Phillippe Sands, author of the Torture Team, testifies before Congress on the problem of torture. Apparently, Congress was born yesterday because Sands simply informed them what is already widely known on torture. It doesn’t work. False confessions to make the pain stop are the outcome. Sands pointedly relayed McCain’s confession as a torture victim in Vietnam:
I listened just yesterday…to Senator McCain, a man who has first hand experience of this situation and a brave man, describing in a 1997 interview with Dan Rather how he broke and owned up and signed a confession to having personally targeted men and women, children in North Vietnam because he was facing such conditions that he could no longer cope.”
Filed under: Campaign 2008, Human Rights, Law, Media, News Headlines, Politics, Prison, War Crimes, news, torture, video | Tagged: Congress, Pence, Phillippe Sands, torture
[...] own pleasure; my own pride. I didn’t think there was a cause more important than me… And they broke me… I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s… And I will [...]
Why would thaty be a false confession? he was bombing villages in North Vietnam
What are you talking about?
McCain was tortured and broken precisely because the North Vietnamese WANTED false confessions from American POWs.
They wanted them for their propaganda and psychological-warfare programs to demonize and demoralize the American war effort in Vietnam.
Which clearly worked since the North Vietnamese DID succeed in turning U.S. and World opinion against the war.