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CIA’s torture program core feature of imperial conquest: Analyst

Tuesday, 16 June 2015 6:01 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 16 June 2015 6:01 PM ]

The CIA’s torture program “is a core feature of imperial conquest and imperial domination going back hundreds of years,” said Daniel Patrick Welch.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s torture of terror suspects despite having explicit rules on so-called human experimentation is the “tip of the enormous iceberg” and part of a racist policy, a political analyst in Boston says.

The CIA’s torture program “is a core feature of imperial conquest and imperial domination going back hundreds of years,” said Daniel Patrick Welch, an antiwar activist and outspoken critic of US foreign policy.

The CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks may have violated the US government’s rules against “human experimentation,” according to a report by The Guardian.

The previously classified CIA document released Monday outlined the CIA director’s ability to “approve, modify or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research,” despite the fact that such practices were prohibited without the subject’s consent.

“The human experimentation is just a way to justify torture, because you say you’re experimenting with consent, which is a silly thing in itself,” Welch told Press TV on Tuesday

Former CIA director George Tenet - who approved abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding - instructed the agency’s health staff to oversee the torture of detainees during interrogation sessions.

The CIA employed brutal techniques like waterboarding, physical abuse, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and threats of sexual abuse to interrogate terror suspects imprisoned after the 9/11 attacks.

“These revelations sicken a world that already despises US policy for what it is,” Welch said. “This is a core feature of imperialism itself and of white supremacy.”

AHT/HRJ

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