Phone call from Susan Lindauer
Susan called, after I got home from class, last night.
Her view is that the government does not want her claiming that she was working as an asset for our intelligence agencies. They will medicate (with medicine that has unpleasant side effects but does nothing to eliminate delusions) until she stops claiming to be an asset. Problem is, that is her defense and without a defense they will then imprison her.
Wouldn't you freak out? Your government is talking about torturing you until you agree to go to prison. Forget the rights against cruel and unusual punishment, the right against self incrimination, the right to a speedy trial....
Carswell, in one of their first reports to the judge made the claim that she was claiming to be a CIA agent. That did not fly. She is very clear on the difference between an agent and an asset. The court knew that.
When Susan heard people like our President saying we needed to do everything that we could to fight terrorism and capture the people responsible for 9/11, she marched off to use what ever contacts she had overseas. Perhaps she has delusions of grandiosity, but we also know that her connections to Richard Fuisz, who represented himself to be CIA to journalists who met him with Susan at the Lockerbie trial, and Paul, of the DIA, who was also in attendance are well documented in the Scottish and European coverage of Lockerbie. Can we be sure that someone like Dr. Fuisz was not taking advantage of or feeding her delusions?
One might think that we would have some sworn-in testimony concerning those relationships before torture to force her to deny them commences.
This whole Carswell episode seems to me to be torture: Cruel and unusual punishment before there is a trial. The eagerness of Carswell doctors to employ medicines that good evidence says do not work to treat delusions such as Susan's, and that by all accounts can have very unpleasant side effects.... I am left thinking that this is the culture in which the reservists who were caught torturing Iraqis in abu ghraib were created. These are self-styled patriots who neglect to consider that they are handling someone who is innocent until proven guilty. They regard her as a terrorist--someone who is fair game for what ever games they have in mind, and one quickly discerns from their abbreviated attempts to diagnose her, throwing her conditions into the category of unspecified psychosis, that they are more intent upon inflicting their procedures than in the health of patients or the pursuit of truth. These seem to me to be small-minded sadists who pass themselves off as medical professions, a breed who have been with the human race for too long.
Years ago, when I was in boot camp, we had service week. This was a week of long hours working in the mess hall at boot camp. Maybe it was actually two weeks. It was Hell. We had a chief who ran one of the shifts that everyone called "Little Hitler." He enjoyed the title and would terrorize recruits. I remember being called into his office before a gathering of a few other recruits and him flattering me about my blue eyes and youthful appearance. I was glad to get out of his office when their amusements turned to someone else. A few days later, I pulled from the sack of scrub uniforms that we drew from for work clothes, a jersey that had a battle efficiency "E" on the arm. I wore it that day and other recruits were quick to notice it. They didn't know whether they were suppose to salute me or not, but if I gave an order they jumped-to. At first, I employed my new found power by reorganizing the food line, getting people to put down their laden trays then come back through the separate salad and dessert kiosks rather than trying to fit two more plates onto their trays. It was an improvement that lasted only as long as somebody stood at the line and instructed. Then I saw a fellow recruit picking up two plates of cookies, sliding the contents of one onto the other and departing with double rations. How I delighted in sounding the alarm and delivering a cookie thief to "Little Hitler" for treatment.
We need to be very careful, whenever we entrust others with power, that we protect them from its corrupting influence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is its own fiefdom. Judges have little influence there. Your elected representatives have little influence. You can see that they are corrupted as they treat all who come there alike: whether they are convicted or pre-trial and innocent by our tradition of innocent until proven guilty. Their visitors are limited by prison rules (and her Uncle was three times denied visiting rights during visiting hours), their phone calls also, they have no Internet Access, and they are ordered not to make any contact with the press. These are fellow Americans who we have allowed to become, in too many ways, evil.
Carl Jung said, "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
Her view is that the government does not want her claiming that she was working as an asset for our intelligence agencies. They will medicate (with medicine that has unpleasant side effects but does nothing to eliminate delusions) until she stops claiming to be an asset. Problem is, that is her defense and without a defense they will then imprison her.
Wouldn't you freak out? Your government is talking about torturing you until you agree to go to prison. Forget the rights against cruel and unusual punishment, the right against self incrimination, the right to a speedy trial....
Carswell, in one of their first reports to the judge made the claim that she was claiming to be a CIA agent. That did not fly. She is very clear on the difference between an agent and an asset. The court knew that.
When Susan heard people like our President saying we needed to do everything that we could to fight terrorism and capture the people responsible for 9/11, she marched off to use what ever contacts she had overseas. Perhaps she has delusions of grandiosity, but we also know that her connections to Richard Fuisz, who represented himself to be CIA to journalists who met him with Susan at the Lockerbie trial, and Paul, of the DIA, who was also in attendance are well documented in the Scottish and European coverage of Lockerbie. Can we be sure that someone like Dr. Fuisz was not taking advantage of or feeding her delusions?
One might think that we would have some sworn-in testimony concerning those relationships before torture to force her to deny them commences.
This whole Carswell episode seems to me to be torture: Cruel and unusual punishment before there is a trial. The eagerness of Carswell doctors to employ medicines that good evidence says do not work to treat delusions such as Susan's, and that by all accounts can have very unpleasant side effects.... I am left thinking that this is the culture in which the reservists who were caught torturing Iraqis in abu ghraib were created. These are self-styled patriots who neglect to consider that they are handling someone who is innocent until proven guilty. They regard her as a terrorist--someone who is fair game for what ever games they have in mind, and one quickly discerns from their abbreviated attempts to diagnose her, throwing her conditions into the category of unspecified psychosis, that they are more intent upon inflicting their procedures than in the health of patients or the pursuit of truth. These seem to me to be small-minded sadists who pass themselves off as medical professions, a breed who have been with the human race for too long.
Years ago, when I was in boot camp, we had service week. This was a week of long hours working in the mess hall at boot camp. Maybe it was actually two weeks. It was Hell. We had a chief who ran one of the shifts that everyone called "Little Hitler." He enjoyed the title and would terrorize recruits. I remember being called into his office before a gathering of a few other recruits and him flattering me about my blue eyes and youthful appearance. I was glad to get out of his office when their amusements turned to someone else. A few days later, I pulled from the sack of scrub uniforms that we drew from for work clothes, a jersey that had a battle efficiency "E" on the arm. I wore it that day and other recruits were quick to notice it. They didn't know whether they were suppose to salute me or not, but if I gave an order they jumped-to. At first, I employed my new found power by reorganizing the food line, getting people to put down their laden trays then come back through the separate salad and dessert kiosks rather than trying to fit two more plates onto their trays. It was an improvement that lasted only as long as somebody stood at the line and instructed. Then I saw a fellow recruit picking up two plates of cookies, sliding the contents of one onto the other and departing with double rations. How I delighted in sounding the alarm and delivering a cookie thief to "Little Hitler" for treatment.
We need to be very careful, whenever we entrust others with power, that we protect them from its corrupting influence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is its own fiefdom. Judges have little influence there. Your elected representatives have little influence. You can see that they are corrupted as they treat all who come there alike: whether they are convicted or pre-trial and innocent by our tradition of innocent until proven guilty. Their visitors are limited by prison rules (and her Uncle was three times denied visiting rights during visiting hours), their phone calls also, they have no Internet Access, and they are ordered not to make any contact with the press. These are fellow Americans who we have allowed to become, in too many ways, evil.
Carl Jung said, "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
posted by JB | 5:24 AM
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