"Confinement in a box was devised as a direct appropriation of Martin Seligman's research on "learned helplessness." In fact, on at least two occasions, Seligman presented his learned helplessness research to CIA contract interrogators referred to in the Inspector General report. In Seligman's experiment, dogs were confined to boxes in which they discovered that familiar mechanisms of control would no longer have an effect in avoiding pain."
Equally appalling is a technique known as prolonged diapering that was also approved.
This can result in skin infection, skin breakdown and ulceration and urinary tract infections, according to the PHR report. Also, "the placement of a normally continent adult in a diaper will likely lead to efforts by the adult to resist urination or defecation, which in turn will likely result in bowel cramping and bladder spasm."
Use of prolonged diapering leads a human being to regress to an infantile state.
This technique, when used, has, according to the Red Cross, led detainees to urinate and defecate on themselves while shackled in prolonged stress standing positions. Detainees have been forced to stand in their own bodily fluids.
It's not difficult to understand why detainees would have to stand in a diaper filled with their bodily fluids either. How many military personnel or private contractors do you think want the job of having to change a "terrorist's" diaper? Most likely, when this technique is used, they derive some sick joy from seeing people they are at war with standing in their own piss and shit.
The PHR report shows that health professionals are just as much to blame for the institutionalized lawlessness in the "war on terror" as lawyers, policymakers, and members of the military, CIA, and White House are.
One cannot dismiss the significance of what health professionals did for lawyers in the OLC. The OLC declared that acts must be of an "extreme nature" and "certain acts may be cruel, inhumane, or degrading" but still not produce pain and suffering.
The OLC decided that infliction of pain and suffering must be the defendant's "precise objective" in order for someone to be guilty of torture.
Health professionals made it possible for interrogators or torturers to maintain this defense while they were in the act of torturing or abusing a detainee.
Data and reports compiled by health professionals don't just give those responsible for prisoner abuse and torture a "get out of jail free" card. They give those responsible a "no need to be prosecuted" card as well.
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The following video has been added to illuminate how news organizations have failed to cover prisoner abuse and torture and the need for prosecutions. This is Jeremy Scahill speaking with Keith Olbermann earlier this week (Please excuse the title of this video and the intro. It's the only video of this exchange that I could find.)
Response by Martin Seligman, posted at his requestSeptember 1, 2009
Here is what I know about the torture controversy:
