EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
Top Bush-era GITMO and Abu Ghraib Psychologist is White House's Newest Appointment
One of the most intense scandals the field of psychology has faced over the last decade is the involvement of several of its members in enabling Bush's worldwide torture regime. Numerous health professionals worked for the U.S. government to help understand how best to mentally degrade and break down detainees. At the center of that controversy was -- and is -- Dr. Larry James. James, a retired Army colonel, was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003, at the height of the abuses at that camp, and then served in the same position at Abu Ghraib during 2004.
Today, Dr. James circulated an excited email announcing, "with great pride," that he has now been selected to serve on the "White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family." In his new position, he will be meeting at the White House with Michelle Obama and other White House officials on Tuesday.
For his work at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Dr. James was the subject of two formal ethics complaints in the two states where he is licensed to practice: Louisiana and Ohio. Those complaints -- 50 pages long and full of detailed and well-documented allegations -- were filed by the International Human Rights Clinic of Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program, on behalf of veterans, mental health professionals and others. The complaints detailed how James "was the senior psychologist of the Guantánamo BSCT, a small but influential group of mental health professionals whose job it was to advise on and participate in the interrogations, and to help create an environment designed to break down prisoners." Specifically:
During his tenure at the prison, boys and men were threatened with rape and death for themselves and their family members; sexually, culturally, and religiously humiliated; forced naked; deprived of sleep; subjected to sensory deprivation, over-stimulation, and extreme isolation; short-shackled into stress positions for hours; and physically assaulted. The evidence indicates that abuse of this kind was systemic, that BSCT health professionals played an integral role in its planning and practice. . . .
Writing in 2009, Law Professor Bill Quigley and Deborah Popowski, a Fellow at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, described James' role in this particularly notorious incident:
In 2003, Louisiana psychologist and retired Col. Larry James watched behind a one-way mirror in a US prison camp while an interrogator and three prison guards wrestled a screaming, near-naked man on the floor.
The prisoner had been forced into pink women's panties, lipstick and a wig; the men then pinned the prisoner to the floor in an effort "to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown." As he recounts in his memoir, "Fixing Hell," Dr. James initially chose not to respond. He "opened [his] thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason ..."
Although he claims to eventually find "good reason" to intervene, the Army colonel never reported the incident or even so much as reprimanded men who had engaged in activities that constituted war crimes.
Read the full article at Salon...
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...
75 Comments so far
Show Allbunch of fuckin nazies ..all of them
At least the Nazis had way cooler uniforms.
The Obama administration's appointment of psychologist Larry James to “serve” on the White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family reminds me of 1) Hannah Arendt’s description of the banality of evil that was a major part of the societal sickness and the butchery caused by Nazism, and 2) Barack Obama’s joke about killing the Jonas Brothers with predator drones.
Obama Jokes About Killing Jonas Brothers With Predator Drones
YouTube URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4
A psychologist-torturer being appointed by our socialist, nobel prize-winning president to head up a Psychological Well Being task force I thought really couldn't be more Orwellian.
But thanks for remembering Arendt's very important phrase. The democratic party, most especially its leader, is able to get away with so much because the whole lot of them seem so very ordinary, so very much 'like us.'
True evil always comes disguised. [ republicans, like scott walker, should be commended for doing the dirty work, but the deeds will get done only because the democrats allow and enable them.]
I read the Harry Potter series to my daughter.
Early in the series Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters struck me and probably a lot of other people as a reference to Adolf Hilter and the Nazis.
The evil of Peter Pettigrew, who spent much of the story disguised as Ron Wesley's rat, arose out of Pettigrew's weak, unprincipled, and fearful character when threatened by the powerful and profoundly evil Tom Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort.
Certainly, Tom Riddle also assumed disguises according to either whim or necessity.
Dick Cheney has, of course, frequenty been compared to Lord Voldemort; perhaps because at least during his years as Vice President he didn't seem particularly good at disguises.
