Report Says American Psychological Association Collaborated on Torture Justification

[n2doc]

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude.

The involvement of health professionals in the Bush-era interrogation program was significant because it enabled the Justice Department to argue in secret opinions that the program was legal and did not constitute torture, since the interrogations were being monitored by health professionals to make sure they were safe.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

[Fumesucker]

1. Dr Mengele would be so proud n/t

[Major Nikon]

2. I wonder if the APA's payday came out of the $81M paid to the two quacks or if it cost extra

Last edited Thu Apr 30, 2015, 10:47 AM - Edit history (1)

[bananas]

3. Stockholm syndrome. nt

[Gothmog]

4. This is sad and unprofessional

These people worked on harming other people which is simply wrong

[sorefeet]

5. Must be a hundred now

that need to be put on trial. I hope in my life I see it happen. They still put them on trial to this day from WWII for doing exactly what these people did. Why would we harbor known criminals?

[zentrum]

6. Isn't this

…what Nazi doctors did? Shame, shame, shame on the APA.

How on-going are their ties to the CIA?

[Enthusiast]

7. There is never a justification for torture.

When the government tortured on our behalf we became the bad guys.

[Dont call me Shirley]

8. Now how can we trust anything that comes out of the APA?

[Grins]

9. Too late.

This was all detailed - naming names - in James Risen's book, Pay Any Price that came out last year. The APA went along with all of it, and even encouraged it - for profit.

Want to be sick to your stomach? Read the book.

[mountain grammy]

10. sickening but not surprising..

Health professionals my ass!

[Hissyspit]

11. Kick nt

[MisterP]

12. didn't the APA almost split in two over this back in the 00s?

even Philip Zimbardo was on the wrong side for that

but psychologists have been tightly involved in MKUltra, SERE (which is actually much worse), and sundry other state atrocities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Charles_Cutler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauretta_Bender

also the Behaviorists were well-received by Latin American juntas for their social theory--that what's important to any healthy society is that there's no "deviance," and that any unrest was thus a sign that the entire country was about to perish

[AtomicKitten]

13. History will not be kind to the US if we do not prosecute these war crimes.

Our failure to do so is disgraceful.


From another era and to illustrate the grit and determination of those intent on justice, former SS sergeant, 93-year-old Oskar Groening, has been captured and is to be tried next year in Germany. The "bookkeeper" counted money taken from dead Jews. He also stood guard on the Auschwitz train platform.