The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 175 - The Torture Psychologists

Episode Date: May 23, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the American Psychological Association and the Torture Psychologists Dr. Bruce Jessen and Dr. Jim Mitchell.SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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Each week I read a story to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. He's on his phone. But he can multitask and I don't think we need to peel back the curtain. Curtains peel back. Oh you can't close a curtain. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to tickly quad guys. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hell queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle. And do my thing. Hi Gary. No. I say done my friend. So this podcast is brought to you by our

subscribers on Patreon. I want to thank each and every one of you. You get eight podcasts a month. Throw in a buck or two. It's you know. You're literally making a million dollars an episode. You're making a million dollars an episode. That's what we're talking about. We pay them right? How does this thing work? We pay them. Yeah. So we're paying you guys and we appreciate it. September 24th 1950. Headline appeared in the Miami news. Quote brainwashing tactics forced Chinese into ranks of Communist Party. Okay. It was written by a journalist who was on the CIA payroll. Interesting. That's eliminating the middleman. The Korean War just begun. The

article told Americans that quote brainwashing is a devious new tool being used by the Communist to strip a man of his humanity and turn him into a robot or slave. It's so great to use brainwashing about brainwashing. Fuck yeah. And it's weird how true this turned out to be isn't it? Yes. They have developed tactics to put a man's mind into a fog so that he will mistake what is true for untrue. A CIA medical chief wrote in 1952 about torture techniques being used quote there is ample evidence that communists are using drugs electric shock and physical duress against their enemies. We are forced to assume a more aggressive role

in the development of these techniques. Okay. During the war they caught two pilots and the pilots made confessions about things they had not done. It's always strange how that happens during interrogation. And so our government of course said well that's due to torture. Right. During the war the official American position on prisoner confessions was that they were false and forced. And from an Air Force headquarters document quote confessions are considered as being the forced admission to a lie. Okay. The CIA conducted mind control research from 1950 to 1956. So what is this a test

group for? Excited to try. You'll be fine just go ahead and sit down and eat that thing right there. When do I get my $20? Oh you'll get it at the end. Okay. Can you put this in your asshole? I'm sorry. Go ahead and slide it in. So that's when the door said buddy eating that's what you meant. Yeah. Get it take out your eyes now. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Tell me your name Sheila. I'm Sheila. See it works. The CIA then published the Kubark counterintelligence interrogation manual in 1963. The Kubark manual states that quote sound interrogation rests on certain broad principles chiefly psychological which are not hard to

understand. Okay. From 1953 to 1963 the CIA spent $25 million for human experiments by 185 contracted researchers at 80 institutions. Jesus. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. That's a good number. Nice. Nice stat. That's a big dude number. It's big. The top brass decided in 1966 that giving service members a dose of quote Chinese style interrogation would prepare them to withstand it if they were caught. Oh my god. What? That's they're just torturing Americans to make sure that when they get tortured they we're gonna shoot you to make sure that you know how bad shooting hurts. No that's not. I feel

like I should learn how bad shooting hurts when I get shot by shoot shoot him the bad guy. Shoot him. No. Stop. Hey, come here. Stop it. Jose. Stop. What's Jose up to? He's clawing at my suitcase. Hold on. Who wants to travel? Who doesn't like it when daddy goes away? Who's going into the other room and the door's being closed? You turn on. You just turn on the light for a cat. Just so you know where you're at. He likes it. You just turn on the light for a cat. He likes it, dude. They're nocturnal motherfuckers. They need no light. He's not. He likes the light. He wrote a letter. So they create this Chinese style

interrogation thing. This was called Air Force Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape or SEAR for short. They were taught to survive in the wild how to escape and how to behave if captured. A graduate of SEAR wrote quote, we repent in concrete sub-locks four by four by four. Small. And this is just so crazy to. No, you guys show a guy that he can do it or whatever. But what if he's never caught? Yeah, like he knows what it would be like if he was. That's a net loss. They were told to kneel but allowed they're told to kneel sit squat there was no door just a flap that will be let down if it was too cold outside

which it always always was. Each trainee was interrogated to some extent. There was pushing, shoving, getting slammed against the wall and some were waterboarded. Oh my god. In the name of you're being waterboarded in case you ever get waterboarded. All right guys dress rehearsal dress rehearsal from the top. From the top. My mom's name is Frank. There we go. Now you get one phone call. Do you want to call your dad or your mom Frank? No, come on. You're a prisoner. You're playing practice prisoner. But the thing they were taught at SEAR was that none of the techniques work. Interesting. Fun lesson. Torture is

considered the worst interrogation method because quote number one it produces unreliable information. Two creates a negative world opinion. Three it's subject to war crimes trials and four is used as a tool for compliance. Now okay. Interesting. I wonder if that have have these people seen 24? You know what? Because in that show let me tell you let me give you a little let me give you a little Jack Bauer history lesson, bro. Okay. A lot of time. Hey, bro. But the word history. Bro. Let me give you a little history lesson. Okay. I don't like. Have you ever heard of Jack Bauer? I generally don't. We should do a dollop on

him sometime because that dude gets it done. Not real. That get that dude gets it done. I also valuable information is always taken in the heat of torture. I don't accept knowledge from people who call me bro. Bro. That's number one. Bro. Number two. It's a TV show. Number three. It's on Fox. Number four. They swam into the White House on one of them. The only swam into the White House on an episode. I'm gonna need a little more. Swam into the White House. How did they swim into it underneath it through like a sewer in the in the river that's under there? I haven't seen that documentary but it sounds good. In 1980 Dr. Bruce

Jessen was hired as the seer psychologist at the Air Force Survival School. Boy, these appointments are really filling up. This book is loaded. I might have to come in Saturdays. Okay, so what you want to talk to me about? Well, um, they completely ruined me and they almost drowned me on land and they slammed me in the wall. They maybe see that my mom's name was Frank. You're going through a breakup or something? No, I should be so bad. Bruce would screen instructors who posed as enemy interrogators to make sure rough treatment did not go too far. One more time. He was screening the

guys who were posing as enemy interrogators. Okay, so he was screening people to make sure they don't go too far. Right. Right. Making sure they get guys who aren't fucking psychos. Right. Yeah. No, put people in that position. I think you'll normally find they're pretty grounded and balanced. Hey, do whatever you want to these guys. Don't be dicks. Don't be dicks. Don't be dicks is is what should be the slogan for all torture. Yeah. You don't talk about girl. All right. I was just checking. You testing levels. What's going on? I was just checking the level there. I went all girl on you. Dave. Um, so, uh,

