SSG: Spy/Spec-Ops Group discussion

Open topic. Any and all insights into interrogations, (fictional or IRL) feel free to tie to this thread.

I researched current studies of interrogation and "coercive persuasion" or brainwashing. It can now be automated using SIRI-like artificial intelligence that key on certain words and phrases to administer rewards (no pain) and punishments (like electro-shock.) Oxytocin and other drugs make the subject more receptive. Monitoring physiological factors helps the machine determine resistance/acceptance.
Unlike humans, the machine is relentless and has no empathy. It always wins.

H'mm. Aye.

Me: I'm dubious about all 'information' these days. Dubious as to the very value of it. The information age renders everything 'questionable' and nothing 'certain'. I trust history; I trust experience; I trust logic, I trust what I feel. I never trust what someone simply tells me.

I always ask, how do they know? What was their source? Who generated the item? How many steps did it take to get to me? What is the caliber of the person reporting? Where was the information vulnerable [to tampering] along the way? (if it came off the internet, immediate dismissal; and newsmedia? even less).

The Nazis had started to experiment with sodium pentothol to assist in interrogations in WWII. The MI6 double agent I just wrote about had been warned they were going to use it on him so he practiced with it! It had a very interesting effect on him, to say the least. lol

You can build up immunity to SP?

Interrogation scenes movie or book wise, I always think about the dentist in Marathon Man.

Yep. It's true. MM is supreme. Good interrogators (like Szell) know that they have to essentially destroy a subject to get anything reliable. They have to push their target past the point where the man has any inclination to lie for any reason. The subject has to be so far gone that his response has to come only from that last-ditch, involuntary attempt of any physical body to save itself. He must respond from a level 'below' conscious thought. That's why --in the beginning--Szell's questioning is meaningless, makes no sense. Szell doesn't care about any answer Babe can give while Babe is relatively at-ease. He wants the answer to come from him after he has wet/soiled himself in unbearable agony; so that the answer can be counted on somewhat.

Wolenski (being interrogated in 'Day of the Jackal') essentially doesn't want to talk at all; so they have to make him scream and then sift through through the barely-sane responses.

The Quiller novels are often based on Quiller's ability to stand up to questioning. Quiller knows his body very well and is usually confident in his resistance. But he also understands that if he is driven insane he has no control over what he says. In one novel, they use thirst (deprivation of water for three days) to affect his brain. He knows he can't fight it and so prepares a weapon to use for suicide if they keep it up.

I recall as well, Tuco being beaten up by the burly Union sergeant in 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly'. Tough little Tuco (aka, 'The Rat') is holding his own (though losing a few teeth, etc) until the big sergeant gets his hands on his face and goes for his eyes. I kinda think that's where anyone must talk. If someone is beating you up, fine. But when they have their thumbs pressed on your eyelids and are about to squeeze them out of their sockets like grapes from their skins...who wants to lose their eyes that way?

Some other novel I read where the Surete were interrogating a woman and they were pretty confident about getting a response. Woman have a higher threshold for enduring pain but they also have more ways to be 'gotten at'. What they had were two metal prongs for insertion in the (nether) orifices, they hung her from her wrists to a ceiling beam and the prongs were connected to an electrical generator. That was pretty raw reading. Might've been The Fifth Horseman?

The Pinochet regime, of course, was infamous for what it did to women prisoners--but that was mere sadism; those village girls had no useful information.

May I mention the case of William Buckley, the CIA chief of station in Beirut who was tortured and drugged for months by the Hezbollah's intelligence head, Imad Mugniyah, then executed? I suppose that falling into the hands of ISIS in Syria would not be much fun either.

Ah yes, the Buckley scenario
(which I recall was discussed several months previously in this group ;) )

Being pumped full of enough LSD to disorient an entire hospital is a horrible way to go. Not to mention the beatings and sensory deprivation (coffin sized hole where Mugniyah stored him).

Between that and a quick death, I would probably pick the latter.
Perhaps Quiller was on to something Felix when he said that the "compromised sanity" being among the most dangerous states you can be in during a torture session.

As for Daesh, they have a lot of sick, imaginative minds among their ranks. Leads to a lot of variety in the horror that the wreak upon suspected spies and informants.

