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GEORGE W. BUSH'S 1984: Caterpillar Replaces Orwell's Rat To Strike Fear In Prisoners. Bush LIED About "Never Authorizing Torture"! That CNN Crap "If You Truly Believe It Isn't Torture, It Isn't Lie!"
GEORGE W. BUSH’S
1984: Caterpillar
Replaces Orwell’s Rat
To Strike Fear In
Prisoners. Bush LIED
About “Never
Authorizing Torture”!
That CNN Crap
“If You Truly Believe
It Isn’t Torture,
Then It Isn’t A Lie"
Is Disingenuous
& Self-Serving - RI10
Tabacco: George Orwell was prescient in ‘1984’. OK, so he was premature by 17 years. But he certainly got it right!
Nostradamus, on the other hand, never had to be right because he was so vague, and we have all these devoted Monday Morning QBs to perpetuate his reputation. It isn’t the “Hister” reference, taken to mean “Hitler”, which upsets his credibility; it’s the events that happen for which the Omniscient one has no quatrains, which can be construed as predictive.
Of the two, Tabacco prefers Orwell – no ambiguity, no multiple interpretations, and no doubt!
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/17/memos
April 17, 2009
Obama Releases Bush-Era Memos Authorizing Torture
Techniques, Rules Out Prosecuting CIA Interrogators
Who Carried Them Out
The Obama administration has released four memos from the Bush-era Justice Department that approved and provided the legal basis for the CIA’s use of torture. While President Obama has said he will not pursue prosecutions of CIA employees, he did not explicitly address the question of prosecuting the former Justice Department lawyers who authored the memos. The memos’ release comes as a Spanish court is considering bringing indictments against six Bush-era lawyers. We get analysis from human rights attorney Scott Horton. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Scott Horton, New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights. He is also a legal affairs contributor to Harper’s Magazine and a writer at The Daily Beast.
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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Related Links
* Scott Horton's blog, "No Comment"
AMY GOODMAN: The Obama administration released four lightly redacted memos Thursday from the Bush-era Justice Department that approved and provided the legal basis for the brutal interrogation techniques used by the CIA against terrorism suspects.
President Obama issued a statement calling for “reflection not retribution” and reassured CIA officials that they need not fear prosecution.
The so-called “torture” memos from the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel were released as part of a lawsuit and Freedom of Information request filed by the ACLU. Three of the memos were authored by Steven Bradbury in 2005, then a lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, and one in 2002 by then-head of the office, Jay Bybee.
The memos dispassionately describe the use of tactics such as waterboarding, holding prisoners in small dark boxes, exploiting prisoners’ fears of insects, forced nudity, and shackling and depriving them of sleep for as many as eleven days. They also include extensive legal arguments as to why these tactics do not amount to torture under US and international law.
While President Obama has said he will not pursue prosecutions of CIA employees involved in special interrogations, he did not explicitly address the question of prosecuting the minds behind the memos, the former Justice Department lawyers who authored the memos. But a Spanish court could prosecute six prominent lawyers from the previous administration, including former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, the author of the 2002 memo.
I’m joined now by attorney and writer Scott Horton from Washington, D.C. He’s been closely following the efforts to release these memos, as well as the Spanish case against the so-called “Bush Six”.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Scott, let’s begin with the release of the memos and President Obama saying he will not prosecute. Talk about the significance.
SCOTT HORTON: Well, I think an important positive decision from President Obama to release them. We know that there was a struggle. We know that senior figures in the CIA waged what Michael Isikoff called a “holy war” to block their release. President Obama personally was involved in the final call. He made that call in favor of their release. The redactions were very, very modest: the names of some doctors and psychologists and CIA agents were blacked out. That’s standard procedure, no surprise there. Even the ACLU, I think, was happy to do that. By the way, we can pretty clearly identify exactly who all those people are, so it wasn’t terribly effective either.
