via The Telegraph:
A Saudi prince has been detained at Beirut airport in Lebanon after two tons of an amphetamine drug popular with Syrian rebels was found on a private jet. Prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz and four other men were held after what was described as the biggest ever drugs bust at the city’s main Rafik Hariri International Airport, according to local media and security sources. They were allegedly "attempting to smuggle about two tons of Captagon pills and some cocaine", a security source was quoted as saying. Captagon is a brand name for the widely used amphetamine phenethylline. Although this type of amphetamine has been prescribed in the past to treat childhood and other behavioural disorders, it is now used overwhelmingly as a stimulant in the Middle East.
It has long been banned in the West. It is the drug of choice for front-line fighters on both sides in the Syrian war, allowing a heightened state of alertness. It is unclear where the pills allegedly found in Beirut were ultimately to be sold, although the plane was said to be heading back to Saudi Arabia. That would fit one of the more unexpected side-effects noted of the Syrian war – the country’s growing role as an exporter of illegal drugs. There have been reports that Syrian suppliers to both sides of the conflict have become so successful in manufacturing Captagon that it is now an export product, smuggled through Lebanon to a broader Middle East market. The drugs were stuffed into 40 suitcases, according to reports. It has been a bad few weeks for the Saudi royal family’s minor princes. Prince Majed bin Abdullah was arrested last month in Los Angeles for allegedly trying to force a woman to perform oral sex, though charges were dropped last week
Showing posts with label psychiatry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychiatry. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Friday, March 16, 2012
Psychologists and Torture, Then and Now
by Laura Melendez-Pallitto and Robert Pallitto, March 06, 2012
source:Antiwar.com
History repeats itself, Marx famously warned, first as tragedy and then as farce. In the case of U.S. torture psychologists, the “tragedy” occurred half a century ago when CIA-funded psychological research on electroshock treatment, sensory deprivation, and the like found its way into the Agency’s counterintelligence interrogation manual. The 1963 KUBARK manual and its later iterations were used widely by U.S. intelligence and disseminated to other governments in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The “farce” was played post-9/11, as psychologists became involved once again in aiding counterintelligence interrogators....The KUBARK manual cites Albert Biderman and other research psychologists as sources for the “scientific findings” that support its conclusions. Biderman, who died in 2003, was known for his studies of U.S. personnel captured by the Chinese during the Cold War. He examined the ways in which the Chinese military induced false confessions — often outlandish and implausible ones — from U.S. prisoners. Whatever one thinks today of the validity and cogency of that literature, the government used it to legitimize tactics and propositions that go well beyond the claims of the literature itself. KUBARK instructs interrogators to use protocols titled “Ivan Is a Dope,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Mutt and Jeff.”
...KUBARK does not describe in detail the ways in which psychological interrogation methods (“clean torture,” as Darius Rejali calls it) are done. KUBARK merely recognizes that “chemical and electrical” methods are available (though it may be more specific in the redacted portions). To see how sensory deprivation and electroshock treatment actually work on the psyche of subjects, we must look outside KUBARK itself, at the research findings of scientists and the accounts of victims themselves. Naomi Klein interviewed one such victim, who unwittingly became a research subject for Dr. Ewen Cameron of McGill University (a psychiatrist) while Cameron was treating her as a psychiatric inpatient. Cameron administered drug and electroshock therapy on his patient that left permanent, devastating injury. Many years later, she discovered the cause of her injuries when she learned of a legal settlement by the CIA paying unwitting experimental subjects for the damages they suffered. By then, she had become completely disabled as a result of her “treatment.”
...The relationship goes both ways, however. While the drafters of KUBARK certainly utilized the research results to further interrogation objectives and to instruct interrogators in other countries, the researchers themselves certainly derived benefits from the relationship. Alfred McCoy notes that CIA operatives attended conferences in order to develop relationships with research psychologists, luring them with promises of research funding...Incredibly, some of the research results from the early years of mind-control studies resurfaced post-9/11 in training protocols for Guantanamo interrogators. In 2008, The New York Times reported that Biderman’s 1957 “Chart of Coercion,” which indicates the ways that communist interrogators used such coercion to induce false confessions, was provided verbatim to trainees in 2002....Three psychologists in particular have come to the attention of the media in recent years: Drs. Leso, Jessen, and Mitchell. All three have allegedly been involved on some level (research, training, consultation, and even participation) in coercive interrogation. All three are licensed psychologists in different states. Although licensed psychologists and human rights groups have filed complaints, to date none of their licenses have been revoked. Nor have they received any kind of reprimand for their alleged involvement in torture. more:
source:Antiwar.com
History repeats itself, Marx famously warned, first as tragedy and then as farce. In the case of U.S. torture psychologists, the “tragedy” occurred half a century ago when CIA-funded psychological research on electroshock treatment, sensory deprivation, and the like found its way into the Agency’s counterintelligence interrogation manual. The 1963 KUBARK manual and its later iterations were used widely by U.S. intelligence and disseminated to other governments in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The “farce” was played post-9/11, as psychologists became involved once again in aiding counterintelligence interrogators....The KUBARK manual cites Albert Biderman and other research psychologists as sources for the “scientific findings” that support its conclusions. Biderman, who died in 2003, was known for his studies of U.S. personnel captured by the Chinese during the Cold War. He examined the ways in which the Chinese military induced false confessions — often outlandish and implausible ones — from U.S. prisoners. Whatever one thinks today of the validity and cogency of that literature, the government used it to legitimize tactics and propositions that go well beyond the claims of the literature itself. KUBARK instructs interrogators to use protocols titled “Ivan Is a Dope,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Mutt and Jeff.”
...KUBARK does not describe in detail the ways in which psychological interrogation methods (“clean torture,” as Darius Rejali calls it) are done. KUBARK merely recognizes that “chemical and electrical” methods are available (though it may be more specific in the redacted portions). To see how sensory deprivation and electroshock treatment actually work on the psyche of subjects, we must look outside KUBARK itself, at the research findings of scientists and the accounts of victims themselves. Naomi Klein interviewed one such victim, who unwittingly became a research subject for Dr. Ewen Cameron of McGill University (a psychiatrist) while Cameron was treating her as a psychiatric inpatient. Cameron administered drug and electroshock therapy on his patient that left permanent, devastating injury. Many years later, she discovered the cause of her injuries when she learned of a legal settlement by the CIA paying unwitting experimental subjects for the damages they suffered. By then, she had become completely disabled as a result of her “treatment.”
...The relationship goes both ways, however. While the drafters of KUBARK certainly utilized the research results to further interrogation objectives and to instruct interrogators in other countries, the researchers themselves certainly derived benefits from the relationship. Alfred McCoy notes that CIA operatives attended conferences in order to develop relationships with research psychologists, luring them with promises of research funding...Incredibly, some of the research results from the early years of mind-control studies resurfaced post-9/11 in training protocols for Guantanamo interrogators. In 2008, The New York Times reported that Biderman’s 1957 “Chart of Coercion,” which indicates the ways that communist interrogators used such coercion to induce false confessions, was provided verbatim to trainees in 2002....Three psychologists in particular have come to the attention of the media in recent years: Drs. Leso, Jessen, and Mitchell. All three have allegedly been involved on some level (research, training, consultation, and even participation) in coercive interrogation. All three are licensed psychologists in different states. Although licensed psychologists and human rights groups have filed complaints, to date none of their licenses have been revoked. Nor have they received any kind of reprimand for their alleged involvement in torture. more:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)