Bruce is raised on an Idaho potato farm in a Mormon community. He earned his doctorate at Utah State studying family sculpting. That is where patients make physical models of their family to show emotional relationships. Wow. So you take you make love to do that. Right. Yeah. I want to see you do that. Oh, God. Why are they just all mushed into one big pile of clay? I'm broken, Dave. If I'm doing it, they're like, Dave, why are you peeing on that one? Dave, why are you pouring bourbon on yours? So family sculpting. I said this, right? That's where patients make models. Oh, you said it. Then in 1988, Bruce moved to the top psychologist job

at a graduate school of survival training. The man who took his job was a psychologist named Dr. Jim Mitchell. Mitchell grew up poor in Florida and joined the Air Force in 1974 while stationed in Alaska. Little different. He earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in psychology. Okay. He then earned his doctorate at the University of South Florida in 1986, comparing diet and exercise and controlling high blood pressure. Interesting. Smart. Now, logical. These guys being psychologists, maybe we should discuss the APA. Okay. The American Psychological Association. Sure. It's I'm ready to throw a lot of facts at

you. It's psychologist's version of the American Medical Association, right? It's an organized body, a group where they all are part of. Yeah, there's a board and they rules and they set the, you know, they say on their website, quote, the APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. Our mission is to advance the creation and communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives. Great. To benefit society and improve people's lives. To benefit society. And the APA is a code of ethics, quote, in the process of making decisions

regarding their professional behavior, psychologists must consider this ethics code in addition to applicable laws and psychology board regulations. If this ethics code establishes a higher standard of conduct than is required by law, psychologists must meet the higher ethical standard. If psychologists ethical responsibilities conflict with the law regulations or other governing legal authority, psychologists make known their commitment to this ethics code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner and keeping with the basic principles of human rights. I'm excited to see them follow this. The

basic principles of human rights. I like where we're headed. Now, psychologists have pretty tough rules, such as, for instance, you can lose your license as a practicing psychologist if you get a DUI. Wow. So they have very strict rules. Yeah. Now, back to our heroes, Bruce and Jim. Wait, do you think that's, I think that's a little weird that they can lose their, I do, but they have very strict rules. Okay. I wasn't sure if you were, it's hard to tell. I know that's what it is in California. It might be different

other states, but they have rules, they have rules like that. Is that still in play? The state will take away your license if you get a DUI. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really fucking serious. They don't want people who can fuck with people's minds being off. Right. Okay. Now, back to our heroes, Bruce and Jim. At the Seer Graduate School, Bruce made a very unusual move. He switched from being a supervising psychologist to a mock enemy interrogator. What?

What do you mean? What do you mean? He was. He was a, okay. He was, he was, he was checking out the guy. He went from being a guy who is like, babying and nursing your mind to trying to break it. No, he went from being a guy who, who was checking out and screening the guys, right? Right. Who were going to do interrogations to make sure they were okay and normal. And then he went to being the guy who is going to be shouting at them. And he was going to be the guy who was

interrogating. The pretend, the pretend terrorist or whatever. Wow, okay. And while he was a mock interrogator, he was so aggressive that colleagues had to get involved to reign him in. Jesus. They showed him a videotape of himself acting quote, pretty scary. No, no. What? It's just, I mean, if they're, if they're the voice of reason and their video, it just can't be good. It's gonna be fine. Bruce and Jim became part of what was called the Resistance Mafia.

Experts on how to resist enemy interrogations. The two men became Lieutenant Colonel's and good friends. They were married, had kids and took weekend ice climbing trips together. Sure. They weren't married to each other. Everything was hunky door. Yeah, they're just taking ice climbing trips. All was good. Sure. Then came what? 9-11. Okay. Dave. What? Oh, my. What? Jim had just retired and started a company called Knowledge Works. Knowledge

Works trained executives on how to survive the kidnapping. Or making money on people's paranoia. Yeah. That is crazy. Then three months after 9-11, Jim, other psychologists, some professors and law enforcement intelligence officers had a meeting near Philadelphia at the home of prominent psychologist, Martin Siegelman. Okay. They were there to quote brainstorm about Muslim extremism. Brainwash storm. No, just brainstorm.

That's good. I like where you're going. Thank you. But if you're a psychologist and there's professors and you're all getting together to brainstorm about Muslim extremists, odds are you're of a certain ideology. A certain common ideology. Interesting. Another man there was a CIA psychologist named Kirk Hubbard. Now, Martin Siegelman, whose home it was at, was known in the field of psychology. He had been the president of APA in 1998.

He had written a few self-help books like Learned Optimism, How to Change Your Mind in Your Life, Authentic Happiness, and as most recent, Flourish, A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. Do you know what I mean? He must, like after each one, be like, I need to spice your title. I need one that like... How do I get a bigger, happier title? Next one's called Get the Biggest Happiest Boner Ever! Super Happo Rainbows Up Your Ass!

