"Cruel Science: The Long Shadow of CIA Torture Research"
Alfred W. McCoy, Boston Globe, May 15, 2004
The photos from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are snapshots, not of simple
brutality or a breakdown in discipline, but of CIA torture techniques
that have metastasized, over the past 50 years, like an undetected
cancer inside the US intelligence community.
From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led massive, secret research into coercion
and consciousness that reached a billion dollars at peak. After
experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, electric shocks, and sensory
deprivation, this CIA research produced a new method of torture that
was psychological, not physical — best described as "no touch torture."
The CIA's discovery of psychological torture was a counter-intuitive
break-through — indeed, the first real revolution in this cruel
science since the 17th century. In its modern application, the
physical approach required interrogators to inflict pain, usually by
crude beatings that often produced heightened resistance or
unreliable information. Under the CIA's new psychological paradigm,
however, interrogators used two essential methods, disorientation and
self-inflicted pain, to make victims feel responsible for their own
suffering.