Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration's Torture Program
Sunday 06 June 2010
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)
High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration's "war on terror," who were subjected to brutal torture techniques, were used as "guinea pigs" to gauge the effectiveness of various torture techniques, a practice that has raised troubling comparisons to Nazi-era human experimentation. according to a disturbing new report released by Physicians for Human Rights, an international doctors' organization.
PHR, based in Massachusetts, called on President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the US Congress to launch investigations into the role of physicians and psychiatric experts in the monitoring and assessments of the brutal interrogations.
"Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of [the] interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations," said the 27-page report, entitled "Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the 'Enhanced' Interrogation Program." "Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The report is based on extensive research of previously declassified government documents that shows the crucial role medical personnel played in establishing and justifying the legality of the Bush administration's torture program. Many of the details contained in the document has already been painstakingly documented by Marcy Wheeler at her blog Emptywheel, and Truthout's own Jeffrey Kaye on his blog Invictus and in articles published on this web site and at Firedoglake.
Written by medical and psychological experts, some of who have worked with victims of torture, the report said the research and experimentation on detainees violate medical professional standards, the Geneva Conventions on treatment of detainees, and international law based on the Nuremberg principles that were embraced by the civilized world after it was revealed that the Nazis engaged in medical atrocities on prisoners during World War II.
“The essence of the ethical and legal protections for human subjects is that the subjects, especially vulnerable populations such as prisoners, must be treated with the dignity befitting human beings and not simply as experimental guinea pigs,” the PHR report said.
Frank Donaghue, PHR's chief executive officer, said the report appears to demonstrate that the CIA violated "all accepted legal and ethical standards put in place since the Second World War to protect prisoners from being the subjects of experimentation."
Waterboarding and Combined Techniques
For example, CIA medical personnel obtained experimental research data by subjecting more than 25 detainees to individual and combined torture techniques, including sleep deprivation and stress positioning, as a way of understanding "whether one type of application over another would increase the subjects' susceptibility to severe pain," the report said, adding that the information derived from that research informed "subsequent [torture] practices."
The study of combined and individual torture tactics “appears to have been used primarily to enable the Bush administration to assess the legality of the tactics, and to inform medical monitoring policy and procedure for future application of the techniques," the report said.
Drawing from the study of torture tactics, Steven Bradbury, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), prepared a memo in 2005 that approved combinations of torture tactics, including forced nudity, “wall-slamming,” stress positions and repeated periods of sleep deprivation.
PHR's analysis on sleep deprivation concluded that "government lawyers used observational data collected by health professionals from varying applications of sleep deprivation to inform legal evaluations regarding the risk of inflicting certain levels of harm on the detainee, and to shape policy that would guide further application of the technique."
PHR also said the drowning method known as waterboarding was monitored in early 2002 by medical personnel who collected data about how detainees responded to the torture technique. The data was then given to Bradbury, who cited it in advising CIA interrogators how to administer the technique.
"According to the Bradbury memoranda, [CIA Office of Medical Services] teams, based on their observation of detainee responses to waterboarding, replaced water in the waterboarding procedure with saline solution ostensibly to reduce the detainees' risk of contracting pneumonia and/or hyponatremia, a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication, which can lead to brain edema and herniation, coma, and death," the report said.
In Bradbury's memo urging revised techniques – what the PHR report termed "Waterboarding 2.0" – the Bush lawyer wrote that "based on advice of medical personnel, the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia … if the detainee drinks the water."
The Bush administration also used the medical studies to mitigate any blame that might be placed on CIA interrogators or their superiors, by suggesting that doctors were involved to protect the health of the detainees even if a side benefit was to make the torture more effective, the report said.
Shielding Torturers
But the administration apparently anticipated accusations of human experimentation by adding language in the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The PHR’s report noted that the law amended the War Crimes Act, and made it retroactive to 1997, “to delineate the specific violations of [the Geneva Conventions’] Common Article 3 that would be punishable. Among those violations is ‘performing biological experiments.’
“The amended language prohibits: The act of a person who subjects, or conspires or attempts to subject, one or more persons within his custody or physical control to biological experiments without a legitimate medical or dental purpose and in so doing endangers the body or health of such person or persons.”
According to the PHR report, "the new language of the WCA added two qualifications that appear to have lowered the bar on biological experimentation on prisoners" by creating a loophole regarding a “legitimate” purpose that does not necessarily match up with the interests of the subject. The word “endangers” also would open the door to some forms of human experimentation, the report said.
Calls for Accountability
PHR and other human rights groups plan to file a complaint Wednesday with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) demanding the agency launch a probe into the CIA’s Office of Medical Services. Additionally, the group wants the Justice Department's ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), to launch a separate investigation.
The OPR recently concluded a four-year long investigation into the legal work former OLC attorneys John Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, and Jay Bybee, a federal appeals court judge on the Ninth Circuit, did when drafting the August 2002 torture memos and concluded both men violated professional standards when they issued their legal opinions that allowed CIA officers to use brutal methods when interrogating suspected terrorists, and recommended both men be referred to their state bar associations to face possible disbarment.
The judgment was softened by career prosecutor David Margolis, who was put in charge of the final recommendations, and who said he was "unpersuaded" by OPR's "misconduct" conclusion, which faulted Yoo and Bybee for their approval of brutal interrogation techniques that were used against terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.
The CIA denied the PHR's allegations of wrongdoing. Spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency, "as part of its past detention program, [did not] conduct human subject research on any detainee or group of detainees."
Despite the latest revelations regarding the torture program and other war crimes, President Obama still refuses to allow war-crimes investigations into the actions of President George W. Bush and his subordinates, saying it is better to "look forward, and not backwards."
However, Obama appears to have different standards for other countries. During an interview with a reporter for an Indonesian television station, Obama was asked whether he was satisfied with the way Indonesia dealt with its past human rights abuses.
"We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed," said Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a child and whose step-father was Indonesian. "We can't go forward without looking backwards."
Stephen Soldz, a psychoanalyst and one of the author's of the PHR report, said "it is important to realize that the logic used by the Obama administration to refuse an investigation of torture claims - that the torture memos allowed the torturers to believe their actions were legally sanctioned - does not apply to potential research on detainees."
"As far as is publicly known, there exist no 'torture research' memos authorizing ignoring laws and regulations prohibiting research on torture techniques," Soldz said.
Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said PHR's findings "recalls some of humanity's darkest days - charges from which no person of faith can afford to turn away."
"A Guinea Pig"
The PHR report's conclusions regarding sleep deprivation also buttresses previous information that the Bush administration practiced its torture techniques on the first “high-value detainee,” Abu Zubaydah, after he was captured in March 2002 and confirm several recent investigative reports published by Truthout.
A former National Security official knowledgeable about the Bush administration's torture program previously told Truthout that Zubaydah was "an experiment ... a guinea pig" used so CIA contractors could obtain data regarding different techniques.
The data was then shared with officials at the CIA and the Justice Department, who used the information to draft the August 2002 torture memos regarding the preferred interrogation methods and their frequency of use, setting parameters that supposedly prevented the interrogators from crossing the line into torture.
In an interview with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Zubaydah said the torture he was subjected to after his capture "felt like [his torturers] were experimenting and trying out techniques to be used later on other people."
