Depression Medications - Abu Ghraib, Satanists, And Spoon Benders

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Abu Ghraib, Satanists, And Spoon Benders

linda

2006-08-27, 9:23 pm

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/20...abu_ghraib.html

This article appears in the August 26, 2005 issue of Executive
Intelligence Review.
Abu Ghraib, Satanists,
And Spoon-Benders
by Edward Spannaus

In a legal battle currently raging in Federal court in New York, the
Pentagon is desperately trying to block the release of more photos and
videotapes of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib. At issue, in the
lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Physicians for
Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and others, are 87 photographs and
four videotapes, which are reported to contain images of rape, sodomy, and
other conduct far more horrendous even than that which has been disclosed so
far.

The question raised, is what connection does this have to the reports
received by EIR that the Special Warfare crowd based at Fort Bragg, N.C., is
deeply enmeshed in "spoon-bender" Mind War programs and experimentation, and
intersects outright Satanic circles?

`Rape and Murder'
An examination of this question, should proceed in the light of recent
hearings in the U.S. Senate, and the explosive New Yorker magazine article
by investigative reporter Jane Mayer, which have further documented that
prisoner abuse and torture was a deliberate, systematic policy, one that
came from the very top of the Defense Department, and also that these
practices were deliberately introduced into Iraq, after having first been
tried at Guantanamo.

It may seem far-fetched to some readers, to suggest a link between the
torture scandals, and Satanic pedophile rings that operated out of the
Presidio Army Base in San Francisco, or around Offutt Air Force Base in
Nebraska. But consider the following:

When Defense Secretary Rumsfeld testified to the Senate Armed Services
Committee in May 2004, he warned that the unreleased Abu Ghraib images were
far worse than those that had come out so far, saying that they show acts
"that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane." Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, after the Senate hearings, that "we're talking
about rape and murder here."

Other, shaken members of Congress who viewed the photos said they
showed, among other things, naked prisoners being forced into sexual acts
with one another.

In an affidavit filed last month in the ACLU case, but only recently
unsealed, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers,
painted a stark picture of what could happen if the photos and videos, known
as the "Darby photos," were released. Official release of the photos "will
pose a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American
troops and coalition forces," Myers said, and could result in "increased
terrorist recruitment."

"Release of these images will be portrayed as part and parcel of the
alleged, continuing effort of the United States to humiliate Muslims," Myers
added.

Now, listen to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who first broke
the Abu Ghraib story in April 2004, and who said the following, when
speaking to an ACLU event in July 2004:

"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay?
Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were
passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib.
.. . . The women were passing messages out saying `Please come and kill me,
because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women
who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been
recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst
above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your
government has. They are in total terror."

Additionally, former prisoners from Abu Ghraib have given U.S.
military investigators detailed descriptions of the rape of a boy prisoner
at Abu Ghraib by an American soldier, and have described other types of
abuse of children there.

At this point, the reader may rightly be asking him or herself: "How
is it possible, that members of the U.S. military could be involved in such
hideous practices?"

`Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape'
Although her article does not explicitly raise these deeper questions,
Jane Mayer's July 11 New Yorker article, "The Experiment," present a
compelling case that the techniques of sexual and religious humilation of
prisoners, as well as most of the other techniques used at Guantanamo and
Abu Ghraib, were developed by behavioral scientists and others associated
with the U.S. military, and that study of such techniques is regularly used
in the training of military personnel to resist interrogation if captured by
enemy forces.

Rumsfeld sent Maj. Gen. Geoffey Miller to take command of the
Guantanamo prison camp in November 2002, since Rumsfeld believed that the
previous commander was not getting adequate results from interrogations. It
was Miller, said to be part of the "spoon-bender" set, and also of like mind
with the Muslim-hating Gen. William Boykin, who established the role of
psychologists and psychiatrists in assisting interrogations, as part of the
Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT, or "biscuits").

The BSCT program operates under Military Intelligence, and many of its
members have undergone training in the resistance program known as SERE
(Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape). SERE reportedly involves
subjecting trainees to extreme temperatures, sensory deprivation including
confinement in small spaces, loud noises, sexual embarrassment and
humiliation, and what is called "religious dilemma"-including the
desecration of the Bible.

