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Millionaire CIA Torture Psychologists to Face Trial

posted by martyb on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the Rosenhan-Milgram-Dunning-Kruger-research dept.

cafebabe writes:

From Wikileaks (via Vinay Gupta):

Judge rules two psychologists, Mitchell and Jessen, who made millions as consultants for the CIA's torture program can face trial.

How do you get into the business of being a torture consultant? Good question because when they started:

Neither man had ever carried out a real interrogation, had language skills or expertise on al Qaeda - the chief enemy in the war on terror - when the CIA handpicked Mitchell and Jessen to spearhead its supposed intelligence gathering program shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Their psychology backgrounds were in family therapy; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Monday July 31 2017, @01:05AM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Monday July 31 2017, @01:05AM (#546908)

    Their psychology backgrounds were in family therapy ...

    That is some selective summary skills right there, just cutting out all the vital parts and leaving the rest behind. Both Mitchell and Jessen worked for the US Air Force teaching SERE techniques to pilots. They probably didn't learn to torture in family therapy and they certainly didn't learn it while doing their dissertations on high blood pressure and the effects of diet and exercise on hypertension. It goes back to the SERE training, to learn to resist torture you have got to know how to torture. Which from the article it seems they picked up from the Chinese.

    So while I was kind of surprised that the CIA had to turn to "family therapists" to find torturers, or torture-advisers or whatever they should be called. It seems like they instead picked up two Air Force psychologists that specialized in interrogation and resisting interrogation. Most military forces around the world have at least one school or institution like that where they teach said skills, and said skills are just one tiny little hop and skip away from actually learning how to torture. As is noted in the article if you want to resist torture you gotta know how to torture.

    So while it would have been strange for the CIA to hire a couple of family therapists it probably isn't as strange to hire a couple of veteran Air Force experts. Even tho one would think that the CIA already had their own stable of sociopaths on speed-dial and retainers.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 31 2017, @01:39AM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 31 2017, @01:39AM (#546922)

    I'd actually be more concerned if the only things on these guys' resumes were torture related - that's the kind of field you want to have a broad base in other realities if you're going to engage.

    Seriously folks, I taught Scuba Diving for a semester in college, doesn't mean I don't know how to do a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis on an electronic device.

    --
    Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @04:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @04:57PM (#547246)

      Himmler studied agronomy.