Moreover, in her book "The Dark Side," New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer wrote that Zubaydah's interrogation sessions became more aggressive and experimental in April 2002, after the CIA sent in Dr. James Mitchell, a psychologist under contract to the agency, to take over the interrogations.
Mayer wrote that when Mitchell arrived he told Ali Soufan, an FBI agent who had first interrogated Zubaydah using rapport-building techniques, that Zubaydah needed to be treated “like a dog in a cage.”
Mitchell said Zubaydah was “like an experiment, when you apply electric shocks to a caged dog, after a while he’s so diminished, he can’t resist.”
Soufan and the other FBI agent argued that Zubaydah was “not a dog, he was a human being” to which Mitchell responded: “Science is science.”
The PHR report does not identify Zubaydah by name.
In March, Truthout reported, based on interviews with more than two dozen intelligence and national security officials, that one of the main reasons Zubaydah's torture sessions were videotaped was to gain insight into his "physical reaction" to the techniques used against him.
For example, one current and three former CIA officials said some videotapes showed Zubaydah being sleep deprived for more than two weeks. Contractors hired by the CIA studied how he responded psychologically and physically to being kept awake for that amount of time. By looking at videotapes, they concluded that after the 11th consecutive day of being kept awake Zubaydah started to "severely break down." So, the torture memo signed by Bybee concluded that 11 days of sleep deprivation was legal and did not meet the definition of torture.
Those videotapes were destroyed and the issue is now the subject of a criminal investigation lead by John Durham, a US attorney from Connecticut.
PHR's report said, "information collected by health professionals on the effects of sleep deprivation on detainees was used to establish sleep deprivation policy" and "guide further application of the technique."
The report determined that the human experimentation side of the program helped create a framework to protect the torturers from war crimes and other charges.
"OLC lawyers argued that efforts to refine and improve the application of techniques would provide a potential 'good faith' defense for interrogators against charges of torture," the report said. "They argued that such a medical monitoring regime would remove the element of intent to cause harm from the act, which is a necessary requirement for a successful prosecution of a torture charge under US law, and that a 'good faith belief need not be a reasonable belief; it need only be an honest belief.' Thus, research on the detainees became a key part of the OLC legal strategy to demonstrate the lack of intent to commit torture."
Nathaniel Raymond, director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture, said, "Justice Department lawyers appear to have never assessed the lawfulness of the alleged research on detainees in CIA custody, despite how essential it appears to have been to their legal cover for torture."
Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's attorney, said PHR's report is evidence that there was an "experimental element to the torture program and it was approved at the highest levels of government."
"I have said literally for years that I believe my client was tortured before any of these enhanced interrogation techniques were approved by the Justice Department," Mickum told Truthout. "And now we know that not only was my client subjected to torture but he was part of an experiment. This is so ugly, so shameful, so unlawful. If this revelation doesn't kick in an obligation on the part of the Department of Justice to investigate war crimes than I don't know what does. The Obama administration has essentially refused to do that. At some point, this president and his appointees have to take seriously what their obligations are under the law."
Mickum said he is preparing to file a series of motions in federal court, calling on the government to preserve evidence related to the CIA's research and experimentation.
"Research" Continues
Meanwhile, Obama's presence in the White House has not resulted in an abandonment of the research side of the interrogation program.
Last March, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who recently resigned, disclosed that the Obama administration's High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), planned on conducting "scientific research" to determine "if there are better ways to get information from people that are consistent with our values."
"It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. He did not provide additional details as to what the "scientific research" entailed.
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Comments
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Blight and Fog pervade the
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 05:12 β Anonymous (not verified)Blight and Fog pervade the polity.
The academy is not disturbed by the torturers
among its tenured elites. John Yoo has hardly
been challenged at all at Berkeley.
Berkeley students, are you blind? Berkeley faculty, are you blind?
Bush admits openly to war crimes,
Yoo counseled them yet retains tenure\at BP's Berkeley campus. Is everyone completely
flipping insane?
I'm sick at these
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 06:31 β Anonymous (not verified)I'm sick at these revelations. Sick. And sad.
How can someone who has taken a oath to do no harm countenance this? What has our country come to?
Justice MUST be served. These people need to face a jury and answer for what they did. They will certainly answer to their maker.
What will be interesting to see is how this plays in the corporate media and the conservative mouthpieces/blogosphere. Any guesses?
We live in insane times
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 08:24 β Orangutan. (not verified)We live in insane times among insane people. I can't believe what I've seen unfolding since the attack of 9/11. Just bizarre that a population can be that manipulated into accepting this stuff. Brilliant from a criminal's perspective. Sad and disheartening from a human one.
We don't even know who sent the Anthrax around yet to allow for the passage of the Bill of Right's killing Patriot Act.
Thank you, Jason, for yet
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 09:53 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Thank you, Jason, for yet another excellent in-depth report that shows that crime after crime was committed by the Bush administration, and are continuing to be carried out by the Obama administration, in addition to both administrations attempting to cover up the culpability, which includes the additional very serious crime(s) of obstruction of justice. These modern-day Nazi corporate-fascists get away with torture, continuing it, and with lying that it has been stopped when it hasn't. Is there no True Justice left in this country? I don't think there is. But we must keep pushing for True Justice to be carried out to the fullest extent of the law, without ANY further obstruction.
First Cheney, and now Bush, continue to get on TV and ADMIT to war crimes and torture, and that they would do it again, and their admissions are allowed to pass! What kind of insanity is that?! And I run into people all the time who still support the Bush administration, falsely believe that it's treason to criticize them, and will not hear the truth that these people, and now the Obama administration as well, have violated countless laws!! It's like it supposedly doesn't matter, and the application of justice to everyone because NO ONE is above the law, including our nefarious "leaders", supposedly doesn't matter either!! We are truly living in the twilight zone!!
These war criminals from top to bottom of the chain of command should not be allowed to live fearless lives, and lives in which they fear no just accountability for their many war crimes. They should be made to constantly shake in their boots, and not be able to sleep at night, with serious concern(s) that they may be held truly accountable for all of their "Nazi-esque" actions, which have been more than proven time and time again. But that these insane sickos who have rationalized and justified the worst, and monumental, crimes against humanity, have been allowed to not have any real fear that they will be held accountable as they should AND MUST be, is the ultimate miscarriage of justice that will perpetuate, worsen and increase this madness in the present and near future!!
God and The People, with His help, literally save this country, NOW, before it's too late!!
Torture Yields False
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 12:06 β Joe (not verified)Torture Yields False Confessions.
Guantanamo Prison is a Psy-Op so that we will believe a multitude of terrorist are out to get us but the US is tougher and will protect you.
The WAR on Terror is a fraud.
NOTHING changed with Obama. Same Oligarchical Bankers/Military/Corporatists are calling the shots
9/11 Was an INSIDE JOB.
Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
Expect NO JUSTICE; No Peace,
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 14:01 β Vic Anderson (not verified)Expect NO JUSTICE; No Peace, under Obamengele!
"Look around you. Who has
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 14:08 β Anonymous (not verified)"Look around you. Who has inherited the earth---the sick and depraved like me. You need look no further than my recent staff. Take βScooterβ Libby who writes novels with scenes about bears raping little girls who are kept in cages and has the demeanor of someone who has peeled off his own skin to avoid revealing anything about himself. Or take my two obese lawyers David Addington and John Yoo. Addington looks like the before picture for a Save the Whales fund drive. And John Yoo. Yoo looks like a 500 pound Asian hairless schoolgirl. Itβs no wonder they love torture. Their very physical presence exudes depravity. And along with my depraved self they lorded it over tens of millions of innocent people. So my advice to the kids out there, if youβve got a little or a lot of Hitler or just plain Freddy Kruger in you, cherish it, and cultivate it. And one day you too can become a Dick Cheney."
