How could a doctor contribute to torture?

I just read about another complicit party to the Bush
administration’s use of torture: doctors and psychologists.

Apparently, “a new
report by Physicians for
Human Rights assembles the evidence and reaches a sickening but inescapable
conclusion: ‘Health professionals played central roles in developing,
implementing and providing justification for torture.’”, which I read in Eugene
Robinson’s column in the Washington Post today.

It’s a scary thought, and I was naïve to think
accountability for torture was limited in scope to those who gave the orders
and those who carried those orders out.

Robinson explains, “We know that medical doctors were asked
to sign off on the "enhanced" techniques. We know from detainees
themselves, as quoted by the International
Committee of the Red Cross, that there was medical monitoring of waterboarding
sessions. We know from the CIA inspector
general's report that a 2004 letter from a Justice Department official
reauthorizing the use of waterboarding specified a maximum of two two-hour
sessions per day, with both a doctor and a psychologist present.”

Of course, this “revelation” if you will, is not a
reflection of the medical community in general. There were certain, and
hopefully few, individual doctors and psychologists who were complicit.
Interrogations techniques are seen by the American Psychological Association’s
President James Bray, as "tantamount to torture as defined by APA
and international law."

Furthermore, “The American Medical Association's code of
ethics "forcefully states medicine's opposition to torture or coercive
interrogation and prohibits physician participation in such activities,"
according to a letter
AMA officials sent President Obama in April. AMA guidelines
state that "physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an
interrogation," and that doctors "must not monitor interrogations
with the intention of intervening in the process, because this constitutes
direct participation."”

Unfortunately, there were exceptions.

So the pool of individuals that contributed to torture, that we know of, grows larger. I’ve learned from my naiveté. The ACLU is
continuing to demand for greater transparency and accountability. You can take
action too, by clicking here.