Bush's Experiments in Torture

by: Pip

Mon Jun 07, 2010 at 21:59:53 PM EDT

Baumann is overly generous in stating that the "PHR report doesn't produce a smoking gun."  In fact, the circumstances here cannot be more clear.  Scientists and medical students in the US undergo explicit training in the ethical use of human subjects in research.  If data collected in medical monitoring of a subject is analyzed for any purpose other than the direct treatment of the subject, that activity is unequivocally a research activity and is subject to extensive and quite restrictive regulations, some governed by international treaty.  

The Tuskeeee experiment was only one in a number of appallingly unethical and immoral cases in which the suffering of an individual was considered secondary to some greater scientific good.  In the case of the Bush administration, the greater good seems to have involved developing legal justifications and cover for the administration's policies regarding torture.  

Considering the PHR report in light of previous reports that the Bush administration knew that some of their terror detainees were innocent one might consider the chilling possibility that the collection of data on the effectiveness of torture techniques provided a motive for holding and torturing subjects of known innocence.

I call on Senator Rockefeller to use his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee to bring this matter into the full light of day with a formal Senate inquiry.