Is free will simply a myth?, Bush Six, Investigation into U.S. Torture

articles:
The uncomfortable truth about mind control: Is free will simply a myth?
Bringing the 'Bush Six' to justice
The Spanish Investigation into U.S. Torture

The uncomfortable truth about mind control: Is free will simply a myth?
In the Sixties, a groundbreaking series of experiments found that 65 per cent of us would kill if ordered to do so. By Michael Mosley 6 January 2011

We have vain brains; we see ourselves as better than we really are. We like to think that we exercise free will, that put into a situation where we were challenged to do something we thought unacceptable then we'd refuse. But, if you believe that, then you are probably deluded. I make this claim, based partly on the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram devised and carried out ingenious experiments that exposed the frailty and self-delusion that are central to our lives. He showed how easy it is to make ordinary people do terrible things, that "evil" often happens for the most mundane of reasons....

Milgram argued that far from being in any way fake, his experiment demonstrated in a very stark way something that we all know happens, but which we can't bring ourselves to believe. It is more comfortable to imagine that there was something uniquely evil or weak about German prison guards than to believe that most of us would behave the same way when faced by the same set of circumstances. "One of the illusions about human behaviour is that it stems from personality or character, but social psychology shows us that often human behaviour is dominated by the roles that we are asked to play."....

Milgram once wrote that we are "puppets controlled by the strings of society". Yet what is also true is that not all puppets jump when their strings are pulled. Many of the fast-food managers who were rung up the "policeman" refused to follow his orders. In Milgram's own experiment, although 65 per cent of the volunteers were prepared to give apparently lethal electric shocks, that still left 35 per cent who would not.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-mind-control-is-free-will-simply-a-myth-2177014.html




Bringing the 'Bush Six' to justice - If those responsible for the Bush administration's torture policy will not face charges in the US, then in Spain it must be Michael Ratner guardian.co.uk 7 January 2011

Today, the Centre for Constitutional Rights filed papers encouraging Judge Eloy Velasco and the Spanish national court to do what the United States will not: prosecute the "Bush Six". These are the former senior administration legal advisors, headed by then US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who violated international law by creating a legal framework that materially contributed to the torture of suspected terrorists at US-run facilities at Guantánamo and other overseas locations.

Friday's filing provides Judge Velasco with the legal framework for the prosecution of government lawyers – a prosecution that last took place during the Nuremberg trials, when Nazi lawyers who provided cover for the Third Reich's war crimes and crimes against humanity were held accountable for their complicity.

CCR would prefer to see American cases tried in American courts. But we have joined the effort to pursue the Bush Six overseas because two successive American presidents have made it clear that there will be no justice for the architects of the US torture programme, or any of their accomplices, on American soil.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/06/george-bush-torture



The Spanish Investigation into U.S. Torture - Synopsis
Seeking a venue in which to hold former high-ranking U.S. officials accountable for their individual roles in directing, implementing or planning the U.S. torture program, victims and human rights advocates filed criminal complaints in Spain in 2009.

Status - Currently, there are two investigations related to the U.S. torture program pending in the National Court of Spain. The Center for Constitutional Rights has made filings in both, in an effort to ensure that victims have their day in court and that the individuals behind the program that tortured and otherwise seriously abused detainees are prosecuted. (has pdfs of "Relevant Filings in U.S. Torture Program")
http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/spanish-investigation-us-torture