Scientists ‘disappointed, upset,’ and ‘consternated’ that Bush officials misused their work to justify torture.
Scientists ‘disappointed, upset,’ and ‘consternated’ that Bush officials misused their work to justify torture.
In the past week, at least three scientists have come out and objected to their work on sleep deprivation being used by the CIA and Justice Department to justify torture. In one of his 2005 memos, the OLC’s Steven Bradbury said that sleep deprivation causes “at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance.” But one of the scholars, Dr. Bernd Kundermann from the University of Marburg, pointed out that that he was “working with healthy volunteers and didn’t deprive them of sleep for more than one day without allowing them to recover.” Similarly, from Dr. S. Hakki Onen from the Hôpital Gériatrique A. Charial:
“[The study subjects] were distracted from sleeplessness by playing different games, or watching soccer matches. They could eat, drink, read, and move about as they wished. [From] the American documents we learn that sleep deprivation spanned from 70 to 120 hours — and set maximum limits of 180 hours for the hardest resisters, which is over a full week without sleep,” Onen said. “In other words, they discuss starting the sleep deprivation process at nearly double the maximum we set for ethical reasons.”
Onen compared the CIA’s use of his study results to the overdosing of medication. “In a manner, it’s like giving a drug to a patient: if you administer it in small doses for therapeutic reasons, it helps them. If you give it in huge volumes, it becomes toxic — and can even kill them,” he said.
As Onen notes, the Justice Department determined that “the maximum allowable period of sleep deprivation allowed under the CIA interrogation program was 264 hours, though no detainee was actually deprived of sleep for more than 180 hours, or seven and a half days.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
Scientists ‘disappointed, upset,’ and ‘consternated’ that Bush officials misused their work to justify torture.
– - The Scientists were shocked, SHOCKED I say, to learn torture was going on in their establishment.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:43 pmScientists ‘disappointed, upset,’ and ‘consternated’ that Bush officials misused their work to justify torture.
– - Ya know, sometimes in life you want to keep walking… Some of life has to be mysterious.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pmWell, it looks like we now know who in the administration counseled him to keep the memos under wraps. it was Leon Panetta (from Raw Story:
Obama purportedly challenged his staff to defend their views — Attorney General Eric Holder argued that the memos should be released, and CIA Director Leon Panetta — who previously told Congress during his confirmation hearing that none of the CIA officers who participated in the interrogations program would be prosecuted — argued they should be withheld.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pmNo surprise that Bushco distorted scientific findings…
April 21st, 2009 at 6:50 pmI think it is time for the President to see that bipartisanship means the other side wants to hide their crap. He promised change and change means responsibility, something sadly lacking in the previous administration.
Yeah, its gonna hurt but it has to be.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:51 pmI’m more than just a little confused here . . .
Why didn’t the Justice Department officials who did this determination dig into who was responsible for depriving incarcerated detainees who were charged with having committed no criminal or violent act and arrest those U.S. officials for violating federal statutes???
This was all criminal wrong-doing and everyone involved should be incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay and the keys turned over to the detainees who are still there.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:52 pmha… EVERYthing about bushco was distorted…
…
just found this at the googlenews page…
April 21st, 2009 at 6:57 pmmaybe the frighties will be placated? but i think it looks more like the FBI has lowered those “most wanted” standards…
Alleged Domestic Terrorist Makes FBI’s Most Wanted List
Voice of America – ?1 hour ago?
By VOA News An alleged animal rights extremist from the western US state of California has been added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted list.
Animal rights activist on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ list CNN International
Bay Area man on FBI’s “Most Wanted” for Pleasanton, Emeryville … San Jose Mercury News
San Francisco Chronicle – ABC News – guardian.co.uk – Montgomery County Newspaper
all 467 news articles »
http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ncl=1338063978&topic=h
Sleep deprivation for a full week? That is hard-core torture. Google sleep deprivation and see for yourself what was done to these prisoners in our name.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:00 pmThere is no excuse. bush commited a War Crime if just one prisoner suffered this torture and abuse. None! If bush gets away with Crimes Against Humanity there is no true rule of law in our once great country. Individual Americans convicted of violating outdated drug laws now serve more time than some rapist and murders. “justice” is only for the poor, the rich “purchase justice” and at the most get fined. Pitiful but true!
