Saturday, October 11, 2008
Psychological Verdict...
Everyone has a reason to be pissed and upset with the Bush administration. On a variety of issues that we can't even begin to count. But as the page starts to turn on the disaster that was the Bush Presidency many people look and think now about his legacy. What did President Bush leave behind for us? And although the failures are too numerous to count the most disturbing legacy in my view over the past eight years has happened to involve what is left behind of our civil rights.
I am not just talking about the Patriot Act...which mind you does have some provisions and powers that I believe law enforcement agencies needed to have in the modern age...but I am talking about the advocacy of unchecked Presidential authority that we have seen emerge. Some of this abuse of authority would be comical if it wasn't so offensive. As Brian Ross of ABC New's recently reported and documented officials from the NSA (the National Security Agency) routinely listened to private conversations of Americans abroad. In fact they took conversations that they liked...US Soldiers having phone sex with their wives, conversations they found funny and circulated your private conversations around the office for others to get a good laugh out of...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5987804&page=1
And who's to say the Government isn't full of professionals?...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/09/eavesdropping/
I have to remind you these are the same people who were given this authority to listen to terrorists. You think you send around emails you find funny? Next time you make these guys laugh in your phone calls it will be you.
It is nothing short of ironic that if Barrack Obama does win the Presidency he could inherit quite possibly the most power ever bestowed upon a Chief Executive since George Washington when we first founded this country.
But many parts of the Bush legacy are slowly unraveling and how they are falling apart is not only telling but also should be strong lessons to us never to entrust a President with such power again. The greatest symbol of that unchecked authority over the past years to the International community happened to step back in the news again. Of course I am talking about the gulag we established at Guantanamo Bay...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detainment_camp
Where last week a landmark ruling was issued in Federal court. A judge (appointed by a Republican no less) finally stepped up and said enough. After these detainees were held for seven years without legal access he finally ordered the release of 17 detainees being held at Guantanamo that the US Military documented to be innocent...
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/court-orders-release-17-innocent-guantanamo-detainees-u.s.
All 17 of these detainees were not terrorists. In fact they were Chinese Muslims who had fled religious persecution in their native homeland and had gone to neighboring Afghanistan seeking refuge before they were picked up the US Military in a sweep. Now that ruling of course has been appealed...the Bush administration often has to be told multiple times by even a conservative Supreme Court that they are subverting the law before they stop and listen. But out of the past eight years there has been a remarkable sea change in American thinking that I find dangerous. Especially when it comes to torture. And I was absolutely floored when a recent survey last month among Southern Evangelicals found that 57% of people surveyed believed torture was acceptable...
http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=16465
Here is the World's view country by country. We have shifted radically in the past 8 years...
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jun08/WPO_Torture_Jun08_packet.pdf
Now as we saw in the conviction of Jose Padilla, if you recall he was an American citizen held without rights for six years until he was tried and convicted...documents now forthcoming have shown his captivity brought him to the brink of insanity...
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/10/07/ap5521464.html
The conditions these prisoners have been held in we didn't really know much about before. But details are now starting to slowly emerge. Why? Because of an all fight now taking place...in the medical community. And this is part of the discussion that has never been brought to our attention. It has always sat there below the radar.
Now think about it. In these interrogations...from Guantanamo Bay all the way to Abu Ghraib and beyond...we knew there would be interrogators in the room and military intelligence officers that would be obvious. But during these torture sessions someone else was in the room too: a doctor. A medical professional to treat the wounds caused by torture, to tell interrogators when they have gone to far or when they had to back off. And because a doctor was in the room for all these sessions the medical community has had their own fight brewing over this...
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7556/1462
And more importantly Psychologists. Because as we are learning psychologists were hired and paid for by the government to break down prisoners in interrogations and to help devise techniques to make people talk...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/16/america/ethics.php
This bothers the crap out of me. I was a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy. I was considering Psychology as a career (my Associate's is in Psychology). I had to deal with prisoners when I was in Kuwait. I never, never thought I would see medical professionals step up to take a lead role in how to devise methods to better torture people. Never. The idea back when I was serving of this occurring...absolute disbelief. Now after a lot of debate associations of psychologists have banded together to bar a role in military interrogations...
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,175663,00.html
But still the damage has been done. Over the past eight years though there has been some push back to this. There has been people fighting in the trenches against this. We just haven't seen much of the fight. But what a toll it has taken.
One of the clearest views of this fight happens to have come from Jane Mayer who interviewed hundreds of all conservative lawyers who worked for the Bush administration for her book which is recommended below. None of the facts from her book have been disputed in fact they have been affirmed.
Which is a stain for us. Because in that book among the fight and the many revelations is that we...Americans...had people in our custody and through torturing them we murdered people. In cold blood. Let me say that again. We had people who were innocent, in our custody and we murdered them. And the President in this was either in an absolute bubble and knew nothing about it...which is possible. Or if he did know...he delegated and was complicit in it. Either way there is no going back for us...
