Media

 

NCCIT officially launched on March 15, 2017.  See how we've been featured in the media below: 

For media inquiries, contact John Bagwell.

Letters to the Editor

 

The C.I.A. Psychologists - The New York Times
By Dr. Annie Sparrow, July 6, 2017

In “Suit Gives New Details of Brutal Interrogations” (“Lasting Scars” series, front page, June 22), the two psychologists who guided the C.I.A. in its post-9/11 interrogations claim that waterboarding and other techniques widely condemned as torture cause no long-term physical or psychological damage.

That claim is incompatible with the experience of several hundred survivors of torture from Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan whom I have treated over two decades as a critical-care physician. The C.I.A.’s psychologists, by contrast, have no medical training on which to base this claim.

The characterization of waterboarding — a technique in which prisoners are deliberately suffocated to induce the terror of impending death — by one psychologist as “distressing” is a chilling illustration of his clinical inability to discern the difference between a life-threatening event and non-life-threatening event, let alone acknowledge waterboarding as a form of mock execution.

Americans seek accountability for the use of torture by the United States government. Citizens in North Carolina created a public commission, of which I am a member, to investigate the state’s role in rendition through an in-state C.I.A. contractor.

The writer is an assistant professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

What Does Burr Think About Torture? - Durham Herald Sun
By Joan Walsh, July 7, 2017

In December 2014, Sen. Richard Burr yielded to intense pressure from statewide faith leaders and voted for the public release of the executive summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the Bush-era torture program. That 500-page redacted summary provided shocking evidence of the torture program’s brutality and ineffectiveness. Yet ever since, Burr has been fighting to suppress the complete 6,000-plus-page report, lest we find out more about the atrocities that were committed in our name.

Now we have an administration that has endorsed torture. Rather than promote greater transparency and accountability for the past so as to prevent future abuses, Burr has been scrambling to retrieve the few copies of the complete report that were given to federal agencies. He wants to bury the report in the bowels of Congress, where they will be shielded from Freedom of Information requests forever. Does Burr think torture is justifiable? If so, he has no conscience.

North Carolina was deeply involved with the rendition-to-torture flights, especially through Aero Contractors, near Smithfield. At least one-third, possibly more than half, of all those flown to torture were flown by Aero. This fall, the N.C. Commission of Inquiry on Torture will hold hearings on our state’s involvement. Sen. Burr should support this effort, not try to bury the evidence.

Publish torture report - News & Observer
By Curt Torell, July 5, 2017

I am grateful to “America ill-served by torture cover-up efforts” (June 24) for bringing to light Sen. Richard Burr’s burial of the full Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report. The brief summary made public in 2014 confirmed what many already knew: Torture is illegal, by international and national law and by the military code of justice; is immoral, destroying mind, body, and spirit; and is counterproductive, providing no credible intelligence, nullifying America’s claim to higher moral ground and jeopardizing troops.

With Sen. Burr’s refusal to hold hearings and reinforce accountability, the practice of torture too easily can return. As a candidate, Trump advocated for torture. Once elected, he appointed two key people previously involved in torture. The people must demand that Sen. Burr release the report to avoid an ugly repeat of history.