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Complacent in Torture

5/28/2015

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The recent 60-page report, “All the President's Psychologists,” exposes shared emails between the American Psychology Association (APA) --  the largest group of psychologist in the world -- and the Bush administration and their willing participation in torture. The report, released by psychologists and members of the APA, reveals the true depths the government went to in order to use torture.

Aside from the report giving us an understanding of how deep the rabbit hole goes concerning who was involved in the torture program, it also highlights the extensive lengths the government went to creating and operating such a program. The reality being that the government didn't just accidentally allow such a program to occur, but carefully planned out each part with the backing of many key players should make every US citizen very concerned.

This report comes out months after the official torture report, which gave an in-depth description of  the program and various methods that were used on detainees. The APA report  follows  after the Physicians for Human Rights report, which exposed the involvement of Health and Medical workers assisting and partaking in torture and experiments on prisoners in direct violation of the Nuremberg code.

The new report on the APA reveals that the psychologists drafted guidelines for the practice and use of torture, while the physicians were the ones who were involved in designing the tactics that were inflicting the harm. The importance of having these two groups involved in torture is that without them, torture never would have been able to happen. As Nathaniel Raymond, Research Ethics adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, said in a Democracy Now! interview: “The health professionals were the get-out-of-jail-free card, the legal indemnification for the White House.”

What’s troubling about this new report on the further collusion between the medical professionals and government is that we continue to see little to no reporting of it in the news. Many media personalities, if they mention torture, still debate whether or not we technically tortured, or that referring to it as ‘torture’ is being biased, as in the case with NPR.  Other commentators argue that releasing the report was harmful to our national security, with no evidence to back their claim. And then there are those that argue that torture was necessary in fighting these types of wars and preventing future attacks -- ignoring the first two pages in the initial report that state torture did not provide actual information

When torture is discussed in the media, the rhetoric tiptoes its way around the ethical and legal concerns of the program. Without a proper and serious conversation on torture, we see  polls that show the public to be in favor of the CIA use of torture following the 9/11 attacks. This reveals the distorted level of how we address these issues in public. The victims of false imprisonment, rendition, and torture are rarely, if ever, discussed when we talk about torture. In many cases, especially in Guantanamo, there are a lot of detainees that are innocent of their crimes, or have been held for over a decade without being convicted of anything.

Innocent victims that are released back into the public after being detained for a prolonged period of time receive little media attention and no acknowledgment of being wrongfully held captive. When they or their countries try to sue the US, the US government doesn't even allow the the case to go to court in order to keep the country’s actions abroad a secret from the public.

As our government continues to extend the use of “secrecy” and “national risks” as a defense against further evaluation into such programs, it will only become more and more difficult to enact change. Aside from the report on the APA's breach of trust and betraying their own ethical standards by providing information and being willing participants in the use of torture, we are furthering ourselves from the reality of what actually goes on in our military endeavors. Without an informed public and open dialogue, we fail to prevent these kind of things from happening again.

Even as we move closer to the election year and candidates for both the democratic and republican party surface, some are still questioning the validity of the invasion in Iraq and pushing for more dramatic military approach with Iran. Although Obama has ended the torture programs, renditions and illegal detentions continue. For those who only see this policy as a foreign issue fail to acknowledge the illegal detentions that have surfaced back home. Immigrant detention centers with horrid situations have popped up in Texas. Chicago is facing its own issues with their “black site” where torture by police and prison guards have surfaced in an ongoing report by The Guardian.

As we continue to confront the various organizations that helped cultivate the torture program, we must make sure the participants are held accountable. If anything, their reputation has already been tarnished by their complete disregard of maintaining their own standards. We should push to hold everyone accountable who purposefully misled our country into foreign affairs that left over a million dead, several million more displaced, and others who continue to linger in detention centers across the ocean. I even extend this accountability to people like Obama, who have only continued the growth of the cancer that is US foreign policy.

Moving forward into the next presidency, it should bother every citizen as to what power the next candidate will push for, regardless of party. To not alter and hold those accountable of wrongdoing leaves the path open for dissolving more civil liberties and freedoms of citizens abroad and at home. Our best push for change begins with denying the reenactment of the Patriot Act (which expires June 1st, unless it’s reauthorized before then). As Raymond said in Democracy Now!, “Until we restore the rule of law by holding those who gave the order accountable—not the people, the burger flippers at the bottom, not middle management, but the chain of command from the top—we have not done what the law requires.”
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Why You Should Care About the TPP

5/7/2015

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Trade deals have commonly been organized and planned out in secret. Most trade deals have a history of being sponsored as opening the market for more trade, more jobs, and more freedom. In the free market philosophy the US abides by, it only seems that the TPP would be a continuation of this ideology. And it is. But with the recent historic record profits to the top 1%, the stagnated -- and in most cases dropping -- wages for the middle class, the disappearing middle class, and stripping of environmental regulations, this is not a good thing.

So, what is the TPP? The Trans-Pacific-Partnership is a trade deal with 12  countries throughout the Asian-Pacific: Australia, Brunei,Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru,Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. The deal opens up more markets within each of these countries in order to allow freer trade. But the reality is, aside from the little information wikileaks was able to retrieve and expose, nobody fully knows what the trade deal is about because it's all been debated behind closed doors with the leaders of each government.

