TERROR

The Biscuit Breaker

Psychologist Steven Reisner has embarked on a crusade to get his colleagues out of the business of interrogations.

By Dan Ephron | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 18, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Oct 27, 2008

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  • Posted By: dataonabuse @ 10/26/2008 11:29:24 AM

    Stop the torture of children.

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  • Posted By: jordanadah @ 10/24/2008 9:17:21 AM

    doc howl, you know nothing about the principles this country was founded on, and which this country adhered to until the second bush. Here's aa little something that was whispered quietly in nazi germany. 1st they came for the enfeebled, and I said nothing, then they came for the homosexuals, and I said nothing, then they came for the jews, and I said nothing then they came for me, and there was noone left todo anything. We thought it didn't matter as long as it was one of 'them'. But now we are dead, also.

    • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 10/24/2008 5:33:49 PM

      Also, that quote was Pastor Martin Neimoller, which he said after the war, having survived a Nazi concentration camp.

    • Posted By: Braes @ 10/24/2008 3:44:52 PM

      Actually Doc does. I rise in his defense. Neither Doc nor I condone any of these acts by professional medical personnel. If you read the article, you'll find that one psychologist said to another that they were (my paraphrasing) coddling terrorists. So coddle, hug, etc... the gig is the same, Doc was likely slamming some sarcasm into the forum. I do that too, and taken as a stand alone comment might upset people.
      In my service I saw Dachau. I get the Nazi analogy about defending the first person before the SA/SS/Gestapo comes for you.
      I am so for the commentator below who wishes the APA would grow a set and remove the privs from all members who played Dr. Mengele. I do not get how the AMA/APA/ABA have allowed any of their members to participate in the Bush regime gulags. (I know gulag is soviet not nazi so forgive my mixed totalitarianism/fascism/communism metaphors.)
      I am ashamed of what has been done, and Doc is too. We ran this ball in a thread under a Lithwick article on GTMO a while back.
      Forgive me Doc if I screwed something up or put words in your mouth. Neither Doc nor I as career Non Comissioned Officers (Retired here) believe in what the 43'rd regime has done.

      • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 10/24/2008 5:32:48 PM

        I was responding to gfbum's comment, below, actually.

        There is no excuse for torture, and standing up for that principle is not "hugging a terrorist" as gfbum implied.

    • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 10/24/2008 5:31:17 PM

      What the hell are you talking about? I am against anything resembling torture.

  • Posted By: Braes @ 10/24/2008 3:53:51 PM

    The FBI ran from this operation and refused to be a part. That is completely telling.
    Get a copy of Taxi to the Dark Side and watch it.
    You don't need to use the stick when you have never tried the carrot. You'd be suprised how much you can get if you just ask. Especially if you can put a good offer on the table.
    Watch the movie.

  • Posted By: PR-240 @ 10/23/2008 11:06:52 AM

    If the APA is indeed serious on this matter and prepared to take a moral stand, then the logical first step is to discipline APA members who participated in practices that clearly violate the organization's canon of ethics, much like the bar disciplines lawyers and canon law disciplines errant clergy. In the present case, this would mean taking sanctions against or rejecting the membership of perpetrators within the APA, whether they be military ("operational" or SERE) or civilian (governmental or contractor) psychologists. To do nothing and simply hope for an "awakening" or revelation to come from the choir (Luther) is to allow the profession's moral compass to continue to spin. Quit talking and do something!

    • Posted By: Braes @ 10/24/2008 3:48:47 PM

      As an Aircrew graduate of SERE, I would wish it upon no soul, ever. It is also stuff taught at the School of the Americas or whatever they have changed the name to under this regime.
      Since you can count the number of nations in Latin America that have thrown off our neo-colonial yoke in the last 8 years, you can see that teaching military dictatorship and torture does not work out well in the long term.
      As for participants in the professions, you let political ideology overcome morals and standards. You should come clean and tell both your organizations who implemented these things and directed them, and be willing to testify.

