#eric fair

[jamesoncoylewright]

January reading.

Consequence, A Memoir by Eric Fair (Read review here.)

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid (Read review here.)

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (Read review here.)

I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows (Read review here.)

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

This one is a dream and the delivery is poetic. A coming of age story that dives in to what black girlhood looks like, sounds like, tastes like, feels like. It should not be missed. 

[jamesoncoylewright]

Recently Read: Consequence, a memoir by Eric Fair 

This one was haunting. Covers Eric Fair’s time as an interrogator in Iraq and the devastating toll it took on him, his wife, his family, his faith... his entire life. It was a rough read - truly eye opening - but very important. It’s important to be uncomfortable. It’s important to expose.

[dunnetwins]

We tell each other we'll get it right next time. We'll put our lives on the line. We'll do it the honorable way. I don't know how, but we still believe one exists.

Consequence by Eric Fair

[washingtonspectator]

A Torturer’s Confessions

USAF Photo by SSGT Jacob N. Bailey    On May 16, journalist Michael Isikoff reported that the CIA inspector general’s office, the agency’s internal watchdog, admitted to “mistakenly” destroying its only copy of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s infamous 6,700-page torture report. While another copy is reported to exist elsewhere in the agency, little else is known about its integrity or its…

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[benjianders-blog]

Fair scores!!!

Pittsburgh 3-1 San Jose

[dunnetwins]

My Christian faith still serves as the foundation for how I interact with the world around me. Iraq exposed just how weak and compromised that foundation could be. I will never again approach the issue of faith from a position of confidence, presuming to know how that faith will affect my actions or influence my personality. Instead, I approach Christianity with a deep sense of humility, recognizing that my overseas experiences have exposed my weaknesses not as an isolated mistake, but as a marker of my true identity.

Eric Fair

[dunnetwins]

i strongly suggest reading the op ed owning up to torture by former interrogator eric fair, because it gives important insight into how and why things like waterboarding happened, and why talking about horrible things in our history and condemning them is so important.

we all like to think that there are lines that we would never cross, things that we would never do. we need to consider whether or not those assumptions are actually true, or if we would be able to justify terrible things so long as our motivations are ‘good’. 

these are hard questions, but it’s so much better to think them through than to realize, all too late, that you have done what you thought you could never do, and you cannot make it right.

“When Donald Trump and Ted Cruz suggested that waterboarding and other abhorrent interrogation tactics should not be considered illegal, I was tempted to exonerate myself. I did not waterboard anyone in Iraq. I’d like to think that’s a line I would never cross. But I have no right to think that way. My behavior in Iraq forces me to confess that if I’d been asked to waterboard someone at Abu Ghraib in early 2004, I most likely would not have hesitated. I’d have crossed that line, too.

If I had the opportunity to speak to other interrogators and intelligence professionals, I would warn them about men like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. I would warn them that they’ll be told to cross lines by men who would never be asked to do it themselves, and they’ll cross those lines long before they consider anything like waterboarding. And I would warn them that once they do cross the line, those men will not be there to help them find their way back.

[...]

As an interrogator, torture forced me to set aside my humanity when I went to work. It’s something I’ve never been able to fully pick back up again. And it’s something we must never ask another American to do.”

[dunnetwins]

Information can be gathered in a number of different ways. My most effective interrogation in Iraq was a prisoner that simply wanted to cooperate. He walked in, and I was tired. It was near the end of my time in Fallujah. And I simply wanted to write a report and send him home. But within the first five minutes, he said that he wanted a piece of cake and some juice, and I spent hours with him gathering what was essentially critical intelligence information. Now, certainly, the argument can be made—or, well, I shouldn’t say "certainly." People have made the argument that torture can gain information. But this brings me back to what you started with, with the statements from Ted Cruz and Donald Trump and those. But what you didn’t show was the next statement, was from Marco Rubio. And Marco Rubio said that he would not tell his enemies what we were doing, and he would not advertise what our techniques are. And that is exactly wrong. That is not the way the United States should operate. We should absolutely be telling people what we do. And we should absolutely be telling our prisoners what they will expect in detention, that they will be well taken care of, that they will be watched over until the end of the conflict. If they want to cooperate, they will be—we’re more than happy to speak with them, but we will not in any way torture.

Eric Fair | Ex-Abu Ghraib Interrogator: Israelis Trained U.S. to Use "Palestinian Chair" Torture Device | Democracy Now!