I just lost one of my oldest friends.

He's been doing all kinds of training lately, as he's career army and moving beyond. (The source of the problem, I'm sure.) He's currently on his sixth deployment.He had been really coming around to at least QUESTIONING the b.s. from the "military channel" and its surrogate, Faux News. He even voted absentee for Obama. So I thought things had changed.

We were talking for about a half hour, catching up over the last few weeks, and then he told me he was now being trained in "interrogrations." When I started questioning just what this was, he got all defensive and started defending all kinds of practices in the abstract. This led to a huge fight over techniques, accountability, etc...and now I think that my friend of more than ten years is no longer a friend. I just cannot believe the things I heard from him, and he is equally appalled at what I said. I feel like a fucking enemy of the state, and I can't believe it's because of this.

I eventually told him that if he supported what *I* defined as torture, that we couldn't be friends anymore. He said that he did support it, and that he still wanted to be friends. I hung up the phone. I'm devastated. I really can't believe he feels this way.

on two weeks RnR

Dad was there, and he was horrified by the implications

I pointed out to the kid that many of the things done by even troops on the line may be crossing lines...you see I sound like his JAG officer

I blame this for the idiots in the WH... yes a fish rots from the head, and the mid carrier army NCOs and Officers who have lost their way in the ethics of war

I cannot call it morals of war, since those don't exist. but ethics, absolutely

His dad tried to convince junior to go to Point, instead junior enlisted. Dad was an Army Ranger in the Nam... and he was horrified by the end of this conversation. He is now convinced the army is in worst shape than it was in 1974 morale wise and now ethics wise.

I am sorry about your friend, but I do sincerely hope that this country does prosecute one Mr. Chenney for giving the orders... that will be the beginning of the correction the force needs. And the reality check the Murican people need.

As is the most effective questioning involves neary a hair touched, and quite a bit of rapport building.

If this does not happen, then this country will loose whatever remains of its sole...

And they were broken by assholes who either deserted or got deferrments. The mental health and well being of the soldiars has been neglected the last 8 years, you know it, I know it and the world knows it.

This is * legacy. Rat Bastard.

understand

So my voice became very husky as I told him some stories from my war.... dad got it as soon as the first one was done.

Then I told him that my hubby was a vet of THIS war.

That got this kid, hopefully thinking

Now the people on the table next to mine fell very silent... as in VERY silent... kind of like during a funeral. I guess it is never easy to actually listen to THAT reality

not being able to comprehend war is hell, whether you fight it in the jungle or in the desert. And because so few of the population is in the military it is hard for them to comprehend that there are people that actually understand what is going on. It's a damn shame.

realize that many of us do get it... at a visceral level

But it is also the fact that nobody is training them in the ways we used to

I even repeated Washington's General Order 1.... dad knew about it... they no longer bother teaching the kids this either... and it is part of the tradition of the army... or at least it was.

But it is also a general hate for the past that we have in this culture

What I hope is that this talk seeds those ethics that this kid obviously never got from his platoon leaders, DIs or others responsible for his basic military education

they are eliminating elements of training that are important.

I too hope with the change of a new Administration that the military will recover.

OMG...this is SO a basis for the fight my former friend and I had. He insists that he is only "doing what is right" and what he is told to do. These statements obviously made me sick and I called him out on it. This led into a big fight that involved Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, both Bushies, and Obama. It was quite ugly, but surreal too.

me, I brought up Nuremberg... and that thing about illegal orders

Also learned that the usual training they used to be given on the laws of land warfare has been severely curtailed

That was the other thing that horrified his dad. Army Rangers were no boy scouts in the Nam, but they still received quite a bit more training on that.

with accountability and "just following orders." That's probably why it ended up so ugly. What he said was so close to that it made me want to vomit and I couldn't believe he was actually serious, but he was indeed, and worse. Like I said, I'm in shock. I can't believe he feels this way and that, worse, he seems to no longer have any qualms or questions about his role in even unintentional consequences.

now that he has admitted to it

That will help to bring things back to where they should be

in the recent years. Torture doesn't work, PERIOD, that's backed up by decades of CIA research on torture. Your ex-friend is either deluded, brainwashed and/or a traitor. CIA research shows that exposure to cold and sleep deprivation are the most effective means of "torture" for extracting "actionable intelligence" but only in the 1st few days of confinement, after that it's pure sadism. The problem with using such techniques is that the torturer is always guilty of torture, the detainee(s) may be quite innocent. For that reason alone, torture has always been considered a war crime and is morally repugnant to all civilization.

First off, unfortunately, it's due to his military training (the guy I almost fell out with was in the military as well).

The conversation started off innocent enough, but then it turned to how McCain made jokes about bombing Iran. He thought it was funny! Then we got into the whole topic of nuking countries and he turned into a person I didn't recognize. With a crazed look in his eyes, he said that we need to act first to keep Americans safe yada yada.

I was so disgusted and disappointed. I thought less of him as a person and had serious doubts about his intelligence for a while. But I decided that there were other things I like about him and I tried to focus on those things.

If the friendship is going to work the two of you have to avoid the topic completely. That's the only way.

At the same time, it's hard to keep a friendship going when you lose respect. Good luck!

by Matthew Alexander. Maybe it would be more effective to hear this from a pro. Just a thought.

I think part of the blame lies with Hollywood. Everyone thinks they can and should be like Jack Bauer.

television. A frighteningly large percentage of our population has lost all sense of reality, if it comes out of their display, it is true.

I was trained in a PSYOP unit and on many occasions worked with the interrogators (so I do have some authority here). I went ballistic on someone that told me it was alright to torture. My God what has happened to our humanity. It is never ever ok to torture. It yields poor information at best. I think once these people experience a taste of it they will change their tune. Damn Bush and Cheney for ever planting that seed.

I don't know how they train for interrogations now, but when I trained-it was Geneva Convention all the way. My great uncle who was in OSS )or OSI-the precursor to CIA, once told me he could get more info using a good meal than hours of persuasion (as he called it). Now I consider WWII info more pressing than anything to come out of Iraq.

I've been duped. I feel so used :dunce: