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You are here: Home / They Perverted Everything

They Perverted Everything

by John Cole|  April 30, 20153:04 pm| 77 Comments

This post is in: Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

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The thorough devastation to our nation in BushCo’s push for war includes the myriad institutions they co-opted and perverted in order to keep doing WTFTW:

The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude.

Wankercons like Brooks and Douthat like to sigh and moan about how the populace has little faith in long cherished public institutions, but they never make the connection to the fact that the reason the people have no faith in these institutions, whether they be government, the medical community, religious institutions, big business, the police, etc., is because conservatives have spent the last half century destroying them in order to achieve their own short term political goals. The Republicans have wage a war on people who know things, and then act shocked that no one trust scientists and teachers and politicians.

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Previous Post: « Baltimore’s ‘Mother Of The Year’ Speaks Out
Next Post: Long Read: “Legacies of War” »

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    Linnaeus

    April 30, 2015 at 3:06 pm

    destroying them in order to achieve their own short term political goals.

    Not just short term. There’s a long game here, too.

  2. 2.

    Kryptik

    April 30, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    Don’t forget the consistent denigration of the institutions that they didn’t dig their grubby hooks into.

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    April 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    In a just world, every medical and mental health professional that participated in the “enhanced interrogation” program would have their professional licenses revoked for life.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    April 30, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    they have never, and I mean, never given two shyts about the effects of their policies on the regular troops.

    they do not care about them.

    they do not give a shyt about them.

    once they have been used for fodder for the MIC, the GOP could give a rat’s azz about them, which accounts for my fury and these muthaphuckas being held up as supporting the troops.

    GMAFB.

    they support Defense Contractors.

    they don’t give two shyts about the actual grunts that fight the wars that they lie us into.

  5. 5.

    Turgidson

    April 30, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    @Linnaeus:

    Not just short term. There’s a long game here, too.

    Came in to say the same thing. I’d even say the long game has been their primary focus until recently. Now that the braindead dolts they’ve cultivated as their loyal but completely demented voting bloc has decided they’re no longer content to just be pandered to for elections and then ignored, short term-oriented stupidity and destruction is taking on a much more prominent role. They even want to nominate one of their own (or a more convincing con artist, at least) for president.

    But the destruction of institutions is a huge part of the long game, no doubt. Convincing a big chunk of the US public that government doesn’t work and is in fact more of an enemy than a force for good has been a concerted 50+-year project.

  6. 6.

    jl

    April 30, 2015 at 3:23 pm

    I think the only authority, institutions, and traditions that the likes of Douthat and Brooks long for people to respect are Douthat and Brooks, and whoever funds their easy pundit lifestyles.

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    April 30, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    It’s the reverse Midas effect. Everything W touched turned to shit, and when Obama tried to clean up after him, he got blamed for smelling like a sewer.

  8. 8.

    Hungry Joe

    April 30, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    Education is the big prize. Vilify teachers, destroy teachers unions, slash budgets … in short, do everything you can convince people that public schools don’t work. Then funnel the money — and educating all the children in the United States takes A LOT of money — into private, for-profit schools. You think health-care execs make big bucks? Wait’ll you see what corporate school CEOs will siphon off once they take control, and education is “run like a business.”

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    April 30, 2015 at 3:32 pm

    Holy sh*t that’s a huge stain on the A.P.A. Are we going to now discover the A.M.A. was in cahoots with Dr. Mengele? (Hey, why not, haven’t gone Godwin in weeks.)

  10. 10.

    BGinCHI

    April 30, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    If that doesn’t teach you to use the Chicago Manual of Style, nothing will.

  11. 11.

    slag

    April 30, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    Wasn’t it Brooks who blamed torture on liberals because, “If it feels good, do it”? Still amazes me that guy continues to be employed.

  12. 12.

    fuckwit

    April 30, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    like to sigh and moan about how the populace has little faith in long cherished public institutions,

    Bill Hicks used to lament that all the institutions of traditional society are crumbling… because they’re no longer relevant! Ha ha!

    If the institutions are corrupt and malicious then of course we will lose faith in them. Because they are no longer serving a useful purpose. Or worse, they’re actively hurting us, not helping us.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    April 30, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @jl:

    I think the only authority, institutions, and traditions that the likes of Douthat and Brooks long for people to respect are Douthat and Brooks

    I think that’s totally unfair to Douthat. He obviously wants people to respect the Catholic Church, or at least the Catholic Church as it existed before Vatican II.

  14. 14.

