France is now a strong US Ally?

[Colrom]

However, the dozen people involved in Abu Ghraib have been or are in the process of being tried for their deeds.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm reading a book by an expert on the development of torture techniques who asserts that the Abu Ghraib photos do not just show examples of wild late night antics by a few out of control guards but rather show good examples of the implementation of CIA torture techniques using sensory deprivation, self inflicted injury, and ego assualt - techniques which start right at the moment of capture when captives are hooded, blindfolded, and earmuffed, and then forced to assume high stress positions.

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds just boarding school sixth form detention ... :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know what you mean. I remember a a nasty Nun (most Nuns I remember were wonderful - but not her) whose favorite punishment was to have students hold their hands up in the air over their heads. It starts to hurt very quickly.

 

She may have been a CIA adviser and field tester!

Edited March 12, 2006 by Colrom

[metadigital]

I have been given, and in turn handed out, punishments like holding books in outstretched hands for periods upwards of an hour.

 

Not to mention latrine duty in cadets (very useful for inveterately poor behaviour ...) or just making sure shoes are polished for inspection, etc.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

One of the funniest ones I came across was having to keep a penny from falling while standing against a wall using your nose.

 

Holding rocks while keeping your arms locked is more what I would call a training exercise.

[Colrom]

Of course, its like the Chinese water drop torture.

 

The first drop is not a problem. "

 

Nor the next. "

 

Nor the next. "

 

Nor the next.

 

.

.

.

 

But eventually,

 

Since there is no end,

 

Its torture.

[julianw]

Back in elementary school, I had a teacher who called me thick-skinned and rubbed my face against a wall trying to thin it. I don't think it actually worked for me.

[Dark Moth]

But you didn't tell him anything. That's what counts!

[kumquatq3]

Holding rocks while keeping your arms locked is more what I would call a training exercise.

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It's great for your delts

[Blank]

I hate Bush as much as the next liberal Euro

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unless the next liberal Euro is Battlecookie...

[taks]

seems i recall them doing the water torture thing on mythbusters and it was annoying, but nothing major. the hardest part was lying there without being able to move.

 

taks

[alanschu]

I would imagine a few days worth of it and it'd be pretty farking annoying.

[Surreptishus]

I guess its like the sensory deprivation thing in that it certainly isn't harmful to the human body but it will mess with a person's mind - one of teh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay was to read Harry Potter at high volume at the detainess. (among other stuff)

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

one of teh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay was to read Harry Potter at high volume at the detainess. (among other stuff)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Talk about cruel and unusual.

[Girias_Solo]

The French Surrender monkeys.

 

At the start of WW2, France was a nation split between hardline political factions, mass changes of government, poor military doctrines and weak foreign affairs based upon British appeasment models. The US were, at the time, nowhere to be seen.

 

Even as the war progressed, party politics did their usual thing, decaying the state from the inside out. Progressives like Paul Reynaud and Charles DeGaulle were either too weak or too junior to really have an effect before the calamity struck. Britains contribution to the early war was pathetic and slow.

 

France itself was the same as any nation outside of Germany at the time, it used the current methods of warfare that all other nations used, and payed the price. Some younger commanders in the French, British, US, etc were eager to adopt new ways, but they were, as stated, young commanders without power.

 

A leading book, that was actually read and used by the Germans was 'The army of the future' by Charles DeGaulle, at that time an unpopular colonel in the French army who was a little too modern for the French military establishments tastes. Ironically, the french and British thought the book was trash. A German General staffer, Guderian, was thrilled by it, and expanded upon it in his own book 'Achtung panzer'.

 

Long story short, France got smashed. General Weygand and Marshal Petain, French war leaders from WW1, took control of the nation and ordered the government to capitulate to the germans and started a government of collaboration with the Nazi's. One man didn't. Charles DeGaulle.

 

Throughout the war, DeGaulle, with only minor help and massive interference from the British and especially the US, retook large amounts of the french empire and remade the french army under Free France. Without allowing anyone to take advantage of Frances weakness, he quickly recieved mass support from French people everywhere, even while under a formal death sentence 'in absentia' from the Vichy collaborators in France.

 

Constantly kept in the dark by his Allies, and with constant attempts to supplant him, gain influence over france, and be dictated too by the British and US governments, he managed to weld france together and give some fairly large assistance to the Allies with limited resources. It can be fairly stated that without DeGaulle, the Allies would have ****ed France over and given the communists a real chance of tearing the nation apart after WW2.

 

By all means, check out the history of DeGaulle and the attempts by the allies to take advantage of france at every level throughout WW2, you will no doubt have a little understanding as to why they viewed the US and Britain the way they did for so long.