Let us not forget the names:
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 14:12 β Anonymous (not verified)Let us not forget the names: Mr. Bush and Ms. Condoleeza Rice, Mr. Dick Cheney, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Powell, Mr. Karl Rove and Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, and their minions, I Lewis Libby, Ari Fleischer, John Ashcroft, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad, Douglas Feith and James Woolsey, and Bill Pryor.
These are horrible human beings, they are cut from the same cloth as the "terrorists" we call our enemies. Their ideologies and methods are mirror images of one another which include, religious intolerance, lies, propaganda, war, and torture.
The moral high ground?
wow. disgusting. the fact
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 14:49 β unlapped_dog (not verified)wow. disgusting. the fact that these torturers and their propagandists are viewed with anything but utter contempt is a testament to the callous stupidity of many americans. these people are total neanderthals who do not even deserve a seat at the table of civilization, much less a chance to sit on its thrones and make life miserable for everyone on the planet.
there is, and always has been, only one solution. abolish the state. only then will humanity finally find some peace and order. the leeches and the cockroaches must be exposed, mocked, and scorned until they collapse under the weight of their own brazen criminality. despite continuing reports of horror and gore, i am optimistic that we can push the whole thing over. once the central banking cartel goes, it's game over.
R E V O L U T I O N ....
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 15:21 β Anonymous (not verified)R E V O L U T I O N ....
Give me a Break! Just some
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 16:11 β Anonymous (not verified)Give me a Break! Just some Propaganda about Torture to stir up resentment about the Bush Administration! We've heard it all before! What some websites won't do to stir up a bunch of emotions amongst the Net surfers that have nothing else better than to believe this crap!
The CIA is a toxic mix of
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 16:43 β Anonymous (not verified)The CIA is a toxic mix of the worst elements of the SS and Gestapo.
Just imagine if we had a full accounting of what the CIA has done around the world in just the last 10 years! And what does it say about Leon Panetta that he is willing to lead such an organization?
Talk about a misleading
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 18:30 β Andrew O. Dugas (not verified)Talk about a misleading headline! Look, I'm as appalled at the torture, and as disappointed with the Nuremberg-What-Nuremberg? response from the US government, as the next progressive. But the usage of the term "medical experimentation" and allusions to Nazi experimentation are misleading at best and DIMINISH our ability to bring the guilty to accountability.
Everything in this article indicates that the medical personnel involved worked to refine the torture techniques being used. Saline vs. free water, etc. Sick, yes. A violation of the Hipocratic ideal, yes. Criminal, absolutely.
But this hardly rises to the sick experiments that the Nazi pulled. Bizarre surgeries, baking people alive, starving to determine the minimal number of calories required for daily sustenance. Experiments that had nothing to do with more effective interrogation and everything to do with the most inhumane cruelty imaginable.
Nazi "medical experiments" had nothing to do with refining torture, and to associate the crimes in Gitmo with those in the camps is to dilute the Nazi crimes and overblow the Gitmo ones.
I haven't read the report,
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 19:26 β Anonymous (not verified)I haven't read the report, although I intend to. But nothing that this article describes constitutes "experimentation" as I understand it. It's not entirely clear whether the collection of data was for the purpose of improving the (questionable) effectiveness of torture, assuring the detainees' relative safety under torture, providing cover for the torturers or some combination of the three. But unless there's something in the report that says more than I read here I have to question whether it was "Criminal, absolutely."
Even the report itself says that the practices it describes "could" be violations of the Nuremberg Code.
I do NOT condone anything that was done in torturing detainees. Far from it. But hysterical comparisons to Nazi physical and biological experimentation do nothing to inform legitimate investigation and debate.
This is so disturbing on
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 19:34 β Anonymous (not verified)This is so disturbing on just so many levels. I
am disappointed to learn that there is so few
people working within government that can not
see fit to addressed this and stop it. Have we all
gone over the edge into insanity here? How can
anyone not see the darkness of this behavior?
What should be included in the study is the
real minds of anyone willing to be involved in
such practices. It's like looking back at the dark
ages for heavens sakes.
1) How surprised am I? 2)
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 19:56 β Anonymous (not verified)1) How surprised am I?
2) Obama supports the Bush torture programs.
3) Fox News represents patriotic, Macchiavelian ethics right to its core.
4) Obama is a more violent and virulent neoliberal war maker than Bush could ever dream of being.
5) Congress is in the pockets of the military and police industrial complex.
6) The only "hope' left to change the direction of this country would be if both Florida and Texas and Arizona go underwater due to global warming. That to me is the most likely direction from which to welcome "change," change "we can believe in."
7) Obama, Pelosi, and the wimp Senate leader from NV make me want to throw up.
Andrew: Um, experimentation
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:01 β Anonymous (not verified)Andrew: Um, experimentation to refine torture techniques is still experimentation, is it not?
And how is keeping someone awake to see the max amount of time before they "crack" much different from starving people to see the min amount of food required to survive? Seems like they both have to do with testing human limitations, or maybe I'm just seeing too much into it... And you really think the Nazi's didn't use any of their gained knowledge to refine their techniques?
And, Mr. Give me a break: Crap? Really? The torturing of people is just crap propaganda? If you think so... I hope if never happens, but if you ever find yourself in that position you'll be damned thankful you have people fighting for your rights as, at least, a human being and you weren't able to dissuade everyone away from the issue by calling it a non-issue.
The first call to action
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:13 β Anonymous (not verified)The first call to action would be to DEMAND that news stories like these get on the Yahoo headlines page and are reported by CNN, and network news, etc.
Short of that, we are powerless to do anything about this but tell our children about the good ole days when we lived in America.
If we can't force the hands of "mainstream" news agencies to report the news for a change we won't be do anything coordinated politically. Of course this is the whole reason stories like this never make it to yahoo's or CNN's headlines.
So, do you want to force our politicians to do the right thing and finally hold people accountable for their crimes?
How do we do that effectively?
I thought DICK/Bush were
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:15 β Anonymous (not verified)I thought DICK/Bush were Stalin emulators but it seems they also were Hitler followers with human experimentation..... AND they are free to roam the corridors of power and money while Hitler committed suicide and his henchmen were hunted like dogs, brought to the Nuremberg for prosecution. Who is going to prosecute DICK/BUSH?
"We can't be two
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:21 β Anonymous (not verified)"We can't be two nations..."
Well said.
We all need to ask our right-wing acquaintances, who feel they can justify torture, which nation they'd like us to be.
Apparently the reason
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:49 β Anonymous (not verified)Apparently the reason Mengele was never found is because during Operation Paperclip, we shipped him over here so that his "research" might form the basis of our interrogation methods.
Andrew, I have to disagree
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 20:56 β Lynn (not verified)Andrew, I have to disagree with you. This has nothing to do with the specific methods used on detainees; torture is illegal, and to experiment to see just how far they could go with torture before killing someone is as close to the Nazi idea as anyone could get. It makes me shake to think there are people who are depraved enough to sanction this, i.e., Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.This is the last straw - Obama better take this seriously and start dealing with it. Right at this moment, I am ashamed to call myself an American.