Those who have researched the leaked material refer to the deal as a “Trojan horse,” a coup d'etat, and NAFTA on steroids (the last big trade agreement passed in 1994). NAFTA (North-Atlantic-Trade-Agreement) was passed by the Clinton administration under the guise of providing more US jobs between the US, Canada and Mexico. Instead the trade deal gutted jobs by shipping US manufacturing jobs overseas to Mexico and Mexican and US agricultural and farming collapsing under the takeover of large agribusinesses.

The deal was protested by many in the US, Mexico and Canada at the time and was even argued over in a debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot, with Perot speaking out against it and Gore in support of it. To no surprise we're still seeing the repercussions of NAFTA today.

Five years later protests erupted in Seattle in 1999 against the expansion of trade deals being discussed with the WTO (World Trade Organization). Both the US and the world were stunned as they saw a glimpse of how misguided and secret the trade deals were for the general public and how handsomely it serviced corporations. The protests sparked something in the public’s mind for a second, although it was glossed over by the news with the minor property damage brought about from a small faction called the black bloc (who were separate from the general protests, something that would never be clarified in the media).

To the protesters success they were able to postpone talks that year. Unfortunately since then, trade negotiations have only become more secretive and at events like the WTO and other trade meetings, there is a limit at which the public can protest, making it impossible to disrupt the passing of deals, let alone, become more democratic.

The more recent KORUS (Korean Free Trade Agreement with the US) passed in 2012 with the promise of jobs is already seeing repercussions. In the last two years exports to Korea have dropped and imports from Korea to the US increased, while 60,000 US jobs have been lost in the decrease of exported goods. KORUS, which was a template for the bigger TPP deal, is only a glimpse of what we can expect on a bigger scale if the TPP is passed.

At the same time as TPP is being discussed, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership) trade deal between the EU and the US is also being talked over. While the EU is beginning to release some information about the content of the deal, it’s just another opportunity for corporations and governments to make the world more free for business at workers and democracy's expense.

But how does this affect the general individual living in the US? The WTO has been able to legally strip parts of the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, overriding governmental regulation in the name of free trade. In several cases under NAFTA, US and Canadian corporations sued each other’s governments for regulating and banning dangerous chemicals. Each government’s response to the other was to back down for fear of a lawsuit, and pay the corporation a fee compensation, and then promote the product as “safe” even with little scientific evidence. In NAFTA's first few years over 600,000 jobs were lost in the US alone and many of the new jobs that were “promised” under the trade deal were at a lower wage and less secure.

The thing about the WTO, GATT, and NAFTA is that they are all run with no democratic authority. So when a case comes out that governments are being sued by a corporation for disrupting their market, it’s NAFTA that get's to decide whether it wants to side with the government and its own constitution, or rule in favor of the corporation. It's the beauty of freeing up the markets; you don't have to worry about constitutional limits from governments anymore. While most countries are restricted by trade agreements, or lack of agreements in those who don't have a choice, some countries can still ignore the penalties of trade infringement as was the case with the US not wanting to cut cotton subsidies, even though cutting their subsidies would lift the price and help markets in South Africa.

Although these trade deals have already been in effect, how does the TPP differ? The TPP is like NAFTA, but it can even restrict harsher penalties on its countries in favor of trade. The TPP can undermine not only federal policies but state and city protections of workers. Any environmental regulations or environmental promoted projects can be overturned if it infringes upon an oil and gas companies market share. A rule in the TPP would make it illegal to favor small business over big businesses.The recent news of pushing for stronger protection of net neutrality rights can be overturned by internet companies who suggest that it cuts into their profits. The TPP basically overrides any form of democracy we have left in this country and abroad.

And for those who may think the trade deal isn't going to happen any time soon need to understand it's already being discussed whether to Fast-track it through congress. Fast-tracking the deal would allow Obama to approve the deal, which he is hoping for, and override a vote needed by congress. And with most Republicans, and some Democrats, in favor of the deal, the Fast-track can quicken the passing by the end of this year, if not earlier. And once it's passed, that's it. The battle will become that much harder to fight. NAFTA is the best example of this as we just passed the twenty-year anniversary of the deal and it's still standing as things have only gotten worse for all the countries involved (with the exception of the rich and businesses).

While it might seem easy to feel like there is nothing you can do, you need to realize  that we still have a chance to convince congress to deny the president fast-track approval and postpone the deal. During this time we can push congress to create a more fair trade deal that could better represent countries and its democratic values instead of some abstract market that is consistently favorable to a small few and easily manipulated.

To understand what's at stake is the first step in acknowledging the problem. By assessing the public's reaction to the potential passing of a trade deal will influence our leaders to act. And if it doesn't, we let our voices be heard in the next election. The choice is ours whether we want to save this idea of democracy we're struggling to hold together. And to be honest, the people have been in streets, politicians are speaking out harshly against the deal. We just have to acknowledge, regardless of party or political beliefs, that if we truly want to live in a democracy, we have to stop this deal.

Some petitions to stop fast-track:


https://www.stopfasttrack.com/


http://my.elizabethwarren.com/page/s/tpp?source=20150507blog

https://act.eff.org/action/don-t-let-congress-fast-track-tpp
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