Besides detailed information on torture and abusive treatment, they obtained damning, consistent detainee accounts of medical personnel involvement, including:

– their monitoring of and direct participation in torture procedures;

– instructing interrogators to continue, adjust, or stop certain ones;

– informing detainees that medical treatment depended on their cooperation;

– performing medical checks before and after each transfer; and

– treating the effects of torture as well as ailments and injuries during incarceration.

Condoning or participating in torture grievously breaches medical ethics and the 1975 World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Tokyo “Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment.” It states:

– in all cases at all times, “physician(s) shall not countenance, condone or participate in” torture or any other form of abuse;

– they “shall not use nor allow to be used (their) medical knowledge or skills, or health information” to aid interrogation in any way;

– they “shall not be present during any procedure during which torture or any other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is used or threatened;”

– they “must have complete clinical independence” in treating persons for whom they’re medically responsible; and

– WMA encourages the international community and fellow physicians to support medical professionals who face “threats or reprisals resulting from a refusal to condone” all forms of torture and abuse.

Protocol I of the 1949 Geneva Conventions states:

“Persons engaged in medical activities shall neither be compelled to perform acts or to carry out work contrary to, nor be compelled to refrain from acts required by, the rules of medical ethics or other rules designed for the benefit of the wounded and sick, or this Protocol.”

On July 7, 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks published an article titled, “Doctors and Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay” in which they cited evidence that “Health information (was) routinely available to behavioral science consultants and others” engaged in interrogations, in violation of strict medical ethics.

In early 2003, detainee medical records were readily available, and since late 2002, psychiatrists and psychologists were involved in crafting extreme stress techniques “combined with behavior-shaping rewards to extract actionable intelligence from resistant captives.”

“Wholesale disregard for clinical confidentiality” seriously breaches medical ethics “since it makes every caregiver into an accessory to intelligence gathering.” It also “puts prisoners at greater risk for serious abuse.”

In July 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published a report titled, “Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba” that included evidence of medical personnel involvement in torture.

Detainee Othman Abdulraheem Mohammad was told that medical treatment would depend on his cooperation. Lakhdar Boumediene said every time he requested care he was told to ask permission from his interrogators. They “controlled his access, (and it) was granted or denied based on the interrogator’s assessment of his level of cooperation.”

Bosnian prisoner medical records confirmed that medical staff were present during their interrogations “and authorized (them) to proceed.”

Medical personnel monitored Mohammed al Qahtani’s interrogation during nearly two months of “severe sleep deprivation and physical stress.” At one point, they rushed him to the base hospital when his heart rate dropped dangerously low. After stabilization, they returned him the next day for more interrogation.

Other prisoners described doctors performing unnecessary and abusive procedures, including forced amputations, after which they were denied proper treatment.

Psychiatrists and psychologists designed “extreme interrogation techniques as part of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT).” In late 2002, it was tasked “to torment detainees in interrogations….”

International and US Laws Prohibiting Torture

Numerous international and US laws unequivocally ban torture under all conditions at all times with no allowed exceptions ever, for any reasons, including in times of war.

The Third Geneva Convention covers war prisoners and detainees. It prohibits torture and protects their right to be treated humanely against “violence to life and person (and) humiliating and degrading treatment” as well as to judicial fairness and proper medical treatment. The Fourth Geneva Convention affords the same rights to civilians in times of war.

The federal anti-torture statute (18 USC, 2340A) prohibits its use outside the US and defines it as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering….upon another person within his custody or physical control.”

The 1991 Torture Victims Protection Act authorizes civil suits in America against individuals, acting in an official capacity for a foreign state, who committed torture and/or extrajudicial killing.

The 1984 UN Convention Against Torture bans all forms of torture, cruel and degrading treatment in all circumstances at all times with no exceptions ever allowed.

The US Constitution’s Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

The US Army’s Field Manual 27-10 states that military or civilian persons may be punished for committing war crimes (that include abusive interrogations) under international law. Army Field Manual 34-52 outlines interrogation procedures and specifically prohibits force, mental torture, threats, and inhumane treatment.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) bans cruelty, oppression, actions intended to degrade or humiliate, and physical, menacing, and threatening assaults. Army Regulation (AR) 190-8 protects detainees from violence, assaults, and insults, and directs that they be treated humanely with respect.

