EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Group Charges Complicity by CIA Medics in Torture
NEW YORK - Did physicians and psychologists help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency develop a new research protocol to assess and refine the use of waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques?
This is the question being raised in a new report by a leading human rights organisation. The group says that, if confirmed, it would likely constitute a "new, previously unknown category of ethical violations committed by CIA physicians and psychologists".
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges that "The extent to which American physicians and psychologists violated human rights and betrayed the ethical standards of their professions by designing, implementing, and legitimizing a worldwide torture program is greater than previously known."
A team of PHR doctors authored the new white paper, "Aiding Torture: Health Professionals' Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General's Report."
The report details how the CIA relied on medical expertise to rationalise and carry out abusive and unlawful interrogations. It also refers to aggregate collection of data on detainees' reaction to interrogation methods.
"PHR is concerned that this data collection and analysis may amount to human experimentation," the report says.
"Medical doctors and psychologists colluded with the CIA to keep observational records about waterboarding, which approaches unethical and unlawful human experimentation," says PHR Medical Advisor and lead report author Scott Allen, MD.
For example, the report says, "Interrogators would place a cloth over a detainee's face to block breathing and induce feelings of fear, helplessness, and a loss of control. A doctor would stand by to monitor and calibrate this physically and psychologically harmful act, which amounts to torture."
"It is profoundly unsettling to learn of the central role of health professionals in laying a foundation for US government lawyers to rationalise the CIA's illegal torture programme," it says.
Frank Donaghue, PHR's chief executive officer, told IPS, "Health professionals violated ethical duties by participating in the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. PHR has long demanded a full investigation into the role health professionals played in detainee treatment. PHR again calls upon health professional associations to support a non-partisan commission of inquiry."
"It is time for the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and others to demand a nonpartisan commission to investigate these crimes," he said. "The associations must sanction any of their membership found to have violated their professional ethics."
These and other professional organisations have condemned participation by their members in detainee interrogations.
The Inspector General's report documents some practices - previously unknown or unconfirmed - that were used to bring about excruciating pain, terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end.
These practices included: Mock executions; brandishing guns and power drills; threats to sexually assault family members and murder children; "walling" - repeatedly slamming an unresponsive detainee's head against a cell wall; and confinement in a box.
"These unlawful, unethical, and ineffective interrogation tactics cause significant bodily and mental harm," said co-author and PHR senior medical advisor Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD. "The CIA Inspector General's report confirms that torture escalates in severity and torturers frequently go beyond approved techniques."
"The required presence of health professionals did not make interrogation methods safer, but sanitized their use, escalated abuse, and placed doctors and psychologists in the untenable position of calibrating harm rather than serving as protectors and healers," said co-author Steven Reisner, PhD, PHR's psychological ethics advisor.
"The fact that psychologists went beyond monitoring, and actually designed and implemented these abuses - while simultaneously serving as 'safety monitors' - reveals the ethical bankruptcy of the entire programme," Reisner said.
"That health professionals who swear to oaths of healing so abused the sacred trust society places in us by instigating, legitimising and participating in torture, is an abomination," states co-author Allen Keller, MD, director of the Bellevue Medical Center/New York University Programme for Survivors of Torture.
"Health professionals who aided torture must be held accountable by professional associations, by state licensing boards, and by society. Accountability is essential to maintain trust in our professions and to end torture, which scars bodies and minds, leaving survivors to endure debilitating injuries, humiliating memories and haunting nightmares," Keller said.
PHR has called for full investigation and remedies, including accountability for war crimes, and reparation, such as compensation, medical care and psycho-social services. PHR also calls for health professionals who have violated ethical standards or the law to be held accountable through criminal prosecution, loss of license and loss of professional society membership where appropriate.
The report by the CIA's now-retired Inspector General, John Helgerson, was prepared in 2004. In response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a heavily redacted version of the report was released earlier.
But because many pages of it were totally blacked out and unreadable, the ACLU asked a federal judge to order the CIA to release a less-redacted version. That version, with some sections still blacked out, was released last month.
Its publication sparked a firestorm of controversy, with key figures such as former vice-president Dick Cheney defending the CIA's interrogation practices and accusing the Barack Obama administration of aiding terrorists by making the report public.
It has reportedly also resulted in heated arguments between Attorney General Eric Holder and Leon Panetta, head of the CIA. Both are recent Obama appointments.
