Dick's man in Rome

Vice President Dick Cheney
Vice President of the United States

Dear Vice President Cheney,

I don't think you're exploiting Melvin Sembler's skills very efficiently. The man should be heading up your Iraq team rather than serving as our ambassador to Italy. After all, as the founder of the STRAIT, Inc. youth treatment program, he has a demonstrated record of implementing the very policies you embrace.

You don't have to take my word for it; read what his former clients have to say:

Just one of many survivors is Samantha Monroe, now a travel agent in Pennsylvania, who told The Montel Williams show this year about overcoming beatings, rape by a counselor, forced hunger, and the confinement to a janitor's closet in "humble pants" -- which contained weeks of her own urine, feces and menstrual blood. During this "timeout," she gnawed her cheek and spat blood at her overseers. "I refused to let them take my mind," she says of the program. The abuse took years to overcome.

[...]

"You don't understand what they did to these kids," Bradbury told AlterNet. "They put stuff up my butt."

According to Dr. Arnold Trebach, a professor emeritus at American University, nearly half of the children committed to Ambassador Sembler's care received similar treatment. If he can do that to American kids, just imagine how biblical he could go on foreign adults. He's your kind of guy.

He's also, apparently, Our Leader's kind of guy. After all, he awarded Mr. Sembler his ambassadorship and even named a building after him. You can't get a better endorsement than that.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

A helmet tip to reader MW.

More:

"Donald's" torture:

Donald states, "There were an immense number of times where I was forced to urinate and defecate on myself because they basically took my bathroom privilege away. I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom. And I witnessed a lot of other people in there ending up urinating and defecating on themselves because being in a restraint. They told you were too dangerous to get up and go to the bathroom, those who asked. If you asked to go to the bathroom, you were afraid because if you did ask, then you’d be afraid to end up getting your tooth through your lip and I had it done many times." When Donald made second phase he was allowed to see his childhood pediatrician. Donald testified that this doctor prescribed Inderal to treat an irregular heartbeat but, according to Donald, Dr. Newton blasted him for "using drugs to deal with my feelings and I had to use the program to deal with my feelings . . ." He was not allowed to take the medication. Dr. Panjwani, a KIDS affiliated psychiatrist, at one point put Donald on Ritalin, but after about 3 - 4 weeks Donald states that Mrs. Newton (Ruth Ann Newton, the founder's wife) decided to take him off it.

Leigh's torture:

Ms Bright testified that she has arthritis and was having problems doing her exercises at Straight, Inc. in June 1982, so she was taken into a shower stall to exercise where she was marathoned [Bomb Squad] by staff and old comers who started pushing her around the stall. She testified that they picked her up and threw her to the floor. One girl pulled her up and down by the hair until her head was numb. She kept telling them she had to go to the bathroom, but they wouldn’t let her go. When they finally did, they kept trying to pull her off the commode as she was using it. When she had finished, she stated, a girl started twisting her arm until another girl told her to stop or she would break it. They made her use a paper towel to scoop her own feces out of the toilet. After three hours of this she was forcefully taken to stand before the GROUP of 600 Straight kids where kids would stand up and say she was no good. One old comer yelled for the GROUP to leave her alone when Straight’s national clinical director, Reverend Doctor V. Miller Newton went over and started screaming at the girl. Two girls came up and put their hands over Leigh’s mouth so she couldn’t breathe. Dr Newton, who was an ordained minister, in front of 600 kids, grabbed Ms. Bright by her hair and threw her to the floor stating, "I want this girl the fuck out of my GROUP." She was taken into the intake room where Dr Newton told the old comers to keep her awake until Monday night. Since this occurred on a Saturday, Ms Bright was kept awoke for 80 hours, during which time girls would push her and make her stand for 12 hours at a time all the while calling her a whore. Finally on Monday night she was allowed 3 hours sleep. On another occasion Ms Bright testified she had to stand through an entire rap with her back bent half-way to the GROUP. When she tried to bend her legs to relieve the ache five girls restrained her by putting her on the floor and sitting on her for over and hour.

Update: The man they call Levine has a two part radio program about Our Leader's favorite child abuser.

This Bush Crony Has Blood on His Hands.

The Bush Crony Who Tortured American Teens, Part II