  • Posted By: gfbum @ 10/23/2008 3:56:22 AM

    Have you guys hugged a terrorist today?

    • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 10/23/2008 3:56:39 PM

      Insisting on the principles this country was founded on is "hugging a terrorist"?

  • Posted By: sieg6529 @ 10/23/2008 9:28:59 AM

    Any psychologist who participates in an interrogation in any way except to prevent harm is a sick individual who should have their own head examined.

  • Posted By: caspar56 @ 10/22/2008 11:07:22 AM

    Ludwig
    you forgot the grand master Sean hannity

  • Posted By: LudwigVanBeet @ 10/21/2008 4:41:31 PM

    Comment: Comment:****** The KU KLUTZ KLAN, David Duke University, Rush Limbaugh, The Weekly Standard, American Enterprise Institute, Mitt "MITTENS" Romney, Gordan Liddy, Keating Five, Ollie "WILLARD "North , Mississippi, American Nazi Party,Trent Lott P. Buchanan,____PROUDLY ENDORSES JOHN MCCAIN

  • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 10/21/2008 12:51:32 PM

    Adolf Eichmann would be proud of these "psychologists".

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/21/2008 12:43:55 AM

    After 9/11, US government started rounding up Muslims without cause and without due process of law, and put them in prison camps like we did to the Japanese Americans in WWII. The Bush administration called it's main internment camp Guantanamo Bay. While there are certainly many guilty terrorists held in Guantanamo, there are also many innocent American citizens who have been held illegally for years without even being charged with any crime. They have been tortured by our government. Some of them have died.

    Recently the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration in the matter of Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court Justices were NOT on the side of the terrorists. They were on the side of the Geneva Convention, that says you can not torture POWs, and on the side of US laws that state you can not imprison a person without charging them with a crime and bringing them to trial. I'm sure that like most Americans, the Justices who voted against the illegal, immoral doings at Guantanamo did not feel sympathy for the terrorists. They felt sympathy for the laws of AMERICA, the land of the FREE, where even rat finks get a fair trial.

    Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the Bush administration is busy trying to build a smokescreen to hide the CRIMES they have committed. Just think, the National Debt went up over 6 trillion dollars under Bush. More than 2 trillion of it went directly into the pockets of Halliburton, a corporation owned by the Cheney family. Halliburton is now a DUBAI corporation and therefore is not subject to US taxes. All that money they took out of the US Treasury is going into the coffers of a MUSLIM country.

    Did you hear about how the US government is being charged millions for Halliburton deliveries of sand into Iraq from Kuwait? Sand. Like there is a shortage of sand in Iraq? Another contractor shipped sand from Idaho to Iraq at our expense. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses these and other excesses of our current government's out of control spending in Iraq.

    Your grandchildren will be working like slaves to pay off this debt, so that the Bushes and Cheneys can live the high life in Dubai.

    Yeah, they're patriots, Bush&Co. They wear flag pins. And hide the money they stole from America in Dubai.

    And they want me to believe that Obama is a socialist. Right.

  • Posted By: mjkittredge @ 10/20/2008 4:28:45 PM

    I don't agree with the person portrayed in this article. The more people involved in these interrogations, the more witnesses there are, the less likely wrongdoing would occur. That's why we have public trials - secrecy lets people get away with things. On the other hand, psychologists helping torturers perfect their techniques is a level of evil that can't be tolerated.

  • Posted By: sherry 914 @ 10/20/2008 3:58:48 PM

    We are all responsible for what we do, and this, most especially, includes doctors. Were I to discover or suspect that my doctor participated in coercive interroggations, I would refuse to see that doctor. I would not allow myself or any member of my family to take that risk. A doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other medical professional should not have torture on his or her resume. Would you trust Dr. Mengele with your family's health? Medical professionals have a duty to stand up for their honor. To do otherwise is a disgrace to their profession.

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