    SatanicPanic

    April 30, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @Hungry Joe: we’ll all get degrees from Corinthian College! Oh wait

  15. 15.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 30, 2015 at 3:43 pm

    Remember that story about TX Gov Abbott sending the Guard to monitor US military exercises? Crooks and Liars tells me that the Texas Guard is NOT to be confused with the National Guard. It’s apparently a volunteer force of…well, exactly the people you’d expect.

    http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/ding-ding-ding-we-have-winner

  16. 16.

    fuckwit

    April 30, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    @Turgidson: It’s also selective. There are institutions the wingnuts want to completely dominate our world: specifically churches, corporations, and the police and the military. Those institutions they want to take complete control of life.

    The institutions they don’t want are those that give power to the powerless, voice to the voiceless, that even out the playing field, that reduce terror and fear, that give equality and hope and security and comfort. Like, for example, a secular democratic government, public education, public social safety net, etc. Them’s the ones they are working very hard to destroy.

    It’s just a power grab.

  17. 17.

    MomSense

    April 30, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s the reverse Midas effect.

    W is the man with the minus touch.

  18. 18.

    Lavocat

    April 30, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    The method to their madness is simple in the extreme:

    1) reduce people’s faith in x;
    2) paint x as bad/evil/anti-American, etc.;
    3) DEFUND x;
    4) blame any long-term problems of a gutted x on Democrats; &
    5) get re-elected while screaming the mantra of “Big Government is Evil and Incompetent!”

    Rinse, lather, repeat.

  19. 19.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    April 30, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    Tut tut, let me sound grave for a moment, before returning to my unbearable shallowness.

  20. 20.

    msdc

    April 30, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    The Republicans have wage a war on people who know things, and then act shocked that no one trust scientists and teachers and politicians.

    No, most of them are delighted that no one trusts scientists and teachers.

  21. 21.

    Doug r

    April 30, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    They also took every mistake that Democrats made of trusting them and totally screwed that crap around as well. Glass-steagall and no child left behind come to mind .

  22. 22.

    kindness

    April 30, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    It isn’t a bug in the deal, it’s a feature.

  23. 23.

    Tone in DC

    April 30, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    I first heard about the APA and the torture regime about two years ago (thank God for Amy Goodman), and could scarcely believe it. I think those guys must have recanted the Hippocratic Oath. Or something like that.

    The true nature of Cheney and Dubya’s kakistocracy took years to sink in, in my case. From the Powell speech at the UN to the GWOT to the crash of 2007, the 43rd president is the gift that keeps on perverting everything.

    Reverse Midas touch, indeed.

  24. 24.

    scav

    April 30, 2015 at 3:54 pm

    I wonder how many of the military that went though that war are in policing now. But then, ideas, philosophy and mentalities can spread between similar institutions independently of extra equipment and actual trained, indoctrinated, bodies.

  25. 25.

    JPL

    April 30, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: What could possibly happen when volunteers carry guns?

    hmmm reminds me of something that happened in Tulsa cty.

  26. 26.

    jl

    April 30, 2015 at 3:58 pm

    @Lavocat: You forgot a few steps:

    6. Give some buddies dibs on a private contracting scheme to replace government program.
    7. Eliminate accountability
    8. Profit!

    Note that they clever replaced the ‘?’ in the middle step. But the prospect of money for nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully, doesn’t it?

  27. 27.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    April 30, 2015 at 4:09 pm

    In a just world, every medical and mental health professional person that participated in the “enhanced interrogation” program would have their professional license to breathe revoked for life.

    Edited for justiceracy.

  28. 28.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 30, 2015 at 4:11 pm

    @Tone in DC: And his brother has a good chance of being our next president?

    Or at least it would seem when I read the NyTiMeS.

  29. 29.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 30, 2015 at 4:14 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: How long before shots are fired? Because of something they heard on the radio, or something a friend posted to facebook?

  30. 30.

    Sasha

    April 30, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    Don’t you mean Sadim Touch

  31. 31.

    Trollhattan

    April 30, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    @Sasha:
    Don’t forget, Sadim had those DMWs.

  32. 32.

    Tone in DC

    April 30, 2015 at 4:22 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    That paper has fallen almost as far as the Kaplan Post over the last 15 years or so.
    Truly disgusting to look back on that descent.

    Sad thing is, most people are not willing to go looking for “liberal” news with its well known bias toward reality (of all of the quotes from the Dubya/Cheney administration that turned my stomach, that deluded “we create our own reality” tripe truly lives in infamy).

    Gotta check the Nation site, then Counterspin and Between the Lines. Even hearing about the Douthat Brooks and MoDo debacle of a paper has me on edge.

  33. 33.

    Napoleon

    April 30, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    @MomSense:

    Thumbs up!

