Trade Secrets

Question: "What happens to you when you are torturing?"
Answer: "You may not realize it but it is very tiring...It's true that we take it in turns, but the question is to know when to let the other chap have a go. Each one thinks he is going to get the information at any moment and takes care not to let the bird go to the next chap after he's softened him up nicely, when of course the other chap would get the honor and glory of it. So sometimes we let them go, and sometimes we don't."
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Testimony of an unidentified torturer. Quoted in Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth
torture, human rights, terrorism