OHSU leads with treatment of torture victims; so why are they honoring Condi Rice, who authorized waterboarding?

By Lawrence J. Maushard of Portland, Oregon. Lawrence is a journalist and author.

How can OHSU operate a renowned torture treatment center on one hand, and sponsor a local event featuring a former high government official who reportedly authorized torture on the other?

There is a rather curious side note to the growing controversy surrounding the October 19 keynote speech by former US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice at the Simon Benson Charity Awards Dinner to benefit Portland State University.

A review of the long list of co-sponsors for the annual event turns up Oregon Health & Science University. At first glance, no surprise there, especially with the new alliance between the two schools, the OHSU/PSU Strategic Partnership Task Force, formed by PSU President Wim Wiewel and OHSU President Joe Robertson to make recommendations to best work together to leverage state resources and meet educational needs in the Portland region and Oregon as a whole, according to their publications.

It is unfortunate, however, that this alliance also appears to involve a political green washing, if you will, of the image and reputation of Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the former national security advisor and Secretary of State under for the previous Bush administration.

Even according to the right-leaning Fox News in 2009:

"As national security adviser to former President George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice verbally approved the CIA's request to subject high-ranking Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, the earliest known decision by a Bush administration official to OK use of the simulated drowning technique. Rice's role was detailed in a narrative released . . . by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It provides the most detailed timeline yet for how the CIA's harsh interrogation program was conceived and approved at the highest levels in the Bush White House. The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted (previously) in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee."

Whatever you may think about waterboarding and its recent legal standing, it is instructive to recall that the US has historically considered the practice as torture. On the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate and US Senator John McCain (himself a victim of torture during the Vietnam war) said as much:

"There should be little doubt from American history that we consider (waterboarding) as torture otherwise we wouldn't have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans."

The OHSU sponsorship of the charitable event featuring Dr. Rice is therefore so curious exactly because this institution of health care and higher learning has since 2000 operated the renowned Torture Treatment Center of Oregon.

Under the founding guidance of Dr. J. David Kinzie MD and now his son Mark Kinzie MD, the Torture Treatment Center (as part of OHSU's Intercultural Psychiatric Program), describes its work:

"[S]erves victims of torture and severe war trauma from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Central and South America, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and other parts of Africa. The Torture Treatment Center of Oregon is a national leader in research and knowledge building in the effects of torture and trauma on adults, children and families".

So I thought to myself, any fair-minded person has got to think, how do I understand the apparent incompatibility of this institution providing support and treatment to victims of state-sponsored torture on one hand, while at the same time its parent institution is lending its support and prestige to an event honoring an individual directly involved in the commission of these specific actions on the other?

So I posed this very question to the Director of the Torture Treatment Center, Dr. Mark Kinzie. I emailed him and I phoned him.

No answer.

I posed this same question to the founder of the Torture Treatment Center, Dr. J. David Kinzie. I emailed him and I phoned him.

No answer.

Okay, perhaps these doctors felt they were in no position to address this rather sensitive topic. So I posed my question to the President of OHSU, Dr. Joseph Robertson Jr. I emailed him several times and phoned him.

No answer.

I even contacted Portland State University President Wim Wiewel about all this.

Again, no answer.

According to local news reports, President Wiewel has refused to release the speaking fee for Dr. Rice at this charity benefit, remarkably stating it was "classified" information.

Daniel W. Drezner at Foreign Policy has stated:

[T]he foreign policy speaker ecosystem is pretty straightforward and pretty hierarchical: 1) Top tier: former policy principals and mainstream elite pundits. Examples: Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Tom Friedman . . . . These are the people that large associations, private colleges, and consultants with deep pockets will invite to give talks. Payment ranges from high-five figures to low-six figures."

Perhaps Dr. Rice took pity on PSU and offered a steep discount for this charity event. We can only hope.

OHSU and PSU certainly don't owe me any answers regarding all this. However, any fair-minded person would have to think that these publicly funded institutions certainly owe the people of Portland and the state of Oregon some explanations. Hopefully they will find the proper channels to do so in the very near future.