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by formerly_proven 2136 days ago
The Panetta review (CIA-internal) and the SSCI torture report (one of those "S"'s are for United States Senate) concluded that torture is largely inefficient at extracting information from extremists. You can torture someone for years on end with them still keeping the things you ask from you. Someone who doesn't know anything, will tell you anything, while someone with deep faith will feed you shit.
1 comments
petre 2136 days ago
It's true, however that didn't matter much in the USSR. What mattered is that somebody got punished, paperwork was taken care of and the agents were doing their jobs. All of this is nicely illustrated in the Citizen X movie, although in a different context.
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pmachinery 2136 days ago
Citizen X is an American drama. If it depicts what you're saying (I've seen it but can't remember it) then it's just another Western dramatization depicting post-Stalin Soviet Union in cliches from the 1930s.

In the real life case Citizen X is inspired by[0], nobody was tortured for a conviction, even the guilty man, who was simply put into a cell with a police informer to gather information and questioned normally by investigators who only had ten days under Soviet law to release or charge him.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo

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petre 2136 days ago
Post-Stalin Soviet Union clichés, of course. How do you think the wrongly arrested people confessed to the murders in the first place?

"At his trial, Kravchenko retracted his confession and maintained his innocence, stating his confession had been obtained under extreme duress."

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pmachinery 2136 days ago
> How do you think the wrongly arrested people confessed to the murders in the first place?

As in that example with Kravchenko, the same way false confessions occur in every country, pressure in some form from the police who want to convict their prime suspect / clear up a case.

It's indefensible but it's nothing unique to the Soviet Union and it's not uncommon.

https://theconversation.com/suspects-confess-to-crimes-they-...

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watwut 2136 days ago
That does not make citizen-x documentary. These movies were made from imagination.
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