It's amazing to me that US
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:10 β Anonymous (not verified)It's amazing to me that US taxpayers continue to fund an agency that can't critically think their way out of a paper bag. The people who frequent this site are in the know. We wanted justice and the law to prevail but Obama and his administration said it was time to move on; sweep it under the rug so to speak. Wrong answer big O. I hope to your God that what Bradley Manning says regarding the release of those classified documents shed some light on the crooked shit that has been going on for nine years to the rest of the people who aren't in the know. Then we will see the true character of this nation. I'm waiting patiently.
You guys missed my point.
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:27 β Andrew O. Dugas (not verified)You guys missed my point. When you hear "medical experiment" and "Nazi" in the same sentence, you don't think interrogation technique, you think weird surgeries on twins, human lamp shades, burning, etc. Acts of cruelty with no relationship to making interrogation, even in this horrific I repeat HORRIFIC context, more effective.
My point is that when you start throwing around the hyperbolic "Nazi" label, you lose credibility.
And besides, do we really need to go beyond Bush and Cheney's own acknowledgment of their crimes to begin prosecution?
About being ashamed to be an
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:30 β Andrew O. Dugas (not verified)About being ashamed to be an American...
Bradley Manning makes me proud to be one.
Andrew and Anonymous right
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 21:58 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Andrew and Anonymous right after him, you just don't get it. ALL torture experimentation was OUTLAWED as a result of the Nuremberg investigations, interrogations, trials and subsequent international law(s) that were enacted as a result. IT IS AGAINST THE LAW! That is the connection; which, if you read the article fully and/or carefully, is obvious. It doesn't matter whether the modern-day torture rose to the level of the past Nazi experimentation or not; that's not the point. The point is that they used experimentation AT ALL, which they did, in order to "justify" torture. ALL torture is heinous, period; and ALL "experimentation", "investigation(s)", or whatever you want to call it, to determine what torture methods are the most effective at obtaining so-called "actionable intelligence" information from the torture victims, and for the purpose of trying to get away with these crimes, are criminal acts! THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTIFICATIONS FOR TORTURE AND SEEKING TO MAKE IT LOOK SUPPOSEDLY "LEGAL", PERIOD! WHAT, ABOUT THAT, DO YOU NOT GET, RHETORICALLY SPEAKING?! ARE YOU BRAINDEAD?!
NO ONE is above the law, including our tortuous "leaders"!! They ordered, authorized and/or countenanced experimentation in how to get away with COMPLETELY ILLEGAL torture and make it look like it supposedly "wasn't illegal", looking for ways to get around the law, a serious crime in itself, to "justify" heinous acts of habitual and systematic torture, to try and make torture supposedly look like "it wasn't torture", and all so they could seek get away with what they indirectly admitted that they knew was illegal!! Again, rhetorically speaking, what do you not "get" about all of this?! By your "tortured", so-called "logic", the torturers are getting away with convincing people like yourselves to excuse and countenance experimentation into torture techniques and how to get away with them; or at least in convincing you, and many others like you, to downplay serious crimes and talk it all right out the window so that you are, indirectly at least, aiding and abetting them getting away with it, playing right into part of what these psychopaths want!! How can you play right into, and so ignorantly at that, exactly what these mass-torturers desire?!
Rhetorically speaking once more, do you get it yet?!
As a subject of CIA human
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:23 β elizabeth (not verified)As a subject of CIA human experimentation in the 60s (as a child, no less, along with many other children - and you probably thought Olivia's experiences on Fringe were completely sci-fi, HA!), I'm not holding my breath that this report (like the many others that have come before it about prior torture/experimentation programs) will get anywhere. If it does great, and kudos to PHR. But Americans just do not want to believe that are official channels in the country capable of such evil. (Just like they don't want to believe in the fact of airline stock put options the week before 9/11 or the thermite explosions in the Twin Towers and Building 7 on 9/11, conveniently covered up swiftly by TPTB.) I have two words for you. OPERATION PAPERCLIP. Look it up. It is the root of the evil that emerged when the OSS was transformed into the CIA in the late 40s. All the horrific "Operations Directorate" (or whatever name they call it now) activities - from fomenting coups, SOA, to this kind of horror, which has been going on under various names since BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. All emerge directly from OPERATION PAPERCLIP.
So, was the source on this
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 22:51 β Jay Tea (not verified)So, was the source on this the same one that told Jason about the secret sealed indictment of Karl Rove? I check the news every day to see if that's finally been unsealed...
This is all hysteria about nothing. OF COURSE they "experimented" -- they noted what worked well, what didn't, and modified it. It's called "learning." Interrogation is, like pretty much everything else dealing with human beings, an inexact practice. You always tweak things, make little changes, slight refinements.
This wasn't experimentation purely for the sake of experimenting, this was noting what worked and what didn't work. This wasn't done on random individuals, but terrorists.
J.
I agree with Andrew Dugas &
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:04 β Don DeGeorge (not verified)I agree with Andrew Dugas & Anonymous. It is sufficient to note the violation of the Geneva Conventions that the U.S. torture program perpetrated; and Bush, Cheney, Yoo, and the whole sorry lot should be criminally prosecuted. There is no need, however, to pile far-fetched allegations of medical "experimentation" on top of what was plenty bad enough to start with. It made sense to keep records as to the effect of the torture, but that does not constitute evidence that torture was undertaken as an experiment. We weaken our credibility by making false accusations.
Andrew, history IS being
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:08 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Andrew, history IS being repeated just as we were so aptly warned it would. Similarities to what the past Nazis did, DOES exist today; and what this article is documenting is a PRIME example of just, exactly how that history is repeating, and how similar it IS to what the bygone Nazis did, regardless of whether it supposedly does or does not rise to the horrific level that the latter did; so, bringing up the past Nazi connection is NOT hyperbole.
Would you please stop rationalizing your ignorance, and indirect complicity in the torturers' downplaying and getting away with horrific crimes thereby?! Half the battle, or perhaps more than half the battle, is in successfully ceasing to rationalize your ignorance!! It is NOT "tinfoil hatter" material, or "tinfoil hatter" thinking and/or acting, to completely face and edify yourself about these connections that you now think are "hyperbole"!!
George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush ARE literally direct descendants of Nazi sympathizers, enablers and collaborators who were already allowed to get away with it by "our" government, during and after WW2. Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush's father and George W. Bush's grandfather, was directly and heavily involved in financing the Nazis and profiting from the war, as outed by General Smedley Butler to Congress. That's what the Skull and Bones secret society cult at Yale University that these people, INCLUDING THE BUSH DESCENDANTS, have gone through and are sworn to is all about. It is a Nazi death cult, like the Third Reich was. "Fourth Reich" Nazism and corporate-fascism is and/or are alive and well today, and its proponents literally FILL "our" government. Therefore, the connection(s) made in this article are completely justified; and, in fact, aren't made enough...
...Educate yourself about
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:10 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...Educate yourself about these things so you truly, and completely, know what you're talking about; or stop aiding and abetting those VERY IMPORTANT, SERIOUS, ACCURATE AND TRUTHFUL connections being dismissed; once again, just as the perpetra(i)tors want you and those like you to feed right into, helping them to get away with carrying out the conspiracies that they ARE secretly, and very successfully, perpetrating right underneath our noses right now; to a very great extent because of the ignorance of people like yourself; i.e., most ignorant so-called "Americans", of which you are still a part, even if you do have some things right.
