Nancy Sherman's Blog

As Americans anguish about the graphic WikiLeaks video of civilian killings and the adrenalized cockpit chatter from the two pilots in the Apache helicopters as they open fire in that July 2007 attack, I am reminded of a different kind of helicopter pilot and a different cockpit conversation.

A little over 40 year ago, Hugh Thompson, at the time, a twenty-five year old reconnaissance pilot, was circling above a small hamlet in Vietnam called Tu Cung by the Vietnamese and My Lai by the Americans. The area was quiet during his early morning fly over, with no sign of enemy action. An hour later, when he flew back over, what he saw was a swath of devastation and a ditch piled high with bodies, all unarmed. Then he noticed a group of civilians held in a bunker at gunpoint by American GIs.  Thompson had had enough. He blurted to his crew, Lawrence Coburn and Glenn Andreotta: "Dammit, it ain't gonna happen. They ain't gonna die." He landed his aircraft, instructing his crew to fire on the GIs—"open up on'em and kill them"—if they shot at him as he tried to rescue the hostages. Some 350 persons were massacred that day, but Thompson's interventions may have stopped the massacre of thousands more living in the My Lai area at the time.

In Thompson's case, the cockpit offered neither moral distance nor emotional insulation. For the good soldier, holding onto one's full humanity, not only in the moment of rescue but in "the kill" is the critical mission.

—Nancy Sherman, April 15, 2010

The writer is the author of "The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of our Soldiers."

The following Time.com article on the Army's battle against suicide highlights the dilemma of a smaller Army fighting long term wars. Our soldiers and their families who have served multiple deployments carry enormous emotional and moral stress. As a nation, we need to come to terms with this and figure out a way to reduce the number of back to back deployments we send our soldiers on.

Military Suicides Up Among Soldiers in Repeat Army Tours – TIME

The recent www.wikilinks.org publication of the gun-camera video of the tragic deaths of two Reuters camera men in July of 2007 has generated quite a bit of discussion on the New York Times blog pages.  This incident captures the troubling issue of pilots' moral insulation and humor on the battlefield.  Anthony Martinez, an infantryman and an experienced  aerial footage analyst, provides an interesting perspective on the wikileaks video.

Benedict Carey takes up the issue in his recent New York Times article, "Psychologists Explain Iraq Airstrike Video." His article has generated scores of comments.

How do you weigh-in on the issue?

Suzanne Opton captures the face of a soldier's vulnerability,

so often shielded from the public. Her work has been shown on billboards

throughout the US and in the DC metro. Do have a look.

This is a piece that takes up the issues of military doctor's responsibilities in interrogation, written for the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal and published by Johns Hopkins. Parts of the essay appeared earlier in the LA Times op-ed.

Bioethics Inside the Beltway

Holding Doctors Responsible at Guantánamo

—NANCY SHERMAN

I recently visited the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center with a small group

of civilian psychiatrists, psychologists, top military doctors, and Department of

Defense health affairs officials to discuss detainee medical and mental health care.

The unspoken reason for the invitation to go on this unusual day trip was the

bruising criticism the Bush administration has received for its use of psychiatrists

and psychologists in the interrogation of suspected terrorist detainees.

We disembarked from our Navy jet to find an island lush and green from recent

storms. A small boat took us from the airfield to the naval hospital. From the boat

there was no sign of Camp Delta, where the detainees are actually held. Nor was

there a sign of prisons or barbed wire or the detention facility's 505 inmates.

Our host was the commanding officer of Gitmo, Major General Jay W. Hood

(an artillery officer by training), who had replaced Major General Geoffrey Miller,

implicated in the "migration" of torture methods from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib.

Dressed in fatigues, General Hood briefed us using PowerPoint. His intelligence

director told us that interrogators have not used harsh "fear up" tactics—the

ones designed to terrify—since 2003.

We went by bus from the naval hospital to the 30-bed detainee hospital for

quick briefings from a psychiatrist and a physician. Still, we were not permitted

to see any detainees or hunger strikers, despite our requests. During our six hours

on the ground, we had only a fleeting glimpse of a few detainees outside their

cellblocks behind barbed wire and screened fences.

Indeed, when I got home and saw the play "Guantánamo: Honor Bound to

Defend Freedom," by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, I had the disquieting

feeling that I had absorbed more about detainee life at the theater than I had from

actually being at Gitmo. This only amplified my anxiety that what I had heard

and seen during my VIP visit sidestepped the central moral issue of whether abuse

is still occurring at Gitmo and whether health professionals are, or have been, a

party to coercive interrogation.

The question that the Pentagon leadership has been focusing on, and which

was a key subject of discussion during our day at Gitmo, is whether there is an

ethical difference between using psychologists or psychiatrists on interrogation

teams—what the Pentagon calls, "behavioral consultation teams," or BSCTs,

pronounced "biscuit." Some in the Pentagon would like to have doctors and

psychiatrists, who are bound by the Hippocratic teaching to "do no harm," be the

clinicians treating detainees. Psychologists, who are not as bound by Hippocratic

dicta, would consult with and advise interrogators. But this is a red herring. It is

hair-splitting that detracts from the real issue of whether health professionals of

any stripe can ethically be involved in interrogations that may involve coercive

techniques or torture. The answer is clearly no. They should not be involved,

directly or indirectly, in situations that may lead to the breach of confidential

medical records; to torture or to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; or to

exploitation of fears or phobias. Mental health professionals simply should not

be collaborating with interrogators in inflicting psychological torture.

Hood said that "rapport building" was the preferred and an effective interrogation

technique, but that is no guarantee that rougher tactics will not be

used. The fact is that there is enormous pressure on the people at Guantánamo

Bay to get good intelligence for the war on terror, and it is as easy for behavioral

scientists as it is for interrogators to compromise their moral standards. Cunning

and deception to extract information may be acceptable in some cases. But many

people have been outraged to learn from media reports that methods developed

by military psychologists to train our own troops to resist torture—the so-called

"survival, evasion, resistance, and escape" methods taught at Ft. Bragg—have

been "reverse engineered" at Guantánamo Bay to create coercive, psychologically

manipulative interrogation techniques for use against detainees.

Plato warned long ago that a doctor's skill, abstracted from good character

and wisdom, is a neutral ability: It can be used to heal or to harm. So, too, the

science of psychological trauma can be the science of torture. How it is used is a

matter of the virtue of the doctor. Doctors should serve at Gitmo to treat patients

for medical and mental health conditions, but the American Psychiatric Association

and the American Psychological Association must insist that their members

shun practices that compromise professional conduct. Like the good soldier who

should resist orders that may be lawful but immoral, the good military doctor

must do the same.

This warning is especially critical in the face of recent news reports about the

current treatment of hunger strikers. During our trip to Gitmo, we were assured

that hunger strikers were being treated humanely. The commanding doctor, Captain

John Edmonson, showed our group, which included U.S. Surgeon General

Richard Carmona and Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley, the tube used for feeding—

a thin nasogastric tube, a 10-French Dobhoff—and explained that anesthesia

routinely was administered before insertion. We were told that there was overall

"complicity," in the sense that most strikers did not forcibly resist insertion of

the tubes or remove them once they were in place. Of course, acquiescence in the

face of harsh treatment or torture is hardly consent, and given the pain of pulling

out a nose tube, failure to do so likewise is no sign that consent was given.

However, the procedure has changed of late. In some recent cases, victims have

been strapped into a chair during and immediately after force-feeding, in order

to prevent purging. In addition, there have been reports that the detainees have

been force-fed not only nutrients, but also diuretics and laxatives. The result is

that, while in the chair, victims are forced to urinate and defecate on themselves.

This is far from humane medical treatment.

Moreover, the practice raises many questions that Americans should be asking:

Are military doctors complicit or responsible? Did they advocate for or consent

to the use of the chair and the administration of diuretics and laxatives? Was this

practice approved by those at the head of the chain of command, namely, the Army

Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, who are

ultimately "charged with assuring quality medical care for all beneficiaries of the

Department of Defense, including detainees and prisoners of war"? Has Congress

properly investigated the matter and held those reponsible accountable?

It may come as no surprise to some that being forced to urinate and defecate

on oneself has a long history at Gitmo. At a recent conference featuring interviews

with four released Gitmo detainees, there was repeated mention of the tactic

(Voices of Guantánamo, George Washington Law School, 20 March 2006). I

heard first hand of their ordeal of being "processed" for 8–10 hours by U.S.

troops at Bagram air field base. Skimpily dressed in freezing cold weather, the

detainees were made to walk in circles with bare feet on sand mixed with shards

of glass. Denied the use of toilets, they were forced to urinate and defecate on

themselves. They then were shackled in stress positions for the 10-hour flight to

Guantánamo Bay; they were hooded, with their eyes taped, and, again, denied

the use of toilets.

It is important to be clear about the nature of this form of degradation. However

one defines either torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, one

common element is that victims often are made to feel complicit in their own

abuse. The sense of self-betrayal, of shame, of self-contempt that so many torture

victims feel reflects a feeling of compromised agency, of turning against oneself

through the very exercise of one's own will.

Urinating or defecating on oneself, because one is denied more decent forms of relief, is a way of experiencing oneself as an agent without agency—one let's oneself "do it;" the case is different from that of a toddler who has not yet mastered bladder or sphincter control or an infirm person who has lost full control. Rather, this is actively "doing it," and yet still, it is being made to "do it" on oneself. It is experiencing oneself as helpless in one's agency. The victim is prevented from exercising control of body functions that are basic loci of self-control, and this is humiliating. Moreover, it makes a mockery of one of the few modes of selfassertion and protest left to a victim—namely, hunger striking.

