'Big, striking horror:' US military doctors allowed torture of detainees, new study claims

[unhappycamper]

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/big-striking-horror-us-military-doctors-allowed-torture-detainees-new-8C11515107



In this 2006 file photo, military personnel transport a detainee on the grounds of the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba.

'Big, striking horror:' US military doctors allowed torture of detainees, new study claims
Bill Briggs
NBC News
7 hours ago

U.S. military doctors designed, enabled and engaged in the torture of suspected terrorists held at American detention centers during the past decade, violating globally recognized ethics and medical principles that bar physicians from inflicting harm, according to a study released Monday.

The medical personnel involved — physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists who work in military branches or for U.S. intelligence agencies — allowed “cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” of prisoners while acting at the direction of military leaders under both the Bush and Obama administrations, reports a 19-member independent task force of doctors, lawyers and ethics experts.

“This is a big, big striking horror,” said Dr. Gerald Thomson, professor of medicine emeritus at Columbia University and a member of the task force. The panel is supported by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP), a health care policy think tank based at Columbia that identifies itself as nonprofit and nonpartisan.

“This covenant between society and medicine has been around for a long, long time — patient first, community first, society first, not national security, necessarily,” Thomson said. “If we just ignore this and satisfy ourselves with the (thought that), ‘Well, they were trying to protect us,’ when it does happen again we’re all be complicit in that.”

[OnyxCollie]

1. Looking forward!

[zeemike]

2. And the torture goes on and on.

But it's OK because we have a democratic president...who is apparently unable to stop it.
Why is that?

[fasttense]

3. Good question.

And why are the doctors themselves NOT able to stop it?

Doctors are just as cruel and greedy as any good capitalist.

[zeemike]

7. Well I did read some decades ago.

That they were thinking about not having doctors take the Hippocratic oath...I don't know if the stooped that but it sounds like they did.

[SHRED]

4. These aren't doctors they are criminals

[truebluegreen]

5. +1000

They should lose their licenses forever and go to jail. That's just the beginning. After that we should prosecute the chain of command that allowed and/or ordered this.

[ReRe]

6. Hear! Hear!

+1

[Swede Atlanta]

10. Agree.....

I understand the fact we face an enemy that has no moral compass. They will kill us or even their own mother if they thought it would make them "bigger". They are without any human value.

That said, we already know that torture does NOT, NOT (read this Dick Cheney) generate actionable intelligence. They will say whatever is needed to stop the pain. It sends us on wild goose-chases where we expend money, energy and resources in vain.

We must regain a modicum of civility in the face of adversaries that are the scum of the universe. But I am tired of my government doing, in my name, acts that I abhor and reject.

I only hope all those involved go to prison for the rest of their lives. Spending 23 hours in a tiny cell should give them time to reflect on their actions.

[PrestonLocke]

8. Do no harm

right, right

[Chaco Dundee]

9. wow.

Hello DR.Mengele.

[Corruption Inc]

11. Oh let's just leave this behind us and look forward, LOL

Why should torturers be held accountable for crimes against humanity?

And the American era of corruption continues...