Psyche, Science, and Society

New study: Over one million Iraqis killed by violence since invasion

A new survey by the British polling agency ORB reports over one million Iraqis have been killed by violence since the 2003 invasion. This number is even higher than that derived from the so-called “Lancet study” of Gilbert Burnham et al that last summer found about 650,00 total excess deaths from violence and deteriorating health conditions. The Lancet study has been subjected to relentless attack by the American and British governments, by Iraq Body Count, by those alleging that its methodology had a “main street bias,”and by others. During the controversy, independdent erplication of the Lancet findings were sorely missing. While it’s early to be sure, as details are not yet available, this new survey provides the potential replication, supporting the claim that violent deaths in Iraq are in the many hundreds of thousands.

Here is the press release [See also the LA Times article.]:

PRESS RELEASE

More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered since 2003 invasion

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ’surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003 Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half
this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-
Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean
those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%

One death 16%

Two deaths 5%

Three deaths 1%

Four+ deaths 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the brunt of refugees.

And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as “very/fairly good”, more than one in two (54%) consider them to be “expensive”.

Note:

The opinion poll was conducted by O.R.B. and the survey details are as follows:

• Results are based face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq.

• The standard margin of error on the sample size is +2.4%

• The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.

• Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.

• Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx [Note: no information is posted there as of this writing.]

• O.R.B. are full members of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules

Contacts:

Johnny Heald Munqeth Daghir

Managing Director, ORB Managing Director, Baghdad

+44 207 611 5270 +962 799672229

07973 600308

Notice that they found one in two households in Baghdad had lost a family member. Assuming that there are about six individuals per household [population of 25 million divided by 4 million households] and that the same ration applies in Baghdad, this would suggest, using a rough population figure for Baghdad of 5 million, that perhaps 400,000 people had been killed in Baghdad alone!

Note that the press release points out that their results, if true, mean that the death in Iraq now surpasses that from the Rwandan genocide.

While cautioning again that further details are needed, this new study provides further support for the position that Iraq deaths from the invasion are one of the great humanitarian catastrophes of modern times. This study provides strong support for the findingsof the Lancet authors.

1 comment September 14th, 2007

International Psychoanalytic Association statement on torture

The International Psychoanalytic Association has joined the mental health associations denouncing torture.

Statement on Torture

The International Psychoanalytical Association joins with other mental health and medical professional organizations in strongly condemning the use of torture.As an organization of psychoanalysts who have devoted their lives to helping people undo the effects of trauma in their lives, we strongly protest against any use of torture, particularly that directly or indirectly administered or sanctioned by governments or any public bodies. Torture degrades those tortured and those torturing. The effects of that physical and moral degradation are, we know, are transmitted to the families and offspring of both victims and perpetrators.

We also strongly condemn the participation or oversight by any mental health or medical personnel in any and all aspects of torture. Such actions are contrary to the basic ethical principles fundamental to the caring professions.

Approved by the Board July 2007

While an advance by the IPA, the statement, of course is extremely weak. It doesn’t define torture nor does it include Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, as does the UN Convention and the American Psychological Association. It does not deal with the thorny issue of a training analysis of a consultant to torture, as occurred in Brazil in the so-called Lobo-Cabernite affair, when training analyst Dr. Leao Cabernite protected his analysand Dr. Amilcar Lobo from accusations that Dr. Lobo was a consultant in one of the Brazilian military’s torture centers.

“When in 1973 an article from a Brazilian underground newspaper concerning the torture and murder of political prisoners was sent to Maria Langer, a writer for an Argentinean newsletter, it indicated that a physician was a member of the torture Team. Penciled on that article was the information that Dr. Lobo was an analytic candidate at Rio I. The first action of Rio I, (by the authority of Dr. Cabernite), using the Army, was to determine that the penciled note in question was by Dr. Vianna. She was vilified by Dr., Cabernite, president of Rio 1 and analyst of Dr. Lobo, who attempted her expulsion from Rio 2, as I have already noted, for bringing disrepute on the ethics of psychoanalysis.” Bernard Rubin]

Numerous IPA officials for many years defended Dr. Cabernite against all critics. Again, from Dr. Rubin:

“However, it was not only Prof. Lebovici, but the four subsequent presidents of the IPA, who were silent, until Dr. Etchegoyen in 1993 asked for an ethics investigation from Rio 1. Two years and 156 pages later, a report and recommendations were rejected by Rio 1. In August 1996, the Executive Council of the IPA expressed solidarity with Dr. Vianna, but simultaneously recognized the validity of Rio l’s rejection of the ethics report and recommendations. A final report by the IPA’s Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry is due at the end of this year.