He was also well known for some experiments he had done in the 1960s. And off we go. Dr. Siegelman took dogs and... This already is the worst. And placed them in harnesses. Then he gave them electric shocks. After that, he put them in pens and shocked them again. But this time, they were given a chance to escape. What? Most of them would just passively accept the shocks. So the experiment was, if you teach a dog how much he hates the shock, and then you put him in a position where he can escape, if you're shocking him, will he

escape? The experiment is that if he is confined and cannot escape the shocks, and then you shock him when he's not confined, he will not go away. Try to run away. Right. Because he's learned he can't. And this condition was called learned helplessness. Learned helplessness. You know, it sounds awesome, right? It's just it's dense and awful. Learned helplessness. Martin is currently the director of the University of Pennsylvania's

Positive Psychology Center. So if you're over at... If you're over at the Positive Psychology Center, go say hi to the guy that shocked dogs. Tell him how positive that is. So Jim introduced himself to Martin and said how much he dug his writing on learned helplessness. Dude, that was awesome what you did to those dogs. I really like the way that you showed that dogs won't run away if you just complete... It's cool. What a cool experiment. If you just fuck with an animal so much that it's so fucked in the head

that you can then just fucking stab it and it's like, hey man, this is weird. It's great, man. I like your... I'm actually working on a similar thing. I'm throwing kittens into the deep end of a pool. Oh, shit. Yeah, it's called learned drowningness. That's so weird. Yeah. I just opened a place called Happy Pool. It's for little kids. Oh, that's great. And to learn how to swim. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I'm a happy guy now. Come over and play Murder Frog. Okay.

Anyway, uh... I don't know. At the meeting they all tried to forget how they could fight terrorism. Then months later, a CIA official who was at the meeting asked Jim to review an al-Qaeda manual that coached terrorists on how to resist interrogations. But they're just... But that's what Jim's been doing. Yeah. And Bruce. Yes. It's so perfect. No. Then Jim and Bruce were asked to provide countermeasures to that resistance. So they were being asked to reverse engineer what they had learned in the SEER program.

Because now... In the SEER program, they taught people how to resist torture and now they were gonna teach people how to break down people resisting torture. Oh, my God. This is just such a dumb chess game. So Jim and Bruce wrote a paper. It was called Recognizing and Developing Countermeasures to Al-Qaeda Resistance to Interrogation Techniques. Could they have one a little more on the nose of what's happening? I'm not done yet. A resistance training perspective. Now I'm done. Well, I don't even think you need to write anything after that. You get the idea.

Then on March 28, 2002, Abu Zubaydah, Zubaydah, was captured. The government said he was the planner of the 9-11 attacks. The number two or number three al-Qaeda person, a lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, and a man involved in every major al-Qaeda operation all the way back to the mid-1990s. Well, Dave, if they're that certain... They must be right. I mean, if he holds that many positions... Listen, this guy's doing a lot. He's a mover and a shaker.

So he's like the Jay-Z of al-Qaeda? Very much so. Very much so. And lemonade's about to get released. Jim was called and asked to monitor the interrogation of Zubaydah. And he said, fuck yeah. Okay. The plan for Zubaydah... I'm loving where it's going with you now. Now you're just trying to get loud through it. The plan for Zubaydah consisted of lighting, loud music, and putting him into an all-white room to keep him awake.

But what if he, like cocaine, he would be like, I'm right at home in here. Ah, this is my blow room. Turn it up, motherfuckers! What is that, AC-DZ? That was supposed to create psychological disorientation in him. And according to someone there, Jim said, quote, the man should be treated like the dogs in a classic behavioral psychology experiment. That's a weird thing for him to say.

It's that? So people are like, what? What? Nothing. I've never killed a dog. That didn't come out of my mouth. No more questions. That didn't come out of my mouth. Have I choked a dog? No, I have not, sir. You should treat him like dogs being electrocuted and harness or, you know, any predicament that...

Want to get a fudge? You want a fudge? A human or a dog would... I brought fudge. I'd love some fudge. The man told Jim that he was dealing with human beings, not dogs, and Jim responded that the experiments were, quote, good science. Still, I just don't understand how Abu Ghraib happened.

But Jim wasn't done. He came up with a list of enhanced interrogation tactics. There was locking people in cramped boxes, shackling them in painful positions, keeping them awake for a week at a time, covering them with insects and waterboarding. Oh, it sounds like fear factor. I'm kidding. This is Joe Rogan. Oh, OK. And now you're going to have to eat an ox penis. The entire plan was to achieve learned helplessness,

which would eliminate the prisoner's ability to forecast the future. When their next meal is, when they can go to the bathroom, it would create dread and dependency on the interrogators. Well, it's just psychologically completely breaking somebody. Yeah, you're breaking someone down. I know it's cool, right? Psychiatrist Dr. Daryl Matthews, quote, we know how to hurt people better than others.

We can figure out what buttons to push like a surgeon with a scalpel. Psychologists have techniques, and we know what the pressure points are. So we should use scalples on them? Exactly. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yes. Get the scalples. You guys want to let you get some dogs? Come on. No more spitballing, Jim. All right. The CIA sent Jim to Thailand to consult.

Where dog rights were waived. To consult on the psychological aspects of Zubaida's interrogation. OK. First, he had to watch to see if Zubaida was using the al-Qaeda resistance techniques. He said, quote, there was intense pressure for results. There was a tremendous amount of pressure not to let other Americans die. Who said that? Jim. So this is not.

That seems like that might be in his head. Yeah. So Jim ordered Zubaida stripped nude, exposed to cold, and blasted with rock music to prevent him from sleeping. Jim said he searched his soul. Oh, God. And did he have a warrant? And even though he had ethical obligations. Let me guess. Quote. The least worst choice was to help save American lives.

It seemed like something was going to happen at any minute. If you're starting with least worst. Or it seemed like. Least worst thing. Least worst. Like in a fantasy dream I had about stuff. Yeah. I had this dream where bad things happened.

So I'm going to strangle this guy. After he's naked. Hope he likes Bon Jovi. Okay. Now the FBI had already been questioning Zubaida using the old tried and trick true technique of building rapport. Or didn't they have water? The FBI agent chart said I questioned him from March to June 2002. He provided us with important actionable intelligence. The FBI agent did not believe in torture

because he thought it would come back to haunt the U.S. later. Sucker. Oh wait. Whoa, what a bitch. Oh I don't like to pop out guys' eyeballs. There were also others questioning the torture. The Thailand station chief. The officer overseeing the jail. A top interrogator.

And the top agency psychologist. But any one of importance. Nobody of importance. Okay. These are just all door guys. It sounds like interns. As the torture continued for weeks. The senior psychologist left.

And then one by one the FBI agents left. Now Jim was directing the questioning. And speaking directly to Zhu Baidah. He said he just wanted results. That's not good. What do you mean? That's just not good. And July 2002 Bruce joined Jim in Thailand.

