.

And it simply wasn't conditioning at all though. They would of been merely conditioned to be helpless in that situation. When placed in a different contraption where they could escape easily, they laid down and got shocked, all the same. They didn't even try. They learned they were helpless in everything they did. They exhibited depression like characteristics. 1/3rd of the dogs in the shock group overcame and escaped.

Look up what Seligman did with dogs. It has huge social implications, especially on historically repressed minority groups.

[Senator]

6. K&R

[HillbillyBob]

7. I don't know much of torture other than being bullied and terrorized,

After awhile it did not matter so much because I couldn't change the treatment. Sometimes I would lash out though.

We do adopt dogs that have been abused and or neglected.
One we have would flinch and cower when you tried to pet her and she would try to get small. A bit over a years time she is blooming with being loved unconditionally, praise, feed enough, and positive reenforcement, well ok cookie bribes!
Remember Gramma saying "You get more flies with Honey than with Vinegar".
Treating 'suspects' like they have already been convicted is so against our Constitution, and what we as a country are supposed to stand for? No doubt many will argue they are not citizens and they are hardened terrorists, when in most cases there was not solid proof they were.
Doesn't our Constitution proclaim 'all men are created equal'? Does not All cover all humans or just citizens? What is it about a non citizen that makes them less than?
Now that it is becoming general knowledge that a lot of these folks were no more terrorists than I am why aren't the citizens crying out for justice? I don't mean just the percentage of us here I mean the country wide citizens.
I think the ( * ) maladministration has created more terrorists with their mistreatments, not striking fear, but anger by those so treated, but anger from their country of origin and their families.

[bertman]

11. This is the kind of thing that makes me weep for my country.