Tech Nation podcast: torture and and medical complicity in the abuse of military prisoners [Rowan Tree and Red Thread]

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I've just been listening to this podcast, at the IT Conversations site, in which Moira Gunn interviews Steven Miles, a Minnesota MD who has investigated military prison abuses in Afganistan and Iraq. It's a powerful piece, upsetting but very revealing, and one that drives home the compromises and shortcuts the US government and military have taken, abandoning norms of ethical behviour and tradition that have served so well in the past. Perhaps the most upsetting thing is the number of medical professionals who have worked with the military in attempted cover-ups of and complicity with these acts. I'm grateful to Dr Miles for bringing some of the truth to light.

Mood:: upset

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There are 6 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Reading about the newly approved 'torture' rules in the US, and about US sponsored disappearances of people in Pakistan, and now this piece, I'm getting the feeling that Bush's government is rapidly turning the world into Chile under Pinochet. The connivance and complicity of medics in torture was a particular feature of the Pinochet regime.

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Yes, and today I read that if the President identifies you as 'an enemy combatant' that's sufficient under the new legislation for you to be held indefinitely without trial. As one commentator put it:

"getting arrested, prosecuted and thrown in the slammer the old-fashioned way becomes a privilege that can simply be revoked. Like I said, first class justice, up in the comfy seats." (from Talking Points Memo).

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nauseating! I think

purplecthulhu is right to find echoes of Pinochet in all of this. Global Pinochet?! Christ!

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But not to worry - he won't misuse this vast power because he's a Christian. You can tell that because he says so, and he doesn't like the idea of gays getting married. After all, that's all the religion demands, right?

The thing that frustrates me most is the repeated assertions that "Americans Don't Torture", and then the attempts to redefine torture. That's moving the Venn diagram in the wrong direction, guys. It's not that if an American does it it's suddenly not torture, it's that the torturer is no longer acting like a American. And shouldn't be working for us, representing us or speaking for us anywhere. Ever. This is not hard to grasp.

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I haven't heard the podcast in question, but there is a partial solution for this probem.

The American Medical Association should make a stand that for their members to retain their professional licensing (ie. their MD degree) they cannot participate in such perverted practices as torture and interrogation.

Those MDs found guilty of such practices would forever lose their license and their ability to practice medicine.

::B::

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The problem is that there are already supposedly laws, norms of behaviour and even an odd oath or two to cover the behaviour of soldiers, including medically trained army personnel. If all those sorts of regulations don't work why would the threat of having one's license revoked be any more likely to work?

It's not that I disagree. I do think that any medical professional who engages in torture should lose their license to practice medicine. It's just I also think they (and their superiors who ordered the torture) should be tried and jailed too. Perhaps if the AMA took the stand it would send a signal to others, though, and that would be good thing.

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Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Tech Nation podcast: torture and and medical complicity in the abuse of military prisoners

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