 

Any race that existed in france during 1940 would have suffered the same defeat. It needed experience to realise just how good the adversary was they were facing and how poor their own doctrines were. The first time the US armies faced the Germans in North Africa they were handed their own arse.

 

I believe todays problems between France and the US stem from those encounters during and after WW2. Both sides took petty political revenge on each other every chance they could, thus leading to the current impasses that have happened.

 

IMO, both sides and both populations need to look at the childishness that they have done to each other over the past 60 years and learn to get over them instead of constantly berate each others flaws and mistakes. Both have a lot to offer to the other.

 

That is all. :cool:

 

PS: Im not French btw. Just a historian.

PSS: I noted someone here asked why the French don't respond often to English forums: first of all, the english language is not taught to the same degree as in many other European nations and second, how many of us know French (Or any other language besides English)?

Edited March 15, 2006 by Girias_Solo

[Nartwak]

tl;dr

[Colrom]

seems i recall them doing the water torture thing on mythbusters and it was annoying, but nothing major.  the hardest part was lying there without being able to move.

 

taks

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I remember that show!

 

You may want to find that show and look again!

 

The woman who tried to put up with the water dripping found it to be a very very major torture!

 

She was shaking and desperate to have it stopped after some relatively short time like fifteen minutes or half an hour!

 

You really need to find the video and look at it again!

[Lucius]

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I remember that show! 

 

You may want to find that show and look again! 

 

The woman who tried to put up with the water dripping found it to be a very very major torture! 

 

She was shaking and desperate to have it stopped after some relatively short time like fifteen minutes or half an hour! 

 

You really need to find the video and look at it again! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That had more to be with being strapped down than the actual drips.

 

If it's just dripping water, then it's about as irritating as a leaky tap.

[taks]

The woman who tried to put up with the water dripping found it to be a very very major torture! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i don't think the same problems occured with the guy that did it... i only saw him, btw, not the whole show. it seems maybe i did see the result as "plausible", but it's been a while.

 

taks

Edited March 15, 2006 by taks

[metadigital]

PS: Im not French btw. Just a historian.

PSS: I noted someone here asked why the French don't respond often to English forums: first of all, the english language is not taught to the same degree as in many other European nations and second, how many of us know French (Or any other language besides English)?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

PS It's Post Scriptum and Post Post Scriptum, and so abbreviated to PS and PPS.

PPS French is madatory in British schools as a second language. Just about every European learns a second European language: the Dutch are practically born with four languages. It's only the US where the Earth's languages are reduced to Sesame Street version of English, only.

[Lucius]

We get to choose between German and French. English is mandatory.

[alanschu]

I remember that show! 

 

You may want to find that show and look again! 

 

The woman who tried to put up with the water dripping found it to be a very very major torture! 

 

She was shaking and desperate to have it stopped after some relatively short time like fifteen minutes or half an hour! 

 

You really need to find the video and look at it again! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That had more to be with being strapped down than the actual drips.

 

If it's just dripping water, then it's about as irritating as a leaky tap.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If it's the Chinese torture I'm thinking of, it's quite a bit more than just being as irritating as a leaky tap. Most people don't lay beneath the leaky tap and let the water drip on to their forehead for extended periods of time.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Part of the experiement was to determine was it the water , or the being completely and painfully immobolised on a hard surface which caused the most suffering.

 

The latter got to the testers much more than the water did.

[Dark Moth]

PS It's Post Scriptum and Post Post Scriptum, and so abbreviated to PS and PPS.

PPS French is mandatory in British schools as a second language. Just about every European learns a second European language: the Dutch are practically born with four languages. It's only the US where the Earth's languages are reduced to Sesame Street version of English, only. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Surely you jest, sir.

 

The U.S. would really benefit from mandatory foreign language instruction. And it's not only western nations who do so, but easter ones, such as India as well. If I were to choose just two to be a requirement, it'd be Spanish and/or Mandarin Chinese. Heck, we can barely speak our own language, so I don't hypothesize that it will happen anytime son.

[alanschu]

Part of the experiement was to determine was it the water , or the being completely and painfully immobolised on a hard surface which caused the most suffering.

 

The latter got to the testers much more than the water did.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That wasn't the point I was addressing. I was talking about your claim that it is as irritating as a leaky tap.

 

 

Are you referring to the Mythbusters experiment?

[Surreptishus]

hehe, mothman, corrected meta's typo only to make his own... with the same letter.

 

More importantly, English is taught in Indian schools as a sort of throwback to their former colonial masters.

Edited March 15, 2006 by Surreptishus