Mitchell and Jessen previously worked at the Air Force survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane, where they trained pilots to avoid capture and resist interrogation and torture. The CIA hired them to reverse-engineer their methods to break terrorism suspects.
Welcome to the “$ituation ethic$” of defense contractors.
“Are they going to use it against Americans? That’s above my pay grade!”â€
Presumably Blackwater–or whatever they call it now–has hired these guys.
†-“I like the ones who don’t get captured!”
“Harsh CIA Interrogations”?!?
Euphemisms like this helped (and help) sell torture to the American people. Numerous press outlets during the Bush years, including NPR, refused to call torture by its name.
In this story, every time the word “torture” is used to describe what Mitchell and Jessen oversaw, it’s attributed to the plaintiffs, their lawyers, or the language of their suit. The headline and the story itself (when it refers to what their program did, as opposed to what plaintiffs said it did) consistently uses euphemisms.
Interestingly, in a pattern that we also saw during the Bush years, you have no problem calling these things torture when you discuss Mitchell and Jessen’s training Air Force pilots to resist it: “they trained pilots to avoid capture and resist interrogation and torture.”
When they do it, it’s torture. When we do it, it’s “harsh interrogation.” That sort of euphemism normalized torture last decade. You’re doing it again in this story. Cut it out!
“The facts would have borne out that while the plaintiffs suffered mistreatment by some of their captors, none of that mistreatment was conducted, condoned or caused by Drs. Mitchell and Jessen,” Smith said.
Well, that’s OK, then; they didn’t actually perform the torture, they just told other people how to do it. What a disgusting excuse for what would otherwise be obvious criminal behavior by people acting in our name. This black mark will always hover over the reputation over Bush-Cheney and their willing abettors. It is continually amazing just how craven our politicians can be. Not much has changed since last January, either.
During cross-examination, the prosecution proposed folding Dr. Jessen into a small, wooden box for an extended time and turning Dr. Mitchell upside-down and pouring a quart of warm water up his nose.
What bothers me is that over the years there have been articles about torture, which like this one, never seem to present the idea that torture is a stupid way to get information. Practiced by stupid people. There’s a certain connection here to Charlottsville - things we learned back in WWII seem to have been forgotten. These two “psychologists” should have had their licenses taken for malpractice; much more effective techniques are known and used back then by both sides. See: Sherwood Ford Moran and Hanns Scharff. Psychologists who have done any homework should and would know this. Torture is sadism, and nothing more.
Torture is no more about getting information than rape is about getting sex. Why is it that we so many times come to the “new learning” that torture is ineffective?
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but it avoided a civil trial set for Sept. 5 in federal court in Spokane.
This is bullshit. These cockroaches (and their punishment) should be exposed to the light for all to see.
Mostly, I want to know how much of the millions they were paid was clawed back.
If they weren’t left destitute the punishment wasn’t harsh enough.