Originally published at: CIA used detainee as a living prop for torture training, gave him brain damage | Boing Boing
…
9 Likes
Hope he finds peace in his life, if that’s even possible after what the USA did to him…
25 Likes
33 Likes
No one said or did anything while this was going on.
What even are we, now?
25 Likes
I still manage to be shocked at revelations of the monstrousness of American “enhanced interrogation” efforts. There absolutely should have been prosecutions of the CIA and others for all the horrors inflicted as part of the “war on terror,” up and down the chain of command. (It’s not too late.) No one should be able to just shrug their shoulders and say, “oh well, mistakes were made” with this kind of behavior; if there’s no accountability, the whole country is indelibly stained and corrupted by this evil. It also sets a precedent moving forward, shifting the Overton window of acceptable behavior within the institutions for future authoritarian American regimes (like the one the Republicans are currently working to construct).
58 Likes
I agree with all of this. I am ashamed that these acts were done on implied behalf of me and my friends and family. Add Jessen and Mitchell to the list of evildoers who should face justice. Pathetic and unforgivable.
ETA: I agree with the responded to comment and emphatically disagree with torture being conducted by my government
10 Likes
I always thought the CIA has done more to besmirch the reputation of the US than any other person or organization in our history.
Then You Know Who came along…
Still can’t decide if we are better off with -or without- the CIA, NSA, & certain other Three Letter Agencies, given the existence of other empires on this planet that don’t necessarily wish us well.
8 Likes
Bear in mind that there were likely physicians and other medical professionals present at these training sessions and that all of them probably still retain their licenses.
22 Likes
Every time I read a story about the CIA I have to wonder how anyone can justify the cost/benefit for their agency’s actions over the last 70+ years. I suppose it’s possible that all the agency’s genuine accomplishments have been kept secret for reasons of national security while their worst crimes continue to leak to the public but somehow I doubt it.
18 Likes
The ones that leak may not be the worst, either. I’ll always remember a lecture by the famous investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who told his admiring audience that the really bad guys are able to make sure no-one will ever find out what they were up to. To put that assessment in perspective, I’ll quote from his Wikpedia bio:
Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times and revealed the clandestine bombing of Cambodia. In 2004, he reported on the U.S. military’s mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
18 Likes
Almost certainly not, though the ones that leaked are more than terrible enough to question whether the agency’s continued existence can be justified.
I think that some people have this idea that there are secret agents constantly pulling Jack Ryan shit where they save the United States from certain doom by taking down terrorist cells just before someone gets a chance to nuke a major American city or something, but if something like that really did happen I bet the CIA would leak it on purpose just for the PR boost.
13 Likes
It’s just higher-level copaganda. 
18 Likes
2 Likes
Perhaps the detainee could make a claim under workman’s comp for his injuries, naming the CIA as his (albeit involuntary) “employer.”
Then watch the CIA try to weasel out of that one. (If there are any concerns about classified materials, the matter could either take place at Guantanamo or at the NSA court, with the detainee as the plaintiff.)
4 Likes
Hersh also published Chemical and Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal in 1968. It’s an expose of tests gone awry at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, Fort Detrick in Maryland, and other USian CBW research and testing facilities.
5 Likes
The people who did this deserve to be imprisoned in Guantanamo under the care of those they trained.
10 Likes
A case study in the banality of evil.
9 Likes
A friend of mine was one of the army’s investigators into the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. His job included gathering the photographic evidence that various soldiers had taken (the infamous Christmas tree pose), putting together evidence of its authenticity, and presenting it at the trials. He retired from the Army, became a licensed P.I., then eventually came to work at our company.
I honestly don’t know how a person could keep their sanity as they witness man’s inhumanity. I’d fall to pieces if I knew even a fraction of what he had to see.
8 Likes
Wait till The Guardian does a piece on why GWB invaded Iraq.
1 Like