This commission in a report in 1997 admitted that the IPA had “not always played a helpful role in this affair.” For example, there is the inexplicable loss of documents, reports, and letters exchanged between 1973-80 regarding this matter. The commission states, “only in recent years have all the documents been filed and stored.” The problem at the IPA is not a shortage of filing cabinets, but rather that when there is information that can subvert the power of the IPA, it is suppressed. The institution, as Foucault noted, is highly efficient when self-survival is at stake.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the sordid history of the IPA on the issue of torture, the new IPA resolution has no enforcement mechanism. To commit to take action would be to condemn the past actions of their own organization.

Add comment September 12th, 2007

Iraqis speak: The surge, and the occupation, have failed

As the General gives Congress the latest spin, the Iraqis speak. ABC news, the BBC, and the Japanese broadcaster NHK have released a new poll of Iraqi opinion. Verdict: The surge has failed with 61% saying security has gotten worse over the last six months.

And 53% of all Iraqis want the US/”Coalition” troops out immediately. Of course, the numbers are much higher if the Kurds are not included. Oh, and 57% feel that atacks on”Coalition” forces are acceptable. Of course, again, take out the /kurds and this percentage jumps.

Imagine what the Iraqis will say in another six months, when, again, the “surge” is “evaluated.”

Daily Kos  has a nice summary, so I won’t repeat it here.

Add comment September 10th, 2007

Study finds liberal-conservative difference in brain functioning

The Los Angeles Times reports on a new study finding differences in brain function between liberals and conservatives. Using a classic experimental paradigm, they found that liberals were more open to new information, whereas conservatives were more likely to block potentially distracting information:

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain

Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.

By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show “there are two cognitive styles — a liberal style and a conservative style,” said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results “provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity.”

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a “flip-flopper” for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

“There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science,” said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

“Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?” Amodio asked. “Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along.”

Of course, this study does not, by itself, provide evidence on causality. It is possible that experience in considering alternative explanations may develop the brain regions dealing with new information.

4 comments September 10th, 2007

Scott Horton on CIA evasion of SASC hearings on Mitchell-Jessen torture

In the midst of a long post on the lies and evasions of Gen. Hayden, Scott Horton provides insight into how the CIA is trying to evade the Senate Armed Service Committee hearings on the transformation of SERE techniques into US torture by CIA “contractors” Mitchell and Jessen:

Right now the intelligence community is engaged in one of recent history’s more outrageous games of three-card monte with an inquiry launched by the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, into contracts with two private individuals to develop a regime of highly coercive interrogation techniques. Full battle array has been brought out and extraordinary measures taken to shield these two individuals, who may well be guilty of serious crimes. An attempt is being made to avoid inquiry by claiming that the contracts are beyond the jurisdiction of the Committee. A series of consciously misleading representations have been made to the Committee; an effort has been undertaken to disguise and deny the source of these dealings in the Department of Defense and involving Dr. Stephen Cambone. This inquiry goes right to the core of the current concerns about his agency’s evasion of law and Congressional oversight. And Hayden is not cooperating with oversight; he’s fighting it with the tools that he is authorized to use with foreign governments—but not the U.S. Congress.

Horton also give a vivid description of the harm to the nation caused by the Bush administration-CIA torture regime:

The real question in the end of the day is simple: are the strategies that Hayden is pursing making the country more or less safe? I have a very clear sense of that question and of the answer. The introduction of torture and torture techniques by this administration has been akin to a group of juvenile delinquents lighting a fire in a living room. The drapes and rug have caught on fire and there is every reason to believe the whole house will burn down if it’s not put out by an outside intervention. We expected that Hayden would be a fire marshal on the scene, putting out the fire and removing the matches from the hands of the offending juveniles. Instead, it turns out that Hayden is just another delinquent.

Our nation’s reputation has been trashed around the world. We are now despised and distrusted by populations which only a few years ago were close allies. We have provided the necessary fuel to resurrect and spread Islamic radicalism around the world. Are we safer as a result of these practices? No, our country is far less safe. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden remains free to tape his appeals and recruit. And our sense is that Al Qaeda is at least as strong as it was on 9/11. Those are the measures of a widespread failure–it’s a failure of leadership, of vision, of ideas.

