Is the Bush Administration slipping hallucinogenics into TPMuckraker's water?
...or is this lunacy all-natural?
By Moe Lane Posted in National Security — Comments (25) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
We have here a breathless sort of title: Is U.S. Government [sic] Using LSD for Interrogations?
In a new court filing on behalf of alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla, his lawyers allege that government interrogators forced him to take LSD, Gerstein reported.
"Additionally, Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations," he quotes the filing.
There's a long answer and a short answer to that question-title. Short answer: Umm, no.
Longer answer past the fold.
I should be kinder. Rood admits in the next paragraph:
Now, There are some important details that aren't explained: Padilla's lawyers don't say what effects the prisoner reported to make them conclude it was LSD or PCP, nor do they report how many times such a drug or drugs were administered. And as any self-respecting child of the D.A.R.E era knows, LSD and PCP typically produce wildly different behavior (neither of which is particularly helpful if you're trying to get information out of someone).
...then again, he then goes right off into the happy land where anything may be believed of the Bush Administration, the CIA, the United States Navy or anybody else ever gifted with the title 'Them', so perhaps I shouldn't be kinder, either.
Let me explain, for those who are currently getting over a bout of BDS themselves: you do not give a prisoner PCP, particularly when it comes to interrogations. This is one of those little rules in life, like "Do not randomly skin and wear other people's pets" or "Chainsaws are for yard work, not dentistry" or "Don't hit a man in the head with your bare fist unless you're naked and your feet are nailed to the floor*." Let the National Institute on Drug Abuse explain why:
PCP is addictive—its repeated abuse can lead to craving and compulsive PCP-seeking behavior. First introduced as a street drug in the 1960s, PCP quickly gained a reputation as a drug that could cause bad reactions and was not worth the risk. After abusing PCP once, many people will not knowingly abuse it again. Others attribute their continued abuse to feelings of strength, power, invulnerability, and a numbing effect on the mind.
Many PCP abusers are brought to emergency rooms because of PCP overdose or because of the drug's unpleasant psychological effects. In a hospital or detention setting, these people often become violent or suicidal and are very dangerous to themselves and others. They should be kept in a calm setting and not be left alone.
At low to moderate doses, physiological effects of PCP include a slight increase in breathing rate and a pronounced rise in blood pressure and pulse rate. Breathing becomes shallow, and flushing and profuse sweating occur. Generalized numbness of the extremities and loss of muscular coordination also may occur.
At high doses of PCP, blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration drop. This may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, flicking up and down of the eyes, drooling, loss of balance, and dizziness. High doses of PCP can also cause seizures, coma, and death (though death more often results from accidental injury or suicide during PCP intoxication). High doses can cause symptoms that mimic schizophrenia, such as delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, disordered thinking, a sensation of distance from one's environment, and catatonia. Speech is often sparse and garbled.
[Bolded parts are those sections that make PCP/angel dust particularly unsuitable for a truth serum.]
In other words, this is not a 'truth serum'; this is a 'pick up the chair and smash people with it serum'. Trust me, the Navy knows the difference. As for LSD, the same source:
The effects of LSD are unpredictable. They depend on the amount taken; the user's personality, mood, and expectations; and the surroundings in which the drug is used. Usually, the user feels the first effects of the drug 30 to 90 minutes after taking it. The physical effects include dilated pupils, higher body temperature, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dry mouth, and tremors.
Sensations and feelings change much more dramatically than the physical signs. The user may feel several different emotions at once or swing rapidly from one emotion to another. If taken in a large enough dose, the drug produces delusions and visual hallucinations. The user’s sense of time and self changes. Sensations may seem to "cross over," giving the user the feeling of hearing colors and seeing sounds. These changes can be frightening and can cause panic.
Users refer to their experience with LSD as a "trip" and to acute adverse reactions as a "bad trip." These experiences are long; typically they begin to clear after about 12 hours.
Some LSD users experience severe, terrifying thoughts and feelings, fear of losing control, fear of insanity and death, and despair while using LSD. Some fatal accidents have occurred during states of LSD intoxication.
On the surface, more reasonable an interrogation drug, yes? Good for putting somebody off balance, as it were. Except that it's a bloody hallucinogen, which means that you can't actually rely on any information that you get from the person once he's off-balance. Also note that, like PCP, LSD handily mucks up a polygraph and visual cues. Hard to measure sweat and heart rate if the subject varies wildly on it from second to second. Not to mention how its hard to do an interrogation when the room is suddenly full of what look like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the table...
It's a Hunter S. Thompson reference.
OK, I'm aware that this sort of thing is all too credible to those of us - excuse me; those of you - who hold the belief that the Bush Administration is the sum total of human evil in the universe. I'm pretty sure that the folks who 'merely' equate American counterterrorist interrogation techniques with, say, pre-liberation Iraqi rape/murder rooms are equally credulous when it comes to this sort of thing. Your privilege, folks. But stuff like the TPMuckraker article is just silly, and unless you've got funny brain chemistry, it's preventable silliness. Get a grip.
