From this Month's Harpers, a couple of points on Torture and counterinsurgency

[n2doc]

From the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, prepared by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and released in December. Twenty years have passed since the Army last updated its counterinsurgency manual.

LIMITS ON INTERROGATION
During the Algerian War of Independence, French leaders decided to permit torture against suspected insurgents. Though they were aware that it was against the law and morality of war, they argued that this was a new form of war and these rules did not apply. Illegal and immoral activities made the counterinsurgents extremely vulnerable to enemy propaganda inside Algeria among the Muslim population, as well as in the United Nations and the French Media. Torture is never a morally permissible option, even in situations where lives depend on gaining information. No exceptional circumstances permit its use. In the end, failure to comply with moral and legal restrictions against torture severely undermined French efforts and, despite a number of significant military victories, contributed to France’s defeat.
(emphasis mine)

Also, from “Dead End, Counterinsurgency warfare as military malpractice”, by Edward N. Luttwak in the same issue, this was an interesting point:

“FM-34 DRAFT (the counterinsurgency field manual) ends with a list of suggested readings, and one of the first books on the list is Small wars: a tactical handbook for Imperial Soldiers (1890) by Charles E Calwell. The previous counterinsurgency manual FM 3-07.22, also had such a list, and its first suggested reading was The battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria, 1955-1957, by Paul Aussaresses. Is it therefore the case that counterinsurgency doctrine has been evolving backward, from the doubts of the 1950’s to the certitudes of 1890?”

I don’t have a link for either of these so I typed this in, but when such a link becomes available the Luttwak article is worth reading in its entirety and is eye opening. I wish someone would ask Dick or any of the other neocons "so, what makes you think that you know more about counterinsugency than the Army and Marine Corps? And what is this source of information that is so powerful that you would direct our armed forces to ignore their own Field Manuals on the subject?"

[n2doc]

1. Also, a related point from the LA times

'24' gets a lesson in torture from the experts
By Martin Miller, Times Staff Writer
February 13, 2007

Hollywood is notorious for its meetings, but even by L.A. standards this one was unusual.

A few steps away from the CTU set of Fox's "24," an unlikely alliance of human rights activists, the dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and veteran interrogators with experience stretching from Saigon to Abu Ghraib gathered around two tables in mid-November. The group was there to meet with some of the creative forces behind "24," one of television's most successful serialized dramas, famous for its relentless derring-do depiction of an American counter terrorism unit.

The East Coast crowd didn't fly into town to pitch another quasi-military action series, but rather to advance a simple plea -- Make your torture scenes more authentic.

By that, they did not mean bloodier or more savage. Instead, they wanted "24" to show torture subjects taking weeks or months to break, spitting out false or unreliable intelligence, and even dying. As they do in the real world.

"We're not opposed to having torture on television, but 98% of the time when it is shown it's 'Bing, bang, boom,' and it works," said David Danzig, director of the Prime Time Torture Project for the New York-based organization Human Rights First. "Frankly, it's unrealistic and it's kind of boring."

More troubling, the disparate group told "24" writers and executive producers, are the social and political consequences of television's current version of torture and who is performing it. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, prime-time television has seen a surge of torture sequences.

From 1996 to 2001, there were 102 scenes of torture, according to the Parents Television Council. But from 2002 to 2005, that figured had jumped to 624, they said. "24" has accounted for 67 such scenes during its first five seasons, making it No. 1 in torture depictions, according to the watchdog group.

The increase in quantity is not the only difference. During this uptick in violence, the torturer's identity was more likely to be an American hero like "24's" Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) than the Nazis and drug dealers in pre-9/11 days. The action-packed show, which drew a hefty 13.6 million viewers last week, was among the first and certainly the most prominent to have its main character choke, stab, or electrocute — among other techniques — information out of villains.

"It's unthinkable that Capt. Kirk would torture someone," said Danzig.

While hardly alone in the entertainment universe of television and movies in portraying torture, shows like "24" and later ABC's "Lost" were sought out by the human rights activists because of their immense popularity, both here and around the world. Even in Iraq, such series can sometimes substitute for or trump military training, and transmit a dark message to soldiers.

"Everyone wanted to be a Hollywood interrogator," said Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq who spoke to the creative teams from "24" and "Lost." "That's all people did in Iraq was watch DVDs of television shows and movies. What we learned in military schools didn't apply anymore."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-torture13feb13,1,208395.story