And George Bush was a willing and buffoonishly self-aggrandizing accomplice with no parallel in the Harry Potter books that I can think of.
The best of the worst Democrats strike me as the likes of Peter Pettigrew.
Puffin Thrush, I just want to submit Gilderoy Lockhart for George Bush, the DADA teacher from Chamber of Secrets:
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001001/bio
This sentence sums up his career in the HP books:
"He has no idea who he is or what he did in his life."
I think that would fit as a summation of GWB's life, a fitting epitaph.
But a large number of people in the HP world describe our own situation. They knew what was happening was not good and was evil, but they clung to the ministry of magic line and they did not protest it. Chris Heges draws this very parallel in one of his recent essays, though he points to the average German citizen in the WW II era.
MollyJ,
I agree.
George W. Bush thought he was the decider. But I think it could be said, that"he [had] no idea who he [was] or what he did in his life."
So, yes. I'd say that is a good epitaph for both Gilderoy Lockhart and for George W. Bush.
But George W is a considerably more sinister buffoon than Gilderoy Lockhart was.
Of course, muggles and more particularly mudbloods were the targets of hatred that Voldemort used to encite hatred and attract evil wizards to do his bidding under his control.
Well, since all Democrats are Socialists, and all Republicans are God-fearing Americans, wouldn't it stand to reason that your Devil come as a Republican, since Americans are not Socialists but are God-fearing patriots?
You make two truthful statements and that is it: Obama did win the Nobel Peace Prize and Democrats are enablers. The rest is just a bunch of garbage that clutters up your argument.
Stonepig,
Another Dubya's torturer to the ever growing Repug to the list? You seem to forget Bill Daley is Obama Chief of Staff and you will be seeing more stars Appointments in the days to come. Come 2012, you may even...... can't say it here! :-)
Reliable sources now hint that Obama is going to pardon Jeffery Dahmer so that he can become the newly created nutrition czar.
Too late--Dahmer died a few years back. But as a joke, good one. I have the new slogan for the Dahmer-led agency: "America eats its young"
Maybe this Dr. James should be appointed to take Bradley Manning's place. Now there is some poetic justice.
The groundwork for establishing/maintaining a fascistic structure that limits/punishes what the corporate elite define as threatening to their status (here after to be referred to as TERRORIST activities) has been laid out for some time. They are fine-tuning the details and giving the structure a 'TEST DRIVE' in the post-bush era.
Anyone who trusts the medical community to defend human rights hasn't studied history. Psychologists and psychiatrists participated in the holocaust. In the torture of Vietnamese. In pharmacological studies that flagrantly violated the rights of the participants.
I am an MSW level social worker and even at this professional level, my code of ethics would have been transgressed multiple times in any of the vignettes described in this article. Any professionals who witnessed these activities and did not report them represent a danger to the community and should have their license to practice revoked.
IOWA: Wise & excellent post.
As in all things, there is a double standard at play. Workers, such as yourself in this field, are held to one standard, but that standard does not apply to those in power. This holds true at all levels and in all social relations. The more powerful the person is, in any organization or community, the less they are held to any standards. The more poor or less powerful the person is, the more strictly they are held to standards. Those two - less powerful and more poor - are really two different expressions of the same thing, the same social structure.
There is a cycle here that works against us. The less we are paid, the less we are seen as worthy of being paid more You can be doing the exact same work, but if you are being paid half as much as you were before the work will be seen as half as valuable as it once was.
Quite true.
The harder you work the less you get paid.
There is some truth to that, yes.
Also, the less self-serving and the more vital the work you do, the less you get paid - teachers, nurses, farmers for example, and the main form of uncompensated labor, so unappreciated that it is overlooked and ignored - the work women do raising children and maintaining homes.
You are valued at what you are paid, not paid according to your value. It is a psychotic loop, no doubt. A simple but important concept that every worker should grasp completely.
