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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPssssssst! US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 'collusion'
Charge Bush, Cheney and the rest of the war criminals as well
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/10/us-torture-doctors-psychologists-apa-prosecution
<snip>
The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis, the Guardian has learned, after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions.
For more than a decade, the American Psychological Association (APA) has maintained that a strict code of ethics prohibits its more than 130,000 members to aid in the torture of detainees while simultaneously permitting involvement in military and intelligence interrogations. The group has rejected media reporting on psychologists complicity in torture; suppressed internal dissent from anti-torture doctors; cleared members of wrongdoing; and portrayed itself as a consistent ally against abuse.
Now, a voluminous independent review conducted by a former assistant US attorney, David Hoffman, undermines the APAs denials in full and vindicates the dissenters.
Several officials are likely to be sacked. Already out, a past APA president confirmed to the Guardian, is Stephen Behnke, the APAs ethics chief and a leading figure in recasting its ethics guidelines in a manner conducive to interrogations that, from the start, relied heavily on psychologists to design and implement techniques like waterboarding.
But the reckoning with psychologists institutional complicity in torture may not stop there.
Way more at link - this is great news
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I gave up my professional license because the Alabama state board would not accept an amendment to its bylaws of non-discrimination to LBGT professional members,
while at the same time it willing stated it was illegal to discriminate against the clients of those same professionals.
Therefore I was pleased to hear that initially, some members of the APA were willing to resign in protest of the acceptance of torture.
And i was shocked that so many members simply ignored the issue.
malaise
(269,067 posts)They always get it right.
Solly Mack
(90,775 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)October 18, 2014, 8:00 pm
The APA Grapples with Its Torture Demons: Six Questions for Nathaniel Raymond
Nathaniel Raymond on CIA interrogation techniques.
By Scott Horton
One of the enduring questions surrounding the torture and black-sites program run by the CIA between early 2002 and the early fall of 2006 relates to the role played by psychologists and the bizarre conduct of their professional association, the American Psychological Association (APA). Drawing on a cache of secret email communications between key players in the torture program and senior officers of the APA, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter James Risen suggests in Pay Any Price, his new book, that the APA rushed to change its ethics rules to allow its members to participate in the torture program. A key role in these disclosures is played by Nathaniel Raymond, a war-crimes investigator who analyzed these furtive communications for the FBI and who now heads Harvards Signal Program on Human Security and Technology. I put six questions to Raymond about the new disclosures, what they tell us about the APA, and the adoption of torture techniques by the CIA.
1. One of the most far-reaching disclosures contained in James Risens new book has to do with a CIA contractor named Scott Gerwehr. Risen says that Gerwehr spoke with a human rights investigator who secured an archive of his emails relating to his work for the CIA on interrogations issues. Are you that person? How did you come to meet Gerwehr, and why did he confide in you?
Yes, I am the unnamed human rights investigator referenced in Risens book. In the fall of 2006, Dr. Brad Olson, a Chicago-based professor of psychology, met Scott Gerwehr at a conference, where they discussed the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
Brad referred Scott to me at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), where I worked on the Campaign Against Torture at the time. Scott and I spoke soon thereafter, on November 1, 2006. That phone call was the only substantive conversation we ever had.
To this day I dont know either why Scott chose to confide in me or what he hoped I would do about what he told me. It knocked the wind out of me when he said he worked as a contractor for the CIA detecting deception by detainees during interrogations.
Scott went on to say that he had been at a secret CIA facility at Guantánamo in the summer of 2006 but left after the agency would not let him install cameras like at the other facilities. I assume this is the same facility that was identified in Harpers as Camp No, and that the Associated Press later reported was called Penny Lane by the CIA. Scott seemed conflicted by his experience at Guantánamo but didnt say why.
He also made detailed claims to me about the content of the 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector Generals report on the enhanced interrogation program. These claims included that the CIA was using unauthorized tactics and that, according to the CIAs Office of Medical Services, the health effects on the detainees were more severe than had been admitted. Scotts claims have largely been confirmed by public disclosures since his death in 2008, including by reporting in Harpers.
2. The Gerwehr emails point to close liaising between the CIA, the White House science officer, the Department of Defense, and senior leadership figures of the APA. Why are these behind-the-scenes discussions with a professional organization important?
American health-professional associations play a crucial regulatory role on the national level through the amendment and interpretation of their ethics codes. The APA ethics code, for example, is the basis of some or all of the state licensure standards for psychologists in more than thirty states. Thus, the APA ethics code and the policies that interpret it have a direct impact on the roles into which the U.S. government, the countrys largest employer of psychologists, can deploy psychologists.