I mean, come on. Angel dust? Angel dust? That just makes you look dumb.
Moe
*SM Stirling's rule of thumb, and it's a darned good one.
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Is the Bush Administration slipping hallucinogenics into TPMuckraker's water? 25 Comments (0 topical, 25 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
....on the purple dragon hiding in the corner.
...and the Giant Spiders of Allah.
I mean, come on. That took, what, five or ten minutes to research? Here I was expecting the stuff of conspiracy theories. Like our guys were hopping up detainees on addictive substances and letting them rot and then using their addictions as a tool for extracting information from them. That, at the very least, would indicate that the forces of the U.S. are still as inventive and creative as ever.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
That reminds me, you remember that supergoo that Jack Bauer and his lovely lady were compelled to take in the last season of 24? What was that?
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
— Thomas Paine
Her description went something like: "It's like you're partying with Jesus and the angels-- except that if anything ever annoys you for any reason, you have this uncontrollable urge to pound the living $#!+ out of it so that you can be sure that it will never ever ever ever annoy you ever again."
LSD, on the other hand, seems to have two major effects: first, it turns up the gain on life-- good things, even trivial ones, seem that much better; however bad things seem that much worse. The second is more along the level of a brain reset; you basically lose all the learned behaviours you've learned since early childhood. One way of putting it is that it doesn't change who you are, rather it makes you more like who you are rather than who you've become. Needless to say, the combined effect is pretty much impossible to predict, especially since one's own mental state at the time going into it plays a large role. (One friend of mine told me that while on one trip in particular, she discovered that she couldn't hide things from herself any more that she had been hiding, which since she was in the process of dropping out of college at the time, made for not such a good time.)
The idea of either being any use at all in interrogations is ludicrous on its face.
---
Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
While I agree that it is highly unlikely Padilla has been administered either LSD or PCP, it is, however, common knowledge that our government experimented with using LSD as a type of truth serum back during the Hoover days. I remember this from a class, Opium and Power, that I took at college. A brief google search will provide many sources if you care to research it further.
Knew before the article in question, in fact. None of which contradicts the statement that this story doesn't meet the smell test, which was both the point of the post - and apparently something that both you and I agree upon.
So I guess that I'm missing why you bothered replying.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
If you knew this already, why didn't you include it in your initial post? Part of the logic behind your assertion is that of common sense. Surely, the government wouldn't be so silly as to try and use such an ill-suited drug as a truth serum is one of the pillars of your argument. Does the fact that the government has tried just this approach before not somewhat compromise your argument? And perhaps this is why you chose not to include it in your initial post? Nobody in the government would be stupid enough to try and use LSD as a truth serum.....except for the one time they did. See where I'm coming from?
I don't think it's likely, but then again, I wouldn't have thought it likely in the 1960's either... If you knew this fact, you should have mentioned it in the post. You could have still made the same points almost as effectively and avoided spin in favor of full disclosure.
That's the reason I replied...
I think it is possible that he was given either or both and even more probable that he was told that he was told that he was drugged whether or not it actually happen.
Think this through, a key part of interrogation is to disoreint and provoke fear as, at least, part of the softening up process. As was pointed out above there is ample evidence of the US, USSR doing just this in the 60s.
Read the Atlantic article on torture. Again, as mentioned above it seems unlikely that he was actually question under drugs but for drugs to be part of the overall interrogation seem immenintly plausible.
...that Padilla was dressed up in a diaper and made to chase nurses dressed like smurfs*. Call me when there's a video, signed statement or eyewitness testimony of either scenario.
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
*Thank you, Da Vinci's Notebook.
I'd recommend that you all go back to the TPMuckraker site where they talk about the "Bybee Memo" in which the Bush White House discussed (twice, in 2002 and 2004) exactly this type of detainee treatment.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001801.php
Now that's an odd coincidence...?
Sure, it seems stupid to use either of these drugs for interrogation but, then again, plenty of military and intelligence officers say that torture itself is flat out stupid and produces unreliable information. Has that stopped the Bush Administration from pushing to allow the torture of detainees? Put another way, how many readers on this site would admit to practicing witchcraft after spending a little time with inquisitors at the dunking pool?
As for the history behind this, really, it's not that hard to find out about. Try the following book for a start:
Acid dreams : the CIA, LSD, and the sixties rebellion. / Lee, Martin A. / 1st Grove Press ed. / New York / 1985
Your comment suggests you're here merely to make trouble.
I'm going to choose to believe you're not.
Your last paragraph suggests you can't read.
I'm going to choose to believe that even someone living in Austin can.
So here's our bargain: You read articles all the way through; and be polite in your diction and characterizations (this does not mean "agree"; it means "be polite"); and I'll let you keep posting here.
Good luck.
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
In the future, it might be helpful to link to someone who not only read Moe's post, but actually posted a rebuttal to it.
