| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Ethic" |
| Date: |
22 Aug 2004 04:54:09 PM |
| Object: |
Military doctors collaborated in prison torture |
The Lancet's Health and Human Rights section examines how the US
military medical system has failed to protect detainees' human rights
in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq. An inquiry into medical personnel's
complicity in human rights violations in places like Abu Ghraib could
provide vital reform. The lead Editorial argues that the western world
no longer takes human rights seriously. ( http://www.thelancet.com )
23 July 2003 - Irak : Reports of Torture
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE141572003?open&of=ENG-IRQ
and
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE141592003?open&of=ENG-IRQ
22 July 2003
The Ugly Truth of America's Camp Cropper, a story to shame us all
It's about America's shameful prison camps in Iraq.
It's about the beating of prisoners during interrogation.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=426520
2 September 2003 - US troops act like Gestapo
Our troops are swaggering about the desert like Gestapo thugs, robbing
locals of their cash, kicking down doors, roughing up women (a no-no
under Islam) and brown-bagging innocent men's heads before dragging
them off screaming into the night. Partly because they don't speak
Arabic or understand Islamic culture, jumpy US soldiers are killing
so many Iraqi civilians that the Pentagon is deliberately not keeping
a count of accidental casualties.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/030902/7
/5558e.html
7 September 2003
Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad - Another Tribe Without a State
When a soldier on a US tank shot a Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana,
last month while he was filming the aftermath of a terrorist attack at
the American-run Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad, he became the 17th
journalist to die in Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/magazine/07ESSAY.html?ex=1063973485&ei=1&e
n=7d1e417c01b54038
10 September 2003 - America's Dirty Torture Secret
Weeks go by without serious newspapers investigating or
commenting on human rights abuses by the American government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1038845,00.html
10 December 2003 - Tortured Explanations
Any Instruments USA Sells May Be Used Against You
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0350/mondo3.php
It is hard to avoid thinking about the the dirty word that everyone is
too polite to mention, the " T-word " : TORTURE.
http://progressivetrail.org/articles/031217Chernus.shtml
5 January 2004 - Soldiers ejected over Iraq abuses
Three soldiers have been discharged from the US army for "mistreating "
Iraqi prisoners of war last May. They were found guilty of beating and
harassing detainees at a detention camp in the south of the country.
They had all faced possible courts-martial and could have been
sentenced to 25 years in jail for the offences.
Each was allowed instead to opt for a hearing without a jury, which
cannot impose prison sentences.
The three soldiers, a woman and two men have all returned to the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3370979.stm
7 January 2004
Detained, Bludgeoned and Electrocuted into a Coma.
Sadiq Zoman Abrahim, 55 years old, was detained this past August in
Kirkuk by US Soldiers during a home raid which produced no weapons.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/headlines.htm
30 April 2004
Iraq : Torture not isolated - independent investigations vital
Amnesty International has received frequent reports of torture
or other ill-treatment by Coalition Forces during the past year.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140172004?open&of=ENG-2D2
***********************
19 August 2004 MSNBC
Military doctors allegedly collaborated in prison torture
LONDON - Doctors working for the US military in Iraq collaborated with
interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison,
profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist
charges in The Lancet medical journal.
In a scathing analysis of the behavior of military doctors, nurses and
medics, University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles calls for a
reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role
played by physicians and other medical staff in the torture scandal.
He cites evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to
cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he
could be further tortured. No reports of abuses were initiated by medical
personnel until the official investigation into Abu Ghraib began, he
found.
"The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing
psychologically and physically coercive interrogations", Miles said
in this week's edition of Lancet. "Army officials stated that a physician
and a psychiatrist helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at
Abu Ghraib".
Extent of doctors' involvement remains unclear
The analysis does not shed light on how many doctors were involved
or how widespread the problem of medical complicity was, aspects
that Miles said he is now investigating.
A US military spokesman said the incidents recounted by Miles came
primarily from the Pentagon's own investigation of the abuses.
"Many of these cases remain under investigation and charges will be
brought against any individual where there is evidence of abuse", said
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, US Army spokesman for detainee operations
in Iraq.
In a related matter, two military officials in Washington said Thursday
that a high-level Army inquiry will cite medical personnel who knew of
abuse at Abu Ghraib but did not report it up the chain of command. The
inquiry also will criticize senior US commanders for a lack of leadership
that allowed abuses to occur, but will say there is no evidence they
ordered the abuse, said the sources, who spoke condition of anonymity.
Photographs of prisoners being abused and humiliated by US troops in
Iraq have sparked worldwide condemnation. Although the conduct of
soldiers has been scrutinized, the role of medical staff in the scandal
has received relatively little attention.
'Last line of defense'
"The detaining power's health personnel are the first and often the
last line of defense against human rights abuses. Their failure to
assume that role emphasizes to the prisoner how utterly beyond
humane appeal they are", Miles said in a telephone interview with
the Associated Press.
He said military medicine reform needs to be enshrined in international
law and include more clout for military medical staff in the defense of
human rights.
Miles gathered evidence from US congressional hearings, sworn
statements of detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts and
press reports to build a picture of physician complicity, and in isolated
cases active participation by medical personnel in abuse at the Baghdad
prison, as well as in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay detention
center in Cuba.
In one example, cited in a sworn statement from an Abu Ghraib detainee,
a prisoner collapsed and was apparently unconscious after a beating.
Medical staff revived the detainee and left, allowing the abuse to
continue, Miles reported.
Depositions from two detainees at Abu Ghraib described an incident
in which a doctor allowed a medically untrained guard to sew up a
prisoner's wound.
IV tube inserted into corpse.
A military police officer reported a medic inserted an intravenous tube
into the corpse of a detainee who died while being tortured to create
evidence that he was alive at the hospital, Miles said.
At prisons in both Iraq and Afghanistan, "Physicians routinely
attributed detainee deaths on death certificates to heart attacks,
heat stroke or natural causes without noting the unnatural (cause)
of the death", Miles wrote.
He cites an example from a Human Rights Watch report in which
soldiers tied a beaten detainee to the top of his cell door and gagged
him. The death certificate indicated he died of "natural causes ... during
his sleep". However, after media coverage, the Pentagon changed the
cause of death to homicide by blunt force injuries and suffocation.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist at Harvard University-affiliated
Cambridge Hospital who wrote a book on doctors and torture in Nazi
Germany, called the Lancet analysis "a very good, detailed description
of violations of medical policies involving medical ethics".
In a July 29 New England Journal of Medicine essay, Lifton urged
medics to report what they know about American torture at Abu Ghraib
and other prisons, and said in an interview Thursday that a non-military-led
investigation of doctors' conduct is needed.
"They made choices", he said. "No doctor would have been physically
abused or put to death if he or she tried to interrupt that torture.
It would have taken courage, but it was a choice they had".
The World Medical Association, an umbrella group for national medical
associations, reiterated its policy of condemning any doctor's involvement
in abuse or torture of detainees.
In an editorial comment, The Lancet condemned the behavior of the
doctors, saying that despite dual loyalties, they are doctors first and
soldiers second.
Journal urges others to 'break ... silence'
"Health care workers should now break their silence", the journal said.
"Those who were involved or witnessed ill-treatment need to give a
full and accurate account of events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
Those who are still in positions where dual commitments prevent them
from putting the rights of their patients above other interests should
protest loudly and refuse cooperation with authorities".
Johnson, the Army spokesman, said the US military "will allow no
actions that undermine or compromise medical professionals'
commitment to caring for the sick and wounded, regardless of who
they are or their circumstances".
In his article, Miles dismissed Pentagon officials putting the blame for
the abuse on poor training, understaffing, racism, pressure to procure
intelligence and the stress of war.
"Fundamentally, however, the stage for these offenses was set by policies
that were lax or permissive with regard to human rights abuses, and a
military command that was inattentive to human rights", Miles concluded.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2004/190804militarydoctors.htm
--------------------------------------------------
20 August 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation - ABC News Online
Abu Ghraib doctors 'ignored medical ethics'
A study in the medical journal, The Lancet, says some American medical
staff working at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ignored medical ethics and
human rights.
The research alleges that doctors and medics failed to carry out
examinations, falsified death certificates to cover up killings and
collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees.
Stephen Miles, from the University of Minnesota, has analysed close
to 60 media reports, eyewitness testimonies and government documents.
He concludes that medical staff failed to live up to their responsi-
bilities under the Geneva Convention and other human rights standards.
He also describes how medical records were falsified, including one
case in which an already-beaten detainee was reportedly tied to the
top of a door and gagged.
The death certificate said that the detainee died of natural causes
during his sleep.
Only after news coverage did the Pentagon revise this to homicide.
The study also claims that medical personnel failed to report abuse
and signs of torture. -- BBC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1181318.htm
--------------------------------------------------------
Friday 20 August 2004 - By John Carvel, social affairs editor - The Guardian
( UK )
Abu Ghraib doctors knew of torture, says Lancet report
Army doctors at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad falsified
medical records to cover up torture and human rights abuses perpetrated
on Iraqi detainees, the British medical journal the Lancet reported today.
( http://www.thelancet.com )
It called for a full inquiry into reform of the military health system
to address the failure of army medical staff to live up to their code
of ethics and a professional obligation to care for their patients.
The journal published an article by Steven Miles, a professor of
bioethics at the University of Minnesota, saying that American
army doctors and nurses had been fully aware of torture and
degrading treatment at Abu Ghraib, but did not blow the whistle
before an official inquiry began in January.
He said their neglect of the commonly accepted standards of
human rights included :
· Failure to maintain medical records, conduct routine medical
examinations and provide proper care of disabled or injured
detainees;
· Medical personnel and medical information were used to design
and implement psychologically and physically coercive interrogations.
· Death certificates and medical records were falsified.
An example of the ethical failings of medical personnel came in
November 2003 after Iraqi Major General Mowhoush's head was
pushed into a sleeping bag while interrogators sat on his chest.
Dr Miles said : "He died; medics could not resuscitate him, and
a surgeon stated that he died of natural causes. Months later, the
Pentagon released a death certificate calling the death a homicide
by asphyxia."
In an editorial comment, the Lancet called on health care workers
who had witnessed ill-treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
Bay to break their silence.
"Those who are still in positions where dual commitments prevent
them from putting the rights of their patients above other interests
should protest loudly ...
"The wider non-military medical community should unite in support of
their colleagues ... Abu Ghraib should serve as an eleventh-hour wake up
call for the western world to rediscover and live by the values enshrined
in democratic constitutions."
It said military doctors had a well recognised problem of dual loyalty
to patients and employers.
Dr Miles added :"Army investigations have looked at a small set of
human rights abuses, but have not investigated reports from human rights
organisations, nor have they focused on the role of medical personnel,
or examined detention centres that were not operated by the army.
"The US military medical services, human rights groups, legal and
medical academics, and health professional associations should
jointly and comprehensively review this material in light of US and
international law, medical ethics, the military code of justice, military
training, the system for handling reports of human rights abuses, and
standards for treatment of detainees.
"Reforms stemming from such an inquiry could yet create a valuable
legacy from the ruins of Abu Ghraib."
More :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1287158,00.html
------------------------------------------------------------
20 Aug. 2004 By SANDRO CONTENTA, EUROPEAN BUREAU - Toronto Star
US doctors tied to prisoner abuse, Faked death certificates, report says.
Helped design torture at Abu Ghraib
LONDON - US military doctors and medics at the notorious Abu Ghraib
prison near Baghdad were "complicit" in the torture of Iraqi detainees
and faked death certificates to try and cover up homicides, says a report
in a top British medical journal.
The scathing analysis in The Lancet puts the spotlight on the role of
medical professionals in a torture scandal that has so far focused on
the abuse committed by US soldiers.
The report, written by University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles,
says US military doctors, nurses and medics at Abu Ghraib grossly
violated medical ethics and international treaties on human rights.
"There was a fundamental breakdown of the military medical system
for these prisoners," Miles, a doctor in the university's bioethics centre,
said in an interview yesterday. "The medical professionals failed to
provide basic medical health care to the prisoners. And not only were
they aware of human rights abuses, they were actually complicit in them."
Using evidence from US congressional hearings, sworn statements
of detainees and soldiers, and reports from military investigators,
the International Committee of the Red Cross and the media, Miles
concluded that doctors were involved in the torture from the start.
"The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing
psychologically and physically coercive interrogations", Miles writes
in this week's edition of The Lancet, regarded as a leading international
journal on medical ethics.
"Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped design,
approve, and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib."
The report cites an example of a "medically monitored interrogation"
where the prisoner "collapsed and was apparently unconscious after
a beating.
"Medical staff revived the detainee and left, and the abuse continued,"
the report says, citing the sworn statement of an Abu Ghraib detainee.
In another instance, "a medic inserted a intravenous catheter into the
corpse of a detainee who died under torture in order to create evidence
that he was alive at the hospital," the report says, citing evidence
from a military police officer.
A US military spokesperson told the Associated Press the incidents
recounted by Miles came primarily from the Pentagon's own investigation.
"Many of these cases remain under investigation, and charges will be
brought against any individual where there is evidence of abuse," said
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson. Military officials in Washington also said a
high-level army inquiry will cite medical personnel who knew of
abuse at Abu Ghraib but did not report it up the chain of command.
The inquiry will also criticize senior US commanders for a lack of
leadership that allowed abuses to occur, but finds no evidence they
ordered the abuse, said the officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Photographs of US soldiers torturing and humiliating prisoners
at Abu Ghraib were first published in April and caused international
condemnation.
Miles says he has no idea how many doctors were involved in the Abu
Ghraib abuse. But his report suggests medical abuse was widespread,
and argues that similar failures occurred in US prisons in Afghanistan.
He says "death certificates of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq were
falsified" and medical investigators "routinely" attributed deaths to
natural causes when proof of abuse was glaring.
"In one example, soldiers tied a beaten detainee to the top of his cell
door and gagged him," Miles writes, citing an Abu Ghraib case noted
by New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"The death certificate indicated that he died of `natural causes .....
during his sleep.' After news media coverage, the Pentagon revised
the certificate to say that the death was a `homicide' caused by `blunt
force injuries and asphyxia.'"
In an interview, Miles said he decided to investigate the role of doctors
in the torture scandal because of a nagging question : "Why were the
doctors quiet ? Why didn't the medical profession blow the whistle ?'"
The Lancet followed Miles' report with an editorial reminding military
medical personnel in Iraq and at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, that
they're doctors first and soldiers second.
"Health-care workers should now break their silence," the journal said.
"Those who were involved in or witnessed ill-treatment need to give a
full and accurate account of events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay."
More :
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic
le_Type1&c=Article&cid=1092953411854&call_pageid=968332188854&col=9683500607
24
------------------------------------------------------------
20 August 2004 (Reuters)
LONDON - US military doctors working in Iraq collaborated with
interrogators in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison outside
Baghdad, an article in the British medical journal The Lancet said
on Friday.
Professor Steven Miles, the report's author, cites evidence that
some doctors falsified death certificates to cover up killings
and hid evidence of beatings.
"The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing
psychologically and physically coercive interrogations," the University
of Minnesota professor said.
One detainee, who collapsed after a beating, was revived by medics
so that the abuse could continue, Miles said.
"Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped
design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib," he wrote
in his study based on evidence from US congressional hearings, sworn
statements of detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts and
aid agency information.
Even though knowledge of torture and degrading treatment at the jail
was widespread and known to medical staff, they did not report
abuses before an official inquiry began in January 2004.
Reports of abuse at the prison first came to light at the end of April
when photographs of naked Iraqi detainees being humiliated and
maltreated by US troops drew worldwide condemnation.
"Government documents show that the US military medical system
failed to protect detainees' human rights, sometimes collaborated
with interrogators or abusive guards, and failed to properly report
injuries and deaths caused by beatings," he said.
Other human rights violations include failure to maintain medical
records, conduct routine medical examinations and provide proper
care of disabled or injured detainees.
Miles called for a reform of military medicine and an official
investigation into the role medical personnel played in the torture
scandal.
The US government has launched several investigations into the
abuse scandal.
On Wednesday, US defense officials said one US Army report, expected
to be sent to Congress next week, clears top US military brass in Iraq of
abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib but implicates 20 or more intelligence
troops in the scandal.
More :
http://fsnews.findlaw.com/articles/international/s/20040820/iraqabusedoctors
dc.html
-------------------------------------------------------
Sat 21 August 2004 By Deborah Zabarenko (Reuters)
Pentagon says ...
WASHINGTON - US military doctors working in Iraq collaborated
with interrogators in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
outside Baghdad, an article in the medical journal The Lancet says.
A US military spokesman said the article was inaccurate, and
a spokesman for an American physicians group said that if the
accusations are true, the doctors and other medical personnel
should stand trial.
The Lancet report by University of Minnesota professor Steven
Miles suggested that some doctors falsified death certificates to
cover up killings and hid evidence of beatings, and one detainee
who collapsed after a beating was revived by medics so that the
abuse could continue.
"Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped
design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib," Miles
wrote, citing US congressional hearings, sworn statements of
detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts and aid agency
information.
The Pentagon denied Miles' report.
"The Department of Defense takes strong exception to these allegations
and (Miles') wholesale indictment of the medical care rendered by US
personnel to prisoners and detainees," Army Lt. Col. Joe Richard said
in response to questions.
Richard said the Lancet article was inaccurate and based on "carefully
selected media reports and excerpted (Capitol) Hill testimony and not
first-hand investigative work or accounts."
He added that investigations were under way into prison
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and if any transgressions
of the Geneva Conventions
http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/1595a804df7efd6bc125641400640d89/6fef854a3517b75
ac125641e004a9e68?OpenDocument
and
http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/1595a804df7efd6bc125641400640d89/6756482d8614689
8c125641e004aa3c5?OpenDocument )
or US military regulations occurred, those responsible would be held
accountable. ( http://www.icrc.org/eng/party_gc )
'THEY SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO TRIAL'
"If the facts are as they have been reported, with physicians and medics
participating essentially in torture of prisoners ... these are the kinds
of abuses that we properly prosecuted and associate, I'm sorry to say,
with the actions of medical personnel during the Third Reich," said
Robert Musil of the group Physicians for Social Responsibility.
"If there are physicians, medics who are engaged in this sort of thing,
then they should be subject to trial and court martial," Musil said by
telephone. "Then the facts would be brought out in a military court."
The American Medical Association, when asked for comment on the report,
said it supported a World Medical Association statement denouncing any
physician participation in torture "for any reason."
Defense officials told Reuters a report to be sent to Congress next week
suggests some medical personnel at Abu Ghraib did not initially report
detainee injuries. The report will recommend punishment ranging from
reprimands and loss of rank and pay to perhaps criminal trials for about
two dozen intelligence soldiers and other personnel, the officials said.
The report, a US Army investigation into participation by military
intelligence troops in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, will criticize senior
military commanders for a lack of professionalism and discipline but
will note they did not order the abuse.
Seven national guard military police have already been charged in
connection with the scandal.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6034417
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.thelancet.com
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| User: "William Brennan" |
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| Title: Re: Military doctors collaborated in prison torture |
23 Aug 2004 10:08:22 AM |
|
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"Ethic" <Ethic@spam.net> wrote in message news:<412919fc$0$11788$5402220f@news.sunrise.ch>...
Brennan snipped the entire line of ***** then writes:
Hey *****, when your side starts caring about my human rights I
will start caring about yours. Matter of fact, when your side starts
caring about my human rights I will start reading your bullsit
propaganda. In the meantime I expect our side to keep up the pressure
and I expect you to like it.
Strike that last statement. Instead of forcing something on you I
will give you a choice. That choice is:
You can accept what we hand out and like it or you can accept what
we hand out and mot like it. And when you get tired of the pain, let
us know. At that time we will start to talk about what you can do to
alleviate or mitigate the situation. How about that? Sounds exactly
like the Muslim philosophy on things, doesn't it? That should make you
happy as hell. :^)
Bill Brennan
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