The surprising thing was, of course, the statement that was released alongside of it that there would be no prosecution of CIA agents who relied on these memos in performing their duties. And I’d say that that outcome—most people who’ve studied this don’t expect that there ever would be such prosecution, certainly not of ground-level people at either the CIA or the Department of Defense. But there’s some very serious issues about how this is raised, in particular because this amnesty—and that’s effectively what it is—is being granted before an investigation of all the facts has been completed. And I think, in terms of proper process, it would be appropriate to lay down the facts to establish them and then make some sort of decision about amnesty.
And second point is we see everything presented in terms of the OLC memoranda and reliance on these memoranda. Well, there’s a very important report still being held at the Justice Department dealing with how these memos came to be crafted and released and the ethics of what went on there. I’m told it’s devastating. And I think that’s going to put a torpedo in the side of this legal argument.
But even aside from that, there is a very strange factual issue here. President Obama says that we shouldn’t prosecute them because they relied on these memos. But a factual review is going to show that the CIA was using these techniques from April 2002, and these memos were commissioned and written, the first of them, in August 2002, so it’s quite clear, in fact, that CIA agents were out in the field doing these things, not relying on these memos, with the memos not even being in contemplation at that time. So, this argument is a fallacy.
What’s really going on here, the CIA agents were acting in reliance on directives that came from the White House, from the National Security Council, that go all the way up the ladder to Vice President Cheney and President Bush. And I think President Obama is concerned about that linkage and that issue, and he wants to blur the picture a little bit.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Horton, what did you find most shocking about these memos?
SCOTT HORTON: Well, the clinical detail of the discussion of the torture techniques is just astonishing. You know, I think the bugs-in-the-box instance that you cited, which we really hadn’t heard anything, before the discussion of waterboarding. But just back up and put some perspective on this. These are techniques that federal prosecutors previously charged as crimes. Moreover, in prosecutions that occurred at the end of the World War II, American federal prosecutors sought the death penalty, sought capital punishment, for people who did these things. And now we see a man who is a federal judge sitting in San Francisco writing a memo saying “wink, nod, fine with me, just go right ahead and do it.” It’s just astonishing, and I think also astonishing that that individual in particular can sit as a federal judge today when the world knows that these memos have been crafted and, in fact, when he’s the subject of a pending criminal proceeding in Spain.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me read from the document. This is the Bybee memo. It says, “In addition to using the confinement boxes alone, you also would like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure that you are outside the predicate act requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, then, in order to not commit a predicate act, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death. [Redacted section] so long as you take either of the approaches we have described, the insect’s placement in the box would not constitute a threat of severe physical pain or suffering to a reasonable person in his position. An individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box.” Scott Horton, your response?
SCOTT HORTON: Well, we’re seeing the realization of two famous pieces of literature, aren’t we? George Orwell’s 1984 with the rat—remember, the rat was selected after psychoanalysis of the subject revealed that he had a fear of rats, so this was being used to terrorize, quite literally, the individual—as well as Terry Gilliam’s filming of Brazil, where we know again study of fear was used to drive, to craft special techniques. And that’s the predicate paragraphs, prior to the ones you just read, suggest that with respect to this prisoner, the diagnosis of psychiatrists and psychologists who had studied his case was that he had an irrational fear of insects. So let’s use this fear to unhinge him.
So, the other thing I think we should note, going back here, is this shows the central role played by healthcare professionals in the crafting and implementation of this entire process. It’s clear from reading these memoranda that doctors and psychologists are present at every stage along the way, supervising what’s going on, but also suggesting and refining the techniques to make them more terrible.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, Scott Horton, I’m headed to Spokane. We’ll be broadcasting from Spokane, Washington, on Tuesday, where Mitchell Jessen & Associates is. Can you talk more about psychologists?
SCOTT HORTON: Well, I think, you know, looking at the redactions, the things they pulled out of the memoranda, it’s fairly clear, as far as I’m concerned, that Mitchell and Jessen are involved, that they’re behind those blackouts at several places. At least they’re prime suspects.
But, you know, it’s clear from these memoranda that these psychologists, consultants, who studied the SERE program and other classical techniques of torture, because, you know, many of these things have been used by—and how did they come into the SERE program to start with? Because the SERE program was focused on techniques that had been used by the Soviet Union, by communist China, by North Korea and North Vietnam, a great pack to be emulating. Those were the techniques against which the SERE program was supposed to insulate, so those are the techniques that SERE incorporated and used as its training program. So, in effect, what we’re getting here is a filtered reproduction of communist techniques used by the Soviets, the North Koreans, the Chinese and the North Vietnamese, and psychologists are working along the way to make them more effective.
