From Allen L. Barker Tue Jan 11 08:45:31 2005
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 11:45:31 -0500
Subject: Alleged government-sponsored torture]



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: alleged government-sponsored torture
Date: 10 Jan 2005 23:43:05 -0800
From: jamesfstratton

"A Consequentialist Argument against Torture Interrogation of
Terrorists"
http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE03/Arrigo03.html
Jean Maria Arrigo, Ph.D.
Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics
January 30-31, 2003,  Springfield, Virginia

<excerpt>

The larger lesson here is that a national security rationale for
torture does not suspend, without tumult and schisms, the ethics codes
of professions whose participation is required.  Judging from the
experience of other countries, similar turmoil might be anticipated in
clinical psychology, law, and journalism.[21]

<excerpt>

The cognitive failure model demands cutting edge biomedical
research into techniques of torture, to stay ahead of savvy terrorist
organizations, and research into concealment and detection of torture,
to stay ahead of human rights monitors.  Further, it demands a corps of
trained torturers to apply the precision torture technology.  I explore
these two institutional requirements next.

Biomedical Research for Torture Interrogation

Twentieth Century researchers developed numerous techniques to
induce disorientation:  psychiatric-pharmacological substances,
electroshock, electromagnetic resonance, and others.[38]           But
how could torture-interrogation research proceed in the United States,
and what sort of scientists might participate?

Consider a Cold War strategy for a program of similarly
stigmatized research, the CIA's mind control Project MKULTRA.  A 1977
Senate investigation into CIA research on human subjects disclosed that
the CIA had simply contracted with  researchers at over 80
universities, hospitals, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and
research institutes through a front funding agency.  The Human Ecology
Society, as it was called, was co-founded by the neurologist Hinkle who
had examined the POWs "brainwashed" in Korea.[39]  One MKULTRA
subproject sought "[s]ubstances which will enhance the ability of
individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during
interrogation...."  Another called for three research teams to compare
various combinations of "straight interrogation, hypnosis, and drugs on
subjects who had denied allegations known to be true."  Admiral
Stansfield Turner, then Director of Central Intelligence, stated: "I
believe we all owe a moral obligation to these researchers and
institutions to protect them from any unjustified embarrassment or
damage to their reputations which revelations of their identities might
bring.[40]  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the identities should not
be revealed for security reasons.[41]  The CIA research strategy
therefore remained viable.

The "war on terrorism" has produced a related research strategy.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) hosted an
invitation-only conference on March 11-13, 2002, called "Scientists
Helping America." his According to a widely broadcast DARPA call for
submissions, "The primary focus of the conference is to tap into new
ideas of scientists and inventors...."  "Luminaries"  from industry and
academia are invited to "come and interact with real special operation
forces including US Navy SEALS and US Army Green Berets." [42]

<excerpt>

Another unintended consequence of biomedical research on torture
is the opportunity for secret, illegal research on human subjects for
other purposes.  Administrators of torture interrogation programs
cannot prevent  alternative uses by their own biomedical scientists,
who have negotiating power over valuable resources.[50]  Historically,
government-sponsored ethics investigations of the CIA's mind control
Project MKULTRA and the Department of Energy's radiation studies
exposed extraneous, excessive, and criminal human subjects
research.[51]

<excerpt>

The consequentialist moral rationale for torture interrogation of
terrorists provides no plausible mechanism for coordinating
interrogators with the judiciary but would seem to support
interrogators' idealistic motivations to present false testimony in
court and to thwart oversight.  A legal analysis of Israeli torture in
the Occupied Territories concluded that in a liberal democracy torture
subverts the rule of law and erodes other democratic ideals supported
by the rule of law.[99]

<excerpt>

Military wisdom cautions that the long-term potential of a weapon
or tactic is more important than its initial purpose.[105]  Regardless
of the initial purpose, resources invite new uses and are adopted by
new users, as demonstrated by the spread of atomic weapons.  To this
point, a recent issue of the Military Intelligence Professional
Bulletin expressed concern that "The Patriot Act" approved by Congress
on October 26, 2001, would "expand the definition of 'terrorist' to
include non-violent protesters at an anti-war rally."[106]

<excerpt>

A second rogue option is the discreet use of illegal,
government-sponsored torture.  Secrecy can be maintained through
plausible deniability; isolation of torture sites; expendability of
torturers; and initial recruitment of torturers trained
elsewhere-abroad, in prisons, by abusive families.  A combat veteran,
Kenneth Kendall, combining his "guinea pig" experience at the
Nevada Test Site with his witness of torture interrogations by South
Koreans,  conjectured the means of concealment of torture:[112]

    Once you've got what information you need, then-it's hard to
    do-but go ahead and finish killing them and erase them from
    existence, and then that would cover you from the dilemma of having to
    admit that you did something like this.  If there's only a small
    number of people involved that could ever get out and say anything,
    then you can insist that they didn't know what they were talking
    about.-"This guy sung his head off.  We didn't have to do nothing
    with his wife and child.  We don't know where they're at."  This
    is probably what I would advise, how this went and all.  Primarily
    based on my past experience.

Numerous self-identified survivors of alleged
government-sponsored torture-in such self-help organizations as the
Advocacy Committee for Human Experiment Survivors-Mind Control
(ACHES-MC), Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today (SMART),
SurvivorShip, and Citizens against Human Rights Abuses(Cahra)-would
agree with Kendall's explanation.[113]