April 21st, 2009 at 7:02 pmpeace
What you see is what we got from the Bush Liar-in-Chief. We will learn much more about what this drunken idiot has done over the pass 8 years with the help of Wall Street, Banks, Media, Press, Newspapers and Journalist. Notice how silent Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory are these days as they helped the Bush Administration by spreading the lies.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:02 pmExcuse me but the scientists are upset that the CIA has used the scientist’s research for torture purposes?
What the hell did these scientists think was going to happen with their findings?
April 21st, 2009 at 7:08 pmKatydid, I worked across the street from Chiron where, and when, one of the bombs was placed. Luckily no one was hurt, they disarmed it. This did happen. Whether he’s the guy or not, I don’t know. The timing is kind of odd, though.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:21 pmI am totally supportive of animal rights but I can’t support anyone bombing anything. It’s like the death penalty, killing people to show it’s wrong to kill people…
The Criminal Bush perverted everything he came in contact with, including science. The Criminals Bush and Cheney, like RepubliCons in general, perverted science. They are faith based, because with faith they can claim anything they like.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:24 pmThe wigs and make-up have come off on the republicant’s and Bush and I’m sooooooo happy. Bush and Cheney should be on trail.
By the way please read the headline below that appeared in today’s NY Daily News, Karl Rove has been stalking Meghan on Twitter:
Meghan McCain: Help! I’m being followed on Twitter by former Bush administration bigwig Karl Rove
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/04/20/2009-04-20_meghan_mccain_im_being_followed_on_twitter_by_former_bush_administration_bigwig_.html
April 21st, 2009 at 7:30 pmAquarias2, those weren’t nefarious studies. Sleep deprivation is a common problem with many causes. Scientific studies showing the negative effects of sleep deprivation can be used in good arguments against grueling shift-work for medical interns, for instance, and warning the public that being sleep deprived can be as dangerous as being drunk behind the wheel of a car.
I was reading an article on sleep deprivation yesterday, and one of the researchers remarked that because they took such great care to make the test subjects comfortable and stress free that it didn’t show the true harm that sleep deprivation does. He wasn’t arguing for a cruel study. It just points out that the detriments of sleep deprivation are understood well enough so that the researchers were very careful not to abuse their test subjects with it.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:38 pmI’m pretty sure many people here on these boards have read Naomi Klein’s outstanding book on torture, Iraq and disaster capitalism but if you haven’t please please please go to the library/bookstore/iTunes and get your copy of “The Shock Doctrine”.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pmI highly recommend the audiobook for your iPod. The narrator is awesome.
Oh, please. You know damn well they were going off of the KGB handbook with this stuff.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:43 pmvalletta
Thanks valletta I’ll put that on my summer read list.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:44 pmLet’s just look forward to the next tyrannical Republican regime that will not stop at using this on non-citizens. They will have absolutely nothing to fear. The precedent is multi-national, investment-class elitist protectionism.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:44 pmVaranus komodoensis Says:
By the way please read the headline below that appeared in today’s NY Daily News, Karl Rove has been stalking Meghan on Twitter:
Isn’t the entire point of Twitter to gather as many stalkers as possible?
Karl Rove makes his living as a Republican strategist. Meghan McCain is positioning herself as an emerging “alternative rational voice” of the Republican party. It would be an abrogation of his profession not to follow her tweets, either way.
MegMac needs to decide whether she’s supposed to be taken seriously as a “reasonable Republican” or if she’s just a closeted Democrat, like now.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pmThe republican platform was dissapointing and upsetting for everyone but a smattering of sore loosers. Of that i’m sure, regardless of what anybody blogs or shouts on radio, and regardless of the next republican jab / talking point.
The republicans will keep pretending ‘nothing happened here’ the last eight years, and hope people will eventually forget what they really did.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:08 pmThe well-documented torture program designed and approved by the Bush regime exemplifies the extend of their Machiavellian mentality. Their rationale: “We must take a collective crap on the Constitution in order to preserve it”.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:10 pmElBruce
LOL ;-)
April 21st, 2009 at 8:16 pmSKdeAnt – i’m with you… i don’t get the violence at all…
April 21st, 2009 at 8:19 pmabman57 Says:
Their rationale: “We must take a collective crap on the Constitution in order to preserve it”.
Recently (as documented around here) I’ve come to the realization that wingnuts don’t use language in the same way the sentient human beings do. To them, various phrases (”national security,” “Barney Frank,” etc) mean nothing more than “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” It doesn’t matter what the definitions of the words are, i.e. what they actually mean, all they care about is how that sequence of words is supposed to make them respond emotionally. Essentially, they’ve parsed all of human language down to the level of a not-very-bright golden retriever. Any statement means as much to them as “pant, pant” or “bark bark!”