There is no consideration given to the Hippocratic Oath, the obligation to do no harm. And indeed, there’s an ethos that runs through this of a duty to the Central Intelligence Agency to make its work more effective, not to the subject or to the prisoner.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to come back to Scott Horton in a minute, as we talk about the release of four government memos from the Bush administration years known as the torture memos. I also want to ask you about the latest news on the Spanish case. Scott Horton is an attorney and blogger. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Right now we’re talking to Scott Horton, the human rights attorney and blogger. We’re talking about the latest news on President Obama releasing four lightly redacted memos from the Bush-era Justice Department, but saying that CIA officials need not fear prosecution. I wanted to go for a minute to what former CIA director Michael Hayden had to say on MSNBC Thursday. This is before the release of the memos.
MICHAEL HAYDEN: On balance, the agency’s view, certainly my view, is that on balance, the release of the memos harms American security, and therefore I think the best course of action would have been to have kept them classified.
The President, when he issued his executive order tying all American agencies to the Army Field Manual, also launched a six-month study to determine whether or not the Army Field Manual and the techniques, the nineteen techniques contained therein, are sufficient in all cases facing the republic.
The degree to which we make these techniques public, that we tell our enemies the outer limits of American interrogation techniques, it moots the study that the President directed, because it will effectively take these techniques off the table, because our enemy will know all of our approaches to him. So there are a variety of reasons that I think it would have been best to keep the techniques secret. That’s just one of them.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Horton, your response?
SCOTT HORTON: Well, I think if we have a little bit more candid Michael Hayden, we’d hear him saying something else. In fact, it was reported in Bart Gellman’s book Angler that around the time of the 2004 elections, he had a very, very strong focus on and fear of prosecution, if the things he was involved with should become public, a matter of public knowledge. And I think that’s what’s in the back of his mind here. I don’t think it’s national security at all.
In fact, these techniques are very well known. The Red Cross report, which was published—you had Mark Danner on your show talking about it—described all these techniques in terrific detail. I mean, so it was in a sense no surprise when we saw these memos. They were describing the techniques we knew and we anticipated based on the Red Cross’s own report—so no surprise, no news—and concerns by General Hayden for his own hide.
AMY GOODMAN: We just got this report from Spain, Scott Horton. Spanish prosecutors have “formally recommended against an investigation into allegations that six senior Bush administration officials gave legal cover for the torture of terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay. While their ruling is not binding, the announcement all but dooms prospects for the case against the men going forward.” That, a report from the Associated Press. Scott Horton, can you explain what you understand at this point?
SCOTT HORTON: Well, the Associated Press is giving you extremely faulty legal analysis, because a decision as to whether the case will go forward rests entirely with the investigating judge. The Spanish system is not like the American system, where prosecutors decide who and when to bring cases and who to prosecute. In the Spanish system, the prosecution is managed by an investigating judge. In this case, it’s Baltasar Garzon. And you may recall, he handled the case involving Augusto Pinochet, and he did that against the stern opposition of Spanish prosecutors, I think which shows you the weight that that recommendation may hold with him in his court.
But there’s a different consideration to weigh in here, as well, and that is that this is a statement that was announced by the prosecutors at the Audencia Nacional in Madrid, and we know, in fact, that those prosecutors who have made this recommendation not to go forward in fact concluded that the case should be prosecuted. They prepared a thirty-seven-page memorandum—and I’ve discussed, I’ve talked with several people in Madrid who have read it—that laid out the case, showed how it could fairly easily be brought, how it involved a joint criminal enterprise, how it could be sustained on the basis of documents, including some of those that were released yesterday. And that decision by the career prosecutors was overridden in a political act by Spain’s attorney general, who’s a political figure. He was a member of the cabinet of Prime Minister Jose Zapatero.
