Guantanamo Bay // Current TV

Meltdown 2010

1. 2009 heat 2. Beds are Burning 3. Meltdown 2010 4. Skiing in the desert 5. iPon... more

donkeyfly69
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The Hidden Tragedy of the CIA's Experiments on Children | t r u t h o u t

Bobby is seven years old, but this is not the first time he has been subjected to electroshock. It's his third time. In all, over the next year, Bobby will experience eight electroshock sessions. Placed on the examining table, he is held down by two male attendants while the physician places a solution on his temples. Bobby struggles with the two men holding him down, but his efforts are useless. He cries out and tries to pull away. One of the attendants tries to force a thick wedge of rubber into his mouth. He turns his head sharply away and cries out, "Let me go, please. I don't want to be here. Please, let me go." Bobby's physician looks irritated and she tells him, "Come on now, Bobby, try to act like a big boy and be still and relax." Bobby turns his head away from the woman and opens his mouth for the wedge that will prevent him from biting through his tongue. He begins to cry silently, his small shoulders shaking and he stiffens his body against what he knows is coming.

Mary is only five years old. She sits on a small, straight-backed chair, moving her legs back and forth, humming the same four notes over and over and over. Her head, framed in a tangled mass of golden curls, moves up and down with each note. For the first three years of her life, Mary was thought to be a mostly normal child. Then, after she began behaving oddly, she had been handed off to a foster family. Her father and

About the same time Dr. Bender was conducting her electroshock experiments, she was also widely experimenting on autistic and schizophrenic children with what she termed other "treatment endeavors." These included use of a wide array of psycho-pharmaceutical agents, several provided to her by the Sandoz Chemical Co. in Basel, Switzerland, as well as Metrazol, sub-shock insulin therapy, amphetamines and anticonvulsants. Metrazol was a trade name for pentylenetetrazol, a drug used as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant. High doses cause convulsions, as discovered in 1934 by the Hungarian-American neurologist and psychiatrist Ladislas J. Meduna.

Metrazol had been used in convulsive therapy, but was never considered to be effective, and side effects such as seizures were difficult to avoid. The medical records of several patients who were confined at Vermont State Hospital, a public mental facility, reveal that Metrazol was administered to them by CIA contractor Dr. Robert Hyde on numerous occasions in order "to address overly aggressive behavior." One of these patients, Karen Wetmore, received the drug on a number of occasions for no discernible medical reason. During the same ten-year period in which Metrazol was used by the Vermont State Hospital, patient deaths skyrocketed. In 1982, the FDA revoked its approval of Metrazol.

Here it should be noted that, during the cold war years, CIA and Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) interrogators, working as part of projects Bluebird and Artichoke, sometimes injected large amounts of Metrazol into selected enemy or Communist agents for the purposes of severely frightening other suspected agents, by forcing them to observe the procedure. The almost immediate effects of Metrazol are shocking for many to witness: subjects will shake violently, twisting and turning. They typically arch, jerk and contort their bodies and grimace in pain. With Metrazol, as with electroshock, bone fractures - including broken necks and backs - and joint dislocations are not uncommon, unless strong sedatives are administered beforehand.

A November 1936 Time mag. article seriously questioned the benefits of Metrazol, citing "irreversible shock" as a "great danger." The article described a typical Metrazol injection as such: "A patient receives no food for four or five hours. Then about five cubic centimeters of the drug [Metrazol] are injected into his veins. In about half-a-minute he coughs, casts terrified glances around the room, twitches violently, utters a horse wail, freezes into rigidity with his mouth wide open, arms and legs stiff as boards. Then he goes into convulsions. In one or two minutes the convulsions are over and he gradually passes into a coma, which lasts about an hour. After a series of shocks, his mind may be swept clean of delusions.... A patient is seldom given more than 20 injections and if no improvement is noted after ten treatments, he is usually given up as hopeless."

The Army, the CIA and Metrazol | This is just important sections go read whole thing!

Army CIC interrogators working with the CIA at prisoner of war camps and safe house locations in post-war Germany on occasion used Metrazol, morphine, heroin and LSD on incarcerated subjects. According to former CIC officer Miles Hunt, several "safe houses and holding areas outside of Frankfurt near Oberursel" - a former Nazi interrogation center taken over by the US - were operated by a "special unit run by Capt. Malcolm S. Hilty, Maj. Mose Hart and Capt. Herbert Sensenig.

Eventually, CIC interrogators working in Germany would be assisted in their use of interrogation drugs by several "former" Nazi scientists recruited by the CIA and US State Department as part of Project Paperclip. By early 1952, the CIC's Rough Boys would routinely use Metrazol during interrogations, as well as LSD, mescaline and conventional electroshock units.

Metrazol-like drugs are still used in interrogations today. According to reports from several former noncommissioned Army officers, who served on rendition-related security details in Turkey, Pakistan and Romania, drugs that produce effects quite similar to Metrazol are still used in 2010 by the Pentagon and CIA on enemy combatants and rendered subjects held at the many "black sites" maintained across the globe. Observed one former officer recently, "They would twist up like a pretzel, in unbelievable shapes and jerk and shake like crazy, their eyes nearly popping out of their heads."

In 2008, at the behest of US Sens. Carl Levin, Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel and in reaction to a March 2008 article in The Washington Post, the Pentagon initiated an Inspector General Report on the use of "mind-altering substances by DoD [Department of Defense] Personnel during Interrogations of Detainees and/or Prisoners Captured during the War on Terror." It is not known if the investigation has been completed. Among the more famous recent cases of the use of drugs upon prisoners concerns one-time alleged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, who had originally been accused of wanting to set off a "dirty bomb."