Oh good. I was just going to say. Where's everybody? One of these two going to BFF a little bit over torture somewhere. Thank you. The two bros were together again. On August 1st the Justice Department completed a formal legal opinion. Authorizing quote reverse engineered seer methods.

It's why it's so strict. It's just like. Because we've already gone. Like we went through this. We and I have lived through this. What torture. Well just you know like he like I'm sure that that was on the news. And you were like okay whatever.

Right. Oh that's stupid. That sounds bad. To Twitter. Now only now only Jim and Bruce. I guess we could call him juice. Juice. Absolutely.

Now only juice were allowed. Together we are juice. Now only juice were allowed to have contact with Zubaida and torture him. How you doing Zubaida? We're juice. That's what. But no I don't. We're juice.

I don't. No I hear bad things about juice. Put on some ACDS. No. They put him in a small box. Slant him into a wall and they waterboarded him. The other CIA personnel there just watched. This went on for a month.

Oh my god. He was waterboarded 83 times. Oh my god. So it was like. One of meal. I mean Jesus Christ 83 fucking times. Must have been hydrated. That isn't.

I mean that like you must just be. Every time you hear that door open you're like. I don't know no no no. Oh god. CIA agents said. They were. That's how they make pate though. That is.

Nobody's crying about that. CIA agents there said they were repulsed by what they were seeing. If you are repulsing CIA agents. They have to watch and see so much bad stuff like to get into the position to be in the CIA like you have to watch limbs get blown like you just have to become very familiar with graphic stuff. So for them to be like. Hey man.

I'm good. I'm good. Look we're down to murder him but can we just not do that to him anymore. You know what. CIA out. See I later. Some of them sent messages back to CIA at Langley saying they wanted out of the program. Dear mom and dad.

This is too much. Juice is too much. You drink your juice. Jim quote. They start wearing one suit. We are juice. We are juice. Jim quote.

The whole point of the waterboarding was to introduce fear and panic. Did he know anyone was writing this down when he was giving these. Is this testimony or is this an interview. Yeah they're interviews. He's done interviews. Turn him down next time. We didn't think detainees were going to provide actual intelligence in a state of fear and panic. You have to start the session with waterboarding but the questioning happens the next time you

come into the room. Wait so the idea. It's good cop bad bad it's good torture bad torture. But the idea is that you leave two hours in between and he's going to be like. You torture him. And then he's like. And then you come back in and you're like hey well I haven't seen you. So that's how I saw you.

You're upside down with your mouth full of water. Who wants pancakes. But that is ridiculous right. That's insanity. That's it's complete. That's why you bring it up. It's insane. It's fucking insane.

It's insane to think that you can put you can pour gallons of water into a man's head. And then a couple hours later be like. Hey what are you doing. Boy I'm sorry about it. How are you. I'm a bad boy. I was bad earlier. You're a good boy.

I'm a bad boy. You are juice. I know who you are. You are juice. No not juice. Not juice. But the torture wasn't working. Jim and Bruce became frustrated because they kept torturing Zoubaida.

Asking the same question and getting the same response. Oh which was. Kill me. Hey the torture stopped when Jim and Bruce decided that Zoubaida had no more information to give. Basically they learned he had no information by torturing him. Well at least at least he got to drown on land. I call this a resolution. Yeah no that's that's I think we can all rest a little easier.

At least we know. Yeah. Now we can be sure that he knew nothing. The only thing the only thing he had in his head was water. Water. Lots of it. Next the CIA Jim gave the CIA a presentation outlining an aggressive approach to interrogations. Jim recommended they use people who had experienced torturing Zoubaida.

Now. Go ahead. Am I crazy or is that list pretty short. There's a couple guys on it. Is there one guy and is his name juice. That's yes that's it. Our recommendation is that you hire me and Bruce. Juice.

Yes we're calling ourselves juice. I don't know if you cut the memo. We're wearing one suit now. Yes so they recommended that they be hired. We know just the men for the job. Us. Hello. At the same time the Justice Department.

I think when a director would be like I found the perfect actor to play the lead. Me. Me. I'm the guy. I'm him. I've done it before in my own movie about me. At the same time Justice Department lawyers finalized the legal memos justifying torture. Lawyers used Jim's claim as part of their justification for redefining acts of torture

to now be legal safe and effective. If health professionals who went by a code of ethics were monitoring the detainees then it was footy shaking your head. No they weren't monitoring it. But if health professionals were there. No they're not professionals anymore. We're on a code of ethics than what they're doing. The professionals you loved are dead juices here now.

That has to be right. No. So without Jim and Bruce the health professionals the Justice Department could never have written the legal memos. Jim and Bruce were the key. It's just like it's almost like nepotism. But Yale psychiatrist Charles Andy Morgan had studied Sear personal in the torture program. His studies show that the use of torture techniques impairs memory and leads to an accurate answer.

Well I used to know and then you beat the fuck out of me. I knew everything until you poured water in my head 45 times. So Jim and Bruce's methods actually create a mental state that makes it too difficult to remember stuff. Right. So they almost anti interrogate. They are that's exactly right. We're the cleaners.

We clean memories. Quote by making people fearful and stressed they were getting worse information. Torture works at some things. It is very good for silencing people. And the desired effect is not silence. Am I right Dave? Right. Right.

Well the Chinese used it to make people say false stuff. Right. But this is different. This is very different. It is the same. Because you're not remembering anything. Because you don't remember anything. Right.

This was long known in the seer community. The seer techniques were based on communist methods designed not to find the truth but to produce false confessions. And the psychologists in the seer program were all aware of the false memory findings including Jim and Bruce. It's just strange. So it is a little questionable. Why should they do it?

I don't know Dave because they like to hurt dogs. Well Jim and Bruce were making $1,800 a day. That's $9,000 a week $432,000 a year each. So I feel. And that's just Monday through Friday. If I put on weekends then it's more. But I feel like you're saying they were in it because of the money. I just did a 40 hour torture week.