Moreover, the attorney general’s decision, which was announced yesterday morning in Madrid, came after several days of high-level discussions between Washington and the Zapatero government, during the course of which, I’ve been told, the Obama administration suggested very strongly that the pendency of this case was inconvenient and that it would be viewed as a great favor by Washington if Zapatero’s government could do what was within its power to shut this down. And I think what we see here is an accommodating nod from Jose Zapatero.
So it has really nothing to do with justice, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It’s a political act. And it’s certain to be understood by the judges of the Audencia Nacional as a political act, which means I don’t think it really forms much of a barrier to the prosecution going forward.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Horton, I want to thank you for being with us, a blogger and lawyer who’s been following these cases very closely, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.
http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html
August 19, 2007
Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants”i
WHEREAS the mission of the American Psychological Association is to advance psychology as a science and profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare through the establishment and maintenance of the highest standards of professional ethics and conduct of the members of the Association;
WHEREAS the American Psychological Association is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations and so is committed to promote and protect human rights in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
WHEREAS the American Psychological Association passed the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a comprehensive and foundational position applicable to all individuals, in all settings and in all contexts without exception;
WHEREAS in 2006, the American Psychological Association defined torture in accordance with Article l of the United Nations Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
[T]he term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted upon a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official [e.g., governmental, religious, political, organizational] capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions [in accordance with both domestic and international law];
WHEREAS in 2006, the American Psychological Association defined the term "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" to mean treatment or punishment by a psychologist that, in accordance with the McCain Amendment, is of a kind that would be "prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984." Specifically, United States Reservation I.1 of the Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture stating, "the term 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States."ii
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association reaffirms unequivocally the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in its entirety in both substance and content (see Appendix A);
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association affirms that there are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether induced by a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, that may be invoked as a justification for torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the invocation of laws, regulations, or orders;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association unequivocally condemns torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, under any and all conditions, including detention and interrogations of both lawful and unlawful enemy combatants as defined by the US Military Commissions Act of 2006;
BE IT RESOLVED that the unequivocal condemnation includes an absolute prohibition against psychologists’ knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
BE IT RESOLVED that this unequivocal condemnation includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association calls on the United States government—including Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency—to prohibit the use of these methods in all interrogations and that the American Psychological Association shall inform relevant parties with the United States government that psychologists are prohibited from participating in such methods;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association, in recognizing that torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment can result not only from the behavior of individuals, but also from the conditions of confinement, expresses grave concern over settings in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights, affirms the prerogative of psychologists to refuse to work in such settings, and will explore ways to support psychologists who refuse to work in such settings or who refuse to obey orders that constitute torture;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association asserts that any APA member with knowledge that a psychologist, whether an APA member or non-member, has engaged in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the specific behaviors listed above, has an ethical responsibility to abide by Ethical Standard 1.05, Reporting Ethical Violations, in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) and directs the Ethics Committee to take appropriate action based upon such information, and encourages psychologists who are not APA members also to adhere to Ethical Standard 1.05;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association commends those psychologists who have taken clear and unequivocal stands against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, especially in the line of duty, and including stands against the specific behaviors (in lines 81 through 100) or conditions listed above; and that the American Psychological Association affirms the prerogative of psychologists under the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) to disobey law, regulations or orders when they conflict with ethics;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association asserts that all psychologists with information relevant to the use of any method of interrogation constituting torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment have an ethical responsibility to inform their superiors of such knowledge, to inform the relevant office of inspector generals when appropriate, and to cooperate fully with all oversight activities, including hearings by the United States Congress and all branches of the United States government, to examine the perpetration of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment against individuals in United States custody, for the purpose of ensuring that no individual in the custody of the United States is subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
BE IT RESOLVED that the APA Ethics Committee shall proceed forthwith in writing a casebook and commentary that shall set forth guidelines for psychologists that are consistent with international human rights instruments, as well as guidelines developed for health professionals, including but not limited to: Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; The United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and The World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association, in order to protect against torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and in order to mitigate against the likelihood that unreliable and/or inaccurate information is entered into legal proceedings, calls upon United States legal systems to reject testimony that results from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
_______________________
i Defined as both unlawful enemy combatants and lawful enemy combatants as set forth in the U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Chapter 47A; Subchapter I: § 948a. Definitions)
‘‘(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT. —
(A) The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ means—
‘‘(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or
‘‘(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.
