At the CIA, the Doctors Take the Hypocritical Oath

From the Hippocratic Oath: "I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing."

But at the CIA, the doctors, in the finest traditions of the KGB and the Gestapo, gave advice on how best to torture people.

Sensitive agency documents, declassified on Tuesday, provide a new level of detail on the intimate involvement of its medical staff during its post-9/11 torture program. Officials assigned to the Office of Medical Staff (OMS) provided precise specifications for enforcing sleep deprivation, limiting the caloric intake of detainees’ food, and the proper positions for waterboarding, as outlined in a 2004 document providing “guidelines on medical and psychological support” for torture.

We have much to answer for. The relevant officials, including the members of the National Security Council, for the time that this was going on would be well-advised to not travel outside the country. It is possible that they are liable to be prosecuted under the Yamashita Doctrine.

For it's dead-nuts certain that we won't get around to cleaning up our own mess until long after everyone who was involved in torturing people has died. Just as we didn't face up to detaining over a hundred thousand of our own citizens during World War II until everyone who had more than a bit part in it was dead.*
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* The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was opposed by a majority of the Republicans in the House and a minority of Republicans in the Senate. Pres. Reagan signed the bill into law, even though he had opposed it.