The government has gone to great efforts to keep the public uninformed as regards use of drugs on prisoners. In an article by Carol Rosenberg for McClatchy News in July 2010, Rosenberg reported that, when covering the Guantanamo military commissions trials, when the question of "what psychotropic drugs were given another accused 9/11 conspirator, Ramzi bin al Shibh, the courtroom censor hits a white noise button so reporters viewing from a glass booth can't hear the names of the drugs. Under current Navy instructions for the use of human subjects in research, the undersecretary of the Navy is described as the authority in charge of research concerning "consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques," while at the same time is also responsible for "inherently controversial topics" that might attract media interest or "challenge by interest groups."Bobby is seven years old, but this is not the first time he has been subjected to... more

toyotabedzrock
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Accused Child Soilder, Omar Khadr pleads not guilty to all charges - CNN.com

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (CNN) -- Accused terrorist Omar Khadr, who has been linked to al... more

toyotabedzrock
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Wikileaks: all the top scoops [Infographic]

All the top scoops by Wikileaks, from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, in one infographic.

conradq
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U.S. Legal Actions, UK Inquiry: Noose Tightens on Torture Criminals | The Public Record

Before taking up the question of the UK torture inquiry, announced the other day, we should consider other important developments on the anti-torture front today.

Omar Khadr, captured as a child, abused, mistreated and tortured for years at Guantanamo, has fired his military attorneys — most likely because he seeks some method to exert control over his situation. God knows how we would respond if placed in his situation.

Meanwhile, Daniel Shulman at Mother Jones has posted an article describing two new actions taken to strip licensure from two former Guantanamo psychologists, Major John Leso and retired Colonel Larry James. James is now dean of the professional psychology program at Wright State University in Ohio, and was the subject of a complaint against him in Louisiana, which was dismissed by the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, and subsequently brought to the Louisiana Court of Appeal. Leso is the infamous “Maj. L” in the interrogation log released by Time Magazine some years ago in the torture case of Mohammed Al-Qahtani.

Both Leso and James were members of the Behavioral Science Consultant Team, or BSCT, at Guantanamo. Indeed, James was in charge of the BSCT while he was there. The complaint against Leso, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability, can be viewed here. The James filing — the work of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic — is available in PDF format. http://motherjones.com/files/LarryJamesComplaint.pdf

These filings were separate from yet another complaint(http://trueslant.com/toddessig/2010/06/17/psychology-and-torture-a-formal-complaint-filed-against-james-mitchell/), this one filed with the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, against James Mitchell, one of the principals for CIA torture contractors Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, who has also been identified as one of the interrogators involved in reverse-engineering SERE techniques for the interrogation-cum-torture experiments made upon Abu Zubaydah in the spring and summer of 2002. (PDF link to full document here. http://trueslant.com/toddessig/files/2010/06/MIT-FINL.pdf)Before taking up the question of the UK torture inquiry, announced the other day, we... more

toyotabedzrock
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Reprieve ask Sir Peter Gibson to stand down from inquiry

Clive Stafford-Smith has published a letter sent to Sir Peter Gibson – the man... more

spectacle
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ACLU Torture Report

The Torture Report, an initiative of the ACLU's National Security Project, aims... more

toyotabedzrock
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Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

Documentary telling the story of Guantánamo: torture, extraordinary rendition... more

spectacle
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Guardian: Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizens

"MI5 officers interviewed Omar Deghayes in Afghanistan Kabul for three hours on... more

PostFactMedia
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Should the U.S. treat "homegrown" Islamic extremists differently from those who are not citizens?

The prosecution of foreign-born detainees at Guantanamo has proven extremely tough for... more

afitzgerald
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The Torture Report | Investigating the Bush Administration's Rendition Detention Interrogation Program

In observance of Torture Awareness Month, the ACLU will highlight a formerly-secret... more

toyotabedzrock
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Ex-Guantanamo Prisoner Sues Australian Govt.

Brutal beatings, electric shocks and sexual humiliation will be the cornerstones of a... more

The_Global_Report
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Innocent Man Imprisoned In Guantanamo For Eight Years

Jonathon Hafetz of the ACLU said: “Salahi's illegal detention for more than... more

The_Global_Report
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Bush 'Knew Guantanamo Prisoners Were Innocent'

According to a new document obtained by The London Times, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney... more

The_Global_Report
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VIDEO of Captured U.S. Soldier Robert Bergdahl Still Alive in Afghanistan…FoxNews Labels Him “TURNCOAT”…

Video Shows Captured U.S. Soldier Still Alive in Afghanistan April 8, 2010 America... more

ctpatriot1970
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Col Lawrence Wilkerson under Oath "More than half of the Guantanamo inmates were innocent"

Powel's chief of staff testifies that Cheney knew that more than half of the... more

CaptSutter
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More Dark Truths from Guantánamo, as Five Innocent Men Released

"After eight years’ imprisonment without charge or trial, five former... more

cheller1820
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Torture Diaries, Drawings and the Special Prosecutor

"Attorneys defending Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo prisoner designated as the first... more

cheller1820
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The world's first suicide bomber comedy

Via The Daily Dish, a clip of a film called "Four Lions" which may well be... more

afitzgerald
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in New York for 9/11

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims to be the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Now, after... more

afitzgerald
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