"Ethically, I think pretty much every code of ethics for doctors suggests that they should not be in an interrogation room, particularly if there's anything coercive or abusive going on"
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“Ethically” is doing a lot of work here: Jane Mayer isn’t arguing about politics or national security first, she’s invoking a profession’s own internal law. By anchoring the claim in “pretty much every code of ethics,” she sidesteps the partisan food fight and goes straight for a credibility trap. If you accept that medicine has standards, then the presence of a doctor in an interrogation room isn’t neutral support staff work; it’s an institutional violation.
The phrasing is deliberately measured. “Suggests” and “pretty much” sound modest, almost lawyerly, but the subtext is accusatory: the norm is so clear that exceptions look like evasions. Mayer’s real target is the bureaucratic alchemy that turns harm into procedure. Doctors, in the public imagination, are there to heal, to limit suffering, to protect the vulnerable. Put them next to “coercive or abusive” practices and the white coat becomes a tool of legitimization: monitoring pain thresholds, keeping a detainee “fit” for questioning, laundering brutality through clinical language.
Contextually, Mayer’s reporting lives in the post-9/11 world where “enhanced interrogation” required not just interrogators but a supporting cast of experts to make the program feel controlled, rational, defensible. This line punctures that veneer. It implies that ethical collapse isn’t only in what was done to bodies, but in how trusted institutions were recruited to manage, normalize, and extend it. The sting is that medicine’s authority doesn’t merely fail to stop abuse; it can be used to make abuse scalable.
The phrasing is deliberately measured. “Suggests” and “pretty much” sound modest, almost lawyerly, but the subtext is accusatory: the norm is so clear that exceptions look like evasions. Mayer’s real target is the bureaucratic alchemy that turns harm into procedure. Doctors, in the public imagination, are there to heal, to limit suffering, to protect the vulnerable. Put them next to “coercive or abusive” practices and the white coat becomes a tool of legitimization: monitoring pain thresholds, keeping a detainee “fit” for questioning, laundering brutality through clinical language.
Contextually, Mayer’s reporting lives in the post-9/11 world where “enhanced interrogation” required not just interrogators but a supporting cast of experts to make the program feel controlled, rational, defensible. This line punctures that veneer. It implies that ethical collapse isn’t only in what was done to bodies, but in how trusted institutions were recruited to manage, normalize, and extend it. The sting is that medicine’s authority doesn’t merely fail to stop abuse; it can be used to make abuse scalable.
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| Topic | Doctor |
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