You, and all "half-awake" Americans like yourself, MUST wake up ALL THE WAY, make ALL of these connections, face and accept ALL of the "conspiracy FACTS", wake others up to ALL of it, AND stand up against ALL of it!! Otherwise, whether you know it or not, you are traitors to God, this country, the Constitution, national and international human duties and rights, civil liberty duties and rights, freedom itself, and to the entire planet!!...
Right-on, Elizabeth!!!!! Yah, most so-called "Americans" like Andrew refuse to believe that this stuff is NOT "conspiracy theory(ies)" and/or "fiction(s)", as is exactly what the conspirators in government want them to believe... Meaning it completely sincerely, I am VERY sorry for what you were put through as a child, etc., and I am VERY proud of and glad for you that you HAVE educated and edified yourself about these things, and what is really going on, setting yourself Truly Free with the Truth. God continue to be with you and help you to cope with what you have endured.
"All's fair in love and war"
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 23:31 β Anonymous (not verified)"All's fair in love and war" W.S.
Now, here comes a
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 00:42 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Now, here comes a brainwashed apologist for torture, in the form "Jay ('Bybee') Tea"! God help us with and spare us from these people who blindly trust a government that has proven itself time and time again to be the most evil government on the face of the globe! Wake the hell up, face what is really going on, and stand up against it concertedly and en masse, NOW! The entire country and world, and everyone in them, is at stake; so, for God's sake, stop all of this madness or we are all fracked!
MOST OF THE SO-CALLED "TERRORISTS" ARE INNOCENT, DIMWIT! DIG INTO IT! THE TERRORIST U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS PAID LARGE SUMS OF MONEY TO HAVE MOSTLY INNOCENT PEOPLE TURNED OVER TO THEM SO THEY CAN USE THEM TO "JUSTIFY" THE FRAUDULENT, ENDLESS "WAR (OF!) TERRORISM", AND GET MOST BRAINDEAD, NIMROD, SO-CALLED "AMERICANS" LIKE YOURSELF TO FALSELY BELIEVE THAT IT'S ANYTHING BUT THE FRAUD THAT IT IS; TO SUPPORT IT; TO NOT DARE QUESTION IT FOR FEAR OF THE BOOGYMEN GETTING THEM AND/OR FOR FEAR OF BEING LABELED "UNPATRIOTIC" AND/OR AS SO-CALLED "TERRORISTS" THEMSELVES; AND TO HELP THEM CONTINUE THE INTERNATIONAL MASS MURDER IN, AND SACKING AND PLUNDERING OF, OTHER SOVEREIGN COUNTRIES' NATURAL RESOURCES, PARTICULARLY OIL, THROUGH INVASION(S) AND OCCUPATION(S) OF DEFENSELESS NATIONS AT OBSCENE PROFITS!
THEY TORTURE THESE SO-CALLED TERRORISTS TO GET THEM TO "ADMIT" TO ANYTHING SO THE TORTURERS CAN SAY, "SEE, THESE PEOPLE REALLY 'ARE TERRORISTS', AND WE ARE SUCCESSFULLY PROSECUTING ('CARRYING OUT' FOR YOU 'DIM BULBS') THE 'WAR (OF!) TERRORISM' AND GETTING SO-CALLED 'ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE' OUT OF THEM TO THWART (STOPPED) FURTHER, FUTURE 'TERRORIST ATTACKS'", ETC., AD NAUSEUM. AND THE FURTHER "TERRORIST ATTACKS" THAT "ARE ALMOST CARRIED OUT", BUT "ARE THWARTED", ARE INSTIGATED, SUPPORTED AND FACILITATED BY THE FBI, CIA, NSA, ETC., LIKE THE 7-7-05 LONDON BOMBING, THE 1993 WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING, THE OKLAHOMA CITY FEDERAL BUILDING BOMBING, THE SEARS TOWER "PLOT", ETC.! THE "FALSE FLAG" OBSCENITIES ARE CARRIED OUT BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, AND OTHERS, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!
IT IS A HUGE, OBSCENE, HORRIFIC "GAME" THAT THEY HAVE PULLED OUT ALMOST ALL THE STOPS IN PERPETRATING AND PERPETUATING, NO MATTER WHAT, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES, AND NO MATTER WHO "HAS TO", AND HOW MANY "HAVE TO", DIE AND/OR SUFFER IN ORDER TO CONTINUE IT, NOT ONLY FOR THE HUGE PROFITS BUT ALSO FOR SUBJUGATING THE ENTIRE WORLD, INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES AND ALL AMERICANS! WAKE (ALL THE WAY) UP AND FACE ALL OF THE GLOBAL CORPORATE FASCISM AND TERRORISM! IT USED TO BE THAT THEY LET, USUALLY, QUITE A NUMBER OF YEARS GO BY BEFORE THEY PERPETRATED THE NEXT "FALSE FLAG TERRORIST ATTACK(S)", BUT NOW THEY ARE HAPPENING WITH INCREASING FREQUENCY IN ORDER TO TERRORIZE THE ENTIRE WORLD AND GET MOST PEOPLE TO GIVE UP THEIR HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, AND TO BOW DOWN GLOBAL GOVERNMENT AND EVIL! THIS IS WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON! AGAIN, WAKE (ALL THE WAY) UP AND FACE ALL OF THE GLOBAL CORPORATE FASCISM AND TERRORISM!
KEEP LIVING IN THE FANTASY WORLD OF BELIEVING THEIR LIES AT YOUR OWN, AND ALL OF EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT'S, PERIL! AND THE PERIL OF EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET!... YAH, I'M SUPPOSEDLY "YELLING"! BECAUSE I'M SO SICK AND TIRED OF THE OSTRICHES AND LEMMINGS WHO BELIEVE ALL OF THE LIES OF THE GOVERNMENT AND THEIR MAINSTREAM MEDIA PROPAGANDA ARM, OR MOST OF THE PERTINENT LIES MOST IMPORTANT TO THE GOVERNMENT FOR THEM TO FALL FOR, JUST AS THE "GOOD GERMAN PEOPLE" OF GERMANY IN THE 1930s AND '40s BELIEVED AND FELL FOR! THE GOVERNMENT MADNESS IS INCREASING, WHICH SHOULD BE MAKING THEIR INCREASING LIES MORE AND MORE OBVIOUS, ESPECIALLY IF PEOPLE EDUCATE THEMSELVES ABOUT WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON LIKE MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE DOING, BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE WILLFULLY AND IGNORANTLY LETTING THEMSELVES BE LED RIGHT OFF THE CLIFF!
Please wake the hell up and stop being complicit in this mass-insanity, wake others up to it and to stop continuing to be complicit in it, and all stand up against it like it is the DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY of ALL of us to do (see the Declaration of Independence at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(United_States)! PLEASE! If you have a True Patriotic and NOT falsely "patriotic" and/or nationalistic, Truly Courageous and NOT cowardly and/or traitorous, bone in your body, do it NOW!
