Newly Unredacted Report Confirms Psychologists Supported Illegal Interrogations In Iraq and Afghanis

[maddezmom]

Newly Unredacted Report Confirms Psychologists Supported Illegal Interrogations In Iraq and Afghanistan (4/30/2008)


Documents Obtained By ACLU Also Uncover "Widespread Use" Of Rescinded Unlawful Interrogation Techniques And Failure Of Medical Personnel To Report Abuses

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union announced today the release of newly unredacted documents from the Defense Department's internal investigations into charges of detainee abuse. Uncensored documents from the Church Report, obtained as a result of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include new details exposing the role of psychologists in military interrogations. The documents also uncover new information about the failure of military medical personnel to report abuses at Abu Ghraib, the military's use of unlawful interrogation methods subsequent to a directive that was ostensibly meant to end such practices, and detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The documents reveal that psychologists and medical personnel played a key role in sustaining prisoner abuse — a clear violation of their ethical and legal obligations," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "The documents only underscore the need for an independent investigation into responsibility for the systemic abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody abroad."

In 2006, the ACLU received a highly redacted version of the Church Report, which was commissioned by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a comprehensive review of military interrogation operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay based on 187 investigations into detainee abuse that had been closed as of September 30, 2004. The report did not analyze information relating to 130 abuse cases that remained open as of that date, and issues of senior official responsibility for detainee abuse were beyond its mandate. Written by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, the report skirts the question of command responsibility for detainee abuse, euphemistically labeling official failure to issue interrogation guidelines for Iraq and Afghanistan as a "missed opportunity."

more:http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/35111prs20080430.html


ACLU: Pentagon documents highlight interrogation methods
By ADAM GOLDMAN

Associated Press Writer

The military continued to use abusive interrogation methods on detainees after a 2003 directive meant to end such practices, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday after reviewing newly released documents.

The Department of Defense documents shed light on the use of psychologists in military interrogations and the failure of medical workers to report abuse of detainees, the ACLU said.

"The documents reveal that psychologists and medical personnel played a key role in sustaining prisoner abuse - a clear violation of their ethical and legal obligations," ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said.

A Pentagon spokesman said medical workers understood the responsibility to provide humane medical care to detainees.

The ACLU obtained the documents - newly unredacted data from what is known as the Church Report - in connection with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 2004. The government did not release details on the interrogation methods that continued to be used after 2003, she said.

more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004384375_apdetaineeabusereport.html?syndication=rss

[Mojorabbit]

1. I say

pull their lisences. They don't deserve them.

[struggle4progress]

2. Why Torture Made Me Leave the APA

By Jeffrey S. Kaye, Ph.D. ...

January 27, 2008 ...

hereby resign my membership in the American Psychological Association (APA). I have up until now been working with Psychologists for an Ethical APA for an overturn in APA policy on psychologist involvement in national security interrogations, and I greatly respect those who are fighting via a dues boycott to influence APA policy on this matter. I hope to still work with these principled and dedicated professionals, but I cannot do it anymore from a position within APA.

Unlike some others who have left APA, my resignation is not based solely on the stance APA has taken regarding the participation of psychologists in national security interrogations. Rather, I view APA's shifting position on interrogations to spring from a decades-long commitment to serve uncritically the national security apparatus of the United States. Recent publications and both public and closed professional events sponsored by APA have made it clear that this organization is dedicated to serving the national security interests of the American government and military, to the extent of ignoring basic human rights practice and law. The influence of the Pentagon and the CIA in APA activities is overt and pervasive, if often hidden. The revelations over the Constitution and behavior of the 2005 Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) panel are a case in point. While charged with investigating the dilemmas for psychologists involved in military interrogations in the light of the scandals surrounding Guantanamo's Camp Delta and Abu Ghraib prison, it was stacked with military and governmental personnel, and closely monitored and pressured by APA staff ...

The sordid history of American psychology when it comes to collaboration with governmental agencies in the research and implementation of techniques of psychological torture is one that our field will have to confront sooner or later. In a larger sense, the problems presented here are inherent in a larger societal dilemma regarding the uses of knowledge. This problem was recognized by the first critics of untrammeled scientific advance, and represented powerfully by Goethe's Faust, and Mary Shelley's Doctor Frankenstein. Human knowledge is capable of producing both good and evil. The scientist, the scholar, and the doctor hold tremendous responsibility in their hands. That they have not shown themselves, in a tragic number of instances, to ethically wield or control this responsibility has meant that the 21st century opens under the awful prospect of worldwide nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, while a sinister, behaviorally-designed torture apparatus operates as the servant of nation-states wielding these awful weapons of mass destruction ...

http://www.alternet.org/rights/78909/

[formercia]

7. The BAD guys

Behavioral Activities Division. You don't want those guys inside your head. Their job is to screw with people.

[Briar]

3. These were presumably

respectable, educated, professional people. Yet they condoned atrocities and even assisted in committing them. So what happened to corrupt them? What pressures, military, patriotic, conformist, transformed them into monsters?

And where else are these pressures at work?

[bobthedrummer]

4. K&R#5 plus "In Contravention of Conventional Wisdom: CIA 'no touch' torture"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x333974

[cbayer]

5. If there is anyone who could either post or link to a synopsis

on the American Psychological Association's current position, I would appreciate it. I had heard that there would be some vigorous debate on this topic at their upcoming meeting.

I also want to make the distinction between this organization and the American Psychiatric Association, which has clear policy prohibiting psychiatrists from participating in torture.

[KaptBunnyPants]

6. Hey, what do you know? Scientology got something right!

Psychologists really are evil bastards.

[formercia]

8. The psychologists the Administration hires to do this work

must make Hannibal Lecter look like a Boy Scout.

[bobthedrummer]

9. It's no coincidence that eugenics, torture, and all this other NAZI like crap

comes from the "medical" profession--it's no coincidence that the "medical" profession in the Weimar Republic was the most politicized and almost 45% were NAZIS (source Max Weinreich "Hitler's Professors" 1946).

I've experienced longitudinal domestic black ops too, my friend-woven into prominent institutions, organizations and associations.

[formercia]

10. I've had run-ins with some of them

and also have been warned by fellow professionals that they didn't have my best interest in mind. The poison cup, a favorite. For that reason I don't trust many doctors.
I wonder how many people die under medical supervision that just happen to have the wrong political affiliation or lifestyle.

[bobthedrummer]

11. A higher percentage than most think have a lot of the "bitter" truths about alot of things.

Yet even that fact is suppressed.

For one reason or another several of us are here at DU-which has always been an open source of intelligence.
;-)

[formercia]

12. Off the Reservation

I went for a follow-up regarding the 'seizure' I had two weeks ago. The doctors' office had no records from the hospital and I had to wait while they were faxed.
I mentioned to my doctor that I had been treated for a severe Potassium imbalance and she replied that there was no record of it and that my chart indicated 3.5 mg, which is at the low end of the normal range and she thought it strange why they would treat me for it.

Someone sterilized my hospital record.