Siouxrose, thank you.
TA, excellent insights, right on as usual, thank you. It feels so good to be on the same team as you and SR
Love those coattails :-)
How low will Obama go, is not the question to ask. He proceeds ever and always downwards, a step at a time, which satisfies both "liberal" Democrats and union leaders.
Even if the president were to go, someone equally awful would be put in his place and the torture, warmaking, and corporate theft of tax money would continue. The whole system is an Augean stable that needs to be cleaned out top to bottom, but that is a huge unprecedented challenge for nonviolent change proponents. A violent overthrow attempt wouldn't stand a chance.
Paranoid: The natural world appears to have a plan that will merit that same outcome... a clearing of the stables, good analogy.
And to the poster below, you're right on. There's a helluva lot of sadomasochism with strong sexual overtones in much of the "style of" torture that's been sanctioned by our "state." The sickening made-cheapness of life, dignity, and decency under the rubric of science, professionalism, and/or militarism constitutes a spiritual sickness that may well constitute THE gravest disease (and threat) to mankind.
You are setting up a false choice there. "Overthrow" and "non-violent" are not mutually exclusive. Those calling for radical and profound political and social change (which, by the way is inevitable as the events of just the last couple of weeks should now make clear to everyone) are accused of "advocating violent revolution" while those advocating non-violence are often mere using that as a stalking horse for an agenda that opposes any serious change.
For decades the ruling class propagandists have been telling is that we must either accept the conditions and meekly "work for change within the system" and that the only alternative is "violent revolution" with all sorts of attendant horrors.
It is time we recognize and reject that message.
We (the working class people and the environment and communities that sustain us) are in a desperate crisis. We cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the internalized propaganda messages that are rendering us confused and powerless in response to the greatest crisis the human race has ever faced.
Two Americas wrote:
"You are setting up a false choice there. "Overthrow" and "non-violent" are not mutually exclusive. Those calling for radical and profound political and social change (which, by the way is inevitable as the events of just the last couple of weeks should now make clear to everyone) are accused of "advocating violent revolution" while those advocating non-violence are often [accused of] mere[ly] using that as a stalking horse for an agenda that opposes any serious change.
For decades the ruling class propagandists have been telling is that we must either accept the conditions and meekly "work for change within the system" and that the only alternative is "violent revolution" with all sorts of attendant horrors.
It is time we recognize and reject that message.
We (the working class people and the environment and communities that sustain us) are in a desperate crisis. We cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the internalized propaganda messages that are rendering us confused and powerless in response to the greatest crisis the human race has ever faced."
* * * * *
My Comment:
I couldn't agree with you more, Two Americas.
"Overthrow" and "non-violent" are not mutually exclusive.
Radical and profound political and social change are coming,
As you said, "We (the working class people and the environment and communities that sustain us) are in a desperate crisis."
We must work hard and work smart and make use of every source of power available to us, short of the use of physical violence, in order to establish genuine democracy.
Establishing genuine democracy requires taking over the economic and governmental institutions that are oppressing and destroying us.
Paranoid Pessimist wrote:
"Even if the president were to go, someone equally awful would be put in his place and the torture, warmaking, and corporate theft of tax money would continue. The whole system is an Augean stable that needs to be cleaned out top to bottom, but that is a huge unprecedented challenge for nonviolent change proponents. A violent overthrow attempt wouldn't stand a chance."
* * * * *
My Comment:
I like the way you have described the challenges that face us, which in the case of the Augean stabes were too big even for Hercules.
We need large numbers of working class folks struggling towards these ends. The job ahead of us is difficult and will be discouraging, possibly humiliating at times, probably even seriously depressing at times.
But killing "our" Augeas in the literal sense as Hercules did in the myth in order to remove him from power - whoever he or she may be in our case, for actually there are too many of them - is not the solution. and doing so would be far too destructive for everyone and everything.