What kind of abuses would it take for us to step up and demand our civil liberties back?
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
By Jane Mayer
I am not just talking about the Patriot Act...which mind you does have some provisions and powers that I believe law enforcement agencies needed to have in the modern age...but I am talking about the advocacy of unchecked Presidential authority that we have seen emerge. Some of this abuse of authority would be comical if it wasn't so offensive. As Brian Ross of ABC New's recently reported and documented officials from the NSA (the National Security Agency) routinely listened to private conversations of Americans abroad. In fact they took conversations that they liked...US Soldiers having phone sex with their wives, conversations they found funny and circulated your private conversations around the office for others to get a good laugh out of...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5987804&page=1
And who's to say the Government isn't full of professionals?...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/09/eavesdropping/
I have to remind you these are the same people who were given this authority to listen to terrorists. You think you send around emails you find funny? Next time you make these guys laugh in your phone calls it will be you.
It is nothing short of ironic that if Barrack Obama does win the Presidency he could inherit quite possibly the most power ever bestowed upon a Chief Executive since George Washington when we first founded this country.
But many parts of the Bush legacy are slowly unraveling and how they are falling apart is not only telling but also should be strong lessons to us never to entrust a President with such power again. The greatest symbol of that unchecked authority over the past years to the International community happened to step back in the news again. Of course I am talking about the gulag we established at Guantanamo Bay...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detainment_camp
Where last week a landmark ruling was issued in Federal court. A judge (appointed by a Republican no less) finally stepped up and said enough. After these detainees were held for seven years without legal access he finally ordered the release of 17 detainees being held at Guantanamo that the US Military documented to be innocent...
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/court-orders-release-17-innocent-guantanamo-detainees-u.s.
All 17 of these detainees were not terrorists. In fact they were Chinese Muslims who had fled religious persecution in their native homeland and had gone to neighboring Afghanistan seeking refuge before they were picked up the US Military in a sweep. Now that ruling of course has been appealed...the Bush administration often has to be told multiple times by even a conservative Supreme Court that they are subverting the law before they stop and listen. But out of the past eight years there has been a remarkable sea change in American thinking that I find dangerous. Especially when it comes to torture. And I was absolutely floored when a recent survey last month among Southern Evangelicals found that 57% of people surveyed believed torture was acceptable...
http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=16465
Here is the World's view country by country. We have shifted radically in the past 8 years...
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jun08/WPO_Torture_Jun08_packet.pdf
Now as we saw in the conviction of Jose Padilla, if you recall he was an American citizen held without rights for six years until he was tried and convicted...documents now forthcoming have shown his captivity brought him to the brink of insanity...
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/10/07/ap5521464.html
The conditions these prisoners have been held in we didn't really know much about before. But details are now starting to slowly emerge. Why? Because of an all fight now taking place...in the medical community. And this is part of the discussion that has never been brought to our attention. It has always sat there below the radar.
Now think about it. In these interrogations...from Guantanamo Bay all the way to Abu Ghraib and beyond...we knew there would be interrogators in the room and military intelligence officers that would be obvious. But during these torture sessions someone else was in the room too: a doctor. A medical professional to treat the wounds caused by torture, to tell interrogators when they have gone to far or when they had to back off. And because a doctor was in the room for all these sessions the medical community has had their own fight brewing over this...
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7556/1462
And more importantly Psychologists. Because as we are learning psychologists were hired and paid for by the government to break down prisoners in interrogations and to help devise techniques to make people talk...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/16/america/ethics.php
This bothers the crap out of me. I was a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy. I was considering Psychology as a career (my Associate's is in Psychology). I had to deal with prisoners when I was in Kuwait. I never, never thought I would see medical professionals step up to take a lead role in how to devise methods to better torture people. Never. The idea back when I was serving of this occurring...absolute disbelief. Now after a lot of debate associations of psychologists have banded together to bar a role in military interrogations...
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,175663,00.html
But still the damage has been done. Over the past eight years though there has been some push back to this. There has been people fighting in the trenches against this. We just haven't seen much of the fight. But what a toll it has taken.
One of the clearest views of this fight happens to have come from Jane Mayer who interviewed hundreds of all conservative lawyers who worked for the Bush administration for her book which is recommended below. None of the facts from her book have been disputed in fact they have been affirmed.
Which is a stain for us. Because in that book among the fight and the many revelations is that we...Americans...had people in our custody and through torturing them we murdered people. In cold blood. Let me say that again. We had people who were innocent, in our custody and we murdered them. And the President in this was either in an absolute bubble and knew nothing about it...which is possible. Or if he did know...he delegated and was complicit in it. Either way there is no going back for us...
What kind of abuses would it take for us to step up and demand our civil liberties back?
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals
By Jane Mayer