Historically, professional associations vigorously assert their autonomy in setting their own ethics. The fact that the APA secretly allowed the CIA to assist in revising its ethics policies on whether psychologists could participate in interrogation is much more than the fox simply guarding the hen house. It is like the fox being given a white coat and becoming a fully licensed USDA poultry inspector.
I believe the APAs collaboration with the CIA regarding the Bush-era interrogation program will eventually be recognized as one of the greatest scandals in the history of American medical ethics. Ethics educators will eventually teach about the APAs co-option by the U.S. intelligence community in a similar way to how students are now taught about the Tuskegee experiments in the mid-twentieth century.
3. Are these dealings consistent with the statements the APA has made on this subject?
No. The revelations in James Risens book based on the Gerwehr emails directly contradict years of public statements by the APA. Let me give you two examples.
In 2011, Melba Vasquez, then the APA president, said that it has been falsely asserted that the APA colluded with the Bush administration in the harmful detention and interrogation practices of the War on Terror. We now know for a fact that the APA literally invited the CIA and the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal to meet about how APA ethics policy related to national security.
in full:http://harpers.org/blog/2014/10/the-apa-grapples-with-its-torture-demons-six-questions-for-nathaniel-raymond/
malaise
(269,067 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)What occurred must not be overlooked and washed over as, oh well..that's
war for ya.
The entire premise was criminal.
malaise
(269,067 posts)for war crimes.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)I always hope those two live a very long life just in case the political winds
change..no statute of limitations on death caused by torture. Justice for
all the victims, and a warning to any future administration....think twice
before going outside the law.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 12, 2015, 02:10 PM - Edit history (1)
Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen collected some $81 million for signing off on torture tactics to provide the thin veneer of responsibility the Bush administration wanted. They sold their ethics, and our collective soul as a country, and inflicted tremendous damage.
This is the essence of corruption -- something is known to be "wrong," but a few dollars here and some hastily re-written rules there, and everything is "legal." It doesn't look like Bush or Cheney are ever going to pay for the warcrimes, but if we do absolutely nothing about this, we are all giving tacit consent to atrocities committed in our name.
Edited to replace DOD pseudonyms for the real names of the offenders.
Solly Mack
(90,775 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Piece I was looking at kept going back and forth between the pseudonyms and the real names.
Solly Mack
(90,775 posts)And everyone else involved.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)tacitly acceptable. That's what galls so much about the "look forward / history doesn't matter" drumbeat apologists trot out over these issues. It's not about putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
We have to make it clear it wasn't right, or we are saying that it WAS.
Solly Mack
(90,775 posts)to hold anyone accountable is beyond cowardly.
You're right. Without accountability, America is saying it was OK for the U.S. to torture. And accountability is not saying we tortured some folks - it's putting the guilty in prison.
You don't torture people to death and then just say 'Oops', which is basically all America has done, so far. And the fact that some people are OK with that is sickening.
malaise
(269,067 posts)BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)We should hunt every single one down like Nazi officers. Never let them have a moment's peace.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Well, whatever works, I suppose.
It would be a lot better for the United States, its international standing, and its credibility in the world community if we prosecuted our own war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead, we seem content to let others do this dirty work for us. Shameful.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Thanks!
Demeter
(85,373 posts)as in, somebody forgot to slip Freud a substantial bribe...
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)and that "some" of the torturers were "real patriots."
Maybe a few token doctors will lose their jobs but nothing will ever happen to Bush or Cheney.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)But yeah- "they're all the same".
Read it here all the time.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)That's fine too. Let's not pretend that is your priority, since you avoid the topic.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)in the most egregiously dishonest way. I'm not going to defend myself from such bullshit. Welcome to my ignore list.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)about the tough job that those folks had, Obama said.
And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.
(from: http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-torture-20140801-story.html )
noise
(2,392 posts)on the notion that the torture program was implemented in good faith. There is no evidence that supports this. Just stupid talking points. Tough on terror.
Only a jackass would suggest that putting human beings in boxes is somehow a valid interrogation method. The politicians have no shame.
PuraVidaDreamin
(4,101 posts)They too are war criminals
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)should all be punished. Of course, we will just go after some sacrificial goats.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)spanone
(135,847 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)donna123
(182 posts)Psychiatrists are MDs, psychologists are not and from what I understand the official psychiatry association, I forget their name, completely denounced/refused to have anything to do with this crap. So these weren't really doctors, not in the sense of being MDs. PhDs maybe. But it's good that the APA investigated this.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)'07 and (I think) '14
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)At least that's my understanding of OP.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)followed by life imprisonent seems like an appropriate punishment.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)authority anywhere in its sphere (except when it suits).
jwirr
(39,215 posts)agreed to the Geneva Conventions and bush and company had no business ignoring them.
Uncle Joe
(58,370 posts)Thanks for the thread, malaise.