Although we have been betrayed, simply opposes and changing the current figurehead will not solve the problem.
We will still need to clean the stables and that involves comprehensive and complete regime change.
Accepting the contributions of a Phyleus as did Hercules, wherever we may find such contributions, not by rewarding Phyleus with the kingdom, but by working with him so that his or her contributions can contribute to the establishment of genuine democracy, is however I think a good idea.
Here is how the fifth labor of Hercacles is described on Wikipedia:
"The fifth Labour of Heracles was to clean the Augean stables. This assignment was intended to be both humiliating (rather than impressive, as had the previous labours) and impossible, since the livestock were divinely healthy (immortal) and therefore produced an enormous quantity of dung. These stables had not been cleaned in over 30 years, and over 1,000 cattle lived there. However, Heracles succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the filth.
Augeas was irate because he had promised Heracles one tenth of his cattle if the job was finished in one day. He refused to honour the agreement, and Heracles killed him after completing the tasks. Heracles gave his kingdom to Augeas' son Phyleus, who had been exiled for supporting Heracles against his father."
If we wait till nature takes its course, the cleanout will not be selective and many good people will suffer and die. I would be less concerned about establishment response, though there is a huge network of state-of-the-art spies and spooks and hidden camps all set and ready to respond. More concern to me is how it would be kept nonviolent especially with all the Tea Party Right Wingers touchy about their right to bear (and use) arms and ready to shoot first and ask questions never. They already believe their guns are all that's standing in the way of a left wing-Islamofascist conspiracy to keep them from "taking back America."
I don't see much in the way of a national nonviolent revolution organizing itself yet, and I have no "followers" so I can't lead one (wouldn't know the way), but just as soon as one that's real gets fully underway, I will cheer heartily and help out any way age and infirmity permit.
Of course the good doctor might like to see swarthy young men being degraded, and made to wear pink underware. Heaven help those families now if he is the one making suggestions for their emotional care.
Glenn Greenwald wrote (in the portion of article available at Salon):
"More disturbing still, among those most damaged by detainee abuse are the service members forced to participate in it; why would the White House possibly want to put on a task force about the health of military families someone, such as Dr. James, who at the very least is directly associated with policies that so profoundly harmed numerous members of the military and their families?"
* * * * *
iowapinko and marlborough,
Brandon Neely provides a counter-example to Dr. Larry James.
As Glenn Greenwald states in his article, Larry James is a retired Army colonel, who was the Chief Psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003, at the height of the abuses at that camp, and then served in the same position at Abu Ghraib during 2004.
Brandon Neely is the former Gitmo guard who realized that what he was assigned to do was wrong and traveled to the UK to apologized to two ex-Gitmo detainees (prisoners ) he had gotten to know at the Guantánamo prison.
Brandon Neeley became a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq and president of the Houston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Neely has said that he saw “a lot of bad and horrible things and have done them too while over there.”
The most profoundly harmed have been the Gitmo prisoners themselves; their relatives, friends, and Muslims in general; then perhaps the Gitmo guards; and finally the long ago discredited reputation of the United States.
See: "On YouTube: Guantánamo Guard and Ex-Prisoners Meet (via the BBC)"
Article URL: www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/01/14/on-youtube-guantanamo-guard-and-ex-prisoners-meet-via-the-bbc/
The U.S. government went after a doctor in Mexico who was present when a DEA agent was tortured by a drug gang. His job was to keep the agent alive as long as possible. I don't remember if they ever managed to catch and try him, but they did their best to do so.
How is the role of that doctor different from that of this psychologist? What is the intelligence level of the white house staffers who come up with names for these committees?
Hypocrisy is not a problem for those who so long as they are among the mighty believe that might is right.
As a nation, we have seemed to combine the best of "1984", Brave New World, and maybe "Soylent Green". I am not conversent with "Planet of the Apes" but maybe they should be included. See you "On the Beach".