The one I saw pictures of early this year were three caged men being lowered into a swimming pool by crane. They drowned.

Speaking of the Middle East, I'd like to cite the old SAVAK organization which acted as the Shah of Iran's KGB. Their favorite methods were to

A) hang you upside down and tear the skin off your back with a variety of whips (and in some cases, even rape the prisoners)

B) Do the old fashioned foot beating. I read somewhere that the feet have the highest concentration of nerve endings in the body. The pain that results is truly excruciating.

Of course, they had other methods but those two were their go-to torture methods. I wonder whether their successors at the MOIS organization still use the same techniques....

Something both real life and fiction. This book takes many real life stories surrounding the Uzbekistan secret service and the human rights abuses they conduct with gleeful abandon.

The one that shocked me the most (and made me actually drop the book when I came across the particular passage)
is the fact that in their torture chamber, they keep a large cauldron of boiling water and a bathtub nearby. It's for finishing off whatever unlucky sod who has the horrifying misfortune of ending up in their hands.

In the linked book, a human rights activist is taken for a ride by the Uzbekistan agents. In the span of a chilling chapter, she's subjected to all the indignities that she ironically had reported to the UN and various human rights groups. She then ends up in the bathtub. It's as horrible as you can imagine.

Samuel wrote: "

Something both real life and fiction. This book takes many real life stories surrounding the Uzbekistan secret service and the human rights abuses they conduct wit..."




The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were “beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask.” Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, “Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.”–From “U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be Jailer,” by Hans Rudolf

Oeser, for the New York Times, May 1, 2005

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The law prohibits such practices; however, police and the NSS routinely tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees to obtain confessions or incriminating information. Police, prison officials, and the NSS allegedly used suffocation, electric shock, rape, and other sexual abuse. . . . In February 2003, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture issued a report that concluded that torture or similar ill treatment was systematic.–From “Uzbekistan,” in Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,

published by the U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2005

The government claims its efforts serve as part of the global campaign against terrorism. Yet in the overwhelming majority of cases, those imprisoned have not been accused or convicted of terrorism or charged with any other violent act. Human Rights Watch has documented the torture of many of those detained in the context of this compaign, including several who that [sic] died as a result of torture . . . including beatings by fist and with truncheons or metal rods, rape and sexual violence, electric shock, use of lit cigarettes or newspapers to burn the detainee, and asphyxiation with plastic bags or gas masks. A doctor who examined the body of a detainee who died in custody in 2002 described burns consistent with immersion in boiling water.–From “Torture World Wide,” published by

Human Rights Watch, April 27, 2005

This, in my opinion, points to the main reason why the USA should not use torture (even when called hypocritically 'enhanced interrogation techniques') for the War on Terror, or for whatever other excuse: it always ends up with gross abuses and forced (false) confessions. Also, what goes around comes around: the USA gave that way the perfect excuse for its enemies to use torture on American prisoners if they wish to do so. Finally, most of the time, the information you get from torture is either bogus or nearly useless (claims to the contrary by some are mostly discredited by now). If you pretend to hold the moral high ground on others, then don't lower yourself to their level. For those who would question the worth of my opinions, I was a trained tactical interrogator in the Canadian Forces in my younger years.

Alec Guiness participates in one of the lengthiest interrogations...1955's 'the Prisoner'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pri...

another great one is between Sean Connery and Ian Bannen in 'The Offence'. Its a criminal interrogation but amazing. One never learns--even at the end--whether Bannen (accused of child molesting) is actually guilty. Bannen observes that his interrogator has a strange, inordinate personal stake in the interrogation and so he turns the tables, harping on the officer's own insecurity.

I totally dig taut, claustrophobic, two-character plays adapted to the screen. 'A Pure Formality' (Gerard Depardieu and Roman Polanski) is like that.

Feliks

Not a book, but this may be of interest.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A-crl3_C3Ko

This was a series in the UK - SAS: Are you tough enough?
The episode I've highlighted is one around interrogation and resistance.

Roger wrote: "Feliks

Not a book, but this may be of interest.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A-crl3_C3Ko

This was a series in the UK - SAS: Are you tough enough?
The episode I've highlighted is one around interr..."

interesting.