Brain Study: Torture Impairs Suspects' Recall – Politics Daily

It is reported tonight by Ria Misra writing in Politics Daily and posted on AOL News that an Irish professor at Trinity College in Dublin has found in his study on torture that the information it gives is highly unreliable and in fact harms the brain’s ability to judge reality fairly quickly.

Here is an excerpt from her article:

"Professor Shane O’Mara of the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, who authored the review, calls rationales by the Bush administration — that torture can force a reluctant suspect to give up truthful information — "folk psychology." Instead, O’Mara says it’s more likely that the prolonged stress floods the brain with hormones that can drive it into a compromised, hyper-aware state. The hormones corrode the brain’s memory function and damage the person’s ability to form an intention or make a decision."

That is essentially what career CIA operatives that objected to torture years ago have been telling us all along.

And we have other news of interest to veterans.  This one is not so good either.  It seems that a Marine Corps sargent who has spent most of his career on Okinawa has claimed to be an Iraq war hero and has portrayed himself that way enough times for him to be placed on the docket for a court martial.  The story is here.

Why does every body have to be a hero? Can’t anybody just say "I served.  That was enough."  What is it with the whole John Wayne thing?

In yet another story in the unfolding saga of our anti-Taliban efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it now appears that the Obama Administration is considering using drones in the sky to kill Taliban inside Pakistan instead of using troops to kill them on the ground in Afghanistan.  The story is here.

Ahmm….errrr….ahhhh….Mr. President, excuse me sir, but ahhh…ummm….errr…that would be widening the war and taking it into Pakistan, right?  You were elected to end the war in Iraq and wind it down in Afghanistan.  Am I missing something, sir?

I am too exhausted to even try and understand this stuff anymore.

I am going to bed.