torture is wrong

This deeply disturbing article by Mark Benjamin is the definitive riposte to the often heard :”but it’s only a dunk in the water” and the” but they do the same thing to US soldiers in training” argument for waterboarding. Benjamin reveals what the official memos say and it is unnecessary to exaggerate or paraphrase them. They speak for themselves, in an antiseptic and oddly phlegmatic way – and they could hardly sound worse.

The behavior of medical personal, most specifically doctors and psychologists, in facilitating torture and assisting in the design of torture, is well documented. Their actions are certainly unethical and illegal, but not unprecedented. The Nuremberg Trials are famous for the Trial Of Major War Criminals but they were actually a series of trials, comprising several categories of crimes including crimes of medical professionals. These trials are known as The Doctors Trials. “The Medical Case, U.S.A. vs. Karl Brandt, et al. (also known as the Doctors' Trial), was prosecuted in 1946-47 against twenty-three doctors and administrators accused of organizing and participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the form of medical experiments and medical procedures inflicted on prisoners and civilians.” (From Harvard Law School’s Nuremberg Trials Project, http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=medical )

This article is short and devastating and I urge you to read it. It provides the best and clearest and most clearly documented picture of the reality of America’s official  method of waterboarding. Here I must point out that Attorney General Holder’s prospective investigation will, if it ever happens, only focus on those who exceeded the instructions found in these documents.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/opinion/01xenakis.html?scp=1&sq=Xenakis&st=Search

From the article:

The shabbiness of the medical judgments, though, pales in comparison to the ethical breaches by the doctors and psychologists involved. Health professionals have a responsibility extending well beyond nonparticipation in torture; the historic maxim is, after all, “First do no harm.” These health professionals did the polar opposite.

Nevertheless, no agency — not the Pentagon, the C.I.A., state licensing boards or professional medical societies — has initiated any action to investigate, much less discipline, these individuals. They have ignored the gross and appalling violations by medical personnel. This is an unconscionable disservice to the thousands of ethical doctors and psychologists in the country’s service. It is not too late to begin investigations. They should start now. 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Justice-Department-protect-by-Stephen-Soldz-100224-5.html

The circle is now closed and smoothed:

• White House desires torture
• CIA demands legal cover
• OLC asked to provide legal rationale
• CIA and White House tell what they want OLC memos to say; CIA provides the so-called "evidence" of safety of torture techniques
• OLC writes the memos, following instructions
• Obama White House then says no one can be prosecuted because they followed the memos
• Memo authors are immune because there was no standard saying that incompetent work on demand designed to legalize hitherto illegal activities is unethical
• Thus, patently illegal activities are able to carried out with no legal culpability for anyone 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/21/petraeus-takes-on-cheneyi_n_470608.html

Appearing on Meet the Press, the general made a compelling case against torturing terrorist detainees, saying he found it far more pragmatic and beneficial to stick to methods authorized by the army field manual.

"I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we've perhaps taken expedient measures, they've turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on, in the 101st airborne division, we just said, we decided to obey the Geneva Conventions...

"In the cases where that is not true [where torture takes place or international human rights groups aren't granted access to detention sites] we end up paying a price for it, ultimately," he added. "Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are non biodegradable. They don't go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick.... Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of interrogation methods in the army field manual that was given the force of law by Congress, that that works."