A fork of Rural Dictionary
Newspeak for torture, used by the CIA and its allies. "Stress and duress" tactics are used in interrogations, and refer to a variety of tortures and forms of mistreatment which the CIA thinks are OK. These include: sleep deprivation overload of light complete darkness stripping and sexually humiliating prisoners threatening to torture and rape prisoners threatening prisoners' families making prisoners stand, sit etc. in uncomfortable positions to induce pain denial of satisfaction of basic rights and needs such as food, bedding, clothing and exercise deliberate cultural insensitivity and intolerance verbal abuse use of painful "restraint" techniques beatings
These techniques are widespread also in US prisons, although nominally illegal. They are more widely used in deregulated offshore gulags such as Guantanamo Bay, abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Don't be fooled - these tactics ARE TORTURE, and are defined as such both by the UN and by experts in trauma. Their role is to break down the sense of personality of the prisoner and to deliberately induce psychological trauma and crisis. They are directly referred to in CIA handbooks - so the photos from abu Ghraib show a systematic pattern of torture, NOT rogue acts by a few stupid/evil/misguided soldiers.