YOU NEED A WAKE-UP CALL (OR A BUNCH OF UNMITIGATED, STRONG, "NO-HOLDS-BARRED", "SLAP-YOU-IN-THE-FACE", "SHAKE-YOU-BY-THE-SHOULDERS" WAKE-UP CALLS)! IF YOU BELIEVE VIRTUALLY ANYTHING THE CORPORATE-FASCIST MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT ARE TELLING YOU NOW, YOU ARE INSANE!
Medical experimentation? You
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:26 β Anonymous (not verified)Medical experimentation? You people don't know the meaning of the words. Go back in history and read about the horrors of it, Japanese and German. We never even came close.
"Go back in history and read
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:47 β Anonymous (not verified)"Go back in history and read about the horrors of it, Japanese and German. We never even came close."
1) So there's a relative cut-off for what constitutes torture? As long as we aren't as bad as so-and-so, we aren't reallllly torturing people? That's just in-group bias.
2) Bush once said America doesn't torture people. My response to that is: "Then what do you call it?" You're getting into semantics and missing the point.
Mengelegate. We broke our
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 01:58 β Gus W (not verified)Mengelegate.
We broke our own laws and treaties.
Obama says we need to look backwards so we can go forwards but he isn't prosecuting, which makes him an accomplice.
Well given the circumstances
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 02:06 β Sullivan (not verified)Well given the circumstances to their detainment, I think we still treated them humanely. Did anyone forget what the enemies of this and other peace loving nation's and people fight for??? Does anyone believe anymore about the difference between the War going on between good and evil??? We have been fighting back with all the restraint of retaliating against evil with evil in the name of a civilized generation. Hmmm, I think if we show just a little bit more tenacity and lower our standards to theirs... COULD WE WIN???
Learning not to hate the
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 02:29 β David (not verified)Learning not to hate the trolls, death shills and ghouls who post on Truthout defending war, torture, criticizing valiant journalists, using weasel words. The same folks who think it's ok for Israeli commandos to board a boat in international waters and shoot people.The same people who say drill baby drill, who cares about the oceans, let everything die, I want my leaf blowers and jet skis. I read these comments, and I have to learn not to hate people who are clearly blinded and in league with Satan. I have to learn to forgive humans who love death, war, US nationalism. And forgive those who are paid to come on here and write their lies and weird ideas, as propagandists, fronting for BP, Israel, the CIA and other murderers. Learning to forgive. Because the alternative is to hate these evil fools!
I do not want to be naive,
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 03:06 β Anonymous (not verified)I do not want to be naive, but I do not want to reduce this country to barbarism.
I will say this about Mr. Mitchell - punishment:
results in an allover dampening of behavior.
What he was talking about sounds like "Learned Helplessness", even studied with dogs as subjects.
It's a decent model for depression.
A depressed person is going to act more like a "catatonic" person and be harder to arouse to speech than a non-depressed person. (this is my extrapolation, as dogs can't talk, let alone tell military secrets. That is the issue with animal models and experiments)
Frankly, I think he not only violated the ethics of his profession, but should also be fired for being giving the CIA bad advice.
It has been known, at least
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 03:36 β Pat Williams (not verified)It has been known, at least since the Korean War, that the intention of such torture techniques was always to obtain false confessions for political reasons. And this is exactly what the Bush administration did to justify the invasion of Iraq, oil-rich Iraq. Experimentation may have been a justification. But the objectives have always been political power. It may well be that mental illness, sociopaths in key positions of power, might also be part of this picture. It would be advisable for every citizen to read a description of the features of a sociopathic personality. It might change our voting habits.
Dr. Mengele, I presume?
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 04:07 β Anonymous (not verified)Dr. Mengele, I presume?
this is so frustrating. the
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 04:53 β brooke (not verified)this is so frustrating. the majority of people who commit atrocities are not generally seeing themselves as doing so. open your eyes and realize what youre doing to the other human beings around you. these people are still people, even if they're brown or poor or from a country we're at war with.
even if someone wishes harm on you, when you are in a position of power above somebody, as a human being, you hold a responsibility to treat them with (AT LEAST) the barest semblances dignity and respect.
to fail to do that is a failure of your humanity and the death of your own dignity.
We need to stop arguing
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 05:28 β Leigh (not verified)We need to stop arguing about whether the US "experimentation" went as far as the Nazi crimes against humanity. There is no such thing as a "little" torture. Once the door is opened to those dark methods of mistreatment, the stairs only lead downward.
Barak Obama is an obedient
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 10:23 β Anonymous (not verified)Barak Obama is an obedient follower who respects authority wherever it comes from.
It's really a shame he's not ordering legal prosecutions.
Prescott Bush was Hitler's
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 10:28 β Anonymous (not verified)Prescott Bush was Hitler's banker before US entered WWII.
Now we learn his grand son George W.was conducting torture experimentation like those in Treblinka and other concentration camps. At a smaller scale.
I wonder what's next and what Obama is waiting to do the job he was elected to do.
"Give me a Break! Just some
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 13:51 β GM (not verified)"Give me a Break! Just some Propaganda about Torture to stir up resentment about the Bush Administration!"
Thanks for the admission. Yes, it is torture!
"I've heard it all before"
Apparently you have not, but stay tuned.
This is never going away.You are witnessing history, my friend. America stain upon the world can never be wished away, just like the Nazi's stain upon the world can never be wished away.
**Nazi "medical experiments"
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 13:53 β GM (not verified)**Nazi "medical experiments" had nothing to do with refining torture...**
Oh, really? Please elaborate.
"I haven't read the report,
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 13:56 β GM (not verified)"I haven't read the report, although I intend to."
I can tell.
"...But nothing that this article describes constitutes "experimentation" as I understand it."
Apparently, Physicians for Human Rights appear to disagree. Who's the expert? Them or "Anonymous"?
@Andrew "You guys missed my
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 14:05 β GM (not verified)@Andrew
"You guys missed my point. When you hear "medical experiment" and "Nazi" in the same sentence, you don't think interrogation technique, you think weird surgeries on twins, human lamp shades, burning, etc. Acts of cruelty with no relationship to making interrogation, even in this horrific I repeat HORRIFIC context, more effective."
Give it some time. Torture is still underway in Afghanistan at the officially unacknowledged JSOC-run Camp Anan which denies the ICRC access to detainees, itself a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. They are reported to be torturing children there as young as 15, according to witnesses.
@Sullivan "Well given the
Tue, 06/08/2010 - 14:11 β GM (not verified)@Sullivan
"Well given the circumstances to their detainment, I think we still treated them humanely"
Does that include the dead ones? How about the ones who were raped? Does that also include those driven to madness? How about all those who were released after being mistakenly identified yet tortured?
This is just a symptom of a
Wed, 06/09/2010 - 17:12 β Alan8 (not verified)This is just a symptom of a deeper crime: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S INVOLVEMENT IN STAGING THE 9/11 ATTACKS!
The 9/11 attacks created the climate for people to behave inhumanly toward the people being interrogated.
Despite the disinformation of the corporate media with unlimited resources, the fact that 9/11 was staged is indisputable. Building 7 with minimal damage collapsed at near-free-fall speeds, totally symmetrically, neatly into its own footprint.
Only a controlled demolition would do that. There are numerous eyewitness accounts of explosions before the collapses. Dick Cheney disabled the air defenses to allow hijacked planes to fly unchallenged for nearly an hour.
Military-grade nanothermite used in demolition was found by multiple researchers in the debris from the three collapsed buildings.