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
I can't vouch for what the brain trust at TPMuckraker did with the baker's dozen of neurons they have but if one actually reads the Bybee Memo one would find this hidden in the second paragraph
We conclude that the mental harm also must result from one of the predicate acts listed in the statute, namely: threats of imminent death; threats of infliction of the kind of pain that would amount to physical torture; infliction of such physical pain as a means of psychological torture; use of drugs or other procedures designed to deeply disrupt the senses, or fundamentally alter an individual’s personality; or threatening to do any of these things to a third party.
The boldface is mine as I didn't want to make you read too much.
So it would seem that your own reference undercuts your own point and rather makes you out a twit.
streiff, do you realize that the paragraph you quote describes techniques that are allowed so long as they do not cause long term mental disorders, physical disabilities or death?
-mcr
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in a round world if you're fool enough to keep going you'll end up in the same place whether you head out to the left or the right.
Sure, it seems stupid to use either of these drugs for interrogation but, then again, plenty of military and intelligence officers say that torture itself is flat out stupid and produces unreliable information. Has that stopped the Bush Administration from pushing to allow the torture of detainees?
You are assuming they are talking about the same thing. When an interrogator says that torture is unreliable he may be talking about pulling a detainee's fingernails. When some moonbat from Amnesty International talks about torture he's talking about speaking harshly to the detainee.
John
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Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
Thomas,
Thanks for the primer on diction and manners and for so generously giving me a second chance to post. Just curious, was your implication (and Streiff's) that I can't read an example of the kind of politeness to which you encourage me to aspire?
As for your comment that the TPMuckraker has to be a direct rebuttal to Moe's piece... hmm... are those new internet rules? Obviously, Rood at TPM had read the piece since it was their link that brought me here to meet my new friends at RedState. The posting at TPM merely presented evidence that the drugged interrogation story, as weird as it seems, was more compelling than it might appear at first glance, especially in light of the "Bybee Memo."
As for your and Strieff's suggestion that I can't read because of the guidelines in the "Bybee Memo" seeming to limit the amount of damage permissible to inflict through forced drugging (and thanks for the excerpt Strieff, which, by the way, I had read). It behooves one to remember that this is an administration that is most enamored of redefining torture -- for example, "water boarding." No, it's not something you do at the beach. Strung up by your manacled hands all day long? What do they call that, "yoga"? No, that sounds like some liberal thing... let's call it a "stress position." What I'm illustrating here, guys, is that it's all in the definition of what's "deeply disrupting" or "fundamentally altering" a person's personality. This administration is fond of pushing the envelope on such things so I don't put much credence in the idea that these guidelines mean much in practice. Doesn't the fact that this was under discussion at the highest levels of government during which such abuses were alleged to have occurred seem a bit suspect to you?
In the interest of civil discourse I am now refraining from any snarky parting words.
Streiff's quote from the Bybee Memo ...
We conclude that the mental harm also must result from one of the predicate acts listed in the statute, namely: threats of imminent death; threats of infliction of the kind of pain that would amount to physical torture; infliction of such physical pain as a means of psychological torture; use of drugs or other procedures designed to deeply disrupt the senses, or fundamentally alter an individual’s personality; or threatening to do any of these things to a third party.
Key words later in the memo give ample hedge and complicate the above quote: "intend," "prolonged," "deeply," "fundamentally," "profoundly disrupt," "extreme effect," "calculated," and "designed" . For the administration of LSD to constitute torture, the memo details the harm threshold required:
"..inability to retain any new informaton or recall information about things previously of interest to the individual."
".. deterioration of language function, eg. repeating sounds or words over and over again; impaired ability to execute simple motor activities, e.g., inability to dress or wave goodbye; inability to recognize and identify such objects as pencils or chairs." (p. 11)
Padilla doesn't seem this far zonked so be assured, the LSD didn't constitute torture.
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/doj/bybee80102mem.p...
If it's so ludicrous that they'd consider administering LSD, it seems even more odd that so much latitude was given in ensuring that it wouldn't be unlawful to do so.
I read in military manuals that water-boarding and other explicitly allowed techniques provide unreliable information; but my uncle astutely pointed out that is still useful. If you apply similar techniques to a large number of people you look for the common threads in the accumulated confessions to find out what isn't fabricated.
The same technique could certainly be applied to LSD induced confessions.
And to explicitly state that it forbidden to cause long term mental damage as a result of the "use of drugs or other procedures designed to deeply disrupt the senses" does imply it is ok to use these drugs in such a way that they don't cause long term-debilitating harm.
Of course, if what I've read about LSD is accurate there are some common experiences regardless. So I'm going to assume there is enough intelligence in our intelligence that we won't find ourselves in an Orange Alert due to the attack of the fifty foot snakes coming from you eyes.
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in a round world if you're fool enough to keep going you'll end up in the same place whether you start out to the left or the right.
Clearly the left has a much better understanding of the long term effects of drug use than most of us at RS would be familiar with. As experts they can be trusted, except of course, when the fifty foot snakes are coming from you eyes.
John
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Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
He's saving the mescaline for 10 days out to get the hard core boomer on the brink of death by burnout dem vote.
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com and www.race42008.com
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
Rood posts a follow-up in which essentially his entire proof is the failure of DoD to give Padilla's lawyer a free look at Padilla's medical file.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill