Remember these guys, Mitchell and Jessen?

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1454144

Excerpted from today's L.A. Times, p. A-12 (no, I don't have a link):

"Psychologists face trial for harsh CIA interrogations

"Suit over detainees mistreated in the war on terrorism is set to go before a jury.

"SEATTLE — A lawsuit brought by former detainees held at CIA 'black site' prisons overseas will indeed go to trial – the first such proceeding in the post-Sept. 11 era and one that aims to hold two civilian psychologists responsible for helping to develop harsh interrogation techniques…

"The defendants, former Air Force psychologists James Mitchell and John 'Bruce' Jessen, were hired by the CIA to design a program of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques used to force terrorism suspects to give up useful intelligence.

"Their methods included waterboarding, beatings, forced rectal 'feeding' and experiments with glaring lights and incessant music.

"Mitchell and Jessen earned $81 million through a series of government contracts from 2003 until… 2009. The pair contended that because they were contractors, the blame for any failures belonged to their employer, the CIA…

"…In an effort Friday to get the case dismissed, the defendants compared their situation to that of World War II manufacturers who supplied the Nazis with poison gas, and who later argued they weren't responsible for how the gas was used.

"ACLU attorney Dror Ladin noted that the postwar Nuremberg tribunals found that private contractors were in fact responsible if they provided 'unlawful means' that allowed them to profit from war crimes.

"'In the same case that Mitchell and Jessen cite,' Ladin said, 'the military tribunal found the owner of a chemical company that sold Zyklon B to the Nazis guilty, even though only the Nazis had final say on which prisoners would be gassed.'

"The trial [is] set for Sept. 5."


Oops. Moral of the story: When going to trial, never compare yourselves to Nazi-allied war profiteers. Asshats.

Mucking forons. It's just amazing that these guys can think that way. They honestly think they did nothing wrong. Like any criminal.

$81 million?

My reaction exactly.

The wages of sin look pretty good from where I'm sitting...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2017 07:04AM by Soft Machine.

Excellent.

These unbelievably high paid monster muthafuckas, who didn't learn a single fuckin' thing from their beloved story of the falsely arrested and brutally tortured human being, him whom they claim to honour and revere and even worship. "Ya, but he was Christ! Get it," they might say. "The other guys are bad guys, bad muslim guys. Not the same thing," they might have said to themselves.

Or not.

Frankly, I don't give a shit about the mental gymnastics they performed on themselves to excuse their consciences from what they have done, designing the ways and means of causing maximum, acute suffering in human beings AND making damn sure the victims stay alive, so that even MORE acute suffering and misery could be exacted from their victims' bodies.



However, as much as I despise these two, and as much as I am relieved that there might be some legal precedences (re)established at the end of all this, these two are nobodies, low-hanging fruit to serve as scape-goats, patsies, for the much Much MUCH larger monsters that directed them and paid them. Monsters like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Rumsfeld, to name a few, get away scot-free, not to mention Bush II, and his successor who did NOTHING to bring any of this to justice. In fact, ol' 44 expanded, covered for and ultimately gave legitimacy to many terrible, radical changes that 43 & co brought to America.

Like torture.



Bring THOSE monsters to justice! Please!

God Save America

Human

Human,
Rarely have I seen you so worked up...or agreed with you more.
Couldn't have said it better myself. :)

Thanks.

I am generally not one to defend the church, nor the actions of its members. But I question if crimes were even committed here. War is a terrible thing. People legally kill other people in wars. At least these guys filing the lawsuit lived because their treatment was not designed to kill them. I believe that enhanced interrogation is designed to get information out of an enemy without killing them to do it. That seems to me to be better than torturing them to death to get the information. What did these guys being sued, do wrong?