The official 9/11 report didn't even CONSIDER the cause of Building 7's collapse, and was part of the coverup.
We need a REAL investigation of the DOMESTIC terrorism of 9/11: http://nyccan.org/join.php
So right, "Alan8"!
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 04:17 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)So right, "Alan8"!
@S. Wolf Britain With whom
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 05:42 β Andrew O. Dugas (not verified)@S. Wolf Britain
With whom are you arguing?
Before you accuse me of defending Bush et al or diminishing torture as torture or a legal construct, read my freaking posts!
Nazis experiments were rooted in pure cruelty and sick curiosity. They were like sociopathic children with small animals or insects. What if we pulled their wings off or fried them under a magnifying glass.
Pure cruelty.
I am NOT saying the American crimes do not rise to the same level of inhumanity. Indeed, one could say it is SICKER to wonder if salt water might produce a better result than fresh water.
But they were certainly NOT doing the human equivalent of pulling off a fly's wings "just to see." The Nazis have us beat on that by a thousand miles.
The American experimentation served to refine torture, make it more effective. How YOU might consider this a justification is an interesting question.
It certainly does NOT make it less "illegal".
And of course, the refusal of the Obama Administration to redeem America in the only way possible -- by persecuting the criminals from the President on down (you too, Pelosi!) -- only deepens our national shame.
The fact that such torture CONTINUES in "black sites"... well, when the Great Retribution comes, what will we be able to say?
- AD
PS: Personal recommendation - typing in all CAPS does NOT make you seem MORE rational. Just a word to the wise.
@ GM When you think "Nazi
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 05:51 β Andrew O. Dugas (not verified)@ GM
When you think "Nazi medical experiments" you don't think "salt water vs. fresh water." You think some pretty weird twisted sh*t.
Was there a gray area where they used Holocaust victims to determine the limits of the human ability to withstand sleep deprivation, pain, etc, to determine more effective means of torture? Sure.
But that's not the CONNOTATION. And misleading CONNOTATION is HYBERBOLE and that weakens the moral and legal arguments.
That's my contention.
We don't need hyperbole. The simple facts scream the sad sick truth all too loudly.
New bumper sticker:
BUSH DESERVES A FAIR TRIAL
Who can argue with that?
Yes, give Bush, Cheney,
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 16:32 β Tom Outland (not verified)Yes, give Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. a fair war crimes trial.
Then hang them.
The Patriot Act, The
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 17:05 β Elizabeth (not verified)The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, pre-emptive attacks, illegal wars, torture. How can anyone think that we are living a free country? This country flouts international laws and our own Constitution, and so called patriots defend all this, because they are so afraid of those terrorists. Oh, those little impoverished countries are so scary! WAKE UP DARLINGS, OUR MILITARY, OUR CIA, OUR ADMINISTRATION, EVEN OUR DOCTORS ARE THE TERRORISTS, and the powers that be must be chuckling in amusement regarding how absolutely gullible and compliant the US population has become. Hasn’t It become abundantly clear that most, if not all, of those tortured were innocent? Don’t Americans have any human decency?
How sick and twisted do things have to get before Americans rise up against the tyranny? People like Andrew O. Dugas bring me close to despair when they say things like “this hardly rises to the sick experimentations that the Nazis pulled.” We all know that the Nazis did things that were astoundingly sick, but to minimize the terrorism of this country by saying, oh, we’re not that bad is just ridiculous. When atrocities start piling up, you don’t sit back and gauge how bad an atrocity, for God’s sake! If the German people had risen up when they saw their country going fascist, maybe the Nazis wouldn’t have made lampshades out of human skin. We see the direction this country is going, and we act exactly as the German people did.
What do people think? It can’t happen here? Back to the root problem: people somehow believe that Americans are a special crop of people, that America is incapable of going fascist because we’re Americans! Look around. Our media already is a propaganda machine. The laws already have been put in place to punish those who dissent. The Republic already has been overthrown. The evidence that 911 was an inside job is overwhelming. Obama is not going to turn things around—he reauthorized the Military Commissions Act, for God’s sake. Innocent people can’t get out of Guantanamo Bay even when our own government acknowledges their innocence. Justice means nothing here in the USA. We already are fascist, and I’m no longer afraid for our nation. I’m afraid of it.
Elizabeth, I agree
Thu, 06/10/2010 - 21:27 β Anonymous (not verified)Elizabeth, I agree wholeheartedly. We are no longer capable of defending our rights as Americans or as human beings.
Right now we have the soft abuse of the present administration to be replace, no doubt sooner rather than later, with another Republican fear-mongerer. We are a nation of sheep lead by a cabal of corporate elite who will suck the value out of this country and toss the empty shell overboard in the Gulf of Mexico without so much as a backward glance.
Now I can't even post the
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 04:47 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Now I can't even post the short first paragraph of my latest comment (that has no inappropriate words or statements in it), and then post the rest if it in however many parts I have to break it up into. Also, when the posting doesn't work, it doesn't always shunt to the "spam/duplicate" error page, but now it it takes you to a "re-comment" page with the comment block and nothing else. What is going on here with the moderation software?!
[Hmm---the moderation
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 04:51 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[Hmm---the moderation software doesn't appear to like a comma after first word in the first paragraph; and thus, once I took that comma out of the previous post, after the word, "Now", the comment posted fine! Make some sense out of that if you can!]
Right-on again, Elizabeth! And, again as well, will you please marry me?! You put all of that so well!! Yes, you made some grammatical errors; but I too make those errors in my comments, too. It's probably the effect of the chemtrails on my brain, speaking for myself. My brain is probably so riddled with barium, aluminum, fluoride and mercury, etc., that it's amazing that I can truly think and write at all...
...Now watch, some idiot(s?)
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 04:53 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...Now watch, some idiot(s?) will come back with something about the chemtrail issue is supposedly a "conspiracy theory", you watch. They've been look at strange trails, and even more bizarre clouds which come about as a result of the trails, for twenty years now, so they think what they're looking at is "normal", when it's anything but normal. If their memories weren't shot from everything, maybe many of them could think back and remember when jet contrails didn't look like, or take so long dissipate like, the chemtrails, and that the clouds didn't used to look so bizarre...
[Now I can't get the next,
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 04:59 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[Now I can't get the next, single paragraph to post either!! Help!!]
[Well---I'm going to try
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:09 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[Well---I'm going to try jamming some---jamming all of them didn't work---of the paragraphs together and see if that works(??)...
It didn't work!! Please fix the spam filter/moderation software!!]
...I'm at my wit's end,
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:25 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...I'm at my wit's end, between not being able to get comments to post here (lol); the foregoing list of poisons; the chemicals in almost all of the food(s); fluoride and chlorine in the water (etc.); dental mercury amalgam tooth fillings; contaminated, poisoned and poisoning vaccines; GMO seeds and foods which alter DNA and the digestive tract...
...female hormones in the
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:26 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...female hormones in the plastic containers and many of the foods; pesticides; cellphones literally frying human brains and causing a worldwide pandemic of brain cancer(s); radioactive fallout and dust in the air from the nuclear accidents, nuclear experimentation, nuclear waste storage, nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, and the Depleted Uranium (DU) from the tons of exploded ordnance in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; etc.; it is a major wonder that ANY of us know whether or not we're coming or going...