1 comment September 9th, 2007

Biderman & Zimmer The Manipulation of Human Behavior now online

I have been alerted by Valtin that the 1961 classic research work underlying US psychological torture techniques, The Manipulation of Human Behavior edited by Albert D. Biderman and Herbert Zimmer, is now available online. Go to http://www.4shared.com/file/23563708/e49bcadf/mohb.html and search for the “Download file” link [which is on the Comments line]. You get an html version in your web browser. You can then Select All and paste into a word processor like MS Word or Open Office Write.

To understand the importance, and disturbing quality, of this work, read Valtin’s September 16, 2006 diary: Frankenstein’s Children: Modern Torture’s Scientific Bible.

The question for many of us is whether the CIA has been busily updating this work through the research it has been conducting into psychological torture at Guantanamo and the Black Sites.  Perhaps Mitchell and Jessen are working on the new manual right now.

1 comment September 9th, 2007

Biko to Guantanamo: 30 years of medical involvement in torture

Valtin at Daily Kos writes of the letter in the Lancet protesting American medicine’s collaboration with the military torturers at Guantanamo. He points out that the AMA has a pattern of avoiding comment on abuses committed by America doctors in service to the Global War on Terrorism:

Looks like the AMA is giving the New York Times the same brush off it gave journalist Luke Mitchell of Harper’s a couple of months ago when he enquired about doctor participation in torture and abuse at CIA sites. As I noted then, the AMA sought to shift the blame for collaboration with torture over to the American Psychological Association, which has not requited itself well of late on this issue, as described multiply elsewhere (here and here, for instance).

Here is the Letter, signed by 266 doctors world-wide:

Biko to Guantanamo: 30 years of medical involvement in torture

David J Nicholl (a), Trefor Jenkins (b), Steven H Miles (c), William Hopkins (d), Adnan Siddiqui (e) and Frank Boulton (f), on behalf of 260 other signatories

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko while being detained by South African security police. Initially, the Minister of Justice suggested Biko had died of a hunger strike; however, the inquest revealed that he had died of the consequences of head injuries sustained during police interrogation, and identified gross inadequacies in the medical treatment from the two doctors responsible for his care, including the falsification of records. The regulatory authorities failed to take firm action, and it was only grass-roots efforts by doctors that led, almost 8 years later, to Benjamin Tucker being found guilty of improper and disgraceful conduct and being struck off the medical register; Ivor Lang was found guilty of improper conduct and was given a caution and a reprimand.1

There are strong parallels between the Biko case and the ongoing role of US military doctors in Guantanamo Bay and the War on Terror. Last year,2 we suggested that the physicians in Guantanamo force-feeding hunger strikers should be referred to their professional bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines. One of us (DJN) lodged formal complaints with the medical boards for Georgia and California as well as pointing out to the American Medical Association (AMA) that the former hospital commander at Guantanamo, John Edmondson, was a member.3 After 18 months, there had been no reply from the AMA, the Californian authorities stated that they “do not have the jurisdiction to investigate incidents that occurred on a federal facility/military base”, and the authorities in Georgia stated that the “complaint was thoroughly investigated” but “the Board concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support prosecution”. Yet an analysis of the same affidavit by the Royal College of Physicians concluded that “in England, this would be a criminal act”.

The UK government has refused a request from the British Medical Association for a group of independent doctors to assess the detainees4 and, to date, there has been no formal report on the three alleged suicides in Guantanamo that took place in June, 2006.

The resolution of the Biko case was instrumental in the rehabilitation of the South African Medical and Dental Council and the Medical Association of South Africa, which had been subject to boycotts during the apartheid years. The failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is damaging the reputation of US military medicine. No health-care worker in the War on Terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence despite numerous instances documented including fraudulent record keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations.5 We suspect that the doctors in Guantanamo and elsewhere have made the same mistake as Tucker who, in 1991, in expressing remorse and seeking reinstatement, said “I had gradually lost the fearless independence…and become too closely identified with the organs of the State, especially the Police force…I have come to realise that a medical practitioner’s first responsibility is the wellbeing of his patient, and that a medical practitioner cannot subordinate his patient’s interest to extraneous considerations.”1

The attitude of the US medical establishment appears to be one of “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

References

1. McLean GR, Jenkins T. The Steve Biko affair: a case study in Medical Ethics. Dev World Bioethics 2003; 3: 77-102.

2. Nicholl DJ, Atkinson HG, Kalk J, et alon behalf of 255 other doctors. Forcefeeding and restraint of Guantanamo Bay hunger strikers. Lancet 2006; 367: 811. Full Text | Full-Text PDF (39 KB) | CrossRef

3. Nicholl DJ. Guantanamo: a call for action. Good men need to do something. BMJ 2006; 332: 854-855.

4. Nicholl DJ and 119 other doctors, Doctors at Guantanamo. The Times Sept 18, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters…
(accessed Aug 10, 2007)..