I'm bushed. Oh my god. I mean I'm honestly. Honey you know what? Can you just turn off the music tonight? And can we paint the walls? Honey can you do me a favor? Can you turn the music up real loud?

Don't open this door no matter what I say. I'm going to drink a kiddie pool. Meanwhile local officials in Thailand were becoming concerned about the the black site near Bangkok. It was cone named it was code named Katzai. But the CIA then changed that name because they thought it might be racist. Oh god. Seriously.

What? What? God. I mean if you're if you're if you're like that just. You're torturing people. Just shows you where it's at. It's just like they're they're torturing people but they're changing the name Katzai because it might be.

You know you guys we don't want to get a bad rapper out here. Let's call it fun camp. The CIA then started building their own black sites that were CIA. And the way I love Katzai might be a little racist. Anyway more black sites. Then keep them coming. No problem there. Holy shit.

I didn't even think of that. These would be CIA owned. They were in Bucharest Romania, Morocco and another Eastern European city. Soon there would be eight in total. They were all built to look identical in case they moved prisoners from place to place. They would be disoriented and wouldn't know where they were. Oh that is oh my god that would drive me crazy. Yeah.

Once when you wake up and you're in if you don't you're in a hot sweltering fucking place and all of a sudden the next day you're in a cold place and you have no idea what time it is. You don't know it. Yeah. You have no idea where you are. Yeah. Excuse me please.

I'm having a little trouble sleeping. Can I just where am I? Please. You're in Paris. Soon. So there's eight. There's also Guantanamo Bay nicknamed Strawberry Fields because CIA eights. Because you stay there forever.

Joked that you would be there forever. No really? Yeah. Oh my god. Ah. You can't how it's when you get cutesy that's that's when you're like this is no longer the professional organization or what you someone strive for at one point. Hey Bob I just thought of something.

You know we're joking around and making up names like Strawberry Fields. Yeah. Maybe we're completely fucked in the head. No no we're just being cutie pies. I don't know I feel weird right now. We're adorable. Okay. This is classic us.

In October 2002 Guantanamo officials asked. This one's called Ubla de Ublada because life goes on here forever. Why is this one called The Walrus? Because we're going to kill you. No it's McCartney. Ah. In October 2002 Guantanamo officials asked for permission to use enhance. Who is the Eggman?

Answer us. Who is the goddamn Eggman? Pour water in his mouth. I know I like I like rap. Who's The Walrus? I like rap and I like. Give us names. I like Motown.

Look look look look. Okay okay. You want you want a pancake? Yeah I want a pancake. I have one of those pancakes. Okay thanks. You like syrup? You said you're my best friend.

Okay. Hey who's The Walrus? It's Frank. Who's the goddamn Eggman? It's Frank. They're both Frank? Get the pancakes out of here. Get the water!

Who's The Walrus? McCartney I know that one. Guantanamo officials asked for permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques including isolation, sensory deprivation, removal of clothing, hooding, exploitation of the detainees phobias such as fear of dogs and threatening him or his family. I like how that's like specific to the detainee. It doesn't sound like Abu Ghraib at all does it? No no no no.

None of that sounds like. No it actually sounds like Club Med. At all. It doesn't sound exactly like the pictures we saw. No what do you mean with the dogs and the bags over the head and the people making naked cheerleading pyramids? Remember how we were made to think that that was an isolated incident? Dave the prisoners did that.

I haven't been listening. What's happening? Okay. And of course waterboarding. The cells were small, non-slip floors, flexible plywood covered walls to soften the impact. In November 2002 Bruce went to a CIA secret prison called Detention Site Cobalt as a psychologist to assess a detainee.

He can't. But Bruce being Bruce he did more than that. Instead of just observing he took part in the interrogation of Gui Raman. Raman was subjected to 48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower and rough treatment. Oh and he died. Really? Yep.

Just a guy that American tortured to death. It's no big deal these are bad guys. In February 2003 after watching Bruce and Jim at work the CIA rendition team questioned the psychologist qualifications and said any info collected by them was suspect. The CIA rendition team. I will say this it is a little comforting that the CIA is upset. I know. Because you could see a situation.

It's a little comforting but it's also terrifying. It's terrifying. It is it's on it's both. But if the CIA is saying you're going too far. Yeah yeah but it yes it's terrible. It's terrible but you like when I think back on this time because this is a pretty specific time I think you know you feel like there's no voice of reason. No.

So it's almost nice to hear. But there was a voice of reason being ignored. Right of course. And if the CIA is your voice of reason. You're fucking up for sure. Yeah you're being a real if the CIA is like bro take a five you're being a real dick. And the CIA psychologist they said they had a problem with Bruce being both the psychologist assessing the detainees and torturing them at the same time.

He's torturing them and he's going are you okay bro. Are you okay. Torture torture torture. How are you. He's like behind like the double-sided mirror and he's like guys guys are doing it all wrong. Like Bruce just please just sit there and watch. You were here to assess. No seriously you're doing it wrong.

There's buckets are too tight. Let me just get in there for a sec. No no no. Let me just get in there for a sec. No no no. No. But I got a hammer. Ah.

Let me get their feet wet. Meanwhile Bruce and Jim were coming up with new and fun ways to waterboard a man named Khalid Ashik Mohammed. Let's put him on a surfboard. Bruce said quote he had not seen a resistor like Mohammed and we're going to go to school on this guy. This is the dude who when they arrested him he looked like he was partying all night. Yeah.

Like he looked like he was like an extra in the hangover. Yeah. Again he was number two or one or whatever. It's always the we always give the number two or one. Two yeah. That's that's very true. They even involved their waterboarding techniques on on him. They changed it up a little bit.

How did they change it up. Well they would they would like cup they would cup the water with using their hands right underneath his nose and then when he tried to talk to tell him something they'd let the water in. Information about psychologists assisting in torture started to leak out in 2004. 2005 New Yorker report on Guantanamo Bay Prison quote six by eight foot cells with walls and doors made of metal mesh. Two in front facing rows.

