Torture, human experimentation, and Bush-Cheney war crimes

By Michael J.W. Stickings

More disturbing details are emerging about the torture regime of the Bush-Cheney years:

High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration's "war on terror," who were subjected to brutal torture techniques, were used as "guinea pigs" to gauge the effectiveness of various torture techniques, a practice that has raised troubling comparisons to Nazi-era human experimentation, according to a disturbing new report released by Physicians for Human Rights, an international doctors' organization.

PHR, based in Massachusetts, called on President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the US Congress to launch investigations into the role of physicians and psychiatric experts in the monitoring and assessments of the brutal interrogations.

"Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of [the] interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations," said the 27-page report, entitled "Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the 'Enhanced' Interrogation Program." "Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Americans don't seem to want to know about the darker side of what was done in their name, about all the brutality behind the stars and stripes, but all those responsible for these atrocities, including those at the top who signed off on this torture regime, deserve nothing less than to be punished as the war criminals they are.

Meanwhile, despite Obama's efforts, America's purported ideals still lie in tatters.