The 1996 US War Crimes Act prohibits grave Geneva Convention breaches, including (as stipulated under Common Article III) “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture (as well as) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Other binding international laws also prohibit torture, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1992 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with no exceptions or justifications allowed, such as orders by field commanders, Pentagon officials, or the President of the United States.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)

Founded in 1986, PHR “mobilizes health professionals to advance health, dignity, and justice and promotes the right to health for all.” It also “investigates human rights abuses and works to stop them” in conflict zones, US prisons, and offshore detention facilities where torture is routinely practiced.

In 2005, it published a report titled, “Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces,” which it called the first comprehensive examination of “the use of psychological torture by US personnel in the so-called ‘war on terror,’ ” including sensory deprivation, prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, using fierce dogs to instill fear, cultural and sexual humiliation, mock executions, and threatened violence against loved ones.

It called the effects devastating and longer-lasting than physical torture, and said psychological abuse is morally reprehensible and illegal under international and US law.

In August 2009, PHR published a new report titled, “Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Revealed in the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s Report,” including ethical misconduct not previously known. It revealed the role of health professionals involved “at every stage in the development, implementation and legitimization of this torture program.”

It explained that doctors and psychologists actively participated in abusive interrogations and contributed to the physical and mental suffering of detainees. It called their actions “an unconscionable affront to the profession of medicine,” made worse by experimenting on inmates, then “aggregat(ing) data on (their) reaction to interrogation methods.”

PHR’s Steven Reisner said “They were experimenting and keeping records of the results,” a war crime under Geneva and the Nuremberg Code that requires “voluntary consent” of human subjects and prohibits experiments:

– that inflict “unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury;”

– if there’s “an a priori reason to believe death or disabling injury will occur;” and

– from being implemented if there’s reason to believe they’ll cause “injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.”

PHR’s report detailed the psychological and medical effects:

– forced shaving inflicts psychological harm “by means of humiliation, both personal and religious;”

– hooding disorients and causes acute anxiety depression, depersonalization, and abnormal behavior;

– dietary manipulation inflicts discomfort and psychological stress;

– prolonged diapering causes physical and psychological stress and harm;

– walling inflicts physical injuries as well as psychological stress, rage, and helplessness;

– confinement in a box in extreme stress positions causes extreme physical and psychological pain and trauma; and

– other abuses, including waterboarding that simulates drowning and the feeling of helplessness to prevent it.

Involvement of Medical Professionals

They help develop, implement, provide cover for, and justify torture and abusive practices. They’re actively involved in designing harmful interrogation techniques in clear violation of the law and medical ethics. They’re “complicit in selecting and then rationalizing (methods) whose safety and efficacy in eliciting accurate information have no valid basis in science.” Their actions constitute “a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation.”

CIA guidelines require health professionals, including a doctor and psychologist, to be present during enhanced interrogations, “thereby placing (them) in the untenable position of calibrating harm rather than serving as protectors and healers as” their ethical code demands.

They also participate in initial physical and psychological assessments, then monitor all subsequent interrogations. They know their actions are harmful, unethical, and illegal, yet they serve willingly.

PHR believes they should be investigated on charges of “alleged criminal conduct.” Those proved guilty should be prosecuted, lose their license, professional society memberships, and any standing in the medical community henceforth.

There are hundreds bound for Heaven
For they’ve served their time in Hell,
In the BushCo run resort
That’s known to all as “Gitmo.”

Black cells, blinding lights,
Horrendous volumes of sound!
Rubber hoses, cold cells, fire and ice,
Deafening weeks of silence in solitary cells.

Seed of Afghan bounty hunters,
Picking up young men at random.
Forty pieces of silver per head;
No questions asked nor answers given.

Days spin out to weeks, to years.
Beatings, dogs, rape and fear
Waterboarding, tied and hung in agony.
Electric shocks, insults, threats it will get worse.

Ignorance is resistance, in the interrogator’s mind.
No law, no rights, no answer to their questions.
Eternal torture, you’re here for life,
Even if found not guilty.

Your Holy Books are spat upon,
Chewed by dogs and worse.
Your name has been exchanged
For a number and a curse.

Death is not worth many things,
But you’ll not find them here,
Doomed to spend your youth, your life,
Many years of abject fear.

To seek release, you decide
That you will eat and drink no more.
A few weeks or more of discomfort
And you’ll reach that far off shore.

But, “No!” your jailers say
They’re worried for your health.
They’ve always stopped the torture
When you could endure no more.

