{"id":15647,"date":"2009-08-26T10:33:16","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T16:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=15647"},"modified":"2009-08-26T10:33:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T16:33:27","slug":"mock-executions-and-the-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/26\/mock-executions-and-the-media.html","title":{"rendered":"Mock executions and the media"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much is being made in the CIA Inspector General’s report<\/a> of the various torturous and illegal thing that were done, but one caught my eye: mock executions.<\/p>\n

The report here talks of cases where prisoners were fooled into thinking they were going to be executed, either by direct threat, or by staging mock executions (e.g., hearing an interrogation going on next door, followed by a gunshot, a thud, then silence).<\/p>\n

Such threats are forbidden by US law, not to mention the Geneva Convention and similar old-fashioned Euro-weenie-liberal-socialist rags.<\/p>\n

What caught my eye, though, is that this is something the American public expects. We shrink back from (well, most of us do) actual thumb-screws and water-boarding types of pain infliction. We get uncomfortable over the idea of slapping a prisoner around, relegating the rubber hose and the “third degree” to old film noir, not how we want our police (or military) behaving in general. And I think most people would agree that threatening to rape someone’s mother and\/or kill their children is reprehensible behavior.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

But the “hey, let’s fool this guy into thinking he’s going to die” entrapment scheme was a regular staple on, of all things, Mission: Impossible<\/em>. The third episode of the first season, “Operation: Rogosh<\/a>,” deals with fooling a commie agent \/ asssassin (play to the hilt by Fritz Weaver) into thinking he’s been arrested by the homeland and will be executed unless he spills the beans about a “ticking time bomb” plot (which the IMF wants to avert). It’s an excellent episode, a classic IMF caper, and includes both the promise of an execution, a mock execution of another “prisoner” held out in the courtyard where Rogosh can see, and an actual death threat.<\/p>\n

Most people seeing this episode, even today, would probably cheer, and say, “How clever,” not to mention, “If only Mr. Briggs and his IM Force were in charge of Gitmo, we’d know all sorts of things” (and the facility would cost about ten times more to run, but that’s a side detail).<\/p>\n

So is the IMF a terror organization, and Mr. Briggs & Co. war criminals (who can be conveniently “disavowed” if indicted)? Is this a case of where the entertainment media hasn’t caught up with (since I’m pretty sure similar “capers” can still be found in today’s TV and movies) the law? Is this a case of being desensitized by TV (emotional) violence? Or a case of “acceptable” cognitive dissonance on my part?<\/p>\n

I dunno. But I still find the behavior of the interrogators (I just mistyped “interrorgators”) in the IG report to be loathsome, and at the same time I still love Mission: Impossible<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So much is being made in the CIA Inspector General’s report of the various torturous and illegal thing that were done, but one caught my eye: mock executions. The report here talks of cases where prisoners were fooled into thinking they were going to be executed, either by direct threat, or by staging mock executions … Continue reading “Mock executions and the media”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeland-security","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19633,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/21\/unblogged-bits-tue-21-dec-10-2230.html","url_meta":{"origin":15647,"position":0},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 21-Dec-10 2230)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Dec-10 10:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... 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