I read an interesting story recently. During one of the recent conflicts in the middle east, an enemy soldier was being interrogated and the interrogators were getting no where. So a ranking officer ordered everyone to stay put while he dragged the enemy soldier out the door, in to a sandlot behind the building. He put the handcuffed the guy on the ground, put his foot on the guy's neck and a gun against the guy's head. Then he swore to this guy that he was going to pull the trigger in three seconds if the guy didn't talk. The guy gave up a planned ambush location and several American soldiers lives were saved that night. That ranking officer was prosecuted by an American court anyway. I don't think he did anything wrong.

During my mission, a mormon bishop recounted some viet nom stories one evening after we had dinner in his home. He talked about ambushing groups of enemy soldiers and when I asked if they killed those soldiers, he casually said "of course", like it was no big deal. That bothered me, even though I knew it was sanctioned by the law and by the church. He seemed like a pretty good guy when talking about other things. But my sense of right and wrong was never fully satisfied. Still, there didn't seem to be a good alternative to his actions.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2017 08:02PM by azsteve.

The problem with these tactics, in spite of the good luck stories, is that torture is not who we are. When it's done officially, it taints all of us. America is supposed to set the example that the ends don't justify the means. That's why we have the rule of law.

On a more esoteric level, the ends can't justify the means. The universe just doesn't work that way. The sooner we learn that, the sooner we can redirect resources to actually fruitful endeavors. Personally, I think our economic malaise is a direct result of our involvement in the Middle East.

Mormonism is all about justification, so no surprise about the bishop. I'd like to see the Milgram experiment performed on a group of TBMs. The percentage of "killers" would be above the usual 2/3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2017 09:59PM by bradley.

Torture of prisoners IS A WAR CRIME. The "information" gained is often untruthful. One should note that the present occupant of the WH has indicated approval of .....

Ex military. In good conscience, I will tell everyone that today's military is a tool. Don't join.

Mormon torturers don't suprise me at all. They speak at GC twice a year. Just saying...

"Their methods included waterboarding, beatings, forced rectal 'feeding' and experiments with glaring lights and incessant music."

A much more effective torture method would be to force the subject to listen to endless looped LDS Corp general conference talks. That would work for me...

Not me. I'd be reduced to a babbling idiot.

The other problem with torture is that it invites more torture.
Any US soldier captured becomes "fair game". As quite a few of the people tortured by the US, UK and their allies were not in fact "guilty" of anything apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe US civilians should worry too...

In the second world war, there was a clear line of demarcation: the allies (UK, US, France, etc.) did not use torture. Nazi Germany did.

The US should return to the right side of that divide.

Tom in Paris, temporarily translated to the Luberon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luberon

I agree, Anybody, there is a very clear relationship: clever people who are prepared to do unconscionable things to prop up their narrow world view. The anti-gay program (Evergreen?) was every bit as horrible and was also based on torture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2017 05:58AM by Soft Machine.

did these guys pay tithing on their torture trove. Torture to Tithing would make a great headline.

check out this video:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/prisoner-760-2/

When the prisoner finally broke,

the-intelligence-was-utterly-bogus-ly yrs,

S

What is a rectal feeding?

I imagine it's probably something like being given endless enemas, that you can't hold but they won't relent. Out of that list, it sounds like the most painful thing that could happen. Have you ever tried to hold an enema and couldn't? Do you remember what that feels like? Try it and see.

Somebody made millions coming up with these ideas? That is so so wrong. One thing that needs to happen is we need to create a society where SADISM is not rewarded financially!

It is supposed to be inserting nutrition anally into those who are on hunger strikes to keep them hydrated and nourished. It doesn't really work as the colon doesn't absorb everything like the stomach and intestines.

I'm sure that in this case they stopped administering the rectal feeding once a month on fast Sunday. :)

It's about f'n time these post 911 CIA torture crimes came to light and some justice was done. Can you imagine going through any of that? Just because you fit a profile and 'might' have information. What if you have no information? Then you are endlessly tortured because there is nothing to get out of you. These kinds of 'techniques' have very serve damaging effects on the victim, emotionally, physically, psychologically. I'd MUCH rather be killed, than to have to endure any of that and have to live with the terrifying post torture nightmares and other forms of PTSD. It's been more than enough for me to endure my life post Mormonism and post rape/ sexual abuse.