Holder has since appointed a special prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether criminal charges should be pursued against CIA operatives who exceeded the guidelines provided to them by lawyers in the Justice Department during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
The CIA's interrogation methods were declared legal by the Justice Department under President Bush. Recently released memoranda asserting their legality have been attacked by many legal scholars and human rights advocates.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
27 Comments so far
Show AllNow, will you finally admit that our Nation's fascination with violence has caused a Pavlovian scientific truth to occur. The dog doesn't know any better than to behave the way that he was trained to behave. We are rational people not "Dogs". The endless statements by the former Vice-President made to defend the status-quo of torturing people to protect people is a "Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie" to cover up his crime. He rightly fears public knowledge and so he lies.
This sickens me to read about. The human experimentation with torture that has been documented from records obtained after WWII about the Nazi medical experimentation is not any different except for the methods. I won't describe them because of their inhumanity, this kind of subject needs no embellishment or any support. All people that heard about the previous Nazi campaign said that that was WRONG.
The basis for the Geneva Accords was compelled by the same reaction to the systematic human experimentation with violence. If we allow this kind of defective obsession with our image to infect another generation then we don't deserve to be the "victor" of any aggression.
well.....what do you know? it has finally "surfaced" that america is just as full of its own versions of Dr Mengeles......
that's what it boils down to.
doesn't matter if they do it supposedly for "security" or to "aid" the "war on terror"...
they experiment and work with human suffering to get "results" and more "study" for "later use" ....because they have the power to hold down a human being - and they are already doing the work of Dr Mengele of the Nazis.
before u know it - they'll have corporations packaging these "findings" and "expertise" to SELL on the "free market" and americans will go SHOPPING with their little Torture and Medical Kits to apply to any creature they wish....and it's all
"the american way"....
Period.
Joseph Mengele would be proud of us. We as a nation have sunk into the abyss. Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin can no longer be villified by Americans and used as examples of "man's inhumanity to man." We are now the example.
of course the only difference really is that:
it is now quite OPENLY practiced within US territory or control - but other nations that have felt the "hand of america" for generations ALREADY know it.
it's really STANDARD AMERICAN PRACTICE - as why could it not have been in its quest for empire? it was bound to BE central to its SITH EMPIRE.
anyone can call it anything - it has been torture and profiting and "advancing" based on INFLICTING suffering upon others:
from the NATIVE INDIANS when the whites "gifted" them knowingly with european SMALL POX infected blankets to commit genocide..
to injecting southern african americans who were so poor with other diseases to experiment with them PUBLICLY under guise of "immunizing" from cholera or other common diseases..
to only god knows what other horrific practices done ...in the name of "america"......
Well, still, we're second only to Israel thou. They hold the world title on that arena and I think that a lot of what's being practiced over here has been learned over there.
Hey, after all, aren't we leading the world?
The world is watching, including
- some Muslims who wonder which side is good...
- some Christians who see what a "christian" President ordered
- some atheist who see what's being done on both sides in the name of religion...
I still believe in a supreme being: that's why I call these doctors and psychologists
EVIL.
Let's face it. Complicity is a VERY wide net when any republic sets aside its international obligations and covenants under its own constitutional supreme law.
The U.S. is the self-proclaimed "greatest democracy on earth" and, in the absence of any effective popular rejection of that claim, is globally perceived as acting in the name of its people.
So long as Americans continue to participate in sham electoral processes that provide the "democratic" endorsements and legitimacy for their own governing powers, they will be viewed as complicit in the subsequent imperial actions of those governing powers globally. You may think that's unfair, but that's the price you pay for playing the boastful exceptionalist patriotic game in more convenient times.
In any republic, the people are constitutionally sovereign "owners" of their country and its actions whether they like it or not. There's no opting out clause for individuals.
Is this what they mean by the public health care option?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
So, did Keats make up his mind at least about this means of strengthening his intellect?
Another sad comment upon the US government, and its people who condone such barbaric actions.
Jane Mayer touched upon this in her book The Dark Side.
And I'm willing to bet that these quacks were ready to apply the same techniques on their regular patients too...and then turn them over to the insurance companies to finish off the job!