‘‘(B) CO-BELLIGERENT.—In this paragraph, the term ‘cobelligerent’, with respect to the United States, means any State or armed force joining and directly engaged with the United States in hostilities or directly supporting hostilities against a common enemy.
‘‘(2) LAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.—The term ‘lawful enemy combatant’ means a person who is—
‘‘(A) a member of the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States;
‘‘(B) a member of a militia, volunteer corps, or organized resistance movement belonging to a State party engaged in such hostilities, which are under responsible command, wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and abide by the law of war; or
‘‘(C) a member of a regular armed force who professes allegiance to a government engaged in such hostilities, but not recognized by the United States.
ii Article V.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Article VIII.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Article XIV.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
© 2009 American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE • Washington, DC • 20002-4242
Telephone: 800-374-2721; 202-336-5500 • TDD/TTY: 202-336-6123
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APA backs out of the
torture business
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
comments Comments (2)
By Robert Adler
It took several years of grass-roots advocacy and a rare vote by the entire membership, but the American Psychological Association (APA) has finally bowed out of the dark realms where torture is carried out.
Following a long series of revelations about how some American psychologists have wittingly or unwittingly abetted the Bush administration's program of coercion and abuse of prisoners in the war on terror at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and CIA black sites throughout the world, activists within the APA forced a vote on an unequivocal anti-torture resolution.
The mail-in balloting closed on September 15. Nearly 60 percent of the 15,000 APA members who voted supported the resolution, which will take place no later than the next APA general meeting in August of 2009.
The heart of the resolution forbids APA members from working in settings where "persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g. the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights."
By taking this stance, even belatedly, the APA has not only joined other professional associations in the US and the rest of the world in condemning torture and prohibiting their members from being involved with it, but have taken the right side in a long historical struggle to end torture.
IN 1563, the Dutch physician Johann Weyer published his great work, On the illusions of demons and on spells and poisons, in which he argued forcefully against the witch-hunting madness sweeping through Europe, and condemned the use of torture to force suspected witches to confess to satanic acts and to name others.
It's no coincidence that Weyer, a physician who believed in the Hippocratic admonition, "First, do no harm," was one of the few voices of humanity and reason in a fear-wracked time not entirely unlike our own.
The APA could have taken this stance earlier, as did the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, and still needs to implement the resolution.
Still, they deserve praise for joining the ranks of true healers throughout history who have refused to be associated with the practice of torture, however strongly advocated by the authorities of the day.
http://www.etalkinghead.com/archives/apa-backs-out-of-the-torture-business-2008-09-23.html
Tabacco: The following is a brief glimpse of Jeffrey Kaye letter of resignation from APA. The letter is 3-pages long, and I have already taxed my Readers enough. The entire letter is worthwhile reading and may be viewed at:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/78909/?page=1
Tabacco: There are 2 diametrically opposed quotes, which apply here to the APA:
2 – Too little, too late
CNN ROUNDTABLE ON BUSH TORTURE INDICATIVE OF AMERICA’S DEPRAVITY, NOT GREATNESS! David Gergen, Immoralist, Leads Discussion On “EFFICACY” & “Minimal Use” - Neither Subject Relevant In A Moral Society! - RI10
I started 2 separate Posts, but combined them into one. The title immediately above referenced the CNN piece, which follows.
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Hostage Hero Home; "Torture Memo" Backlash; Bullying and Suicide; Twitter Showdown
Aired April 17, 2009 - 23:00 ET
COOPER: Well, backlash tonight: new pushback to President Obama's release of legal memos from the Bush Justice Department. In almost clinical and often legally hair-splitting detail, they layout practices like water boarding, how to do it, how long U.S. officials could do it and what else they could do instead of or in addition to it, and yet still according to the lawyers fall within legal good graces.
Now, some of the other tactics approved include, depriving someone of asleep for days on end, also putting a prisoner in a tiny box and terrorizing him with insects. That's a variation by the way of how Winston Smith was torturing in George Orwell's "1984" they used rats though.
