CIA Torture
“What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight . . . is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.” — General David Petraeus, May 10, 2007
“Two images — Guantanamo on the one hand and Abu Ghraib on the other — are the images for which, unfortunately, the U.S. is probably better known around the world today than for the Statue of Liberty.” — David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center, Feb. 18, 2008
“Medical ethicists say that the Bush era torture program architected and overseen by psychologists will go down as one of the greatest scandals in the history of medical ethics, on a par with the Tuskegee experiments of the mid twentieth century… an incalculable large stain has been left on the profession of psychology.” –Geoff Gray, Weaponizing Psychology, 2014
CIA Guidelines: “Human Subject Research”
In June 2015, the UK Guardian published previously classified CIA documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. For the first time, sections of a 1987 CIA document that sets forth explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” that, according to CIA spokesperson, were in force – before, during and after CIA’s post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees. “CIA…
Read More“Scientific” Torture of POWs at Guantanamo
2004: Abu Ghraib: photographic evidence of U.S. torture of prisoners of war In 2004, public attention was drawn to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq because of the graphic photographs documenting depraved sadistic cruelty. The photographs had been taken by soldiers who participated or witnessed the dehumanizing criminal abuse; the photographs are incriminating evidence validating…
Read MoreIntroduction
On September 11, 2001 the American people were confronted with a cataclysmic shock; terrorists were able to penetrate U.S. national defense barriers and murder 3,000 people. Within days, Vice President Dick Cheney stated on NBC’s Meet the Press: “We have to work the dark side, if you will. Spend time in the shadows of the…
Read MoreDefinition of Torture: Prosecution of War Criminals; International Conventions
After the atrocities of the two world wars in the 20th century, most nations condemned torture and made it illegal. A recently released archive of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, created in 1943 to classify and identify Axis war crimes and to assist in the prosecution of war criminals, lists numerous examples of U.S.…
Read More2001: U.S. DOJ “legalizes” non-consensual human experiments; DOD waives informed consent
Nov. 2001: U.S. Department of Justice “legalizes” nonconsensual experiments Experimenting on prisoners of war is explicitly prohibited by the Nuremberg Code, the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law (18 USC section 1430). The Pentagon sought to lift these prohibitions on research involving prisoners. Lawyers in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) accommodated,…
Read MoreMalignant roots & precursors of U.S. post-September 11, 2001 Torture
CIA torture techniques in use since Sept. 11, 2001 – are euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques”(EIT). They were touted as “science-based;” they are the product of decades of unethical experiments by American psychiatrists and psychologists who explored the psychological effects of extreme stress. A. CIA’s infamous mind control experiments: BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA were debilitating…
Read MoreAfter 9/11, the CIA adopts reverse-engineered “SERE” interrogation protocol
After September 11, 2001, the C.I.A. ignored its own 1989 conclusions that torture is not an effective way to elicit intelligence information, and embarked on widespread use of torture globally, employing the euphemistic term, “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT). America’s post-9/11 torture techniques are an expansion of the mind control arsenal and were tested and developed…
Read MoreFalse assumptions, professional ignorance led to bad decisions
The primary argument that officials in the Bush administration made in defense of their authorization for the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT) — otherwise recognized as torture — is that their use in interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects resulted in obtaining vital intelligence information that “saved American lives.” That claim was disputed by by…
Read More2001 – 2007: Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel redefined the parameters of torture
The Office of Legal Counsel was established to serve as the “constitutional conscience” of the Justice Department: “OLC is, and views itself as, the frontline institution responsible for ensuring that the executive branch charged with executing the law is itself bound by law. The danger, of course, is that OLC lives inside the very political…
Read MoreDec. 2001: American Psychological Association Collusion Facilitates the use of Torture
In December 2001, a small group of professors and law enforcement and intelligence officers gathered outside Philadelphia at the home of a prominent psychologist, Martin E. P. Seligman, to brainstorm about Muslim extremism. Seligman is most famous for his work in the 1960s in which he was able to psychologically destroy caged dogs by subjecting…
Read MoreFeb. 2, 2002: Executive Decree Denies Al Qaeda detainees Geneva POW Protection
Al Qaeda were labelled “unlawful enemy combatants.” President Bush effectively denied prisoners in the War on Terror the legal protections and minimum standards for humane treatment under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. He did so while stating that, as a matter of policy, the U.S. Armed Forces shall treat detainees “humanely,” consistent with the…
Read More2002: The Torture Business proved highly profitable as a business
The CIA and the Department of Justice were the lead government agencies that authorized the use of torture techniques against prisoners in the War against Terror. The CIA contracted psychologists to devise and supervise tough innovative interrogation techniques whose use would have arguable “scientific and psychological” justification. James Mitchell and Bruce Jesse, two former senior psychologists…
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