Well.
Obviously he wasn't one of the 'bad apples'.
"..he has now been selected to serve on the "White House Task Force entitled Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family."
I was wondering what advice he'd give and remembered the old line, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Well, yes. Increased compliance by those who are less powerful is essentially the same thing in the world view of an authoritarian as improved morale.
Niemoller, USA 2011 version:
First they came for the terrorist suspects, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a terrorist suspect.
Then they came for the whistleblowers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a whistleblower.
Then they came for those protesting against the detention of whistleblowers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a protestor.
Then they came for the public unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a public unionist...
Yeah. So it goes in Nazi Germany. So it goes in the USA.
Even the so-called Founders of the USA, many of whom were wealthy people in their own right, knew that "we [they] could hang together or we [they] would hang separately."
At least in that sense our situation is no different.
"Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of The Military Family."
Obama has given them another war, their steady job of endless deployments looks secure.
I guess some people are just never satisfyed.
(Sarcasm intended)
GG obviously does not get it. This guy is perfect for serving in the Barry & Michelle carnival show.
Carnival show? It is more like a never ending horror show. If Michelle meets with this guy she will be unmasked as evil as Barry is. I can't imagine the shedding of their souls these two had to do in order to reach the WH. If they ever had one. Evil is the only word I can think of for all these sick fucks messing up the planet or murdering people thru bombing, dumping Corexit or all the other things they have done for money.
In regards to the Nazi comment above, we imported them and gave them a new place to work their evil. I am beyond belief anymore about the atrositise the US is capable of. Just truley hoping the Mayans were right and we get wiped out in 2012.
Lingum wrote:
"GG obviously does not get it. This guy is perfect for serving in the Barry & Michelle carnival show."
Thoughts_Into_Action wrote:
“The complicity of medical professionals in torture represents yet another marker of the "banality of evil" milieu that runs rampant at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and even in institutions such as the American Psychological Association. Laws and the Constitution are ignored. Common decency is degraded. War criminals get honors and speaking engagements. And most of it is fairly open.”
* * * * *
Carnival indeed!
I expect that Glenn Greenwald gets it.
Old Tyme carnivals once featured various societal misfits who were once commonly thought grotesque.
There is a bizarre grotesque quality to the “banality of evil” that reminds me, at least at this relatively safe distance, of Monty Python member Terry Gilliam’s allegorical, retro-futuristic, George Orwell 1984 reminiscent, sci-fi film noir called “Brazil” (1985).
As I remember it the guy, whose regular job was to interrogate and torture people - including the lone, quixotic “hero / anti-hero” of the movie - simply went home afterwards completely unperturbed for a quite evening with the wife and kids.
The second time I saw Brazil I went with my oldest sister who was visiting from California. After the movie was over she told me that Brazil was the most bizarre movie she had ever seen.
Well, perhaps. But no more bizarre than the banality and insanity of real life.
It’s somehow comforting that people like George Orwell and Terry Gilliam have over the years spoken out and warned us; not only that it can in fact happen here, but that when it does happen here it will not be the first time.
We, of course, need to try and do something about that.
I don't usually curse at the television but the one time I saw "Brazil" on a U.S. network they chopped off the ending so *Spoiler Alert* the film ended on the happy note where DeNiro saves the main character (Sam) instead of showing the part afterward where you see Sam strapped into the torture chair and realize his escape was only imagined. Chopping off the end totally destroyed the meaning of the movie.
*spoiler alerts and if you have not seen Brazil, go do so!*
I would argue that his escape was very genuine, thought it was an escape into insanity of such proportions he believed his delusion of rescue. This is such an amazing film that is more relevant today then when it was first made. Possibly my favorite film of all time.
That being said, the torturer does not just go home and lead a normal life, he actually brings his toddler daughter to work with him one day and plays with her between torture sessions!