Aaaaah, what a country!
actually = that is ALREADY the case in the USA.
perfectly legal, perfectly well-promoted to the tune of billions of dollars of advertisements , incentives, promos to doctors' offices, fancy trips to doctors who "push"
PHARMACEUTICALS' "products".......to just about any american....whether for those who buy off from the corner drug store, a corner over the counter grocery...
or otherwise
but ESPECIALLY to the Captives in old people's homes:
namely the retirees and old people .....injected and fed with more and more drugs to "prolong" lives and SUPPOSEDLY make them more "normal" in their 80's and 90's...in a scheme that places DRUGS above human companionship ..even if all they ever do is continue to use old people's BODIES as EMPTY shells
from which to make profits and experiment .....
do people really think this has NOT ALREADY been COMMON in the USA - considering that its ENTIRE "health care" is based on PROFITEERING -
with the HOSPITAL, HEALTH PROVIDER, Health "management", INSURANCE , industries working in a common INTEREST:
PROFIT?.
WHY ELSE is "health care and life prolongation"
THE most expensive single part of the US health care industry? despite the fact that DRUGS are NEVER substitutes for human companionship
were the old people NEVER to have these advanced, expensive drugs - as in most poor economies?
why?
because of ONE THING....
the ENTIRE US system of SUPPOSED "care" for old people is largely about keeping them ALIVE for as long as possible
BECAUSE THEIR HEALTH CARE NEEDS are very EXPENSIVE - and a BOOTY for the pharmaceuticals and hospitals and nursing homes --
BEHIND the PRETENSE - mandated by ":federal law" -- that they are "Caring" for "HUMAN BEINGS"
when in REALITY -- that "prolongation" is a GRAND EXCUSE to
USE OLD BODIES for drug infusions that are VERY VERY expensive (as dictated by pharmaceuticals of course) ...
to get their TAKE from the old people's retirement incomes such as medicaire, medicaid, private insurance, family contributions. etc.
the USA has LONG USED PEOPLE in their health care needs - as well as their old age -
as a MONEY INDUSTRY .
it is not about "giving old people respect and decency"......that is just for SHOW -even by Federal laws - which HELP PROMOTE and DRESS UP the money making upon old decrepit bodies....
whose real purpose is to MILK MONEY by using OLD bodies for "treatment".
of course - the great thing about it is:
families, human beings, will always want to hang on for as long as possible to their loved ones..we all do..unless we see them needlessly suffering, perhaps, depending on one's point of view....
and it is THAT PARTICULAR sentiment - very natural -- that the drug industry and "health care" industry and nursing home industry
SWOOPS IN to make the KILLING in literally sticking or feeding old people with expensive drugs that does , really, very little in making them what they once were - or even close to it, or even really alleviating their suffering beyond a few days , before a new round of more cocktails is introduced.....
in what amounts, really, to an artificially induced state of "long life"..........that largely has NO resemblance to anything human...except for being MILKED for MONEY.
of course it depends on one's point of view about human "living" or when life is "worth living"...and enters into questions of :
:should one just let an old person die as a natural condition of growing old...or should one , because of "compassion" supposedly, or because federal mandates "require" treatment to the "utmost".......very often on old people who REALLY have long ago LOST their judgment and independence of mind..?
but the main point IS:
the decisions are really made BY pharmaceuticals..with their lobbyists..who use the natural human ties between families, relatives, friends, and of course the actual nurses and aides and doctors who take their duties seriously ....
as a way to promote DRUGGING UP old people for what they KNOW are very, very expensive drugs....
that's tens of billions of dollars per year, folks.
and NONE of it is about pharmaceuticals caring about Human beings ...it's about USING human beings in their frailty as CASH COWS.
that's the American Way.
all legal, by law even, institutional and cultural.
and everyone is enjoined to define it with one word:
"COMPASSION".
Yeah, the physicians who participated in the Nazi death machine come to mind.
What do "they" keep repeating about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust? I believe it's 'never again'. Hum, it doesn't look like we're there yet.
Did those medics who colluded in torture take the Hippocratic oath? If so the professional bodies that they belong to should take action re ethical violations.
IS E Holder an accomplice by not launching an OPEN investigation?
No National Security breach is at risk by putting EVIL Doctors and Psychologists on trial: they are NOT secret agents!
There is NO EXCUSE!
IS Obama an accomplice?
YOU BET: both of them are.
We, as Americans, also each bear some responsibility.