The cells were protected by a low metal roof but were open to tropical air. Comfort items were awarded to detainees for good behavior or confiscated as punishment. Among these luxuries. Oh this is going to be something. A roll of toilet paper. Well I guess if you could get him to waterboard your ass it's kind of like a bidet. Oh my god one down here please you guys took my paper. That is so crazy quote I mean yeah okay as we reach the end of the cell block hysterical

shouts in broken English erupted from a caged exercise area nearby. Come here a man screamed see here there are liars. He was middle aged with a full beard and skinny bow legs and worn orange shirt in shorts. No sleep he yelled no food no medicine no doctor everybody's sick here. As I was leaving the detainee pointed to his own cell block which was off limits to journalists and screamed there are liars liars liars. His English is pretty good one official joked. Oh god.

Just to get to the point where you're like he's he's stupid he's a dummy. At Guantanamo behavioral scientists control the most money details. In the case of one detainee he was given seven squares of toilet paper per day. Luxury seven squares. That's I mean a delicate ride. A lawyer for one detainee quote the whole place appears to be one giant human experiment. Now Kirk Hubbard who was the CIA psychologist who brought Jim and Bruce in the gatekeeper and who supervised them contacted the APA concerned that psychologists assisting the

interrogation might be violating the APA ethics code might be a little bit weird here. How do you guys stand on making a guy drink water upside down. Huh is that part of psychology. Huh it is his head. The APA ethics director was a Dr. Stephen Benke. Besides being the ethics director Dr. Benke was also a Department of Defense contractor working on torture training programs. I'll see you later bud have a good day.

Take care Dave thanks. What happened. Well there's triple standards apparently who knew. Why is it why do we live in why do we know all this stuff. And nothing is done. And nothing ever why how is it because corruption. But even then you would think that as a people we would get I don't think and it's not even not even this I'm not even saying over this this is terrible but the double standard stuff

is just it's it's I mean just you can look it up online there's some dude came up with an app where you can find out how much like a politician gets from from and then what they do with it. And so so it's all very transparent and very out there and yet we're just like well also Dr. Stephen Benke neglected to mention that he was working for the Department of Defense to the APA board. So slipped my mind to deal with the leaks about psychologists being in on the torture in 2005 the APA convened the presidential task force on psychological ethics and national security to determine whether the APA ethics code addressed psychologists being in the room

during coercive interrogations and helping to extract intelligence. Do not tell me juice was in charge. So and and to look into this further so we are juice. What they're asking what was is it ethical for psychologists to watch torture and torture. How is that even being asked a tough call. It's a very easy call. It's a very tough call. One member of the task force like that should have been like a two minute meeting.

Yes it is. All right adjourned. Yeah I would one member of the task force who happened to be a senior army psychologist named Colonel Morgan Banks said that he saw no problem with psychologists helping in interrogations quote as long as they don't break the law. Right because there are no laws. And that's how most of the pen task force sought because almost every single one of them were in business with the military or CIA.

Fun. They were carefully selected for their bias. Though not all of them worked out. Jean Maria Erigo was appointed unexpectedly although she happened to be the daughter of an intelligence operative so they probably assumed because she was the daughter of a CIA guy that she would be on board but she was not on board with what she was hearing in the task force and was constantly disagreeing with them. Erigo and two others wanted to include references to the Geneva Convention

and specific interrogation techniques that psychologists could not be involved in. I mean when someone's like should we talk about the Geneva Convention. Shut up woman. Alrighty. Of course that didn't happen. Of course not. The pens task force decided to change the APA ethics code. Oh god they're like well yeah I think the problem here is the code.

We got a we got a part of me we got a water board that code a little bit. Gentlemen I see a very clear answer here. The thing that says we can't do it. We make it into a thing that says we can do it. I was just thinking the same thing. Yeah yeah right. Yeah. What are we doing here.

We're making money. We're making money. Money making money. I'm gonna go use a hundred squares of toilet paper. Psychologists could now be present in torture sessions so long as they were help keeping the interrogation safe legal ethical and effective. But they what. But they're not and they won't and there's no rules.

Excuse me how can you tell. Excuse me I'm talking it is safe legal ethical and effective torture. Yeah but you just work with me here. No I'm not going to work with you here. Okay look we created this thing called ethical torture. Yes which is why which means exactly. So the problem is that you've legalized everything with your bullshit and now you're saying nothing illegal but nothing is illegal really anymore.

You know what I'm feeling. You know what I'm feeling. Anger animosity. I'm feeling like legal murder. Oh god. Okay. Ethical legal murder that's how I feel when I hear you talking. Okay.

That's how I feel. Okay. I would like to ethically murder you. All right I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna get out of here. You are a nightmare. You're not going anywhere. Get the hood.

Oh god. Oh god. The task forces the task forces statement quote. We want to have an influence on the issue of torture and that's why we're staying engaged. Others have divorced themselves from the process all together like the American Medical Association which has said it won't allow its members to be involved in interrogations in any way. But we think we can have more in effect if we stay at the table. We can play a positive role in maintaining money welfare.

I mean detainee welfare. Money. So that's obviously a fucking vague horseshit. It's not completely insane. It's not even that vague. It's I mean. But it gives it gives. It infers.

It's such a bullshit statement that it's like go ahead and torture. Right. While under the guise of we're helping it makes it makes you feel better about it. But it shouldn't. The Department of Defense had been in business for years with the profession of psychology. The APA wanted to keep them happy. It had a payoff for Bruce and Jim. They now had a full green light.

That's not the color their light should be. They now have a full green light. No it should be a blinking red. Bruce. Juice. Yeah. Good to go baby. Juice is back.

Juice is back. You know you have been holding back. Yeah. Juice it up. Juice time. And now they had real experience. We're going to waterboard them with the pancakes. And now they had real experience interrogating

our Cata operatives. And so with everything being on the up and up they used it to cash in. Jim and Bruce formed Mitchell Jensen and Associates in 2005. Sounds harmless. Has to be. They had offices in Spokane and Virginia. There were five additional shareholders for who had worked in the SEER program. Soon after forming the company they landed a CI contract to provide interrogation services

at secret prisons. They were now a company of torturers. Oh my god. What? I'm not feeling good. What? All that's happened. No.