5. Miles SH. Oath betrayed: torture, medical complicity and the War on Terror. New York: Random House, 2006:.

Affiliations

a. Department of Neurology, City Hospital, Birmingham B18 7QH, UK
b. Division of Human Genetics, National Health Laboratory Service and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
c. Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
d. Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, London, UK
e. CAGE Prisoners, London, UK
f. MEDACT, The Grayston Centre, London, UK

Of course we psychologists, dealing with the American Psychological Associationof psychologist’s roles as creaters, implementers and standardizers of torture understand all too well what it means for an establishment to adopt a “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” attitude. The screams of tortured souls seldom penetrate self-protective establishments.

Add comment September 8th, 2007

Mind Hacks on psychologists and interrogations: Ethics, power and faustian pacts

The Mind Hacks blog discusses the American Psychological Association interrogations battle in the wider context of the increasing status of psychology vis a vis psychiatry and what this change implies for relations with governments:

Ethics, power and faustian pacts

Renowned psychologist Dr Mary Pipher has handed back her American Psychological Association presidential award in protest at the organisation’s refusal to ban participation in US military interrogations which some deem to be torture under the Geneva Convention.

However, the whole issue of psychologists participation in government interrogations shadows a significant, but little mentioned, change in the status of psychologists in the medical establishment.

Fifty years ago, clinical psychologists were little more than test technicians who provided information for psychiatrists to interpret.

During the last decade, clinical psychology training has become equally, if not more, arduous than medical training, and psychological interventions have been shown to be highly effective.

Consequently, psychologists are now being considered on a par with physicians in many organisations. For example, psychologist-led mental health and brain-injury teams are increasingly common.

This change in status is being increasingly reflected in the law. In the UK’s 2005 Capacity Act, psychologists are now able to sign assessments concerning someone’s mental competence to make a contested decision, something that was previously reserved for medical doctors.

The recently approved UK Mental Health Bill is likely to allow psychologists, rather than just psychiatrists, to take a lead in ’sectioning’ people - i.e. detaining them if they’re deemed a risk to themselves or others owing to mental illness.

In the the US military, and in some US states, psychologists are now able to prescribe medication, previously the sole domain of physicians, and the APA is pushing for the extension of these rights.

Not all psychologists are of a same mind on these issues, and many see these changes as much as a ‘poison chalice’ as as benefit.

In many ways, psychologists and psychiatrists are a ‘good cop, bad cop’ double act in mental health. Psychiatrists can forcibly drug and detain people, while psychologists can tut and scowl with the patient and continue to work collaboratively to improve their mental state.

Of course, patients may be a lot less willing to work with psychologists if they’ve played a role in their detention or forcible medication.

Internal debates aside, the fact that the US Government is quite happy to rely on psychologists, rather than physicians, for their interrogation practices is testament to a general change in status.

Contentious issues concerning a potent mix of economics, ethics and power balance shifts are common for physicians, who are used to governments wanting to give or take responsibilities away from them to suit their political agenda or latest reform plan.

In contrast, these sorts of ethical dilemmas are relatively new for psychologists.

What makes this an interesting time, is that psychology is in a transition period where lots of legal changes are being made to solidify their responsibilities.

This makes the profession much more susceptible to influence by government, and it will be interesting to see how these issues play out, of which the debate over military interrogations is perhaps only an early skirmish.
Link to interview with Dr Mary Pipher.

Add comment September 8th, 2007

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero on psychologists and torture

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero was on Democracy Now! on Wednesday. Part of his interview was devoted to the issues of psychologists and US interrogations, including APA policy and the pre-Convention letter from the ACLU to the APA. Here is the relevant portion of the interview. [Note, if watch this interview, you can see footage from the Convention debate at the APA's Council of Representatives, including portions of the talk by Colonel Larry James supporting APA policy and a response by delegate Laurie Wagner.]:

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about this big debate in the American Psychological Association. Democracy Now! went to San Francisco for the four-day convention, their annual convention, and broadcast from there. And in the midst of that, you wrote that letter to Sharon Brehm, the president of the APA.

