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Comment by md_ | Hacker News Reader

Among the key figures in the design of American torture programs during the War on Terror were American psychologists James Elmer Mitchell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elmer_Mitchell) and Bruce Jessen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Jessen), who were paid $81m for their work.

Irony upon ironies: "Mitchell, who is retired and lives in Land o' Lakes, Florida, spends his free time kayaking, rafting and climbing.[14] He describes himself as an atheist and a supporter of Amnesty International.[10]"

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Something like Guantanamo doesn't happen because two people dream it up. It happens because a gigantic organization is committed to it.

It also wouldn't have happened unless there was solid political support at the highest levels. That includes not only politicians but the parts of a democratic society that isn't necessarily directly elected, within the justice system, military and media.

The system also has been held up under multiple administrations, including one that probed public opinion enough to debate closing it only to turn around and expand it instead, which didn't make a measurable difference with voters. The last part is the key point here.

All this may sound a bit hopeless, but we know how to fix these types of inherent issues in a society, by proper application of division of power.

For sure. But I think there's value in both focusing on systemic issues, as you say, and in associating individuals with the indelible stain of their own immoral actions.

You can say that the rise of the Nazis was due to flaws in the Weimar political system and weaknesses in social institutions at that time, but you can also make sure people know the names of Eichmann and Heydrich and similar.

It was convenient that people like Mitchell and Jessen was around with the ideas they had, but even more important to know the names of are Bush and Obama. They could have ended these ideas with the stroke of a pen.

What makes this a delicate problem for the democratic institutions is that 50+% of the voters voted in Bush for a second term even in the light of the paying for prisoners and tales of torture and worse, from survivors like the three British citizens just months before the election who went on to make a movie about it.

If we still want to make sure something similar doesn't happen again, it is necessary to have a juridical institution specifically to protect human rights with the power to veto these decisions, if neither the military institutions or the democratic populace will. Otherwise history has a tendency to repeat itself.

> That includes not only politicians but the parts of a democratic society that isn't necessarily directly elected, within the justice system, military and media.

You missed money, who make up the majority of the overclass.

Amnesty International answered him: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/amnesty-responds-t...

Isn't it crazy, America is becoming a place for war criminals to peacefully retire. Mitchel, Cheney, Kissinger, Rumsfeld...

> He describes himself as an atheist and a supporter of Amnesty International

That's a funny one. Someone should interview him and see how he sees himself and his role, and does he consider himself to be a war criminal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/18/james-mitchell...

This also contains this amusing aside: "He also criticized Obama’s healthcare policy – a 'shit sandwich' – and his administration’s approach to global warming. Mitchell believes it’s a myth."

Not impossible that he describes himself in ways he thinks make better impressions of him in the media, and that it's unrelated to his actual opinions

> Someone should interview him and see how he sees himself and his role, and does he consider himself to be a war criminal.

Sacha Baron Cohen. Seriously, Sacha's interview with Dick Cheney where he asked him to sign his waterboarding kit was pure gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmUnUoeLSIM

That man is pure gold. Sadly the video is geoblocked, I'll have to find some alternative source.

https://twitter.com/SachaBaronCohen/status/10160820330999971...

Major Banality of Evil vibes from him.

This is another example how the US society frankly doesn’t care. There are plenty of ways the local citizens could organize to make life hell for people like those. Yet it doesn’t happen.

Like what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc_BlwbmUNY

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