Creepy handwritten notes of CIA psychologist who helped design US torture techniques for terror detainees

Above: One of the items identified as notes produced by the infamous Dr. Bruce Jessen, a psychologist whose work was used to design the so-called "Enhanced interrogation techniques Program," which amounted to torture of "war on terror" detainees in custody of the CIA and Department of Defense. Truth-out.org published these a few weeks ago, but the Wikileaks dump of secret US documents on Guantánamo provide good reason to revisit. Dr. Jessen created this work as part of a US Air Force Survival Training study. You can download his handwritten and typed notes here in PDF, and a portion here in .zip.

• [EricT]

  This is what I imagine is in the back of all those friendly Scientology Centers.

  Also the Apple Store.

• [holtt]

  Here’s your torture diagram crossed with the VS Niapaul rules of writing…

  http://perludus.com/scratch/writing_torture_guidelines.png

  There’s a war on – between Proustians and Hemingway scholars.

  • [Anonymous]

    Well done holtt, well done indeed! I will be appropriating your handiwork post haste.
    Bloody Proustians….

• [protogenes]

  da Vinci for our times.

• [holtt]

  Imagine a remix of this diagram with V. S. Naipaul’s rules of editing…

• [Jack]

  For some reason I imagine someone being personally shown these charts being met with “Wait! Where are you going!” after they walk out the door.

• [Anonymous]

  They are not “detainees.” They are “prisoners.”

• [diracshard]

  Wait, so, what are they doing to Chuck Norris in that pic? Is he acting as some kind of router for prison torture techniques?

• [Anonymous]

  Description seems wrong.

  The document is all about the psychological preparation you need to cope with being a detainee. Yes, it’s a dark subject, but I don’t see anything particularly malicious here.

  The /subject/ is creepy in and of itself, but these notes seem like common sense and fairly good advice.

  Personally, I liked the section on “UNIVERSAL COPING METHODS”.

• [Anonymous]

  if you replace “detainment” for “unemployment” I find his notes useful while job hunting

• [Anonymous]

  The graphics of a DoD overhead projector presentation of that era in themselves constitute torture. Now we have ‘Death by Powerpoint’.

• [Anonymous]

  The figure and the notes have nothing to do with current GWOT/GITMO detainee operations.

  The posted graphic and the notes are intended for USAF SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) students to help them psychologically prepare for long periods of captivity and interrogation.

  The vast majority of SERE students are USAF/USN/USMC aircrew members; that’s why the male “prisoner” in the graphic is depicted wearing a ragged US Military-issue flight suit and facial hair.

  One of the tell-tale signs that the prisoner is a USAF/USN/USMC aircrew member is the inclusion of the shroud-cutter knife pocket above the left knee and the left-breast name-patch…you would not draw an info graphic of a GITMO detainee wearing a stylized nomex flight suit.

  As the author of the post probably intended, commenters have misunderstood the graphic and the notes and assumed that these are used for GWOT/GITMO detainee handling guidance…

  The notes/graphic are not recent nor used to train personnel involved with GWOT/GITMO detainee operations; they are old notes authored by Jessen who has done more recent GWOT consulting.

  Speaking as a former SERE student and instructor…

• [eagleapex]

  The prisoner in the image above looked pretty objectified, so I made him into an object: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8065

• [fraac]

  Graphic appears designed to encourage bribing of prisoners, not torturing them.

  • [LYNDON]

    I read it as encouraging bribery AND torture (punishment). The actions send people in the direction of the arrows.

    As with all behavioural programmes, how sensible this is depends on what behaviour you’re trying to encourage.

    I’m guessing this diagram (assuming interrogators==”friends”, but it works either way) suggests you should punish the gentleman every time he is terroristy and reward him every time he isn’t, and be will become less terroristy. Which rather glosses over, for eg, the way they will associate you with the punishment.

    And of course since the diagram doesn’t actually mention the ‘behaviour’ part of the equation, it reads like just randomly hitting him will make him like you more. Which is not correct, but would explain a lot.

    I’m not convinced they have though this all the way through.

    • [Stooge]

      Do you think your analysis of the thought processes underlying the diagram would have been more insightful if you had noticed that it comes from a lecture on coping with being held captive and not ‘Torture for Dummies’?

    • [manimalien]

      I don’t think that he “glossed over” who is being associated with the punishment. It says very clearly “from friends” and “from enemy.” He obviously recognized the importance of the distinction between those who deliver rewards and those who deliver punishment. The diagram is an extremely simplified version of what probably happens in reality.

• [Anonymous]

  @fracc: I think ‘punishment’ is a euphemism for live burials, near drownings, beatings, sexual humiliation, etc.

• [Lew]

  Dept of unfortunately reminiscent names. This chap is not to be confused with the late, great NZ public intellectual Bruce Jesson.

  L

• [sworm]

  Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.