I’d like to hear the reactions of physicians to the news that medical officers in the U.S. military participated in George W. Bush’s torture programs. A report from the Red Cross describes how American medical officers took part in the waterboarding of prisoners, as well as food deprivation and exposure to extremely high and extremely low temperatures. These incidents took place in order to encourage prisoners to cooperate with interrogations. Apparently, threats of medically damaging procedures, such as purposeful infection with HIV, were also used with physicians present.
Let’s not just put medical doctors on the hook, though. I’d also like to know what ordinary American citizens think about the fact that, with a strongly Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, we still haven’t seen an open, concerted criminal investigation into these torture programs.