...It is. And it is truly a
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:27 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...It is. And it is truly a semi-major miracle that any of us wakes up and knows any of what we know; like you know, Elizabeth. Most people, "American's" in particular, are so willfully ignorant of what's really going on, that they go along on their "merry" way being slowly but surely killed off, with nary a care in the world except lots of "cares" that are NOTHING compared to what's really going on, and the responsibilities and duties of each and every one of us to fight back and try to save as much of humanity as possible from the certain, awful deaths that the list of things I delineated above are bringing upon us.
You're right, Elizabeth; for those who really see and recognize as you do what's really going on, there is much to be afraid of at the hands of the U.S. government; and, very unfortunate as it is, it is only going to get much worse. You want to move abroad with me, from where we could continue to dissent and try to help "Americans" to wake up?... All of nothing but the very best to you and yours and everyone else.
[Finally!! I got it all
Fri, 06/11/2010 - 05:28 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)[Finally!! I got it all posted; but you see what I had to go through!!]
I canβt post through
Sun, 06/13/2010 - 17:12 β Elizabeth (not verified)I teach freshman English as an adjunct, and use torture as a debate topic. Very few of my students realize the extent of the torture the US has engaged in. Most are shocked. I show them PBS Frontline’s “The Torture Question,” which depicts the mass imprisonment and torture of ordinary Iraqi citizens in 2003. These people were asked, we’re told, “Where is Saddam Hussein?” and “Where are the weapons of mass destruction?” Then I ask my students if they would know the whereabouts of Obama if he’d gone into hiding. Very few of my students get the fact that these were nonsensical questions, and of course, PBS isn’t going to go so far as to point out their absurdity. I doubt that those who decided to have our troops ask such questions had any hope that they’d find any answers through such means. The motive had to be nothing less than mass terror and sadism. I don’t say so, as I suspect I’d be fired if I did, but I open the question in the hopes that my students will find their own answers.
What really bothers me is the public response to the outrages we are hearing. Bush and Cheney continue to say that they would do it all over again. In other words, they uphold their right to commit war crimes. Now, Nixon was impeached for a bit of spying, Clinton was impeached for getting a blow job, both with significant public attention to an obsessed media, but these current statements are met with relatively overwhelming indifference. Obama stands silent. He has to. Torture continues and he has no interest in due process—he approves assassination publicly. Wikileaks gives us “Collateral Murder,” and the real story is that Bradley Manning leaked the video. Obviously the public has handed over to the military the right to murder civilians, even Reuters journalists. And even children, if they find themselves in the way. This is widespread insanity. How did we get here?
I find it essential to remember that it has always been thus, and fighting for sanity is a constant struggle. Humans have always been greedy, murderous, and duplicitous, but we are also capable of empathy, community, and even justice. Moving toward concentrating on the latter tendencies while guarding against the former ones is a constant battle that takes place in the heart as well as the political realm. As for the politicians, it’s all but folly to demand justice from them—obviously most are ethically bankrupt—yet we have to continue to do so. As for a mass movement for justice, that’s really tricky, as the public is “educated” into numbness by one of the worst educational system on the planet. However, they have been well-taught that those who protests wars or injustices are nutcases.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” --Thomas Jefferson
Excellent Jefferson quote,
Sun, 06/13/2010 - 23:27 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Excellent Jefferson quote, Elizabeth! I sure wish I'd had a teacher like you when I was in school; and I sure hope you don't get fired for telling it like it is; but you are right to do so even if that was to be and/or is the eventual outcome. In fact, because of the duty that we have to teach the truth, especially in a teaching position such as your's, I suggest you push the envelope, fully tell it like it is, and the heck with the consequences. If we fully fulfill our duty(ies) and responsibility(ies) to tell "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God" [which is obviously not only for (a) court(s) of law], we will be persecuted for it. There is no avoiding it unless we don't fully fulfill that and/or those responsibility(ies) and duty(ies).
Wonderful comment in its entirety again, Elizabeth! Was some of it cut out and not posted? If so, what was it, and please post the rest of it? Thanks, "Beautiful-spirit" and "Woman of Truth"! Keep telling it like it is, and doing so more and more!
P.S.---You should write and
Sun, 06/13/2010 - 23:38 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)P.S.---You should write and get articles published (here on TruthOut?). Do you already do so? If so, where are you published if you dont' mind my asking? You wouldn't be Anne Elizabeth Moore, a TruthOut contributor and adviser, would you? Btw, Elizabeth is the middle name I gave my daughter, who is now 28 and getting her Master's degree.
Dear Wolf: While what you
Mon, 06/14/2010 - 17:52 β Frances in California (not verified)Dear Wolf: While what you say most of the time is cogent and relevant, YOU NEED TO LET SOMEONE ELSE HAVE A TURN SOMETIMES . . .
Dear Mr. Dugas: Wolf is
Mon, 06/14/2010 - 17:59 β Frances in California Again (not verified)Dear Mr. Dugas: Wolf is usually not arguing with anyone in particular, more shaking his (her?) fist at the sky a la Beethoven. Sometimes it's to the point; sometimes he goes on so long, he misses his next dose and the wheels kinda come off. His argument is valid if one reads Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side". I hope you have or will soon; yes, it's very difficult to get thru, but essential reading for all Americans today.
Wow, your so-called
Tue, 06/15/2010 - 01:44 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Wow, your so-called "educated" and/or "intelligent" foolishness seems to know no bounds, Frances; except, of course, that you keep your ad hominum attacks, and your libel and slander of me, short, thank God!
I am most-certainly NOT keeping anyone here or anyplace else from "hav(ing) a turn" at commenting; and they are certainly free to do so, within the bounds of legal free speech, and not illegal speech, to their hearts' content(ment).
I am so sick and tired of so-called "intelligent" and "educated" fools like yourself, Frances! But, at least you said something a little bit substantive and/or meaningful this time; yet, all too often, you either don't have anything truly meaningful and/or substantive to say, and you make nothing but slanderous and libelous ad hominum attacks of me, or you couch what (little?) you have to say that is substantive and/or meaningful in with libelous and slanderous ad hominum attacks of me.
You really enjoy it, don't you, rhetorically speaking? Attacking, slandering and libeling me, I mean. You no doubt think I'm "a piece of work", Frances; but you most-definitely are a REAL "piece of work". Grow up, get a life, and live the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (and don't do unto others what you would not have them do unto you"!! Get it?!
I would thank you for your so-called "compliments" of me; but, because they are such "sideways", "back door" and/or "backstabbing" 'compliments' that are only in the context of slights and attacks of me, I do NOT appreciate them!!
"...Like the Pharisees, 'my friend', you an 'educated' fool..."! --John Michael Talbot.
"It is written, thus says the Lord [God in and through Jesus the Christ, the Word(s) of God, and the Maker / Creator or all things except evil]...":
"...Get... behind Jesus (the Christ), Satan(ist{s})..."! "...You are of your father (and lord and master) the devil, and the lies of your father you... do (perpetrate and perpetuate)..."! [Matthew 16:23 and John 8:44; etc.; emphasis and/or clarification(s) added by me.]
CORRECTION(S): "...Like the
Tue, 06/15/2010 - 06:44 β S. Wolf Britain (not verified)CORRECTION(S): "...Like the Pharisees, 'my friend', you're an 'educated' fool..."! --John Michael Talbot.