Doctors: Trump’s separation of families is torture

“The trauma Donald Trump’s administration caused to young children and parents separated at the US-Mexico border constitutes torture, according to evaluations of 26 children and adults by the group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).

The not-for-profit group’s report provides the first in-depth look at the psychological impact of family separation, which the US government continued despite warnings from the nation’s top medical bodies.”

‘Legal experts have argued family separation constituted torture, but this is the first time a medical group has reached the determination.”

— “Trump’s separation of families constitutes torture, doctors find,” Amanda Holpuch, The Guardian

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Music Torture

“One of the more unusual methods employed by US interrogators to break the will of detainees during harsh interrogation at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Mosul, and elsewhere is the use of loud music. The 2006 edition of the US Army’s field manual for interrogation advocated the use of abusive sound as a method of interrogation, a practice corroborated by former detainees who were subject to this abuse.

Psychology Association: Okay, We’ll Stop Helping Torturers

“The American Psychological Association voted Friday in favor of a resolution that would bar its members from participating in national security interrogations.

The resolution by the country’s largest professional organization of psychologists passed overwhelmingly. The only dissenting vote came from Col. Larry James, a former Army intelligence psychologist at Guantanamo.”

— “Psychology Group Votes To Ban Members From Taking Part In Interrogations,” Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News

“The association’s ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group’s public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist … and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association’s board. Mr. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment.”

— “Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds,” James Risen, New York Times

Related:

“Larry James,” Center for Torture Accountability

“US torture report: psychologists should no longer aid military, group says,” Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian

CIA: Whitehouse-Sanctioned Torture

“5 questions about the CIA detention and interrogation report you wish you didn’t have to ask,” Adam Goldman, Washington Post

“Senate report on CIA torture claims spy agency lied about ‘ineffective’ program,” Spencer Ackerman, Dominic Rushe, and Julian Borger, The Guardian

“10 appalling findings in the Senate’s torture report,” Luke Brin, Salon

“16 absolutely outrageous abuses detailed in the CIA torture report,” Dylan Matthews, Vox

“The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report,'” Shane Harris, Daily Beast

Palin Baptism

Former Alaska Temp-Governor and amateur theologian Sarah Palin spoke to firearms enthusiasts on Saturday. “… if I were in charge,” she told them, “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

More:

“Sarah Palin talks waterboarding, guns at NRA convention,” Jake Miller, CBS News

“Conservative Christians Disgusted With Palin’s Religious Talk,” Sarah Posner, Religion Dispatches

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Cheney’s Legacy: Waterboarding

Last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to a college TV audience about the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” program. “Some people call it torture,” he said. “It wasn’t torture. We were very careful in all respects to abide by the law.”

“If he doesn’t think that was torture,” Senator Angus King said on Sunday, “I would invite him … to sit in a waterboard and go through what those people went through.”

— “Sen. Angus King: If Cheney doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, I invite him to try it,” Lindsey Abrams, Salon

More:

“Dick Cheney: Waterboarding gets ‘results,'” Chicago Sun-Times

“Sorry, Dick Cheney: Torture doesn’t work,” Ryan Cooper, The Week

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Kitten In A Microwave!

Two teenage girls from Maine put an 8-week-old kitten in a microwave oven and turned it on. What next? They put the video on Twitter, of course. Talk about your mean girls ….

The kitten survived and was taken to an animal shelter. The 15-year-old girls, South Portland High School students, were charged with animal cruelty.

Kitten in a microwave! Where’d they get that horrible idea?

Alberto Gonzales Goes Nashville

Nashville’s Belmont University has a new law school, one that opened last summer. It also has a new Distinguished Professor of Law, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Distinguished Professor is also distinguished by his official endorsement of government torture and kidnapping during his time at the White House and in the Justice Department.

Who’s to Blame for Destroying CIA Tapes?

A few years ago, U.S. agents tortured people and videotaped these “enhanced interrogations.” They also made people disappear at “black sites” around the world. When investigators started poking around, the recordings disappeared, too.

 Why destroy the tapes? Despite assurances from the Department of Justice and the White House, waterboarding and similar practices are torture, against federal, military, and international law. The cover-up shows the interrogators knew this.

Bush: I Ordered Waterboarding

 

In his memoir to be released next Tuesday, George W. Bush admits that he personally approved the use of waterboarding in the “enhanced interrogation” of prisoners while he was president. The coercive technique of intentional drowning meets the definition of torture under the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Treaty on Human Rights, the U.S. Army Field Manual and Title 18 of the U.S. legal code.