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    April 30, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Tone in DC:

    I first heard about the APA and the torture regime about two years ago (thank God for Amy Goodman), and could scarcely believe it. I think those guys must have recanted the Hippocratic Oath. Or something like that.

    They’re psychologists, not psychiatrists, so not MDs, no Hippocratic Oath.

    Ms. Redshift used to work in psychology, and says she left because she was tired of dealing with the crazy people (not referring to the clients.)

  35. 35.

    Yatsuno

    April 30, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Tone in DC: Psychiatrists don’t take the Hippocratic Oath. At least not the last time I checked. But the APA is also not the credentialing authority, just their trade union.

  36. 36.

    Redshift

    April 30, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    @fuckwit:

    It’s also selective. There are institutions the wingnuts want to completely dominate our world: specifically churches, corporations, and the police and the military. Those institutions they want to take complete control of life.

    Of course. The core of conservatism the world over is a belief that an aristocracy should rule.

  37. 37.

    Yatsuno

    April 30, 2015 at 4:30 pm

    @Redshift: And I have no edit function. I used the wrong profession there. Sorry.

  38. 38.

    Tone in DC

    April 30, 2015 at 4:31 pm

    @Redshift:

    They’re psychologists, not psychiatrists, so not MDs, no Hippocratic Oath.

    Ms. Redshift used to work in psychology, and says she left because she was tired of dealing with the crazy people (not referring to the clients.)

    Yikes.

    That situation is worse than I thought. What even vaguely medical professional of any stripe or predilection cannot subscribe to “first, do no harm”?

  39. 39.

    Josie

    April 30, 2015 at 4:31 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: I looked it up this morning since I live in Texas and have never heard of the Texas Guard. There is the National Guard, the Air National Guard and the Texas Guard. One of these is not like the other two and has no affiliation with the military. They sound very sketchy to me, but are probably quite loyal to the good guv. The conspiracy theory was supposedly started by a radio talk show guy in Dallas. Sometimes I wish we could just cut off East Texas and everything north of Dallas and give them to Louisiana and Oklahoma. Then Texas would start to look like a state capable of rational thought.

    ETA: I went to elementary school with a boy named Billy Bob. Seriously.

  40. 40.

    Tone in DC

    April 30, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    Sad all around.

    I’ll say it for all of us… FYWP!!

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    April 30, 2015 at 4:35 pm

    @Tone in DC: I expect they have it in some sense, it’s just not front and center like it supposedly is for doctors. Which I can’t entirely fault them for; there are plenty of professions that effectively follow that principle without swearing an oath about it.

  42. 42.

    Redshift

    April 30, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    The anthropology profession had a big round of soul-searching after members were involved in intelligence work under the guise of research during the Vietnam War, resulting in important additions to their code of ethics. After I heard about this business with the APA a few years ago, I expected something similar. I haven’t heard that it’s happened, but I don’t really pay much attention to the profession, so I could have missed it, or it could be in progress. If it’s not, that’s even more damning for the profession.

  43. 43.

    rp

    April 30, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.

  44. 44.

    RandomMonster

    April 30, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    Am I the only one who remembers reading about the A.P.A.’s complicity in the torture program way back when the invasion was still fresh and we were occupying the country?!

    I’m not imagining that, right?

  45. 45.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

    Well. As noted observer Perry Como used to say, we get letters:

    To the Editor:

    Re “Architects of C.I.A. Interrogation Drew on Psychology to Induce ‘Helplessness’:

    As president of the largest association of American psychologists, I and my fellow members are outraged, saddened and pained that two psychologists allegedly devised and engaged in brutal interrogation methods. They inappropriately and with disastrous effect tried to apply a classic model of learned helplessness to torture detainees.

    Regardless of whether it is an effective interrogation technique, torture is unethical, abhorrent and morally reprehensible. That two psychologists and their company allegedly received $81 million from this perversion of psychological science is shocking, and another reason psychologists as a group are horrified.

    The two psychologists identified in the Senate committee report are not members of the American Psychological Association and are therefore beyond the range of our ethics enforcement program. But regardless of their membership status, if the allegations are true, they should be held accountable for inexcusable violations of ethical principles and legal standards.

    There is no place in the field of psychology for people who are not respectful of human dignity and committed to human rights.

    NADINE J. KASLOW
    President
    American Psychological Association
    Washington, Dec. 12, 2014

  46. 46.

    Ripley

    April 30, 2015 at 5:02 pm

    The APA Ethical Code does include a foundational provision analogous to ‘do no harm,’ as well as varied specific codes that reinforce (and to a lesser extent, provide guidance toward) avoiding harm to clients, students, the general public, etc.