Those who wanted to keep the memo secret have a variety of reasons.
Tom Foreman has got their arguments and the other side so you can make up your own mind. That in the "Raw Politics."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The release of the details on how top terror suspects were pressured by interrogators and which techniques are now forbidden is provoking sharp reactions from some in the intelligence community.
In "The Wall Street Journal", former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey say, "Fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of Al Qaeda came from those interrogations. Terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them."
Tabacco: If I say that I have contrived a scheme to win millions of dollars betting on horses, but do not do it; if I write a book telling you how to make millions in real estate instead of using those techniques myself, it is possible that both these assertions are true, but it is also possible that one or both are false. ASSERTIONS ARE NOT PROOF! And if you are unwilling or unable to present PROOF, I am unwilling and unable to buy into your assertions.
President Bush's Homeland Security Adviser, now CNN consultant, Fran Townsend.
FRAN TOWNSEND, FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: To release them and to subject these people, these career professionals, to sort of public humiliation in a program and then the potential of a congressional investigation really will make our intelligence community risk averse. FOREMAN: But longstanding critics of tactics described in the memos, water boarding to create the sensation of drowning, sleep deprivation for up to 11 straight days, locking prisoners in cramped spaces, disagree.
Retired Army General James Cullen, now a human rights activist.
BRIG. GEN. JAMES P. CULLEN, HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: I think that argument is really a lot of nonsense. Our enemies already know what the techniques are, because we have carried out these techniques on the enemy.
SEN.PATRICK LEAHY, (D) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIR.: How can anyone suggest...
FOREMAN: Just last month, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee laid the groundwork for rolling out the memo.
LEAHY: In order to restore our moral leadership, we must acknowledge what was done in our name.
FOREMAN: And even some, who say intelligence work will suffer, agree. David Rivkin served in the Bush administration and is now with the Counsel on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan research group.
DAVID RIVKIN, BAKER HOSTETLER LAW FIRM: Enough criticism has been launched against the use of these techniques combined with a lot of misinformation about how they actually worked. Frankly continuing to use them was not a viable option.
FOREMAN: Still, the debate rages. Some saying, the President just went too far in exposing our intelligence-gathering techniques and others saying until someone is prosecuted, he did not go far enough.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: One other point to consider, whether or not the enemy knew that the U.S. used these tactics. They date back to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, so there's nothing novel about them. President Obama says they won't be used anymore.
Tabacco: As Senator Obama could not stop President Bush from deploying Torture before he, Obama, became president, private citizen Obama will not be able to stop the next President “Palin”? from deploying Torture after he, Obama, is no longer President. That Promise is HOLLOW!
Let's talk more about this. Senior political analyst, David Gergen joins us now and Mark Danner, an author of Torture and Truth and contributor to The New York Review of Books.
Mark, in terms of what we now know about what went on over the last eight or so years under the Bush administration, there had been a lot of thought earlier that this was just the act of several kind of rogue officers or untrained people. That clearly is not the case, right?
MARK DANNER, AUTHOR, "TORTURE AND TRUTH": I think it's been clear for several years that this was the policy of the U.S. government. In the wake of Abu Ghraib in the spring of 2004, an enormous rush of memos came into public possession from the Department of Defense, Department of Justice and others that showed these things were contemplated at the highest levels of government and approved in the Department of Justice.
COOPER: And Mark is there any evidence that these methods actually worked? I mean, Dick Cheney says, without a doubt, they stopped attacks on the United States.
Other than him and a handful of other people, is there any actual evidence?
DANNER: I'd say the answer to that is no. There's no actual evidence in the public realm that they actually worked. We hear repeatedly officials who are associated with these techniques from the former vice President on down, making extravagant claims that they protected the country.
But when you ask them for evidence, they say, "I'm sorry, that's at a high level of classification". This allows them to argue repeatedly that these things were necessary. And further, that President Obama, in renouncing these techniques, has left the country vulnerable.
So this is very much a current political debate. It's not simply about what was done and what we've now renounced. It's about keeping the country safe right now. It's at the heart of our politics of national security.
