Captivity, Interrogation, Torture and Dehumanization

Everyone of us know what is the Boat Shed for in our Procedural Drama NCIS Los Angeles. Its a secret place, an undisclosed location where suspects who might have who might have aided directly or indirectly a breach to national security of United States, are taken taken for questioning that might lead to a disclosure of more information. The usefulness of the boat shed serves the purpose of keeping the subjects in captivity under the Patriot Act until the case is solved without having to go through the normal channels of law and justice which makes the Enforcement laws do not allow suspects to be "charged" without sufficient evidence and Legal process makes the "Charged" remain "Not Guilty until Proven".

Under the AUMF legislation, Detention centers had been opened up Security Agencies, primary one being CIA. The AUMF legislation also gave rights to the President of United States and CIA to enhance interrogation methods to enhance questioning techniques. Such questioning techniques however, later came to be suspect. The Detention and Rendition of the Captives became a subject of Human Rights Violation. The most famous or rather infamous example known to the whole world has been the Guantanemo Bay, symbolic of the extraordinary rendition "The covert transportation for interrogation of a foreigner suspected of crimes such as terrorism to another country known to have harsher and less stringently regulated methods of interrogation."

One can wonder, why I am talking about Boatshed, Interrogation, Detention and Rendition. Our NCIS Agents are good guys. They are not CIA. They don't use questionable techniques such as used or abused by CIA. Then how is it all relevant. Well...to begin with, under Patriot Act legislation, our Agents do practice certain amount of unregulated questioning during the detention at an undisclosed center. And the interrogation room's floor is right on the water surface. Suffocation through Immersion in water is very much allowed and acceptable. Even, then one can wonder, what is the point of writing all this. Well, the 5x19-Spoils of War Episode made me write about all this. Season 5 is all about Captivity, Interrogation, Torture and Execution while in detention. Don't you agree with me ? Who are the writers who are able to show us this commentary on present times?! Frank Military and R S Gemmill. 

It is the episodes 5x01-Ascension, 5x02-Impact, 5x14-War Cries and 5x19-Spoils of War which present us the commentary through Deeks, the non-Agent and affiliated to the Security Agency through his Liaison Role from local enforcement Agency LA Police Department and the Navy Seal Sam Hanna directly involved in Govenment's mission criticial National Security Assignments. While Deeks as a Cop is supposed to protect people under his care by himself following the rules, Sam as the Soldier, as the Navy Seal, protects people whom he is supposed to take care by whatever means possible, even if it means breaking rules. While its Civilian order that Deeks is trained to work for, Sam forever is in a War situation. That is the difference between these two characters and that is how it gets interesting to see Gemmill and Military's comment on the dark side of war adventures where instead of victory, we have to take the fall.

Deeks goes through an unreasonable torture in 5x01-Ascension during his captivity by Siderov to give up on Sam and Michelle's identity. An interrogation and torture that leaves him with a PTSD, an impact which is reasonably shown in 5x02-Impact. One might wonder, why Deeks' torture and subsequent PTSD recovery was so significant. The argument is that even Sam underwent torture, then how he is able to recover and why can't Deeks recover. The difference as I explained above is in the training. Sam has all the necessary training to deal with war like grim and dark situations. And yet Sam is having a toll on his body and soul with all these experiences. Military showed us in 2x06-Little Angels, traumatic experiences affecting Sam when he was buried alive in Bosnian War . And Military shows the same state of mind for Sam in 5x02-Impact and 5x19-Spoils of War. Sam cannot hear for a while after the explosion on 5x19-Spoils of War.

But what's interesting or rather disturbing factor is the dehumanization that occurs to people like Deeks, if the same training about honor and code of conduct is not given. One is then just left to personal principles of character integrity of our humanity. We see it shockingly through Deeks eyes, the way he reacts when his boss Assistant Director Owen Granger uses a certain extreme kind of interrogation technique on an asset in5x14-War Cries as Deeks kind nature contrasts Granger's CIA trained hardline methods. Granger shoots the man at close range at his ear to make him talk. It speaks about how many dangerous missions he has been on while working for CIA on War on Terror Missions. One starts wondering, where is all this leading Deeks to? Is he really fit for an Agent life? Can he accept such close range coercive tactics applied on human beings as part of his job? What happens to his humane trait, the trait that appeals us most about him. And all this Deeks has actually gone over in his mind in 5x02-Impact, the way he explains himself to Hetty or Nate. But when he himself is left to interrogate a blind man to find out where Kensi is taken to, Deeks in 5x19-Spoils of War, becomes the Fish Out of the water. He starts to act as a man that we do not know of. And more so, he behaves so because he doesn't seem to get a grip on his reality without Kensi. 

Deeks partnership with Sergeant Makar is like a debate that starts with proclamation of presence of ethics and morals in us (Americans) represented by Deeks and going through a cycle of helplessness stranding, repressed emotions bursting through dehumanizing rage as depicted in justification of questioning techniques being used on a blind old man, who is a priest. Deeks means of questioning are questioned by Sergeant Rabee Makar. Its 48 hours for Deeks to be staying out of action, aside from Sam, Callen and Granger and having no news about Kensi being found. For 48 hours he has been questioning Mulla Muhammed to give any information that leads him to Kensi’s whereabouts. By the end of 48 hours, he starts to lose the point of his questioning as he too knows like Sergeant Makar that the priest is not going to give away any kind of information. But he keeps passing his time to kill his thoughts racing through his mind about Kensi. The moment he gets the picture of Kensi’s lying in a pool of blood, Deeks just funnels his emotional suffering into uncontrollable and irrational rage where he starts suffocating the old man with wet cloth and further smothers him with cold water, making him totally breathless. Sergeant Makar is terrified of Deeks having tried several times to stop him losing it. Finally coming to the back to the edge of his conscience, Deeks recognizes the human values that he was ready to debase. Had he not stopped himself, he could easily have slipped into being guilty of a crime about violation of human rights.

Together 5x01-Ascension, 5x02-Impact, 5x14-War Cries and 5x19-Spoils of War are a commentary on the dark side of evolving methods of interrogation and torture that easily become the War Crimes committed in the name of "War on Terror" or "Profit", be it private contractors hiring psychotic killers or CIA Agents who were given authority by the Govt. to exercise all kinds of interrogation tactics, however inhuman they are. Gemmill and Military show us the emotional rage and angst one goes through at helpless situations at hand when our fellow brothers die before us, or when we are caught in the grip of power. Its like Heart of Darkness revealed to us through Deeks’s sense of pain, anguish, extreme stress one lives through when one nearly loses his emotional support that actually holds them together. Is it not the same affecting several young minds that are given weapons with their unstable and inexperienced minds, who are infused with wrong values by tapping into their emotional system? It is this same emotional support system which gets back us to the realm of reason in order to make our judgement calls and continue living on with whatever is left of us. Our emotional center is subject of vulnerability and its only the lateral support systems that protect it from losing its ground. One can live through actual physical pain being a subject of torture while one's emotional center is not compromised, but one can lose himself to pain and become an agent of torture through an irrational aggression if one's emotional center is compromised. It then becomes imperative that we train ourselves to protect our emotional center and most importantly undergo a periodic review of what we consider as our emotional center. Is it really worth it to be allowed to control us, so far as to compromise our fundamental human values?