So they strap you to a feeding chair,
Through your nose they shove a tube.
Crusted with the blood and snot
Of those who’ve gone before

And down the tube they pour the gruel
Of forbidden food and offal,
And joke and laugh and pat your head
And grin at your tears of shame.

And so you renounce your time of fast
Even that is denied your soul.
And your captors rejoice at your years ahead
To be lived in durance vile.

But then you work with infinite stealth
And ropes from rags you twist
And in the dark of night
You fashion a saving noose

In silence you step off your bunk
And in minutes your soul flies free
Looking down at that tortured thing
That was so hard to leave.

And laughing at your torturers
When they look into your cage,
To find that there’s nothing left
To be a target for their rage.

Three have escaped and flown to Heaven
Inspiration for hundreds more.
Who seek an end to their living death
On Gitmo’s far off shore.

Steve Osborn
11 June 2006
———————————————-
Somehow, some way, we have got to take our nation back from the thieves and murderers who have controlled it for so long, and apparently still do, with a new puppet who speaks English in full sentences and is of a darker hue, but the message is the same and the Imperial Storm Troopers still go forth to kill and occupy yet more small nations and We the People find ourselves in an increasingly more restricted Prison Planet of our own.

One wonders how many of those innocent victims later on became sexual abusers themselves. Trauma is a terrible thing to experience. As individuals have to deal with trauma, so do societies i.e.: cultures and even nations.

In 1963, JFK was assassinated. At first, it looked to be an open and shut case: one lone nut did all the damage. Yet, sometimes the truth can be felt , not by the rational mind , or through logic…. Rather through an intuitive process. The year after JFK’s murder, the United States murder rate increased dramatically! Why?

Did the mass consciousness of America reach some kind of resignation or hopelessness? If the employees of a company realize that their boss is skimming money, guess what happens? Some of them lose interest in  playing by the rules  , and they too skim and steal. We all are somehow spellbound by this trauma syndrome.

Remember the European Jews who were able to flee Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust to the safety of Palestine? These folks were deemed to be subhuman by the Third Reich, treated as not even 3rd class citizens… Brutalized in every way imaginable…. So those that could flee did so. Then, years later, many of these same people see the Palestinians as subhuman.

This writer recalls traveling on business to Phoenix in 1988. On the 747 Jumbo Jet we were able to walk around and stretch out. I engaged in conversation with a rather pleasant man, perhaps in his early 40s. He said he was an Israeli engineer, and had been actually born and raised in Israel. I asked him about the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He was honest to a fault: ”

Listen, you have to understand that we Israelis realize that we treat these people harshly. Yet, we have no choice. They breed ( his words ) like rabbits, and if we do not do something about them, they will suffocate us in a few years. They are similar to the problem you have here with your black people. It is not nice… But we have no choice.” His brief explanation could have been right out of the mouth of some Nazi official in 1930s Germany… Or even more disturbing… Out of the mouth of some average German on the streets of 1930s Berlin! Trauma syndrome.

In America, we have experienced , these last couple of years, so many facts coming out about torture. Books and articles have exposed what horrific acts our government has committed in this ( so called )  War on Terror . These acts have been given the Orwellian phrase Enhanced interrogations. Torture, plain and simple. One wonders, with all the documentation coming to light, how many tortured detainees were not in the category of those terrorists who had committed heinous acts.

For every KSM, as they call him, there were perhaps hundreds of men who were ( and are ) absolutely innocent … Guilty in only being Muslim. We know that the Afghan warlords and their followers rounded up anyone they could grab in the early stages of post 9/11. They then sold these men to the Americans for a bounty! We know of the overreaction by the Bush/ Cheney crew to get information… And quickly! We know they circumvented the Geneva Accords by rewriting what was allowable in interrogations….

Or was it really always simply about punishment…. Payback time ? This is just not about one aspect of torture, or what Cheney still holds onto as enhanced interrogations AKA Water boarding. In a previous column, in one of my  Letters to Obama  series ( found on www.populistamerica.com ) , I asked the president to allow himself to be locked in the White House bathroom for 10 hours. I suggested that the AC be turned up to make the room freezing cold. Loud abrasive music should be piped into the bathroom… With him sitting there in total darkness….