To get away from me first of all. Look all that's happened is that the government was torturing people and to save a few bucks we're outsourcing to a contractor. You know privatization is the way to go these days. It's capitalism. So what's wrong with privatizing torture? No we may as well turn a buck on torture. The government guys don't do it that well.

They're all like oh I'm reposed this makes me feel weird. Let's get some guys who cut corners. They don't fucking they don't fucking run up the budgets with a bunch of bunch of fucking administrators right? We got to we got to get torturing down low cost direct simple torture. Are you saying what I'm thinking you're saying? Huh? Juice.

I'm talking about juice. You say juice three times it appears. Juice, juice, juice. Hey it's juice. We're back. A year later contractors made up 73% of the people at the CIA's office in charge of interrogations. The majority were from Mitchell and Jensen Associates.

Turns out the CIA had asked Jim to form the company as a way to combat the high turnover of torturers. Dave this story is arguably torture. They were having Dave. Hold on. No. They were having such a hard time getting government people to torture people that they asked a guy who was really good at it to start a private company of torturers.

It's just it's you just would hope that corruption was a little sneakier. Oh fuck. Good good stuff so far. They wanted people who had experience like seer veterans. There's like so they wanted horrible people. Yeah and they came. Soon those CIA agents who could stomach the interrogations were retiring and joining Mitchell and Jensen Associates.

By 2007 the company had 60 employees. That's 60 torturers. That's a good number. Now Origo the woman who was on the task force. She's not into it. And her two colleagues tried to put the word out about the what the ABA had done with their ethics assassinate their character. The response of those in power at the APA was to try to harm their reputations.

When independent journalist Amy Goodman reported on what had happened the APA board and task force member Gerald Kutcher wrote an open letter to Goodman. In it he said Origo was improperly influenced by the suicide of her CIA operative father and had quote a troubled upbringing. That's so messed up. Well it's annoying that it's so unethical that it's insane. Yes also extremely unethical. This was weird because Origo's father was still alive and had never committed suicide.

Suddenly it's not wrong anymore it's just fun. What how do you do that. I didn't know that was an option. You can do that. You can just say that sort of stuff. It's fucking crazy. That's insane. And then she just put out a picture of her and her father from the week before.

I was like he's not dead. This is my Facebook. We had a luau. And when it was proven and and when that was how easy to disprove. I mean that's the same when it was proven that he was still alive. No one on the APA board stood up and protested what had happened. Instead Origo was given the cold shoulder by friends and colleagues. Although it can't be verified word was that Jim and Bruce were awarded a medal

by the CIA for their advanced interrogation techniques. The CIA believes success of the tactics was quote absolutely in the ether said one Pentagon official. In 2005 Jim and Bruce said they had nothing to do with the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Fair they might not have. They might have been at the other black. Yeah they probably could have been at the ones. We didn't do that.

Yeah. Depends what the definition of ease is. Yeah yeah that's right. Jim's quote. I was just a cog in the machine. I'm a guy who got asked to do something for his country by people the highest level of government and I did the best I could. Oh god.

I was just they were just asking me to take the guy and put him upside down and put water in the state. He's like a dumb dad on a sitcom. Jim will be right back. In 2007 in a suburb of Tampa Florida. Jim Mitchell built a waterfront house that is worth eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Of course he went to Tampa. It has. He is Tampa.

It has four thousand two hundred and thirty three square feet of living space. Four bathrooms. A three car garage. A pool. Central air conditioning. And a wooded walkway leading to a lakeside combination dock and gazebo. He has a dockzebo. He's got a dockzebo.

Oh my god. Or a dock. Bruce Jensen's house is in the state of Washington on 15 acres worth one million six hundred thousand dollars. It is six thousand nine hundred and sixteen square feet with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. In two thousand what he got really quiet. In 2007 juice released a statement. The actions we have taken have been legal and ethical.

We resolutely opposed torture. Under no circumstances have we ever endorsed nor would we endorse the use of interrogation methods designed to do physical or psychological harm. Plus her dad really is dead. Plus that lady's a cool because her dad's dead. That's a fake picture. She's weakened and burning her dad. On her Facebook.

That would be the greatest end of the story ever. On April 9 2009 President Obama's CIA director in a statement to employees announced the decommissioning of the agency's secret jails repeated a pledge not to use coercion and stated no CIA contractors will conduct interrogations. The contract with Mitchell Jensen and the associates was then terminated. In days their offices were empty and the phones were disconnected. They had already been paid 81 million dollars of the 180 million contract with the CIA. And that doesn't include the salaried money they made before forming the company.

Yeah that nine grand a day. And the CIA is obligated the CIA is obligated to pay their legal expenses through 2021. Oh my god. In August 2009 they retained a lawyer in 2010 the Texas State Board of Psychologists was given was had a complaint filed against Jim by critics who wanted his license to practice psychology revoked. The complaint was rejected. I mean that's like just do that.

That's like the bare minimum. Just be like hey you're out of the club. Bare fucking minimum. I mean it's the bare minimum. Bare minimum. Can't do that. Yeah. In 2012 Bruce was picked to be a bishop in the Mormon church in Spokane.

Oh my god. Oh don't let him baptize her. Tell me where you're from. I can't stop baptizing these kids. That's what he baptizes terrorists now. Where is it. Where is it. Where's the bomb.

But it didn't last long. He was forced to step down quote due to concerns expressed about his past work related to interrogation techniques. What stuff. You can't think of anything. Jim blamed Democrats for all this blowback. I was just going to say they're the culprits. Saying they threw him under the bus.

Yeah. He also attacked Obama's health care policy calling it a shit sandwich. Well. Andy disagrees with Obama's stance on global warming because it's a myth. Well he's probably part of the reason there's drought. We're going to look back and like think of all the water we used for waterboarding and be like man that would have been helpful. That fucking Jim.

That goddamn Jim. Why didn't we use salt water at least. So he's just a fucking. Awesome dude. Right wing kook with no fucking understanding of the truth and then he gets the torture and make millions of dollars. Yeah. And now he's in like the phase of sort of rationalizing it.