E-mail Holder and the White House; who knows?
I have crispy, I have. I have emailed them and phoned them and I won't stop until these criminals are locked away and all of their friends are run out of town.
Sioux Rose
Apart from the moral horror, when you read this there is an element of satire to it. To make my point I'll use an illustration. It involves the TV commercial that advertises a product that enables the eyes to tear. My parody on that commercial is to have a really scary looking guy as the "natural alternative." His character would say, "You want tears? I'll GIVE you tears!"
The analogy I wish to make is that what dummy couldn't realize that banging someone's head against the wall would constitute a very painful situation. Does one need a Ph.D to figure that one out? And the water boarding goes back to the old dunking stool used to get "heretics" to confess their devil worship several centuries ago. Sleep deprivation is pretty basic. Anyone ever pull an all nighter and try to function after that? I remember a few in my college days.
So not only are these "professionals" being paid to devise what ANY teenager can figure out (as per what would constitute torture); they happen to be violating the oath to DO NO HARM. Our nation lost its soul and is doing everything it can it seems to retain that bankrupt status. And the final satire, that the US still dictates to the world how to behave, as if it owns the moral high ground on human rights. Alas, a comedy of errors never stunk this badly.
Spoken in a true spirit of human conscience, SiouxRose!
like it were in Dante Alighieri's "The DIVINE COMEDY"....
his Inferno would require a 10TH level - even worse than the worst -
RESERVED for "america".
i believe even Thomas Jefferson already KNEW what America was capable of when saying:
"as i contemplate what our nation is about to do......if there is truly a God of Justice.......how i TREMBLE for our nation"....
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: I found your post quite inspiring. You do see what's going on, relate important info and insights in this forum, and clearly have retained a personal bridge between heart and mind. Thank you for all that you share.
So...health care providers abetted and aided torture. OK we knew about the psych people, and of course there are medics involved. I find a kind of sick irony in those facts juxtaposed with the mess that is the health care system, and the idea that the government's proposed reforms will serve the people.
if you put things together..it makes "sense" in a lurid, turgid, evil, craven and mendacious way...even , ironically enough to apply to a Moralizing , moralistic, self-righteously "christian nation" : IMMORAL and plain evil.
the health care system that actually GLORIFIES and DEFENDS conditions that leave many without a sense of peace at the eventuality of human frailty being met with no health care..but simply even "blamed" for being "unproductive, irresponsible" and perhaps even "too childish" to EXPECT or HOPE that they be taken care of when they are weak and sick?
and that is connected to DOCTORS actually using their medical knowledge to HARM people for the "sake of security?"
it adds up to one thing:
a culture of Cruelty..that is actually quite PROUD of it...calling it "patriotic" or "righteous"..even , and most hypocritical of all, "christian".
it is even reflected in the growing "gospel of earthly prosperity" which more and more americans seem to gravitate to - as a way to convince themselves that "GOD is PLEASED with you if you are SUCCESSFUL and RICH"....OR teaches that "if you praise God -- you WILL be rich"....applying it to something even jesus himself said is "not of my father's kingdom" : EARTHLY RICHES
the only thing that comes to mind to describe it - is the opposite of what america proclaims in pulpits, on streets, in its empire serving the "lord and savior jesus"......
and that thing is:
SATAN - the very one that tried to challenge and tempt jesus in the desert to receive the riches of the earth if only HE would bow to Satan......
THAT seems to be what the USA bows to.
in its glorification of its TRUE GOD:
RICHES - MONEY, POWER, the almighty DOLLAR.
and of course the "security and safety" to keep Worshipping THAT god.
i guess this is something quite UNIQUELY "american".
the cultural ability to put together two ENTIRELY OPPOSED moralities or faiths and say that they are one and the same thing:
"christianity" with TORTURE and wealth seeking
"freedom" with tacit support or tolerance for Fascism and Police State
"justice" with willful or studied blindness towards LUST for PUNISHMENT
"responsibility" with Irresponsibly selfish , greedy, habits of living
"conscience and conscientuousness" with CALLOUSNESS towards the suffering of others....
it's perfectly described by the words of some american poet:
"WE AMERICANS...CAREFULLY NURTURE A STUDIED INDIFFERENCE TO THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS.....EVEN IF *WE* ARE THE CAUSE OF IT".