    One thing to keep in mind is that ethical codes – of any profession – are largely aspirational and depend on self-enforcement. State licensing boards are more or less the legal enforcers of professional behavior, although they rely on consumers filing complaints against professionals in order to enforce standards.

    The APA has been a conservative old-boy network for a lot of years, and the ugly creep of hyper-capitalism has only made it worse. They deserve the bad press. I dropped membership years ago.

  47. 47.

    chopper

    April 30, 2015 at 5:06 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Nadine was one of the better presidents the APA has had. she generally doesn’t fuck around, a quality you detect within 30 seconds of meeting her.

  48. 48.

    RandomMonster

    April 30, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    I mean, maybe this recent APA internal review sheds some new light, but this story has been around since at least 2007: http://www.projectcensored.org/10-apa-complicit-in-cia-torture/

  49. 49.

    Patrick

    April 30, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    That two psychologists and their company allegedly received $81 million from this perversion of psychological science is shocking, and another reason psychologists as a group are horrified.

    It really is sickening that our tax money was not only used to fund torture. But it was also similar torture that we prosecuted Japanese soldiers for in WWII. Something is obviously wrong here.

  50. 50.

    gene108

    April 30, 2015 at 5:11 pm

    I know there are some crazy shrewd and ruthless people in conservative ranks, like how they immediately realized how the Citizen’s United decision could be used to take over state and local governments, but I think part of the reason the destroy government brand of conservatism caught on was them getting a bit lucky.

    As LBJ’s Great Society programs started to get going crime rates shot up, inflation was on the rise, the economic boom of the 1950’s and 1960’s seemed like a distant memory, by 1980, and whole bunch of causation-correlation crackpot theories could be thrown around and people were ready to believe it.

    And now two generations of Americans have been raised with the belief that “government is the problem”, and take it as a matter of faith that the only thing government should do is cut taxes and deregulate, no matter what the outcome actually is.

  51. 51.

    Tone in DC

    April 30, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Hey EF… I did say MEDICAL profession.

  52. 52.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 5:23 pm

    @chopper:

    Nadine was one of the better presidents the APA has had. she generally doesn’t fuck around, a quality you detect within 30 seconds of meeting her.

    Well, that cuts both ways.

    Has she responded to the new evidence? E. g., the note the CIA sent to an APA official explaining that Mitchell and Jessen “are doing special things to special people in special places.”

  53. 53.

    Tenar Darell

    April 30, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    @trollhattan: The A.M.A. hasn’t yanked the licenses of doctors who participated in torture based on this article from 2013.

    This prohibition was violated by the doctors working for the CIA’s Office of Medical Services who participated in the “enhanced interrogation” program, but no one has ever been expelled by the AMA or lost his license to practice as a result, suggesting that the guideline is actually toothless.

  54. 54.

    chopper

    April 30, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Has she responded to the new evidence?

    given that she’s no longer APA president (term is one year, she was president for 2014) I figure she’d let the new guy speak for the organization regarding new information.

  55. 55.

    JustRuss

    April 30, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    Just watched Stewart interview Judith Miller regarding her pre-Iraq reporting. God that was painful.

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    April 30, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    @Turgidson: But the destruction of institutions is a huge part of the long game, no doubt. Convincing a big chunk of the US public that government doesn’t work and is in fact more of an enemy than a force for good has been a concerted 50+-year project.

    Yes. It just goes to show that no matter how STUPID the idea — in this case, civilization itself was a wrong turn, we’d all rather live in Thunderdome — some people can be convinced to embrace it with all their might.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    April 30, 2015 at 5:38 pm

    @JustRuss:
    I couldn’t finish it. If she preened for the camera one more time my shoe was going to perforate the teevee. Ugh.

  58. 58.

    Peale

    April 30, 2015 at 5:38 pm

    It’s bad. But the right has been at war with the APA since, IDK, they stopped helping put the gays away. I’m not certain what the APA organization was thinking. Is torture the kind of thing they recommend that their patients go through?

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    April 30, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    @Peale:

    Is torture the kind of thing they recommend that their patients go through?

    You’d think the continued existence of “American Idol” would be sufficient.

  60. 60.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    @chopper:

    I figure she’d let the new guy speak

    Naturally — especially given that letter she had published in the New York Times. (“The two psychologists identified in the Senate committee report are not members of the American Psychological Association and are therefore beyond the range of our ethics enforcement program.”)

  61. 61.

    Eljai

    April 30, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    @JustRuss: I wasn’t going to watch because I wasn’t sure I was up to it. But I watched anyway. And it confirmed what I’ve always thought: Judith Miller is full of sh*t.

