Thank's for the insights UnderseaLcpl, good to hear first hand accounts.
Can't say I really enjoy hearing about sleep deprivation and keeping detainees in hot metal containers. Reminds me of the '
convoy of death' in Afghanistan which may or may not have been as bad as the legend has it.
Yes I don't know, it's difficult for one person in a military to improve things, usually a foot soldier is just a pawn and has very little influence on operating procedures. I guess a group of individual soldiers might be responsible for the mistreatment of a prisoner or two but usually the orders come from the higher ups. Meaning that the individual soldiers can be guilty like Lynndie England but that the real culprits are the higher ups.
There were mistreatment of POW's in WW2 Finland, many prisoners died of starvation and/or diseases so we don't have a high horse in this issue. Lately we've kept out of wars meaning we haven't been put into a position where we would have to either torture or not torture.
And about water torture, I'd call it torture, real torture with no reservations. It's very dangerous if we start to talk about water torture as 'torture lite'. Also the risk of death/trauma both physical and mental is very big in water torture so I see no reason to belittle it. And yes, during basic training and military service there is all kinds of stuff that would qualify as mistreatment or torture. Militaries of the world get away with a lot.