“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
Feb. 2002: President Bush Executive Order authorizes JTF-170 GTMO Intelligence Corps. Guantanamo Bay Detention Center opens (Jan. 2002) and is almost immediately transformed into a “Battle Lab” – the term used to describe the intelligence operation by Commander MG Dunlavey and later MG Miller – where prisoners are subjected to…
Katherine Eban, in her extraordinary report Rorscharch and Awe in Vanity Fair (2007), unmasked the fabricated lie crediting torture as the key to successful interrogations. In fact, it was the F.B.I.’s humane treatment and rapport-building techniques that prompted of Abu Zubaydah to divulge actionable information. But this success story evaporated…
Abu Zubaydah was described as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of attacks who helped manage an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He was detained at a “black site” in Thailand and first interrogated from March to June 2002, by two seasoned FBI agents, Ali Soufan and Steve Gaudin, who spoke English and…
The Senate Armed Services Committee Report (2009) shows that in memos to the Office of Legal Counsel in both the Justice Department and Defense Department, senior officials in the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) openly referred to torture: “the memo did not purport to address the ‘myriad legal, ethical or moral implications…
SERE is the acronym for “survival, evasion, resistance escape”, a military training program.(Read more above ) Published reports indicate that the acute stressful SERE techniques have produced physiological and psychological harm. Investigative reporter and psychologist Jeffrey Kaye has written numerous articles reporting physiological and psychological harm produced by stressful SERE techniques….
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a series of infamous “Torture Memoranda” redefining the criminal prohibition against torture as defined in 18 USC 2340A-2340B, which “is the controlling legal constraint on interrogations of detainees outside the United States. Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and…
Alberto Gonzales Counsel to the President, David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, Jim Haynes DoD General Counsel, John Rizzo Acting CIA General Counsel, Michael Chertoff Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, and other senior administration officials travelled to Guantanamo Bay and were briefed on future plans for detention…
According to the Senate Armed Services Committee Report (2009), several witnesses expressed concerns about using the term “Battle Lab” to describe Guantanamo prison (GTMO). The Commander of the Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF), Col. Britt Mallow testified: “While [“Battle Lab”] was logical in terms of learning lessons, I personally objected…
The stated purpose of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center (GTMO), opened in Jan. 2002, was to house the most dangerous detainees, the “worst of the worst” captured in the course of the Global War on Terrorism. However, an analysis of the numerous declassified government documents including Executive Order, JTF-170, Senate…
Without collaborating doctors & psychologists there would have been no U.S. torture of prisoners of the War on Terror. A defining feature of Nazi Germany’s vast murderous apparatus was the collaboration of medical doctors who provided the regime with a patina of professional legitimacy for its murderous policies; beginning with…
Collaborating health professionals assessed the ability of detainees to endure severe pain; they calibrated the level of pain caused by certain techniques; they assessed the effects of sleep deprivation; and they determined the advisability and effectiveness of using simultaneous combinations of torture techniques. Their professional judgment was used to escalate…
Some of the inhumane methods were atrocious in ways that are scarcely imaginable. One prisoner was subjected to forced ‘rectal feeding’. Another was chained to a wall for 17 days. A third was subjected to sensory and sleep deprivation and chained to a concrete floor; he died of hypothermia. “Water-boarding, electric…
