Mormons and Torture

In the April 2008 issue of Sunstone Magazine, Boyd Peterson- the Mormon Studies Dean at Utah Valley University, wrote a fascinating 3 page article on Mormons and torture.

Mitt Romney, of course, facing data which showed that when 100 Americans were polled and given 10 adjectives each to describe him, 0% ever used the word "tough", famously suggested we should "double the size of Guantanamo" in a courageous move of cheap political bravado.

But I didn't know this

• The 2 authors of the new torture techniques being practiced by CIA interrogators are both Mormon psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jenssen. Colleagues call them "the Mormon Mafia."
• Steve Kleinman, and Air Force Reserve colonel and expert in military intelligence, says it is weird that the CIA chose 2 clinical psychs who have no intel background at all, who never conducted an interrogation, and who "have caused more harm to American national security than they will ever understand."
• The Justice Department's Legal Counsel, Judge Jay Bybee, was the one defending the interrogation techniques, writing memos in 2002 that even the Bush administration has since disavowed
• Dan Burk, LDS law prof at the U. of Minnesota, started blogging to protest the actions of the 3 above
• "Best of all", Fred Gicks, a BYU law professor, said in the Salt Lake Tribune "It's fine to talk about the teachings of the Savior about peace, but when the other side is not living those teachings, there are real risks by living them unilaterally."
• Worst of all, Alyssa Peterson, a 27 year old LDS soldier who knew Arabic, became the 3rd woman to die in Iraq when she commiteed suicide in September 2003. She objected to the interrogation techniques being used on prisoners and after 2 days in "The Cage" refused- "they stripped prisoners naked and then removed their blindfolds so that I was the first thing they saw. And then we were supposed to mock them and degrade their manhood", said Kayla Williams, a soldier who worked with Peterson.