How the Batshit Legacy of Vietnam and New Age Thinking Spawned Abu Ghraib Torture
Guardian Unlimited Books | Extracts | The road to Abu Ghraib
It's really a pleasure, when an article is well-written.
This long, 2-part article is by Jon Ronson, who wrote the absolutely stellar and hilarious book "Them: travels with extremists."
In this article Jon Ronson explains how a few kooky/nutty/batshit crazy folks in the military who were researching non-violent and peaceful ways to capture the hearts and minds of the enemy had their work twisted around to create the most effective torture possible.
It is the summer of 1983. Major General Albert Stubblebine III is sitting behind his desk in Arlington, Virginia, and he is staring at his wall, upon which hang his numerous military awards. They detail a long and distinguished career. He is the US army's chief of intelligence, with 16,000 soldiers under his command. He controls numerous covert counter-intelligence and spying units, scattered throughout the world. He would be in charge of the prisoner-of-war interrogations, too, except this is 1983, and the war is cold, not hot.
He looks past his awards to the wall itself. There is something he feels he needs to do even though the thought of it frightens him. He thinks about the choice he has to make. He can stay in his office or he can go into the next office. He has made his decision. He is going into the next office. He stands up, moves out from behind his desk and begins to walk. He thinks to himself, what is the atom mostly made up of anyway? Space!
He quickens his pace.
What am I mostly made up of? Atoms!
He is almost at a jog now.
What is the wall mostly made up of, he thinks. Atoms! All I have to do is merge the spaces. The wall is an illusion.
Then General Stubblebine bangs his nose hard on the wall of his office.
He is confounded by his continual failure to walk through his wall. There is no doubt in his mind that the ability to pass through objects will one day be a common tool in the intelligence-gathering arsenal. And when that happens, well, is it too naive to believe it would herald the dawning of a world without war? Who would want to screw around with an army that could do that?