For those who don't know, here is the Hippocratic Oath, here is a
link to a couple of translations.
The central and overriding idea about not doing harm is "
never do harm to anyone.". Nowhere does it say, "never do harm to patients". Got it?
So, the Pentagon's rationalization about the oath applying to patients only is just flat-out bullshit.
The Pentagon says, in this article, that:
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, declined to address the specifics in the accounts. But he suggested that the doctors advising interrogators were not covered by ethics strictures because they were not treating patients but rather were acting as behavioral scientists.
More below the *************** fold here ********
These assholes are just rationalizing, so that they can justify doctors violating their oath, like
Josf Mengele did, and the doctors that aided in the torture, to the death, of the DEA agent,
Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, in Mexico.
It is disingenuous to suggest that because the prisoners are not, at least in the War Department's eyes, 'patients', that the doctors are not bound by the Hippocratic Oath. Even if the prisoners are not patients, I'm pretty sure they are covered by the ANYONE phrase. Whether or not the prisoners (not "detainees") are by the strictest definition, "patients", is irrelevant.
I'm sure that we are all comforted by the fact that they doctors try to prevent, but are not always successful in preventing, death to a prisoner by 'over-zealous' torturers. The doctors are there to fine-tune the torture; to enable more torture, although - unfortunately (in the Pentagon's eyes, I'm sure - this 'tuning' results in interrogations being dragged out.
The NYT article, and a post in a medical journal, say that psychologists, who don't have an M.D. like psychiatrists, may not be covered by the Hippocratic Oath and are thus not violating 'ethics' is just bottom-of-the-barrel reasoning.
The inhuman pigs in the White House and Pentagon, and - to a degree - the mealy-mouthed editors of the medical journal, don't seem to 'get' it that a shrink, while not an M.D., should also see one of his/her primary duties as not using his/her skills to cause harm to people.
To the doctors and shrinks that are participating in these tortures, I have only the utmost contempt. I am going to use my contacts in the military to attempt to learn the names of these scum and publish them. If I violate a law and go to jail, then so be it. People have stood up for principles that didn't involve the life or death issues that are at stake here, and gone to jail, so I'm certainly willing to.
Also, as much as I support the troops, the torturers should be brought to account, also. The Nuremberg trials fixed - forever - the responsibility for soldiers not to follow illegal orders.
And for the Christians reading this, how many times have you read that if man's law conflicts with God's law, you follow God's law? So, it would seem that the Pentagon only has heathen unbelievers as torturers, because I'm pretty sure that God frowns on torture; all that 'do unto others' stuff, you know. God-less people who, by the Republican's definition, must HATE America, since all God-less people hate America. Imagine that; there are infidels doing your torturing for you (you know, the 'in your name' concept).
I'm guessing that Bush and Rove both tortured kittens to death as children, which would mean that they were abused, also. Knowing Barbara indirectly (through friends), I can assure you that she tortured George, though I'm not sure how much physical torture there was. However, having to look into that holier-than-thou, smug, pasty face every day would certainly seem like torture to me, but to be the subject of her razor-sharp tongue obviously took it's toll on George, which explains his drinking to try to drown out the memories.
And then George passes it to his daughters. They are so fucked up that they can't even stay off the floor, in public, while their daddy is president. How screwed up do you have to be to be a drunk/druggie and do it in public while daddy runs the country? I won't even go into Jeb's problems with himself and his kids.
Of course, George eventually replaced alcohol and coke with religion, but with the same intensity, and with the same goal - emotionally covering up his desire to do unspeakable things to his mom in revenge.
Well, now he's got prisoners to take it out on.
Goody for him. Too bad for humans.
And last, but not least, isn't it amazing how, with each new revelation about this or that, or each new statement by BushCo, more and more congruent points with the Nazis show up? It's too long a list to go into now, but - soon - I'll publish something on the congruency, along with statements, side by side, from people like Goebbels/Rove; it's a fascinating read, actually.