TEDDY; YOUR TESTIMONY AND EXPRESSION OF WHAT YOUR SOUL, SPIRIT AND HEART SEE, SENSE AND SO SURELY YOU HAVE SAID, HERE--IN YOUR COMMENTS--WHAT I WANT TO EMBED INTO MY BLOG: "David's Dangerous & daring ideas@wordpress.com
This is just 1984 or if you are into George Lucas, get a copy of THX 1138 (DVD) and watch how the citizens (inmates) are reprogrammed.
Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" and Alfred McCoy's "A Question of Torture" already laid out the thesis that the CIA's torture techniques derive, in part, from electroshock and sensory deprivation clinical experiments in the 1950s.
But the rot is far deeper in APA and AMA professional societies that tolerated "participation" in torture, which is clearly illegal. The fact that torture should be considered unethical too by these professional societies, and apparently wasn't, just makes it all the more worse.
Of course, the Bush legal team just made things up to justify the torture policy. So, the legal profession failed too.
Obama's refusal to prosecute those who were just following orders (the Nuremberg defense), and his continuation of Bush's extraordinary rendition torture policy, means that we have yet another torturer-in-chief in the Oval Office. The torture policy continues.
We have Mr. Chiquita Banana death squad lawyer, now Attorney General, Eric Holder contemplating some "limited" investigation. Another failure.
It just can't get any worse, or can it?
-TIA
First do no harm! These medical thugs should break rocks for a living.
As a retired U.S. Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman I'm appalled that cheney/bush got so many Military/Medical Personnel to break their oaths to defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. All military personnel are taught in "Boot Camp" what they can and cannot do to EPW, POW and Detainees period, no if's, and's or but's about it. So, I don't buy this just following orders CRAP. All military personnel who were involved in the abuse of any EPW, POW or Detainee should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law under the Uniform Code of Military Justice(UCMJ). All civilian personnel who were involved, from the Lowest sub-contractor all the way up to and including the President of the United States, should be fully investigated. When criminal activity is found, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Only in dictatorships and banana republics do government officials and military generals get away with torturing their oponents and get away with it. I've served this country in Peace and in war, I have shed blood and bled for this country. I will not stand-by and watch my country, that I love, turned into some kind of right-wing, fascist state where the rich and well-connected pour their support behind dicey politicians and then make "Mad Profits" off the Blood of Patriots with no decernable consequences.
The cheney/bush admininstration is probably guilty of a lot of things but, they are certainly guilty of Multiple violations of U.S. Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113C para. 2340a - Torture:
(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
This is what cheney/bush/rumsfeld/addington/rove/gonzales/libby/yoo/bybee/mitchell/rice etc. should be worried about. What about the International Convention Against Torture signed by President Ronald Reagan.
Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune notes, the International Convention Against Torture was signed into American law by President Ronald Reagan. That document states, in part:
“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
Chapman notes:
“Reagan undoubtedly knew what modern conservatives forget — that once you rationalize torture, there is no logical place to stop. If threatening a prisoner with a power drill is permissible, why not drilling holes in him? If choking is OK, why not strangulation? If threatening to kill a detainee’s children passes muster, why not actually killing them? If 30 wall slams don’t do the job, why not 100?.”
Why not?
Well, “because we’re the United States of America” used to be a good enough reason, and it ought to be again.
No truer words have ever been spoken.
SEMPER FI!
I am grateful for your words NAVDOC3rdMAR;
I never served in the Armed Forces. I was a part of that generation from 1978 until today that wasn't a part of voluntary conscription. I chose to go to school and into the workforce and never missed the lack of opportunity to serve with honor in the Armed Forces. There have been, and always will be men and women that serve with pride. I know that because I am friends with some of them.
When I ask these friends about this topic, I get the same response that you described. Absolute dedication to the philosphy of preserving life on and off of the battlefield and strict adherence to the laws of the nation. Crimes are distinguished using this approach to conduct.
The argument being described in the article is a continuation of the disagreement since the founding of our country between the Soldier in the field who sees the horror and the elected politician who consults with the Staff of the executives and sees a very different picture, one that is isolated and secure from conflict. I have been writing to the DOJ since I heard about these crimes and demanding answers. I don't care how many letters I have to write I will continue again and again until this issue becomes a past history. A history that we can point to and say "ENOUGH", and "NEVER AGAIN".