Or better still , with bright bright lights on. He should be naked and periodically smacked around or shoved into the walls. Female guards should come in and play with his genitals… He should be called  Nigger  …. You get my drift. Perhaps in the adjoining bathroom Dick Cheney’s daughter ( the one who wails about how correct her dad was ) should be asked to experience the same regimen.

When our nation, as Cheney and co. are now attempting to do, begins a legitimizing of torture, we are in deep deep **** . When the rest of the world sees America as the hypocrite it now appears to be, credibility goes down the drain. Perhaps it is time for …… You who are reading this to begin speaking up and speaking out. Cheney has his popularity rising quickly in the polls.

The mainstream media, even those who have little use for Bush and co., they are beginning to rationalize that torture has kept us safe from more 9/11 styled attacks on our soil. What do you think? Before you answer that, be prepared to see the person you love the most have these procedures done upon his or her physical and mental self. What if… What if your loved one was friendly or worked with someone on some watch list? What if they were heard , or maybe misheard, saying something foolish? Are you prepared to see the Third Reich and its trauma continue to inculcate our system of government?

It already has, you know. It already has.

The stunning plan Barack Obama slipped into his speech Thursday, a speech filled with “the rule of law” is PROLONGED, or PREVENTIVE DETENTION.

The President said he will “develop an appropriate legal regime” to indefinitely imprison people without charges based on what he thinks they might want to do, on their speech, or their associations.  He admitted that there are people now detained who cannot be prosecuted because evidence against them is tainted by torture, or because there simply IS no evidence against them.  He implied this could go on for a decade or more.

The Bush regime thought about this, but never tried it.  This has never been done by the US in its history.  What does it mean that Obama stated flatly that habeas corpus — the right to know charges against you, and be able to defend yourself – will be indefinitely denied to a class of people.

Here are 2 key paragraphs of  Glen Greenwald’s piece: Facts and myths about Obama’s preventive detention proposal.

“It’s important to be clear about what “preventive detention” authorizes.  It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding.  That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain.  Far more significant, “preventive detention” allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally “dangerous” by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they “expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden” or “otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans”).  That’s what “preventive” means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be “combatants.”

Once known, the details of the proposal could — and likely will — make this even more extreme by extending the “preventive detention” power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a “combatant.”  After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based — namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain “dangerous” people even when they can’t prove they violated any laws — there’s no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly “dangerous” combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.”

There was also plenty to be outraged about in Dick Cheney’s blood-thirsty, fascist speech at the American Enterprise Institute.  He meant to have the final word, clearly acts as if he’s still in power, and is determined to set terms for Obama.  While in California this week, I’ve talked to a number of people who heard Cheney’s raving, and were relieved to hear Obama uphold the “rule of law”.  But check out the Utube of Rachel Maddow on Obama’s “two speeches.” And David Swanson in: Does Cheney Make Obama Look Good?

The debate cannot be between Cheney’s vision of permanent war for empire, unbound by constitutional niceties like due process, and Obama’s “re-branding” of the same.  But I don’t buy the argument that those of us who opposed the Bush program should now accept the Obama proposals, and not fight them, because Cheney is waiting in the wings.

The people, represented now by relatively and admittedly small numbers of us who are outraged, and see where this is going, have to come into the argument by taking a stand against US torture, indefinite & preventive detention, and soon, visibly. We need to bring more people with us, and not stop, given the stakes.

Right now, the demand to Release the Torture Photos and Prosecute the War Criminals is right on time.  Where the US goes on torture is not yet decided, will be a central issue in the Obama presidency and the conduct of the “war of terror” occupying the people of the Middle East. We cannot depend on the courts to do the right thing.  The US Senate has entered in, profoundly on the wrong side.  See Dennis Loo: Senate Votes to Block Release of [Torture] Photos for 5 Years

But there’s a lot more here than the fate of the Guantanamo detainees, as profound a moral question for humanity as that is.  I wrote about the appointment of Stanley McChrystal to lead the US occupation of Afghanistan.  More and more is coming out on him.  See Tom Engelhart,
Obama, McChrystal, and Expanding the War in Afghanistan and Pakistan

1. He’s a protege of Rumsfeld, protected by Cheney, heading an assassination squad under the Joint Special Operations Command, which Seymour Hersh says is the shadowy assassination squad operating in Iraq as part of the surge.
2. When McChrystal was brought into Afghanistan two weeks ago, he was at an Oval Office meeting was held where Obama agreed not to release the torture photos.
3. It’s thought some of the photos being covered up are of abuse directly under McChrystal’s command.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday vowed to move cautiously and avoid partisan politics in deciding whether any Bush-era officials should be prosecuted for justifying harsh interrogation techniques.