Yeah. In 2015 an independent review report known as the Hoffman report which investigated the APA and its part in torture was released. Everything came to light and the membership of the APA was furious. Many prominent psychologists left the APA while others decided to try to change it from within. Some board members in APA leadership resigned. Others did not. The ethics language was changed to prevent psychologists from taking part in torture last year.

The Department of Justice announced the CIA officials responsible for the torture regime would not face criminal charges. But that didn't stop a civil court in on April 22nd 2016. A judge ruled for the first time ever that a civil lawsuit brought by victims of the CIA torture program could move forward. The victims civil lawsuit alleges that psychologists James Elmond Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen also known as Jews designed a brutal torture program that amounted to a joint criminal enterprise. The three plaintiffs were subjected to torture and scientific experimentation

which included anal penetration, mock execution, being doused with icy cold water, and water boarding. One of the plaintiffs is dead Rui Raman who died in 2002 after being stripped naked from the waist down and shackled to a cold cement wall where temperatures were 36 degrees Fahrenheit, degrees Fahrenheit, two degrees Celsius. He was also subjected to 48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower, and rough treatment by Bruce. The CIA so far has paid out more than one million dollars for Bruce and Jim's legal defenses.

They will argue that they were not key architects of the interrogation program. We didn't do it, huh? What's your defense? I won, I won, man! You know what we should do is waterboard him. Oh my god, we can get all the information out of him. Get the facts out of him. Although...

Wait, if they didn't... Hold on, if they didn't torture anybody, then it can be done to them. That's right. Right? That's right. Why can't it be? And if they don't reveal the truth, then we can just assume that they forgot the facts. Thank you.

Thank you. No, we should actually be able to do this to them. We should. Why can't we? Well, no, it's a good way to get truth out of people. We need to get the information. We need to know... Let's put something up their ass and pour water in their heads.

Hmm. On May 17th, 2016... Dave, let me just check the calendar real quick. All righty. A week ago, the CIA Inspector General's Office said it had mistakenly destroyed its only copy of a comprehensive Senate torture report, despite lawyers for the Justice Department assuring a federal judge that copies of the documents were being preserved.

You're very quiet. Yeah, I'm very pissed. The erasure of the document by the spy agencies until... We only have one and then the dog ate it. We're sorry. We didn't know no better. Yeah, that's right. The CIA just keeps one copy of most stuff.

Hey, Judge, we made a boo-boo. So, um... So, you know, with the CIA, we got records of stuff, but we keep throwing shit into a dumpster? Do you know Larry? He's stupid, but we keep putting him in charge of the files for important stuff. What Larry did, and this is classic Larry, is he wanted to get all the truth out of the documents so he water-boarded. Right, that's right. Thus destroying the only copy.

Here we go. It's like a circle, Judge. Do you know what a circle is? The erasure of the documents by the spy agencies internal... Documents by the spy agencies internal watchdog was deemed inadvertent by the Inspector General. One intelligence community source said that last summer, CIA Inspector General officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document.

Snowden, you know Snowden? Oh, I love him. Said that that is virtually impossible. Yeah. A 6,700 page report contains thousands of secret files about the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation methods, including water-boarding, sleep deprivation, and other aggressive interrogations techniques at the Black Sites is now gone. But they're saying there might be other copies of it, but the CIA is trying to...

March 2000, March 30th, 2000. How can they have every email of Hillary Clinton and not have one more copy of this thing? Oh, they don't have every... Well, no, that's true. Let's not. Let's not. If you set up a server for someone, would you ever email them to talk about it? It's where that guy's emails aren't there.

March 30th, 2016. Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists. What's the percentage? Two-thirds. Those who back torture do so because of the, quote, ticking time bomb scenario, also known as the Jack Bauer moment. Oh, joy.

Which, according to FBI interrogator, Jack Clunin, quote, doesn't happen in reality. Dude, they ain't seen the right episodes. There's some words really effective. I guess if you're talking about season two, you might be right. Season two through four. The Senate torture report, quote, never found an example of this hypothetical ticking bomb scenario. But as Vanity Fair concluded, quote,

were it not for the immediate and future profits to be made by psychologists looking for any angle for self advancement, the torture of detainees may never have happened at all. Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba. Torture. Do you feel better knowing about it? I think everyone, I felt like everyone should know about this. It's good to know about.

It's just, I think there's something particularly upsetting when it feels like it's on our watch. Oh, it's so on our watch. And I think those are the ones that make you feel, someday our soldiers will be tortured because of this and we won't be able to say anything. Well, the truth is that there, I think, you know, to your overall point, I think the, you know, if you create, if you create a climate where rules don't apply to you, and people find out about that, it makes them feel like they don't need to follow rules.

And as that progresses further and further, you're just going to continue to one up each other. Like, you know, the whole thing with ISIS is that there, I mean, it's brutal, you know, like beheadings, brutal, brutal stuff. But it, in a way, I mean, like, you know, we've, We have to be better. We have to set the example. I mean, I was listening to this guy, his name's like Jaco Wilco or something. And he's this,

Well, that sounds made up. It's, it's a imaginary friend I've been hanging out with. But he's this, he's this X Navy SEAL and he, and he's, he's amazing. And he talks about like the cost of war and how it, it's a no brainer, but it's like a lesson that we learn every like 30 years again and again, which is that just, just don't get involved in like never ending conflicts. And then as soon as we're out of it, and it feels like, I mean, we're never fully out of it. But as soon as it's sort of dissipated, then we get right back into it.

And the whole thing is that it's just, I mean, it's like a hornet's nest. So you, you should steer clear of it unless it's absolutely imperative, which, you know, maybe sometimes there are circumstances where it is. But you, you make it so that when there's no rules, then nobody follows fucking, you can't ask someone else to follow rules. If you're peeking when you're playing hide and go seek, you can't get pissed when the kid peeks. You heard it here.

You heard, you heard the hide and seek comparison. You want to give us a call? We're talking about hide and seek and torture. What? I think we'll all remember where we were when Gareth made the hide and seek analogy over Guantanamo. Olly Olly Waterborne. Why do people think I'm simple? We signed cars.

Ugh. Oh, that was...