Red Cross says doctors helped CIA "torture"

The following is from

Worldview

Reuters

Health workers violated medical ethics when they helped interrogate terrorism suspects who were tortured at secret CIA prisons overseas, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. The medical workers, thought to be doctors and psychologists, monitored prisoners while they were mistreated at CIA prisons and advised interrogators whether to continue, adjust or halt the abuse, the ICRC said in a report based on interviews with 14 prisoners in 2007. One prisoner alleged that medical personnel monitored his blood oxygen levels while he was subjected to waterboarding, a simulated drowning designed to induce panic and widely considered to be torture, the ICRC said.

The ICRC interviewed 14 men who had been held in secret CIA prisons overseas before being sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006.


There are a lot of sources reporting on this story right now. I have placed a number of links to the information at the Worldview blog


There have been a number of books written about this topic and you can see a number of these books at this link: Read

After people read the reports I would love to have everyone answer this question, Do you consider what was done as being torture? Please offer a reason for your answer.


Have a great day







[edit on 9-4-2009 by tsrk30]

I thought that the red cross was a good agency and that the people the CIA used to torture people weren't in the red cross?

I'm confused now.

I thought we could trust them...



What is going on?

reply to post by Frankidealist35


The medical personnel that followed the torture sessions were not Red Cross doctors, the Red Cross found out about it in the interviews with the prisoners.


To ask tsrk30's question, yes, I consider those things torture.

I don't know if you ever was almost drowned, but being asthmatic I know more or less what we feel when we cannot breath, one of the symptoms of an asthma attack is the idea of near death, because our body "knows" that we need to breath, so it signals to all the body to do something, and when we cannot we start entering a great anxiety state.

It's not pleasant, that I can assure you.

Also, having my head slammed against a wall, being held with the wrists tied above my for hours and sleep deprivation (a technique much used in Portugal during the fascist regime) is not my idea of a time well spent.