Report: Bush Administration experimented on detainees

[Olo401]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/world/07doctors.html

“There are countries that, over the years, have condemned medical complicity in torture in principle, but which haven’t really been willing to investigate medical professionals or hold them accountable,” said Dr. Steven H. Miles of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota and an expert on the role of medical professionals in torture. “That group of countries includes the United States.”

The report found that the C.I.A.’s practice of waterboarding of high-value detainees offered perhaps the most direct evidence that medical professionals were helping to refine interrogation techniques. The report cites agency guidelines for health professionals involved in interrogations requiring that they document each time a detainee was waterboarded, how long each waterboarding session lasted, how much water was applied, exactly how the water was applied and expelled, whether the detainees’ breathing passages were filled, and how each detainee looked between treatments.

That information led the C.I.A. to make detailed changes in how interrogators conducted waterboarding sessions, the report concluded. Eventually, the agency replaced regular water with saline solution to reduce the detainees’ risk of contracting pneumonia or hyponatremia, a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication that can lead to brain edema and herniation, coma and death. The human rights group cited a 2005 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, declassified by the Obama administration, saying that the C.I.A. made the switch to saline solution “based on the advice of medical personnel.”

The full report is available at http://phrtorturepapers.org/

If there was any doubt remaining that the Bush Administration was a multifaceted criminal enterprise, it is gone now. These criminals need to be brought to justice for their actions NOW.

[Klutz]

Just when you think it couldn't get any deeper, lol.

[kuronosan]

But... but... but Bush attacked them thar terrists!

[Takedown3]

report doesn't really say why the docs were there, most likely there to resuscitate if they died during the process

[Linliel]

This is so amazingly fucked up. How the hell they thought they could get away with it just astounds me. I hope they are brought to task for it.

If you're interested in academic articles about the problems with "torture lite" (i.e. waterboarding, sounds, restraints, etc.) one of the women I worked with back in AU was writing about the ethical issues associated with it. http://publicreason.net/author/jwolfendale/ has some more info about her work. I recommend also listening to this podcast (or reading the transcript) where she's interviewed. http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/0056.html

[Overburn]

report doesn't really say why the docs were there, most likely there to resuscitate if they died during the process

From the snippet part I read, it sounds like they were there to monitor the best ways for it to be done by measuring things like how, where and for how long the water was going to maximize the time they could be "safely" waterboarded.

[Acturus]

That's awesome. Not only did we torture, but we kept data on the effects.

The full article is a better read than what Olo just clipped out, but I'm not surprised at what the report is claiming. The Bush administration tried to give itself legal and ethical support in numerous infractions over both terms.

At the end of the day, I hope that this data is kept. I'm not sure what happens to scientific information that's collected as part of human rights violations. Anyone know?

[Alleya]

This is so amazingly fucked up. How the hell they thought they could get away with it just astounds me. I hope they are brought to task for it.

lol good stuff.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

"Experimenting" is highly, highly misleading. Were we "experimenting" on the Germans and Japanese by continually improving our methods of warfare in WWII?

[Kuya]

That's awesome. Not only did we torture, but we kept data on the effects.

The full article is a better read than what Olo just clipped out, but I'm not surprised at what the report is claiming. The Bush administration tried to give itself legal and ethical support in numerous infractions over both terms.

At the end of the day, I hope that this data is kept. I'm not sure what happens to scientific information that's collected as part of human rights violations. Anyone know?

I'm sure the info collected by the Nazis and the Japanese was kept.

"Experimenting" is highly, highly misleading. Were we "experimenting" on the Germans and Japanese by continually improving our methods of warfare in WWII?

Are you ever not an obtuse cunt? This isn't a technicality, shut up.

[Olo401]

"Experimenting" is highly, highly misleading. Were we "experimenting" on the Germans and Japanese by continually improving our methods of warfare in WWII?

Stuff your false analogy up your ass. Laws were passed and treaties signed in regards to this and other more severe kinds of medical experimentation that was conducted by the Nazis and Imperial Japan during WWII, and later North Korea.

No fucking wonder Bush withdrew from the International Criminal Court.

[Purrrfect]

Eventually, the agency replaced regular water with saline solution to reduce the detainees’ risk of contracting pneumonia or hyponatremia, a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication that can lead to brain edema and herniation, coma and death.

They made waterboarding safer for the torturees! You don't find that kind of generosity in just any kind of world conquest...

[Elvis]

"Experimenting" is highly, highly misleading. Were we "experimenting" on the Germans and Japanese by continually improving our methods of warfare in WWII?

I don't think what we did approaches (within a light-year) what the Japanese did to Chinese civilians, soldiers, etc. - but it's still 'experimenting'.

Your analogy is stupid. It presupposes that water-boarding is not torture, but rather a 'method of warfare'.

Well, it is torture. And we collected 'data' on that torture.

[Qalbert]

I think the point was collecting data on something that is happening is different from causing new instances for the sole purpose of data gathering. That is to say, from the article it sounds like they were being interrogated anyways, the 'experimenting' was just collecting data and refining the method, whereas "experimenting" makes it sound like they were just using detainees as lab rats and applying torture just to see how to make it more effective, which is not how it came across in the article. Not justifying it either way, but collecting data from torture that is already occurring seems a slightly lesser evil than establishing new torture sessions solely for gathering data to improve torture methods.

[Shenrien]

Somethings you do because you are curious, and somethings you do because you are a sick fuck, but the line that separates the two are far from each other.

This goes just a little to far.

[Edgie]

When you guys say collected data, are you referring to information about weapons and whatnot gained from torture. Or do you mean data about how much the human body can take of this type of strain.

[Kuya]

The latter.

[Olo401]

When you guys say collected data, are you referring to information about weapons and whatnot gained from torture. Or do you mean data about how much the human body can take of this type of strain.

The latter. Basically they tortured people so they could find out what the limits of the human body were, with the intent of changing the law to fit those limits and make their actions legal.

[Shenrien]

When you guys say collected data, are you referring to information about weapons and whatnot gained from torture. Or do you mean data about how much the human body can take of this type of strain.

How about both, paper is due Thursday.

[Kuya]

I think the point was collecting data on something that is happening is different from causing new instances for the sole purpose of data gathering. That is to say, from the article it sounds like they were being interrogated anyways, the 'experimenting' was just collecting data and refining the method, whereas "experimenting" makes it sound like they were just using detainees as lab rats and applying torture just to see how to make it more effective, which is not how it came across in the article. Not justifying it either way, but collecting data from torture that is already occurring seems a slightly lesser evil than establishing new torture sessions solely for gathering data to improve torture methods.

Sophistry. It's true that experimenting and just collecting data are two different things, but what makes the difference is that on the latter you have no control over the thing you are observing. In this case the torture is not happening out of some coincidence. In an experiment, you try to control your specimen, in a simple observation you have no control over the subject. This is the former. In any case, whether an experiment (which is what it is) or an observation, does not change the depravity of the act.