Psyche, Science, and Society

New strategy to fight APA interrogations policy: Reisner for APA President!

UPDATE: This Letter is now posted on the APA Moratorium section on PsyACT. If you would like to endorse it, please go there and sign. Thank you.]

I have exciting news for the fight to change the American Psychological Association’s policy allowing psychologist participation in coercive national security interrogations. A group of us who have been active on the interrogations issue have decided to run Steven J. Reisner as a single issue candidate for APA President. We feel that a single issue candidacy is one of the best ways to press this urgent issue.

[For background on this issue, please see last month's Washington Monthly article: Collective Unconscionable: How psychologists, the most liberal of professionals, abetted Bush’s torture policy as well as my articles on the issue, available here.]

Here is the text of a letter just sent out to various email lists with APA members. Please circulate as widely as possible among sympathetic APA members.

Dear APA Colleagues,

We are writing to ask you to nominate Dr. Steven J. Reisner for President of APA for the sole purpose of putting an end to APA’s support for procedures being used at Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers around the world.. We view the participation of psychologists in these interrogations, conducted in conditions in which fundamental human rights are routinely violated, to be inhumane and antithetical to psychology’s most important values. APA’s failure to join other health care organizations like the American Psychiatric Association in taking this stand is indefensible.

In recent months we have been working for APA to adopt a moratorium on such participation by its members. Many of you have been among our colleagues, allies, and supporters in this effort.

We are now taking a new step in our struggle. We have decided to initiate the candidacy of Dr. Steven Reisner for President of APA. Dr. Reisner will run on one issue alone: calling a moratorium on the participation of psychologists in national security interrogations of enemy combatants and initiating an open participatory democratic process within APA to formulate a new policy consistent with our profession’s commitment to fundamental human rights. We believe that conducting a one-issue Presidential campaign will best allow the Association to focus upon this issue which threatens the moral integrity of our profession and our nation.

Dr. Reisner, a faculty member at NYU Medical School and at the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University, has been one of the foremost advocates for change in APA’s positions on participation in interrogations. Last June he debated then APA President Koocher on the nationally-syndicated Democracy Now! radio program. He was invited to present the case against participation in interrogations at the 2006 annual convention in New Orleans. We are attaching a recent article from the Washington Monthly that describes these important issues and highlights Dr. Reisner’s role in this struggle.

Those of us signing this letter have a variety of perspectives on the interrogations issue. Some of us believe that participation in interrogations is always in conflict with the fundamental values guiding our profession. Others among us believe that such participation might be acceptable in conditions where fundamental human rights are protected and respect for human dignity guaranteed. But we are united in our belief that the interrogation practices in use at Guantanamo and elsewhere, violate our ethical principles. We believe it is critical for the future of our profession that we call a moratorium on such participation and that future APA policy be decided by an open, participatory, democratic process. Dr. Reisner is firmly committed to that course.

We are well aware that there are many other important issues facing psychology that will be raised by other candidates. But we believe that the issue of unethical participation in interrogations needs to be addressed first as it has the potential to cause long-lasting damage to the profession of psychology, undermining, as it does, our reputation as a profession that upholds the highest ethical and human rights standards.

We call upon you to support the candidacy of Dr. Steven J. Reisner for APA President. At this time we ask that you write in his name on the APA Nomination Ballot that you should receive in the mail in the next few days. If you already support another candidate, please consider writing in Dr. Steven J. Reisner for number 2. Please forward this letter to any APA colleagues you know who feel similarly about this issue. Thank you.

With respect,

Jean Maria Arrigo, Member of the 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security

Lew Aron, Director NYU Postgraduate Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Ghislaine Boulanger, Steering Committee, withholdapadues.com

Muriel Dimen, Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, NYU

Brad Olson, President, APA Divisions for Social Justice

David Sloan-Rossiter, Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis & Boston Institute for Psychotherapy

Stephen Soldz, Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

Frank Summers, Board Member, Division 39, APA & Supervising and Training Analyst, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis

Ed Tejirian, Division 51 Representative, Divisions for Social Justice

Bryant Welch, Founder and former Director of APA Practice Directorate, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Mike Wessells, Member of the 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security

Phillip Zimbardo, Stanford University, Past President, APA

[Affiliations for identification purposes only]

We expect numerous additional endorsements in the hours and days to come.

7 comments February 12th, 2007

New article on Lancet study

The Johns Hopkins Magazine has an interesting article on the Lancet Iraq mortality study: The Number:

Burnham, who is professor of epidemiology and co-director of Johns Hopkins’ Center for Refugee and Disaster Response (CRDR), tried to keep attention focused on what he thought the public needed to understand. “I have one central message,” he says. “That central message is that local populations, people caught up in conflict, do badly. This is not a study that says, Ain’t it awful. This is a study that says, We need to do something about this.”