But this level of torture is mind boggling. Oh yes, it's supposedly to 'prevent' the rest of us from having another terrorist attack and 'safeguard' the citizens. But that is just a bunch of BS. We let 911 happen, there is plenty of evidence for that. The CIA trained both Sadaam and Osama.. so who is really responsible there anyway?

Maybe if we stopped funding, selling weapons too, and training terrorist organizations we could stop terrorism.. Instead of randomly picking up Middle Eastern looking people and torturing them. I have heard of a number of innocent people being illegally detained, imprisoned, made to disappear and tortured all because of the 'Homeland Security Act'.

Torture is never really justified, is and should always be considered a CRIME. Easy to sit back and say oh yeah, we have to do it, it's the only way sometimes to get info.. or we can just detach and say well, they probably deserved it (really?) or see it as something that only happens to 'other' people, people you will never know, or have to be emotionally attached to, people you can keep a happy safe psychological distance from. But the fact is, it could happen to you, or someone you love. Maybe one day you will end up being the wrong race, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or someone with the wrong political views.. and you could end up unlawfully detained and tortured and taken away from your friends, family, your life. Just like that.

Something has to be done to stop this. This is NOT 'freedom' at all. This is a frightening police state type scenario. And we can't allow this to continue.. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be made to be so afraid that we keep willingly give up our rights, our actual freedom in the name of a so called (military controlled) 'freedom.'

Who was it who said 'Those who give up liberty for security deserve (and will have) neither.'

Shapeshifter, I agree, This kind of thing creates blow-back and furthers the agenda of traitors.

I've always thought it telling that they chose graduates of J. Reuben Clark Law School to come up with this. Did the planners really say to each other, "Let's get us some Mormons to help figure this out?"

It's the Mormon reverence for power. Obedience to one's superiors is the only doctrine left in the LDS realm, and people who do well in that environment routinely subordinate their consciences to the will of their leaders. Add in the way that the church praises the US government and the Republican Party, and it's easy to see how Mormons would do what these men did.

I don't know how they were chosen to develop and defend their system, but I can easily imagine group discussions in which most people weren't interested in taking ownership over the process but the Mormons were. The fact that there was money to be made would just underscore the impression that God supported what the president's aides were requesting.

The torture program did more for the recruitment of Al Quada fighters than all of the America-hating Imams could ever do. I wouldn't be surprised if these two single handedly created ISIS. More Mormon poster boys showing their respect for humanity.

Violence begets violence. I would not disagree with you Bradley.

Retaliation by people who have reason to believe they have been wronged. Or as the Mormons called it after they treated people badly---persecution.

The only thing I hate is that it's a civil suit and they're not being criminally tried for war crimes along with scores of other people.

I was set to vote for McCain in 2008 on this issue alone. He never backed down on it. His mantra was simply "We. Don't. Torture. People!" And if anyone knew why that was, it was him. Then he picked Palin and tortured us with her so I couldn't do it. As much as I respected Obama, his administration dropped the ball too.

It seemed that most women I knew were so much more against torture than men, even the right wingers. I think it's the mother in us. The first thing that would pop into my head was "if it was my son, would I think it was ok because it is war?" And if we say it's ok for us, we are saying it's ok for our enemies. No, I wouldn't want my son to be killed by an IED or a bullet or anything else. I hate war. But torture has been proven to be ineffective and there is no place for it.

I worked for a law-enforcement chief named Renny Noll.

One day, Renny gathered us all into a staff meeting and said,

"If a superior orders you to do something that you KNOW IS WRONG, it doesn't matter if you are an officer, or a secretary, or a chief, or a filing clerk, don't do it! If you know it's wrong, DON'T DO IT!"

I'll never forget that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2017 10:46PM by kathleen.

Did Chief Noll supply y'all with a list of what is considered "wrong"...or ask any of you to submit a list of possible "wrong" actions? Or did he leave it up to your interpretation of what would be considered "wrong", and that he would back you up on your choice?