This becomes particularly interesting in a discussion of what’s “Constitutional.” The word “Constitutional” makes them happy; they’re all for it. It’s pro-America, and therefore affects them like a tasty dog biscuit. But the actual Constitution itself unfortunately consists of various words which have actual meaningful definitions, which frequently lead to things that make them unhappy. For example, it’s not allowable to detain people without due process or torture them.
As a result, we get trolls up in here claiming that secession from the U.S. is “Constitutional” (i.e. good, “pant pant”) even thought the actual Constitution of the United States of America has no procedure for secession, and in fact presumes that no state will/can secede from it.
This is the only theory I have been able to come up with that explains wingnut behavior: their brains are broken. They don’t know what words mean, or that they mean anything; they only know what words “feel.”
April 21st, 2009 at 8:25 pmCheney and the Republicans are working now to “prove” that torture was effective and it saved us from another devious terrorist attack. It’s important, as well as tedious, to keep reminding people that most of the people tortured were innocent, that torture doesn’t work, and that torture is counterproductive.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:41 pmwiley Says:
Cheney and the Republicans are working now to “prove” that torture was effective and it saved us from another devious terrorist attack.
Also that they “kept us safe” from meteor strikes, alien invasions, and… sorry, not imaginative enough; you fill in the next couple of blanks.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:53 pmherpes?
April 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm@27
It was my dog. My dog has kept us safe from Iraq and from more false flag attacks for seven years. He slept on the porch through 9/11 and he was never able to find the scent of OBL, but from where i stand, bush had nothing to do with keeping us safe.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:34 pmOf course there was misuse of the scientific information. It was after all Bush. But the fact that doctors and scientists even discussed this with an administration like Bush’s says volumes about their naive attitudes.
And it also says something about their lack of candor in not coming forward as the stories began to appear several years ago. They waited until they could safely say they were misused. That’s crap of course. They took it as an objective scientific study as to how much punishment the human body and psyche could tolerate. They knew what would happen. Why else would their wise counsel be sought? And now with the disingenuous, mealy mouthed of the ones that got caught, they are trying to DISAVOW ANY KNOWLEDGE.
The doctors and scientists that were hired by the CIA, are rogue. And there are probably more then we know about. Just think. A government sponsored, no cost to them experiment. Talk about the candy store. And the fact that Bush routinely changed scientific results to his political agenda, I guess never occurred to these men of science.
These scientists are the Dr.Mengle’s of our country. The only difference being, they gave the help in secret. Now they are grousing. And only because the memos have come out. God what absolute hypocrites. Scientific rabble. No conscience. They are afraid of prosecution. Or at the very least, their identities coming out.
Not to worry. As after the second world war, we hire and protect war criminals. You will live to see the effects of your torturous advice down the road. Perhaps in a how to book. Perhaps used on one of your own. But be objective. In the name of science all is allowed. BASTARDS!!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:36 pmI don’t normally use a lot of bold, but some of you are getting a little carried away, here.
The authors of this study in no way collaborated with the CIA. Their study was published in a medical journal. The crackpot lawyers cited the study.
The researchers are sufficiently sensitive to protest that their study was cited by people to justify torture.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:42 pmwiley Says:
herpes?
Yeah, that. George Bush kept us safe from herpes.
… Oh wait, he was one of those anti-condom “abstinence only” imbeciles, wasn’t he?
.
Ape-Man Says:
It was my dog.
I’ve always suspected as much. Give him a treat for me – I haven’t been bombed in over a decade.
.
curious Says:
These scientists are the Dr.Mengle’s of our country.
Mengele abused people to advance scientific knowledge. He didn’t use scientific knowledge to abuse people. I’m afraid that your analogy is backwards.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:39 pmSo… it seems that bush and cheney have been very busy boys. Very bad and very busy boys. The facts are just about inescapable now. I have confidence that the system will take over the show now, and do the right thing. President Obama hardly needs to get involved at this point. It’s a matter for the law enforcement agencies. All the arm waving from the pundits and republicans won’t prevent a full investigation now though law enforcement.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 amApe-Man Says:
All the arm waving from the pundits and republicans won’t prevent a full investigation now though law enforcement.
Can’t. It’s been kicked down to rank-and-file career paper-filers at this point. No amount of crying and screaming can stop those cogs from completing their task, no matter what conclusion that leads them to.
