{"id":12396,"date":"2014-01-09T09:23:56","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T16:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=12396"},"modified":"2014-01-09T09:23:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T16:23:56","slug":"study-us-doctors-designed-facilitated-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/study-us-doctors-designed-facilitated-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: US Doctors Designed & Facilitated Torture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rania<\/a>

Rania Khalek<\/p><\/div>\n

by Rania Khalek<\/em><\/p>\n

In violation of international law and medical ethics, US military physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists\u00a0designed and facilitated the torture\u00a0of detainees at US detention facilities around the world under both the Bush and Obama administrations, according to a\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0released today.<\/p>\n

The findings are the result of a two year investigation carried out by\u00a0the Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers, a body\u00a0made up of 19 medical, military and ethics experts and\u00a0formed by\u00a0the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) and the Open Society Foundations.<\/p>\n

Based on an examination of publicly available Department of Defense (DoD)\u00a0and CIA documents, congressional reports and independent investigations by journalists and human rights organizations, the report concludes that\u00a0since the 9\/11 terrorist attacks, US military and intelligence agency health professionals \u00a0collaborated with the CIA and defense department in\u00a0\u201cdesigning, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment\u201d of detainees.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t exactly new information. We\u2019ve known for quite some time that from the very beginning of the so-called \u201cwar on terror\u201d, psychologists worked with CIA interrogators to develop torture techniques based on the\u00a0Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program, which trains US soldiers to resist abusive interrogation if captured. As the report puts it, \u201cThe interrogators and health professionals transformed training methods used to resist torture into abusive methods of interrogation to be used on detainees.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Task Force also notes that despite steps taken in recent years to re-assess the use of these practices, little has changed. The defense department, under President Obama, \u201ccontinues to uphold policies that undermine standards of professional conduct in the context of interrogation, response to hunger strikes, and reporting abuse,\u201d the study finds.<\/p>\n

In other words, that time President Obama\u00a0declared<\/a>, \u201cunder my administration the United States does not torture,\u201d was bullshit.<\/p>\n

The report, titled, \u201cEthics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror<\/a>,\u201d goes on to accuse the DoD and CIA of institutionalizing policies and practices for military health personnel that violate ethical standards for medical conduct, like using medical information for interrogations purposes, consulting with physicians and psychologists about techniques for manipulating conditions of confinement to worsen\u00a0detainees\u2019 \u00a0anxiety\u00a0and disorientation and force-feeding hunger strikers, to name just a few.<\/p>\n

On top of that, the report points out that the DoD and CIA made it nearly impossible for medical professionals to report or challenge abusive practices and\u00a0stood in the way of efforts to provide proper medical care to detainees.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s findings are damning but the report\u2019s recommended fix\u2014\u00a0that the US government conduct a thorough investigation into its own practices and the CIA and DoD reform their policies\u2014is laughable.<\/p>\n

Concluding that war crimes may have been committed and then recommending that the criminals investigate themselves seems to be a pattern among nongovernmental organizations. Just a couple weeks ago, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused the US government of committing possible war crimes in its drone strikes on Pakistan and Yemen, yet neither group recommended anything beyond an\u00a0internal investigation<\/a>\u00a0into the drone program.<\/p>\n

They should know that extensive and systemic breaches of international law require more than internal investigations and reforms. Those who institutionalize and engage in crimes against humanity need to be held accountable. Anything less makes a mockery of international law and guarantees its continued violation with impunity.<\/p>\n

The doctors who engaged in torture should be named and prosecuted as well as the US officials responsible for creating, legalizing and maintaining such a program. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rania Khalek In violation of international law and medical ethics, US military physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists\u00a0designed and facilitated the torture\u00a0of detainees at US detention facilities around the world under both the Bush and Obama administrations, according to a\u00a0study\u00a0released today. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12398,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions\/12398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}