Since we assume that the highest legal officer in the land will act cautiously and evenhandedly when enforcing the law, why should it be thought necessary to point this out, unless it is to prime us that it would be partisan to go after Bush, should we consider Bush to be a Bush-era official. The same avoidance of “partisanship” would apply to such as Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and those in the general class.

Holder spoke a day after The New York Times reported that an internal Justice Department review had determined that Bush administration officials committed serious lapses of judgment in authorizing tough questioning procedures but should not be prosecuted.

It might be a serious lapse of judgment to authorize tough questioning procedures, but, of course, if it was just “tough” there would have been no need for an internal Justice Department review. Thus the review must have concluded that no lapse of judgment could excuse torture, and instead of examining the actions on merit, it merely defined them down.

Pelosi stuck to her argument that she had not been told waterboarding was used, said Brendan Daly, her spokesman.

“As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used,” Daly said.

Only one briefing, and they hadn’t waterboarded yet. Nancy is only against waterboarding after it is used.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said he supported Obama’s view that it was best to look forward rather than launch potentially far-ranging investigations into past events.

“What about members of Congress who were informed of them or knew about them or approved them or encouraged them, wouldn’t they also be appropriate parts of such an investigation?” Alexander said.

You got it, Lamar. And while we’re at it, “far-ranging investigations into past events” can be described as good criminal work, and you can skip the “past events” because those are the only kind given to investigation.

“Our desire is not to do anything that would be perceived as political, as partisan. We do want to look forward to the extent that we can do that,” Holder said.

But he added, “to the extent that we see violations of those laws, we’ll take the appropriate actions.”

Eric, you are not going to see violations of those laws when it comes to the high-ups. It’s noteworthy that you used the word “perceived”. In so doing, you make the partisan designation in advance.

Enough is enough. It’s time to free John Walker Lindh, poster boy for George Bush’s, Dick Cheney’s and John Ashcroft’s ‘War on Terror,’ and quite likely first victim of these men’s secret campaign of torture.

Lindh is in the seventh year of a 20-year sentence for ‘carrying a weapon’ in Afghanistan and for ‘providing assistance’ to an enemy of the United States. The first charge is ridiculously minor (after all, it’s what almost everyone in Texas does everyday). The second is actually a violation of a law intended for use against US companies that trade with proscribed countries on a government ‘no trade’ list like Cuba or North Korea. Ordinarily, violation results in a fine for the executives involved. FULL ARTICLE

Shocking evidence from a classified Senate Armed Services Committee report released last week makes the most compelling case to date that senior Bush administration officials intentionally lied about torture.

Under the bright lights of national news cameras, President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld described the horrors of Abu Ghraib as acts committed by a “few bad apples,” when in fact, they were actively encouraging the armed forces to torture prisoners at detention centers worldwide.

The details in this and other documents recently released should send chills down your spine. They confirm our worst nightmares about the types of interrogation tactics approved, including slamming suspects into walls, waterboarding 2 individuals a combined 266 times and exploiting another’s fear of insects by confining him in a box with an insect.

Horrifying as they are, these details only scratch the surface of what our 50 years of experience interviewing victims of torture tells us. We know that abuse always escalates over time, especially when sanctioned at the highest levels.

The administration’s response? Give torturers a free pass. The Obama administration announced recently that it would guarantee immunity to CIA officials and others who carried out clearly illegal interrogation tactics. This action directly contradicts the administration’s assertions that nobody is above the law.

The President and others in his administration have begun to change their tune in response to mounting public outcry. And now Obama has signaled that he may leave the door open for further investigation of those in the highest rungs of power in the Bush administration.

This moment represents a crucial opening in the fight for accountability. It’s a chance to finally slap the cuffs on those who authorized interrogators to take the gloves off and ensure that those responsible for abuse are held to account for the irreparable harm they’ve caused.

And most importantly, it’s an acknowledgment that accountability is the only way to put an end to the failed policies of detention without trial and detainee abuse.

What happens next will determine whether the whole story about Bush-era torture will see the light of day or remain shrouded in secrecy. We need to ensure that a non-partisan independent commission leads the investigation, and that it’s free from political influences, has subpoena power and enough money to pursue the truth.