  62. 62.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 30, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    Damn, none of you fuckers can read, apparently. It’s been said three times already in the thread:

    The two psychologists identified in the Senate committee report are not members of the American Psychological Association and are therefore beyond the range of our ethics enforcement program.

    Oh, but the NY Times said it so it must be true. Christ.

  63. 63.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    @Eljai:

    Judith Miller is full of sh*t.

    Perhaps, but she got what she wanted regardless.

  64. 64.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    You seem over-excited.

    Try reading the article linked in the original post, then get back to us. (Thanks.)

  65. 65.

    Thoughtcrime

    April 30, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    JEB® has just secured Andrew Sullivan’s vote: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-charles-murray-the-bell-curve

  66. 66.

    D58826

    April 30, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    OT but really have to wonder about the makeup of our ‘thin blue line’ In Atlanta today a man was shot after he fired at police officers. Now usually there is nothing news worthy about that. In this case he shot at the officers from the back seat of the police car.after he was arrested. mind boggling

  67. 67.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    @Thoughtcrime:

    Bush didn’t say which of Murray’s books he was referring to.

    With bated breath we wait.

  68. 68.

    Thoughtcrime

    April 30, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    @Cervantes:

    All of them, Cervantie!

  69. 69.

    Turgidson

    April 30, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @fuckwit:

    True enough. I’d only say that they only want corporations, churches, etc. to dominate to the extent that they are the ones controlling or profiting from that control. And most of the elite billionaire GOP fat cats could take or leave the church, seeing it more as a useful tool for mobilizing voters to vote for something other than their economic well-being.

  70. 70.

    Keith G

    April 30, 2015 at 6:25 pm

    I am not sure that I have anymore shits left to give on this and related topics.

    We. Made. Our. Choice.

    2009 would have been a splendid time to initiate a “truth commission” on the lies, misuse of power, incalculable fiduciary misconduct, and war crimes. But no, Fuckers…we moved on.

    So like it or not, we are complicit after the fact. Well, some here were complicit during the fact.

    I get (but don’t necessarily agree with) the political calculations involved. The Big Guy, and others, apparently thought it would take too much energy away from too many other initiatives. Many here agreed.

    The thing is, sometimes there can be a high cost to doing the morally correct thing and the truly important things might come at a very high cost. That is why few moral cowards ever suffer from loneliness. So yeah, you can squawk about the terrible things that some of these cats did, but we (societal) are the ones who gave them a pass. Thus in light of that, I am not sure that I have anymore shits left to give on this and related topics.

  71. 71.

    shell

    April 30, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    The existence of Dick Cheney is the only reason why I hope there’s an afterlife and final judgement. He sure as hell isn’t gonna get it here.

  72. 72.

    Cervantes

    April 30, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    @shell:

    The existence of Dick Cheney is the only reason why I hope there’s an afterlife and final judgement. He sure as hell isn’t gonna get it here.

    Well, maybe.

    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (May 12, 2012) — It’s official; George W. Bush is a war criminal.

    In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday found guilty of war crimes.

    Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

    The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

    At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

    The article is from Foreign Policy.

  73. 73.

    GxB

    April 30, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    I ran across links to the BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares” from about a decade back. Very interesting. It has an excellent summary and history of the rise of the far right neo-cons, and draws parallels to the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. Peas in a pod as it turns out. Highly recommended if you got a couple hours and are on blood pressure meds, anti-depressants and/or benz-o’s (is that going to get around moderation??)

  74. 74.

    dr. bloor

    April 30, 2015 at 7:42 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Members or not, the APA sat around with their thumbs up their collective ass when all this was first breaking, what, ten years ago? I resigned my membership when they finally came up with some mealy-mouthed tightrope-walking letter trying not to piss off the hand that funds so many of their grants (government in general, military in particular).

    They’re a guild, and not a very good one at that. Like any guild, they’re easily corruptible when someone passes Benjamins under their noses.

  75. 75.

    sweetgreensnowpea

    April 30, 2015 at 7:49 pm

    i am starving on a diet of red herrings.

  76. 76.

    dmbeaster

    April 30, 2015 at 9:29 pm

    This is the odious GOP that has as a talking point that there has been an alleged decline in morals by liberalism that has weakened America. Steal the rhetoric but provide as examples all of this horrible GOP policy starting with torture, etc.

    It drives righties crazy. Use torture as an example, and ask them if it is also OK to use it against drug dealers accused of selling drugs to children.

  77. 77.

    Ripley

    April 30, 2015 at 10:14 pm

    @dr. bloor: Yup.

    A lot of dark shit came out about Martin Seligman around 5 years ago, largely around the APA’s “we’re cool with that” response. Very disappointing.

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