Shortly after Miller arrived at Guantanamo, FBI agents assigned to
Guantanamo raised objections to the use of SERE techniques in interrogations
of prisoners, and they raised their concerns directly to Miller, according
to FBI documents disclosed in the ACLU lawsuit.

Later, in August 2003, Miller was sent to Iraq by Rumsfeld's
Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, and Cambone's assistant
Boykin. Miller visited Abu Ghraib and the "hunter-killer" squad then known
as Task Force 20; his express purpose was to "Gitmo-ize" detention and
interrogation programs in Iraq. As he put it in his report summarizing his
visit, he went to Iraq "to discuss current theatre ability to rapidly
exploit internees for actionable intelligence."

His best-known recommendation was that of using detention operations
(e.g., MPs serving as prison guards) to "set conditions for successful
interrogations." Less well known, is that Miller also recommended providing
a BSCT "to support interrogation operations," explaining: "These teams
comprised of operational behavioral psychologists and psychiatrists are
essential in developing integrated interrogation strategies and assessing
interrogation intelligence production."

`Reverse Engineering'
According to Mayer, the flagship SERE program is based at the JFK
Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, and the training program is overseen
by psychologists and other behavorial science clinicians, who keep detailed
records of trainees' responses and stress levels. Since the program is
ostensibly intended to expose trainees to maximum anxiety in order to better
equipment them to resist interrogation and torture, the program is, Mayer
reports, "a storehouse of knowledge about coercive methods of
interrogation." Mayer continues:

"One way to stimulate acute anxiety, SERE scientists have learned, is
to create an environment of radical uncertainty: trainees are hooded; their
sleep patterns are disrupted; they are starved for extended periods; they
are stripped of their clothes; they are exposed to extreme temperatures,"
and so on. If a POW "is trying to avoid revealing secrets to enemy
interrogators, he is much less likely to succeed if he has been deprived of
sleep or is struggling to avoid intense pain."

Or, as Mayer put it in an interview posted on the New Yorker website:
"Before 9/11, many of these behavioral scientists [at Guantanamo] were
affiliated with SERE schools, where they used their knowledge to train U.S.
soldiers to resist coercive interrogations. But since 9/11, several sources
told me, these same behavioral scientists began to `reverse engineer' the
process. Instead of teaching resistance, they used their skills to help
overcome resistance in U.S.-held detainees."

One of those identified in the Mayer article, as playing an important
role at Guantanamo, is Col. Morgan Banks, the director of the Psychological
Applications Directorate of the Army Special Operations Command at Fort
Bragg. Banks recommended that the psychologists working with the BSCTs at
Guantanamo, have backgrounds with SERE.

Gitmo, the Laboratory
During the controversy over the Newsweek story about desecration of
the Koran, a former U.S. military officer wrote to Prof. Juan Cole (who runs
the anti-war "Informed Comment" web blog) and described his own experiences
at SERE school, which had a mock POW camp for training CI
(counterintelligence) personnel, interrogators, etc. "One of the most
memorable parts of the camp experience was when one of the camp leaders
trashed a Bible on the ground, kicking it around, etc.," the ex-officer
wrote. "It was a crushing blow, even though this was just a school. I have
no doubt that the stories about trashing the Koran are true."

"I'm sure you must realize that Gitmo must be being used as a
`laboratory' for all these psychological manipulation techniques by the CI
guys," he continued, calling this "absolutely sickening." Sexual humiliation
and ridicule, involving stripping trainees naked, and having women laugh at
the size of the men's genitals, is part of the advanced SERE training. (And
they still claim that 19-year-old Lynndie England thought this up, all by
herself.)

Mayer was told about another SERE training technique called the "mock
rape," in which a female officer stands behind a screen and screams as if
she were being violated, and the trainee is told that he can stop the rape
if he cooperates with his captors.

At Abu Ghraib, they seem to have dropped the "mock" part.

The author can be reached at edspannaus@larouchepub.com.