Politicizing the DoJ was a helluva tactic. De-politicizing the DoJ may prove to be stronger yet.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 amDawn Johnsen. That’s all I’m gonna say.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:27 am“disappointed…upset…consternated”
Do scientists have a problem with saying “pissed off?”
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 amIn eight short years, the Republicans devolved from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Torture.
What do you suppose these degenerates will do when they hack themselves into power again–say, around 2012?
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:40 amwiley Says:
“It’s important, as well as tedious, to keep reminding people that most of the people tortured were innocent, that torture doesn’t work, and that torture is counterproductive.”
ConservativeForProgress Says:
“CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles”
Waterboarding is ILLEGAL. It does not matter IN THE LEAST
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:49 amsorry, hit “submit” too early
to continue:
Waterboarding is ILLEGAL. It does not matter IN THE LEAST whether actionable intel was gained through torture as the same info could and should have been obtained through legal means.It is ILLEGAL and will be punished despite CFP’s incessant whining that it works.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 amYou think those scientists are upset, can you imagine how Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Hamilton would feel about the misuse of their work?
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:30 amI don’t normally use a lot of bold, but some of you are getting a little carried away, here.
The authors of this study in no way collaborated with the CIA. Their study was published in a medical journal. The crackpot lawyers cited the study.
The researchers are sufficiently sensitive to protest that their study was cited by people to justify torture. — Wiley
***************************************************
I’m with you, Wiley — there’s no virtue in knee-jerk reaction, regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left. There was nothing in this item to even suggest that the two scientists named were collaborating (at least, not actively or intentionally) with the Bush administration. In fact, since it indicates that both of them are affiliated with foreign institutions — the University of Marburg in Germany and Hôpital Gériatrique A. Charial in France, both in “Old Europe” as the Bush administration dismissively referred to it — it seems highly unlikely indeed. What’s much more likely that both gentlemen published articles reporting their findings in some professional journal or other, and that someone working for the Bush administration found and read them while researching sleep deprivation — especially since the use of sleep deprivation is hardly new, but has been utilized by various groups of people from governments to religious cults in the effort to break down an individual’s resistance so that s/he will be more likely to consent to and comply with the group’s wishes.
I think that the scientists in question have every right to be upset over the fact that their research has contributed to the torture of prisoners in US custody since this implies that they themselves collaborated with it — albeit only in the most passive, indirect, and unintentional fashion. After all, in their defense, there’s a distinct difference between subjecting volunteers to sleep deprivation purely for the purposes of research and subjecting prisoners to it against their will in order to extract any information which they might have (if indeed they have any). However, for a truly ethical and responsible scientist, even the most passive contribution would probably be sufficient to induce feelings of regret. Scientists are only human — they’re not psychics or gods, and even the most well-intentioned humans sometimes make mistakes or suffer an ethical lapse. It’s not possible for them to see all the uses to which their research might be put beforehand — but since both science and human beings are by and large amoral, this is one of the reasons why science purely for the sake of science is not necessarily a good thing. Science, especially these days, can easily become a Pandora’s Box which should perhaps be left closed — which is why responsible scientists owe it to themselves and to humanity to at least consider the potential consequences of their research beforehand. Unfortunately, human nature makes it highly probable that Pandora’s Box will eventually be opened. If scientific findings can be used for harm just as easily (or even more so) than they can for good, human nature virtually guarantees that someone will at least attempt to use them for harm — and, to add insult to injury, will at the same time attempt to excuse that usage both to themselves and to other people by any possible means. Fortunately, it is the relatively rare individual who has become so bestial that s/he is able to inflict harm on a fellow human being while fully and openly acknowledging both to self and others that his/her only reason to do so is the desire to hurt the other person.
I do agree with Curious on one point. I think it’s somewhat cowardly and self-serving for the researchers in question to have publicly registered their protest against the use of their research only after the Bush administration left office — especially since it seems at least somewhat unlikely that they had any reason to fear that they would suffer any marked setbacks in their careers as a result. Then again, taking globalization into consideration, perhaps it would have affected their careers in some way — who knows? It takes enormous courage to take a stand against a powerful force when that means potentially putting your well-being and that of your family on the line — many people find that they’re not up to the challenge.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:00 amRemember when the first reports of abuse at Guantanamo came out? How Bush officials claimed it was caused by a “few bad apples?” How right they were! This crap was approved at the very highest levels.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am