COOPER: David, an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal by a former CIA Director, Michael Hayden, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said, that the release of the opinions was quote, "unsound" and quote, "Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of incrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past and that we came sorely to regret on September 11th 2001."
Tabacco: Bush refused to listen to or even speak to Bill Clinton! Any “intelligence” gathered was ignored.
Do you buy that?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I don't and I don't think there's any evidence to support that. But Anderson, I want to say a couple of things. This was a very, very set of close calls for President Obama.
David Axelrod today said the President, is in the White House, a political adviser to the President, said it took President Obama about a month to sort this out. And he clearly had conflicting views.
Tabacco: Gergen, how about a reference to Republican THREATS to STOP OBAMA’S NOMINEES in Senate with Filibuster! Could that explain Obama’s hesitancy, redacting and promise not to prosecute! Don’t take the easy way out and give us Pabulum; we want unadulterated facts!
So I think these are close calls. I think he felt, all evidence supports the idea, that he felt it was more important to publish than to not publish to help clear the United States' name, to help restore America's respect within the world.
At the same time, he made a very, very calibrated decision; we're not going to prosecute those people in the CIA who undertook this. And I think he showed some respect for the argument that Mr. Hayden and Mr. Mukasey made today in The Wall Street Journal.
That, in fact, there may have been some benefit to the United States from these interrogation techniques. And very importantly, when we sort of take this broad brush and sort of paint this as sort of villainous, that, in fact, the number of people who were interrogated with these harsh and, I think, torturous techniques was fairly limited.
It was of the thousands of people who were captured it was about some 30 or 35 whom these techniques were used. And they make the argument -- and I don't know why we should question them -- that about half of what we know about Al Qaeda came out of those interrogation techniques.
Tabacco: If only 30-35 were Tortured, why did 100 die in captivity? Your figures are LIES!
COOPER: Well, Mark, let me ask you about that. Because I think I've read a figure about 65,000 people were rounded up at one time or another in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
It seems that in the light of day, a lot of the people who were rounded up were just kind of -- there wasn't much investigation done. They were handed over by Northern Alliance troops or others in the case in Afghanistan. And a bunch of people ended up getting killed in U.S. custody.
Do we know how many people died in U.S. custody? I've read reports of more than 100 or about 100 or maybe about a quarter of those were being investigated as actual homicides.
DANNER: I think the rough figure is slightly more than 100 and 30, 29 or 30 were actually investigated as homicides. I think you're quite right, that the interrogation -- the general interrogation program after 9/11 was a complete disaster.
And it worked against what was supposed to be its ultimate goal, which is finding intelligence that would help protect the country.
I have to take strong issue with what David Gergen said a moment ago, that President Obama, in making public these documents, in some way nodded toward the argument that these techniques were helpful to national security.
I should point out that on his first full day in office he signed executive orders renouncing in the strongest terms the use of these techniques. He closed the black sites. He declared that he would close Guantánamo.
This is very odd behavior for a newly-elected President who is trying to protect the country and who believes that torture, according to David Gergen, is useful. He clearly doesn't believe that.
Tabacco: A-M-E-N!
I understand that there were politics within the administration. Obviously the CIA now is his CIA. He can't go around denouncing it. Nonetheless, he made these memos public, and these memos confirm, in minute terms, what the International Committee of the Red Cross report told us when it was made public a couple of weeks ago.
American citizens can look at the memos. They can look at the ICRC report on the New York Review Web site. They can see for themselves what was done. This in effect, these memos came out of the Justice Department. They confirm, in detail, what exactly was done, the torture that was applied.
And I have to make one other point. David Gergen and I are both old enough to remember the Church Committee. What we have here is a haunting, in a sense, from the Church Committee. The Church Committee made deniability impossible. It made it necessary for the President actually to sign findings for covert action.
When President Bush came to the CIA after 9/11 and said we want to use these harsh techniques, the CIA, remembering the Church Committee of the '70s, said you know what? If you want us to do this, you're going to have to make it legal. We need a document that will show us it's legal.
