wait! john hinderaker tells us that there were only 2 or 3 high level folks tortured about 2003. he wasn't, by any chance, full of shit, was he?

er, not tortured "about" 2003, tortured "after" 2003.

When a doctor does it, that means it isn't torture.

This is nothing new. Medical professionals tortured American (and Canadian) citizens during the MKULTRA program. They were kidnapped and tortured for months on end.

Time for a new law, with the death penalty and no statute of limitations.

Haven't read the report. Does it name names? If so, where are the professional medical groups who grant credentials in all this? Any medical professional who participates in torture should be stripped of credentials for life, and never permitted to have anything to do with the profession again.

But first you have to wonder what sort of person would train as a medical professional and then willingly participate in torture? Shouldn't medical schools do a psychological screen to identify the tendency for such behavior before they admit or credential someone?

The Amer. Psychological Assn. refused to repudiate the use of psychologists in torture. Last year, Stephen Reisner ran as an APA presidential candidate on an anti-torture platform, and he failed to win election.
The American Nurses Association has failed to take any stance or action against the use of registered nurses as agents of abuse and torture. Not coincidentally, nurses have been identified in participating in abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and in the deaths of immigrant detainees as commissioned officers of the USPHS and of ICE/DHS.

I used to write about these issues, and without fail, they garnered the least number of hits and absolutely no comments or follow-up action. The hypocrisy of progressives is no less than that of the right wing.

Then there are the political persecutions and prosecutions of US citizens in the US, which are not receiving any support. Whistle blowers are persecuted and terrorized unto literal death (that's my own personal story and hell).

This is much too little and too late.

The ugly little reported fact is that committing torture breaks the lives of both torturer and the tortured.

You get what you dish out.

Calling Dr. Mengele...

When you start calling it a torture program, you will start facing the true horror of the Bush Administration.

The use of doctors is evidence of a torture program: something in another league than mere torture.

But for some reason, even those commentators, bloggers, whoever, who most detest torture keep looking past the scope of the crimes, looking for evidence that a particular technique is beyond some threshold so that it amounts to torture.

This is a mistake, because if we keep looking at individual instances of horror, of inflicted pain, then we look past the torture program and focus on those who were in the room at a the time: the few bad apples.

We have proven that there can be arguments about particular techniques, and those who support the torture program want desperately to keep the focus on acts of torture and off the torture program. Because the acts are far removed from those who gave the orders.

If you really want this to reach to the highest levels of the Bush Administration, start talking about the torture program, and stop focusing on instances of torture.

State sponsored torture is far worse than the 24 type torture because the tortured know that the torture may never stop, that the bosses don't care, that the world is turning a blind eye, that civilization has ceased to exist, that your humanity, all humanity is an illusion.

They were presumably military physicians. As a former military physician myself (28 years) I find it a deplorable embarrassment but completely understandable for the young doc trying to fit in with the unit and the mission. I got in some trouble as a Colonel for not cooperating fully with the CIA who wanted to turn a medical mission in south america into an intelligence gathering event. I felt by that point in my career that I had little to lose by standing up to "the man". It's different for a young captain.
That being said, war crimes are war crimes. Any physician who willingly participates needs to become a witness for the prosecution to save their soul and probably should lose their license anyway.

So where are all the vocal protesters who denigrate, threaten, and disparage doctors who would perform abortions?

Where are the Avengers lining up to bomb the torture clinics?

How about a human chain across America to protest torture?

Funny thing about that outrage, who has it, and how they act on it. Christians, my ass.

@ tomj:

Exactly right. Here is that put another way:

What must the whistle-blower forsake in order to hear his own story?

* That the individual matters.

* That law and justice can be relied upon.

* That the purpose of law is to remove the caprice of powerful individuals.

* That ours is a government of laws, not men.

* That the individual will not be sacrificed for the sake of the group.

* That loyalty is not equivalent to the heard (sic)instinct.

* That one's friends will remain loyal even if one's colleagues do not.

* That the organization is not fundamentally immoral.

* That it makes sense to stand up and do the right thing. (Take this literally: that it "makes sense" means that it is a comprehensible activity.)

* That someone, somewhere who is in charge knows, cares, and will do the right thing.

* That the truth matters, and someone will want to know it.

* That if one is right and persistent, things will turn out all right in the end.

* That even if they do not, other people will know and understand.

* That the family is a haven in a heartless world. Spouses and children will not abandon you in your hour of need.

* That the individual can know the truth about all this and not become merely cynical, cynical unto death.

Not only is it hard to come to come to terms with these truths, but when one finally does, it seems one is left with nothing.

Here's a 2006 book on the subject of medical complicity in U.S. torture.

Ah so, Dr. Mengele, I presume?

Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me, since the percentage of assholes in the medical profession from my experience as a consumer is only exceeded by the percentage of assholes in the legal profession (and both are far higher than the percentage of assholes in the general population as a whole). Sadly, the practice of medicine is not so difficult that wingnuts can't do it.

Whistle blowers are persecuted and terrorized unto literal death (that's my own personal story and hell).

What's it like, being dead?