Psychoanalyzing Torture

Have a seat.

"A lot of people had to be in the know for this to happen. The very fact people felt confident enough to take pictures suggests that this was not something which was a secret," says Ian Robbins, a consultant clinical psychologist at the traumatic stress service at St George's Hospital in London, UK, who has treated both victims of torture and torturers...

"In all organisations, all teams, troops and people will replicate in some way the personality of the number one person in charge - whether it's the President, down to the general, down to the head of the jail," says Simon Meyerson, director of the Institute of Psychology in London. "If you know there's going to be trouble, you won't do it."...

Robbins told New Scientist: "It looks to me that it was a well thought through process." He says acts of ill-treatment by rogue operatives acting alone are more likely to be routine low-grade violence - "the odd slapping" - and neglect, such as withholding food or access to toilets. He also points out that the methods of humiliation depicted in the images would be particularly offensive to Arab men. "If you really wanted to humiliate an Arab man, you would strip him, have a woman present, and then have a woman degrade him."

Damning. And somebody please shut Joe Lieberman up. This is not justifiable under any circumstances. No matter what happened before. You want to use this kind of "context" then you might as well flush the Geneva Convention and every other document like it down the goddamned toilet.

LIEBERMAN: Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.

I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.

And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody.

Not the point, Joe. Not the point at all.