And we are now at that point. We're looking at legal documents that purport to make what is plainly illegal legal. And they make -- supposedly make legal activities carried out over years...
COOPER: Yes.
DANNER: ...that plainly were illegal. And this is the new deniability, and something has to be done about it, I'm afraid.
COOPER: We're out of time, but I wanted David, the chance to respond -- David?
GERGEN: Well, I just want to say briefly, I think Mark Danner made a useful correction. I think I went too far in saying that somehow President Obama directly approved or said that yes, this was useful.
I do think, though, that when the former director of the CIA and the former head of the FBI say we got some helpful information out of this, it -- it underscores Obama's -- President Obama's restraint and how he has treated this. He's been very careful about it, and very importantly, he said we're not going to prosecute people who are going to -- who acted in the CIA according to these rules.
And I also think, Anderson, there's a temptation here to sort of lump Abu Ghraib, which was clear violations of the rules by a lot of other people with these more limited CIA techniques.
I just think that the conversations in this area have gotten so broad brush that it sort of paints a sort of villainous picture of the agency which I don't think -- I don't think is really fair to a lot of the people who were trying very hard, as Mark Danner himself said, to figure out what was legal in these very, very difficult circumstances.
DANNER: It's now -- I must say that what is described in these memos and in the Red Cross report is worse than Abu Ghraib because it was...
COOPER: And it does seem that there was movement between what happened in Bagram to then what happened at Abu Ghraib and also what happened at Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib. And they do seem to have some similarities, no?
DANNER: Absolutely.
COOPER: Yes.
DANNER: There's no question about that.
COOLPER: Yes.
DANNER: We have a full record of it. People should read what was done.
COOPER: Yes.
DANNER: I think what was done in these reports as described was worse because high officials signed off on it.
COOPER: We've got to go. But Mark Danner has written extensively about this great article in The New York Review, books, you should read. David Gergen, thank you as well.
And also if you'd like to know more about Mark's take on what, if anything, the U.S. gained by these things like water boarding and the like, you can find it by going to AC360.com.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0904/17/acd.02.html
David Gergen either says or implies that
1 – Breaking the Laws minimally and with discretion is OK
2 – Foreigners have no Right to American Jurisprudence
3 – Collateral Damages to Innocent Victims are unavoidable and must be subservient to the stated goal of “Information Gathering”
4 – Gergen never implies that the Efficacy of Torture is a non-issue, which it is; violation of our stated moral codes and subsequent lies by the Bush Regime are Proof of Unjustifiable Wrongs
5 – If you don’t believe it’s a Lie (“Waterboarding is not Torture”), then it’s OK
That CNN would permit David Gergen or any Talking Head to say and/or imply these Moral Turpitudes demonstrates both the influence of Fox News and the depths to which CNN has sunk. Neither Morality nor Ethics were mentioned by name or implication in this tête-à-tête. And nobody else even mentioned how unethical Gergen’s comments were.
What does that say about CNN! The ghosts of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and other Icons of the 4th Estate must be rolling over in their graves. Those were Men of Ethics. David Gergen and his ilk are Immoralists.
Listen! Do you hear it? That ear-shattering silence from the Right? Those same folk, who rant against Gay Marriage, Abortion & Flag Burning and any form of Gun Control, which would limit their “2nd Amendment Rights”, are now MUTE!
Most of them undoubtedly think that Torture is a Great Idea! 100 years ago, these same people would have thought that Segregation was a Great Idea. 150 years ago, these same people would have thought that Slavery was a Capital Idea. How can the Religious be both Inhumane and Immoral at the same time they spout their Right-wing Biases and alleged Biblical teachings!
These Immoralists are Bible toting Christians, who attend Church every Sunday and SIN Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I do not ask that they abide by my Moral Precepts as they demand I do by theirs. But I do implore that they live by the very Precepts they claim to follow to the letter.
"What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious."
http://wiki.recipeland.com:9998/facts/Cicero
http://tabacco.blog-city.com/plato_no_1_philosopher_of_all_time_antidemocracy_bushtype_mo.htm
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
Tabacco is not a blogger, who thinks; I am a Thinker, who blogs.
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization) – Think Tank For Other 95% Of World