Dreamwork, the CIA and Jose Padilla

NPR, God Bless Em, aired an Interview with a panel of psychology experts who are assembled in San Francisco for their yearly APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Conference this week. One of the main concerns to be discussed this year is Psychology's role in interrogating suspected Terrorists. What is "Ethical" and "Effective." The AMA and the A Psychiatrist Assoc (both Psychiatric and Psychological associations go by initials APA apparently) have completely sworn off of torture. But the Psychologists want to stay in the game. "Psychology is an important weapons system" said Kevin Kiley, the ex U.S. Army Surgeon General who was forced to resign earlier this year during the Walter Reed Scandal.

All agree that the torture tactics are now proven not to work. Most were "reverse engineered" by James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen from off of tortures of previous survivors of captivity. Mitchell and Jessen had had no previous experience or clinical background in interrogation techniques when they began to train the folks at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other CIA Black Sites. At one point, a prisoner caved in and gave all kinds of false information about Biowarfare and sent the Military on a wild goose chase. The Iraqi General Abed Hamed Mowhoush died due to injuries inflicted. Didn't the Spanish Inquisition end? Isn't it already over? Is this a form of Deja Vu? Is this memory real or chemical?

So the super amazing part of the NPR interview was that the psychologists on the panel didn't want to divulge the names of any of the offending interrogators until after their investigation kind of like how the executioners at the guillotines always wore black masks so that they could get drunk at the local pub afterward and their buddies wouldn't know who they were. I mean, once the war ends, these psychologists will be out practicing privately -- on you. Maybe they'll get a book deal. The media likes to stay mum on this subject as well. Shouldn't they just be relieved of their licenses and allowed to drive trucks or go coal mining? Oh, I'm sorry, those jobs require socialization.

The CIA prisoners have been detained for 5 or 6 years now, held without a trial and tortured the whole time. And the psychologists who have been torturing them run around on the complete opposite end of the spectrum completely unaccountable for their actions, unfettered, probably turning on their own kids and clients out of boredom. And their colleagues are out doing public information interviews on how well-meaning they are.

"How does that make me feel? Does it make me feel angry? Does it make me feel sad?" I have to admit my heart is pounding... My eyes are tearing up... So good to come out of denial...release...release... Now where's the Prozac?

I'd like to list the names of the offending psychologists along with their birth dates but these are remarkably difficult to come by out of respect for their confidentiality. The program listed and I'm sorry if I've got the names misspelled, they went by so dang fast:

John Lesso
Scott Uthall (from Abu Ghraib)
John Edmonton (from Guantanamo Bay)

Don't forget the architects, trained and well-respected members of the APA:

James Elmer
Bruce Jessen
( http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000554).

***

By jovial happenstance, yesterday, one of the lead examples of what Modern Psychology can do for You is it's most outstanding victim from the war on terror, Jose Padilla, a U.S. Citizen, one of our own. Padilla now has some kind of weird muscle twitch in his face, has PTSD, and that illness where you really think your captors are cool. He developed these problems because of what happened to him somewhere on the Carolina Coast. And he's a U.S. citizen.

Jose Padilla
b. Oct. 18, 1970 Brooklyn, NY

Sun 25 Libra; Moon Gemini; NN 2 Pisces

Padilla's a Libra Sun with a Gemini Moon with no Fire in his chart. Torturing this kind of person would be like picking the wings off a butterfly.

Padilla's chart has a conjunction of Mars and Pluto at 29 Virgo, He is violent, or at least was violent. And apparently he attracts violence. He belonged to gangs and then joined al-Qaeda. With Neptune squaring the Pisces North Node and Venus conjunct Neptune in Scorpio opposite Retrograde Saturn, one can see how he would prefer terrorism to common street warfare. One can also see how it would be impossible to extract information from him. Getting information from a Neptunian, that's like trying to extract blood from a turnip. With Retrograde Saturn, Noel Tyl's absentee Father signature, the army could have just told him that his Father had come to spring him from jail, if only he would tell them whatever it is they wanted to know. If that didn't squeeze it out of him, then nothing would. Also, compounding the bad Saturn, Padilla's Venus went retrograde by progression when he was around 2 years old and has been opposing his Retro Saturn most of his life. He just wanted somebody to love him. No wonder why he fell in love with his interrogators, they fed him, clothed him... and pulled off his wings... He's a Libra, for Christ's sake.

Natally, Neptune is squaring Padilla's Pisces North Node which it rules and Venus is conjunct his Neptune in Scorpio and opposing his Retrograde Saturn in Taurus. Illusion, Delusion, Mean Psychologists, Loving your Jailor, it's all good. Yeah, he's a sneaky guy who can't be trusted, but, if he were withholding information, he wouldn't have known he was withholding information.

Padilla was arrested in May, 2006 and secreted away without anyone's knowledge to a special accommodation by the CIA on June 16, 2002. (I tell you, those rooms reserved by Hotwire where they don't tell you where you're going beforehand, they can be madness. Sorry, just gotta get that in there.) He really had worked for al-Qaeda so he was guilty as sin. But it was small time sin and the CIA seems to have thought it could drain all of al-Qaeda's big time sin out of his little Sun-Mercury in Libra brain.

And when you pull hard enough, they start to drewl.

Padilla's progressed Sun was at 27 Scorpio conjunct his Venus-Neptune and opposing his Saturn. Sun-Neptune = Go to Jail. Institutions just really want to have their way with you at that time. Progressed Mars was conjunct his natal Mercury-Sun so I guess this is a great time for meeting the Grand Inquisitor.

Also, some Nodal Action. Nothing says, "Surprise, you're going to Jail!" like t. Uranus was at the end of Aquarius and within a couple of degrees conjunction with his Pisces North Node. At the same time there was the Saturn-Pluto opposition right on top of the t.Nodes and this was possibly conjunct his Moon. Kind of an Alfred Hitchcock moment for the mid-Mutables.

Padilla has been in jail ever after. 3 Psych people of varying ranks have determined that he is now officially mentally ill due to torture and will probably never recover. He has become a symbol of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. By coincidence Padilla is going through his Pluto square: t.Pluto 27 Sagittarius square natal Mars-Pluto 29 Virgo. He's also celebrating his Nodal Return in Pisces. The Moon yesterday, date of conviction, was in Virgo conjunct his natal Mars-Pluto. It's interesting how the major outer aspects in his natal chart are repeated in the sky right now. Both charts have a Saturn-Neptune opposition and a Saturn-Pluto trine. Don't know what it means. Just wish that his torturers could be held accountable for their crimes as well.

Oh, and by the way. Kevin Kiley, ex-US. Army Surgeon General quoted above, he who said "Psychology is an important weapons system" is born a day after Padilla (Oct 18, 1950 Pennsylvania). He's got a conjunction of Sun-Neptune (and Venus-Mercury) in Libra, echoing not only Padilla's natal Libra Sun but also the conjunction of his progressed Sun to his natal Venus-Neptune during all his whole arrest time so far. They also share a Pisces North Node (at the opposite end). Kiley's Saturn-South Node in Virgo is conjunct within a degree of Padilla's Mars-Pluto. This is the only Inquisitor Birth Date I could find but the relationship between the two charts is frightening. Kiley trained not as a Psych person but as an OB-GYN so it makes sense that psychology would seem like subtle torture to him.