Want to know what the saddest part of all this is? Not the die hard Obama Bots who support this Guy no matter what and are always ready with excuses. Its that the Whitehouse is probably right to believe that the "loyal" Democratic rank & file will still vote for this guy when confronted with some totally bizarre Republican.
Once again it will be a contest between bad and worse with any real voice of sanity marginalized and disenfranchised by the media and two major parties.
If we continue to limit our voting to choosing between a Democrat and a Republican, Krazy Katz is correct. We will descend into lower levels of Hell.
Our situation is desperate. Everything is collapsing around us. We are now recognizing that our democracy has been destroyed by greed, graft and corruption within our upper levels of wealthy citizens and obliviousness of the working people. What have the working people been destracted with while our democracy died?
Where has our attention been since the reign of St. Ronald the Reagon?
The working people must awake and face the catastrophe we are in. We must reach out to other working people, of what ever 'other' group they belong, and exchange ideas on what we can to to avoid a future as serfs to the masters who own the place now. Violence may be needed because we know the people in control are capable, and somewhat eager, to use violence against us.
An attempt to change our governnment will not be easy but step one is to turn off the major media, talk to other people and never again vote for a Democrat or a Republican. When you hear of a protest or demonstration get out and join the people in the streets.
Are we destined to vote for Obama again to stave off full blown fascism? Got to hand it to those oligarchs. They checkmated us again.
The "staving off" of full blown fascism hasn't exactly worked. I'm sure as hell not destined to vote for the right winger Obama.
Thanks for the replies. I feel that lately the Republicans have proven to be far worse than Democrats. The best strategy could be to vote out the conservative Democrats like we did with 60 Blue Dogs the last election and reclaim the Democratic Party for progressives.
I agree that we should vote third party in safe states, but in case one hasn't been listening, letting the Republican fascists take charge is utter madness from which the people and their environment may never recover.
A President backed by a progressive majority in Congress, will certainly listen to progressives. At least we will have four years of the lesser evil to choose a real progressive Presidential candidate. If Republicans take charge, we are likely to have Orwellian totalitarianism, endless war, martial law and a military dictatorship. And gulags have no third party.
We are many they are few.
I voted for Obama in 08 and I won't be in 2012. Though I must grudgingly admit; he has proven himself to be a competent and effective manager - albeit for the wrong side. Sure, he's on the blue team and he's got a little D next to his name, but let's not pretend that means he's been doing the work of anyone but the insurance industry, big oil. the banks, the uber wealth elite.
.
He has served that constituency at least as effectively as Bush and Clinton did, as capably as Romney might, and probably better than McCain could have hoped to. And as an added bonus his pro corporate-big business-uberwealthyelite policies are all accomplished and executed under left cover (you know, cuz he's on the blue team and there's a little D next to his name ...)
.
But don't worry, I think Obama will probably win in 2012 even without my vote. After all he's got a lot of favors and quid pro quo to call in from the insurance industry, big oil, and wall street. Obama's their biggest asset right now and I find it unlikely that Romney or whoever is going to undermine or trump that somehow.
ezeflyer,
We are in no way destined to vote for Obama, or anything other one of these people. The false choice between bad and worse only holds if the public lets it. Nader, McKinney, and the rest have only been seen as protest candidates by the majority population because most still held memories of what the Democrats used to be. That Bill Clinton didn't show them had as much to do with the right-wing attacks, some deserved but many not, as it did with the roaring tech stock bubble which made the economy seem like it was doing great.
The one thing that we have going for us now is that the utter shamelessness of both the Republicans and the national Democrats, led by Obama, Pelosi, & Reed has been laid bare.
People are pissed, and rightly so. The hard part is going to get them to see that putting these same people back into Congress and the White House is why we're in the absolute mess we're in.
I like to think of Obama as a "One term ass". Referring to the Democratic Party symbol of course. (You can also infer how else I feel about him).
"People who hate cats are destined to come back in the next life as mice."