The infamous Korean War Chi-Coms and their "brainwashing" techiques are revealed to be once more, one of the authoritarian playbooks of the GOP. The 3 hour hates conducted by the Cystboy and Hannity with lesser luminaries filling in the other 21 hours for the cultees' convenience- That's straight out of the Korean War. It works too.
There's more. . .
The erstwhile administration of The Shitboy and The Puppetmaster needed some lies verified- you know the ones, weapons of mass destruction their "high value" asset, Iranian Double Agent Chalabi had told them were there and could be used as a convenient Cassus Belli. "It's a slam dunk!" CIA director George Tenet agreed. And though we still do not know exactly what the real reasons for taking out Saddam were, how could they lose with this twisted "pre-emptive self defense" argument? So WMD it would be, repeated to an almost infinite degree along with sly associations with the words "Saddam" and "Nine Eleven", the war was on.
But by the summer of 2003, it was becoming abundantly clear the weapons were a mirage and Saddam (I don't have no stinkin' WMD!!!!) had been telling the truth all along. Uh Oh.
This was trouble. Sure, the cult could be controlled to believe anything (H/T from the GOP to Uncle Mao!) but how long would the other 80% of America wake up from the war fever and start asking about these WMD we just started a war over? Clearly, bold action was called for to head off impending Political destruction. 2004 was going to be an election year and by god the Pukes were not about to lose the WH.
It was time to torture corroboration out of the bastards.
With the language barrier, the three hour hate technique wasn't an option. No Arabic speakers(!) and no patience either. No question there was a certain desperation on their part too, telling real whoppers that risk imminent exposure tends to make a liar somewhat impatient. Having told the mother of all whoppers, to Shitboy and the Puppetmaster, time was of the essence. It didn't take long for them to conclude the torture option must be employed. Torture is always designed to gain a "confession" or something of propaganda value, any real intelligence value is nil but insisting there is serves to cover up the real purpose. This is important. It's one thing to have the torture exposed, it's quite another to have its exposure cast doubt on the "verification" gained from it.
The usual side "benefit" of torture is it also serves to terrorize others, it tends to make them easier to control on a micro (prisoners) and a macro level (one's own countrymen). Control can be the main goal of torture too- see Chile under Pinochet. On an occupied populace though, it pretty much galvanizes a certain resistance as the occupiers prove themselves to be monsters who must be punished and expelled. This was the net effect of the torture that went on in Abu Ghraib. Recall the resistance was small until late in 2003, early 2004 when inside Iraq, what was going on inside Saddam's torture prisons (under new management!) got around the populace. Iraqis, who for the most part had adopted a "wait and see" attitude had seen enough and did the logical thing- they picked up arms and started killing the American invader. We had proven ourselves no better than Saddam and in fact, a helluva lot worse since Saddam rarely leveled whole cities. This was predictable and I think welcomed by the Shitboy gang as resistance presented a certain value to crony contractors, but that's a whole 'nuther diary so let's move on into the Irony of the whole mess.
Originally, these techniques- both indoctrination and/or physical torture- were used to gain defectors and for higher value targets (officers, mostly), signed confessions/accusations were highly desirable in the omnipresent propaganda wars that were a sideshow of the cold war. You know the kind, Captain Jones, US Army, decorated for valor blah blah sez, "Gee whiz I sure am sorry for taking up arms against the valiant people's liberation army in defense of corrupt capitalist gangsters who only exploit and use my countrymen for their vile desire to enslave the world!" This is the kind of thing actual torture would yield. The fact is though, the gentle technique of decent treatment and three hour daily sit down education sessions with an English speaking commissar (complete with color A/V aids!) yielded a lot of voluntary confessions and defections. Something on the order of 4,000 men, US military personnel POW's, did in fact defect. Most, long ago were forgiven and returned home after the brainwashing and the war wore off, but some live there in the PRK to this day. That's a testament to the effectiveness of repetition as are the legions of wingnuts totally responsive to whatever Cystboy, Faux News, et al order them to do, believe and think.
So here's the irony. It may not have been apparent in 1951, but by this point of the 21st century, it's pretty clear now, the Communist rap on "Capitalist Exploiters" was spot on. But American POW's had to be "brainwashed" or tortured to say so. Then here again in the early part of the 21st century, the very essence of "Capitalist Exploiter" took these techniques and applied them to "enemy combatants" and citizens of an unjustly occupied country- en masse, the result being lots of what they wanted to hear and none of it true. The Communists tortured and pretty much told the truth. The Americans tortured and pretty much got back the same lies they wanted to hear.
But here's what's worst of all. The monsters, these motherfucking, corrupt, crony capitalist thugs deemed the verification of their lies to be so important, they ended up getting who knows how many America troops, you know the ones they notoriously support so well- killed. They got thousands killed who probably would not have been had this shit not gone down- not just at Abu Ghraib, but all over the country. They turned a population willing to give America a chance to make good on its promises into a righteously and justly pissed off army of resistance. Just like that. Instant irony.
All the very serious people want to move on, put it behind us, blah blah and if that's allowed to stand, what more verification do any of us need that indeed we are and have been exactly what those commissars accused us of so long ago- a corrupt plutocracy where there are rules for you and me and the big shots always go free.
Funny what a little torture will reveal isn't it? Ironic as all hell too.