A message lost in a number.

Thanks to Tim Lambert for this.

Add comment February 12th, 2007

Krugman: Scary Movie 2

Paul Krugman is one of many warning that the signs indicate a powerful faction in the Administration is working hard to manufacture a war with Iran:

Scary Movie 2

Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake, even if all the allegations now being made about Iranian actions in Iraq are true.

But it wouldn’t be the first catastrophic mistake this administration has made, and there are indications that, at the very least, a powerful faction in the administration is spoiling for a fight.

Before we get to the apparent war-mongering, let’s talk about the basics. Are there people in Iran providing aid to factions in Iraq, factions that sometimes kill Americans as well as other Iraqis? Yes, probably. But you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents — and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths.

The Bush administration, however, with its close personal and financial ties to the Saudis, has always downplayed Saudi connections to America’s enemies. Iran, on the other hand, which had no connection to 9/11, and was actually quite helpful to the United States in the months after the terrorist attack, somehow found itself linked with its bitter enemy Saddam Hussein as part of the “axis of evil.”

So the administration has always had it in for the Iranian regime. Now, let’s do an O. J. Simpson: if you were determined to start a war with Iran, how would you do it?

First, you’d set up a special intelligence unit to cook up rationales for war. A good model would be the Pentagon’s now-infamous Office of Special Plans, led by Abram Shulsky, that helped sell the Iraq war with false claims about links to Al Qaeda.

Sure enough, last year Donald Rumsfeld set up a new “Iranian directorate” inside the Pentagon’s policy shop. And last September Warren Strobel and John Walcott of McClatchy Newspapers — who were among the few journalists to warn that the administration was hyping evidence on Iraqi W.M.D. — reported that “current and former officials said the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate has been headed by Abram Shulsky.”

Next, you’d go for a repeat of the highly successful strategy by which scare stories about the Iraqi threat were disseminated to the public.

This time, however, the assertions wouldn’t be about W.M.D.; they’d be that Iranian actions are endangering U.S. forces in Iraq. Why? Because there’s no way Congress will approve another war resolution. But if you can claim that Iran is doing evil in Iraq, you can assert that you don’t need authorization to attack — that Congress has already empowered the administration to do whatever is necessary to stabilize Iraq. And by the time the lawyers are finished arguing — well, the war would be in full swing.

Finally, you’d build up forces in the area, both to prepare for the strike and, if necessary, to provoke a casus belli. There’s precedent for the idea of provocation: in a January 2003 meeting with Prime Minster Tony Blair, The New York Times reported last year, President Bush “talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire.”

In the end, Mr. Bush decided that he didn’t need a confrontation to start that particular war. But war with Iran is a harder sell, so sending several aircraft carrier groups into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf, where a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident could all too easily happen, might be just the thing.

O.K., I hope I’m worrying too much. Those carrier groups could be going to the Persian Gulf just as a warning.

But you have to wonder about the other stuff. Why would the Pentagon put someone who got everything wrong on Iraq in charge of intelligence on Iran? Why wasn’t any official willing to take personal responsibility for the reliability of alleged evidence of Iranian mischief, as opposed to being an anonymous source? If the evidence is solid enough to bear close scrutiny, why were all cameras and recording devices, including cellphones, banned from yesterday’s Baghdad briefing?

It’s still hard to believe that they’re really planning to attack Iran, when it’s so obvious that another war would be a recipe for even bigger disaster. But remember who’s calling the shots: Dick Cheney thinks we’ve had “enormous successes” in Iraq.

Add comment February 12th, 2007

Dixie Chicks win: Salute to those who don’t back down

One of my favorite bands, the Dixie Chicks, swept the Grammys, winning in every category they were nominated: Best Album, Best Country Album, Record of the Year, Best Country Group Performance, and, most important to me, Song of the Year for Not Ready To Make Nice!

“I think people are using their freedom of speech here tonight with all these awards. We get the message… I’m very humbled,” said singer Natalie Maines, accepting the coveted best album award late Sunday.

It was Maines who infamously said during a London gig in 2003: “We’re ashamed the president is from Texas.”

The comment resulted in their music being banned by country music stations and even sparked death threats.

Singer Emily Robison said after receiving the best country album award: “We wouldn’t have done this album without everything we went through, so we have no regrets.”

Here’s the winners:

I consider this an honor, both for the Chicks, and for all us rabble-rouses. Here are the lyrics to Not Ready to Make Nice:

Not Ready To Make Nice

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

Also, go see Shut Up and Sing, a truly marvelous movie about the Chicks.

Add comment February 12th, 2007