I’m watching Chris Matthews, sadly, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) thinks waterboarding isn’t torture because we used it on our own people during SERE school.
Let me tell you my little knowledge of SERE school.
They take “students”, put them into a MOCK scenario where they are behind enemy lines, teach them to escape and evade, to resist, and, during it, we waterboard the students UNTIL they break.
Is that torture? YES. If you torture a person, no matter whose soldiers it is, until they break, it IS torture.
Chris Matthew’s just made a great point; no one during this training MEANS to harm them, much less kill them. PRISONERS in our custody do not have that.
A SERE instructor once stated that they WANT to break the students just so they can learn how to heal themselves afterwards. Mothers of SERE students have called what was done to their sons torture. Why? Because it IS torture. It is a mental and physical process with one goal; to break the student.
We call that training. When others do it, we call it torture.
I almost cross-trained out of EOD into SERE school as an instructor. When I learned what I’d be doing, I decided NOT to cross-train. I found out that I would be asked, if a female was in the group, to pull the female away from the male students, “mock” rape her, then brag about her rape in front of the males. The goal? To drive the helplessness feeling in the men.
I couldn’t do that.
Is this a “fine line”? Sure it is. Brutality in training is not new. Every year recruits die at Parris Island, the Marine corp basic training base. We here of fewer deaths at Fort Jackson, the Army basic training base. Training is grueling and it can, and does, end in death for some. We are trying to prepare our soldiers for WAR. So, of course we want to prepare out soldiers for TORTURE. But, you do that BY torturing them in the safest environment you can.
Years ago, in chemical warfare school, they used live agents during training. Now, they use simulated agents. That’s a fact. But, you simply cannot “simulate” torture.
The GOP think this is a winner for them, trying to make people claim we “torture” our own troops. I say to the Democrats, call a hearing, SERE instructors, students, and family members. You’ll learn, very quick, that yes, we DO torture our own people in the name of training.