It may well be true that many hunger strikers are not in the position to think

carefully and reflectively through the consequences of their actions. They are

without family contact and consultation from spiritual counselors. Some have

spent months in isolation. Others have endured repeated physical and psychological

abuse. They are not in conditions that promote autonomy. In such circumstances,

force-feeding may be a humane option, although a far more humane

approach would be to ameliorate the background conditions that deprive them

of more meaningful autonomy. But the use of the chair and force-fed diuretics

and laxatives are in no sense humane, however effective they are in deterring

strikers. Doctors, military and civilian alike, should protest their use. Moreover,

military doctors must be, first and foremost, doctors, committed to the humane

treatment of those in their care. They must not break from that role even if it

means disobeying orders from their superiors.

For more on the roll of doctors in interrogations, I recommend reading the letters to the editor in NY Times, March 4, 2010: "How to Treat Those Who Aid Torture"

The issue of the role of psychiatrists and psychologists in interrogation has been in the news this week. In Fall 2005 I was part of an independent observer team brought to GITMO to review the question. I wrote the following opinion piece for the LA TIMES when I returned.

__________________________________________________________

I RECENTLY visited the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center with a small group of civilian psychiatrists, psychologists, top military doctors and Department of Defense health affairs officials to discuss detainee medical and mental healthcare.

I am a military ethicist. The unspoken reason for the invitation to go on this unusual day trip was the bruising criticism the Bush administration has received for its use of psychiatrists and psychologists in the interrogation of suspected terrorist detainees.

We disembarked from our Navy jet to find an island lush and green from the recent storms. A small boat took us from the airfield to the naval hospital. From the boat there was no sign of Camp Delta, where the detainees are actually held. No sign of prisons or barbed wire or the detention facility's 505 inmates.

Our host was the commanding officer of Gitmo, Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood (an artillery officer by training), who replaced Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, implicated in the "migration" of torture methods from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib. Dressed in fatigues, Gen. Hood briefed us using PowerPoint. His intelligence director told us that interrogators have not used harsh "fear up" tactics — the ones designed to terrify — since 2003.

We went by bus from the naval hospital to the detention hospital for quick briefings from a psychiatrist and a physician. Still, we were not permitted to see any detainees or any of the hunger-striking inmates in the hospital, despite our requests. During our six hours on the ground, we had only a fleeting glimpse of a few detainees outside their cellblocks behind barbed wire and screened fences.

Indeed, when I got home and saw the play "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" (by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo) I had the disquieting feeling that I had absorbed more about detainee life at the theater than I had from actually being at Gitmo. This only amplified my anxiety that what I heard and saw during my VIP visit sidestepped the central moral issue of whether abuse is still occurring at Gitmo and whether health professionals are, or have been, a party to coercive interrogation.

The question that the Pentagon leadership has been focusing on, and which was a key subject of discussion during our day at Gitmo, is whether there is an ethical difference between using psychologists rather than psychiatrists on interrogation teams.

What some in the Pentagon would like is to have doctors and psychiatrists, who are bound by the Hippocratic oath to "do no harm," be the clinicians treating detainees. Psychologists, who do not swear to such an oath, would consult with and advise interrogators.

But this is a red herring. It is hair-splitting that detracts from the real issue of whether health professionals of any stripe can ethically be involved in interrogations that may involve coercive techniques or torture. The answer is clearly no. They should not be involved, directly or indirectly, in situations that may lead to the breach of confidential medical records, to torture or to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, or to exploitation of fears or phobias. Mental health professionals simply should not be collaborating with interrogators in inflicting psychological torture.

-  written for the LA TIMES

I highly recommend the potent and much needed expose of doctors and psychologists involved in gov't sponsored torture. Read Doctors without Morals by Rubenstein and Xenakis.

My father, a WW II army medic, died this past December, still wearing his dogtags, a full 65 years after his war. He carried to the grave the moral weight of his war. And he never allowed his family to share the burden.

Our soldiers today, in Afghanistan and Iraq, fight inner moral wars that most of us never hear about. And they wage the battles even when they have done nothing wrong by war's best standards– and even when they wear their most stoic faces.

My experience with my dad led me to interview 40 soldiers who opened their hearts to me about the moral weight of war they carry everyday on their shoulders. They talked about the terrible anguish they feel when innocent children are caught in the crosshairs of war, or about the awful sense of guilt in cheating death when their buddies were far less lucky.

As a public we desperately need to hear these stories in order help our soldiers carry the moral burdens that come with sending them to war. Their burdens shouldn't be private. They are ours as well.

I wrote The Untold War to start a conversation in America about the wars that soldiers bring home with them and that can haunt for a lifetime. We know our soldiers come home with the trauma of war, both visible and invisible. What we haven't yet recognized is how they wrestle with deep moral questions about what they did or didn't do on their watch. These are questions that their families and friends, neighbors and coworkers may see glimpses of on their faces, but never really understand.  These are troubling questions, hard for all of us to even ask and hard for soldiers to talk about. The Untold War starts the conversation that we must have and that soldiers desperately need.