"This essay, Torture's Long Shadow, is one of the most insightful and compassionate examinations of the effects of torture on human beings. The author, Vladimir Bukovsky, was tortured as a dissident in the former Soviet Union.
"Here's one powerful passage from the essay, regarding the impact of torture on the torturers:
Today, when the White House lawyers seem preoccupied with contriving a way to stem the flow of possible lawsuits from former detainees, I strongly recommend that they think about another flood of suits, from the men and women in your armed services or the CIA agents who have been or will be engaged in CID practices. Our rich experience in Russia has shown that many will become alcoholics or drug addicts, violent criminals or, at the very least, despotic and abusive fathers and mothers.
"The author's account of the psychological toll of his own bloody intranasal force-feeding on the people who inflicted it truly devastating. In the end, he "won" because his punishment was destroying his captors much faster than it was destroying him."
And here: "Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph Stalin's notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of solving the simplest of crimes. And once the NKVD went into high gear, not even Stalin could stop it at will. He finally succeeded only by turning the fury of the NKVD against itself; he ordered his chief NKVD henchman, Nikolai Yezhov (Beria's predecessor), to be arrested together with his closest aides."
"This essay, Torture's Long Shadow, is one of the most insightful and compassionate examinations of the effects of torture on human beings. The author, Vladimir Bukovsky, was tortured as a dissident in the former Soviet Union.
"Here's one powerful passage from the essay, regarding the impact of torture on the torturers:
"The author's account of the psychological toll of his own bloody intranasal force-feeding on the people who inflicted it truly devastating. In the end, he "won" because his punishment was destroying his captors much faster than it was destroying him."
And here:"Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph Stalin's notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of solving the simplest of crimes. And once the NKVD went into high gear, not even Stalin could stop it at will. He finally succeeded only by turning the fury of the NKVD against itself; he ordered his chief NKVD henchman, Nikolai Yezhov (Beria's predecessor), to be arrested together with his closest aides."