ANTHONY ROMERO: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what your letter said.

ANTHONY ROMERO: Well, we wanted to be very clear. We want to exhort them to encourage their membership in the American Psychological Association to take a stand that would say that their members are not to participate in any of the interrogations that may use torture or abusive techniques, what are these advanced coercive techniques. And we wanted to be very clear on two fronts, frankly, Amy.

One was we were calling to the morality, that the healers shouldn’t be part of the tormenters, as we talk about at the end of the letter, that the American Psychological Association has always thought of itself as helping people grapple with difficulty, mental illness or mental issues or psychological problems, and that they should not be a part of the tormenting forces of government. And so, we wanted to appeal to their ethical side.

We also wanted to be clear that they have a legal liability. And frankly, as a legal organization and as an organization that takes very seriously the need to hold people accountable, that if there are individuals, psychologists, doctors, who are involved in such techniques, they face potential civil, criminal liability.

AMY GOODMAN: We invited a spokesperson from the American Psychological Association on the program, but they did not respond to our repeated requests. At the center of the firestorm is Dr. Stephen Behnke, who is Director of Ethics at the APA. At the end of the group’s annual conference, Dr. Behnke addressed a few hundred APA members gathered at a town hall meeting. The meeting was held after the APA’s policymaking council voted to approve a resolution that prohibited involvement in interrogations that use at least fourteen specified methods, including sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and mock executions. Dr. Behnke got on the stage to defend the resolution.

DR. STEPHEN BEHNKE: The passage I’d like to read says that, “Be it resolved the American Psychological Association affirms that there are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether induced by a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency that may be invoked as a justification for torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including the invocation of laws, regulations and orders.”But I also want to be very clear that if you look at the language of the resolution — and again, I hope that everyone reads it — what it says is that, that this unequivocal condemnation includes all techniques defined as — and then is says, “This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to,” so that there are specific techniques identified, but that is not a closed set — very explicitly not a closed set.

One final point about the resolution. Again, I just encourage people to read it. But the Ethics Committee has been directed by counsel. It says: “Be it resolved that the APA Ethics Committee shall proceed forthwith in writing its casebook and commentary that shall set forth guidelines for psychology that are consistent with international human rights instruments.” And then it actually specifies what those instruments are. The first is Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Stephen Behnke. Stephen Behnke, ethics spokesperson for the American Psychological Association. Your response, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero?

ANTHONY ROMERO: Well, you know, I think one of the things that’s quite disconcerting about the debate — and I’d want to understand the study better, the resolution that he just read — is that part of what’s going on both within the government and it seems also within the American Psychological Association is this effort to redefine what is torture and to provide some wiggle room at the grey areas. To be very clear, there are certain techniques that were completely off the books before 9/11, that there were techniques that were not ever to be authorized. Rumsfeld and others within the military expanded the list of interrogation techniques, ultimately had to retract some of them because they had gone too far. And yet, you find an effort right now to redefine what does in fact constitute torture, what constitutes abuse, what is cruel and humiliating treatment. And I think part of what we’ve got to be very clear about and I think the American Psychological Association needs to grapple with is what is its role.

AMY GOODMAN: The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association have said that their members cannot participate at all.

ANTHONY ROMERO: Categorically, yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: They rejected that possibility of a moratorium on psychologist involvement.

ANTHONY ROMERO: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: And earlier in the day, before that town hall meeting, which was mainly just many angry psychologists from around the country decrying the decision of the APA policymaking council –

ANTHONY ROMERO: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: – but during the debate of the policymaking council, some of the top military brass was in attendance, perhaps none more so than Colonel Larry James. He was flown in from Cuba, from Guantanamo, where he served as the chief psychologist for the joint intelligence group at Guantanamo Bay. He was also the first psychologist at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. An APA council representative himself, Colonel James addressed the council members on Sunday as they were preparing to vote on a proposed resolution that would have prohibited psychologists from participating in interrogations at Guantanamo and other US detention centers.

COL. LARRY JAMES: This is I my second tour at Gitmo, Cuba. I was also the first psychologist at Abu Ghraib. I’m going to repeat what I said earlier. If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die. If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to get hurt.One other thing I want to add. We’ve got young twenty-seven-, twenty-eight-, twenty-nine-year-old psychologists on the battlefield right now. If you support this amendment, those young psychologists are going to feel as though we’ve abandoned them. And they need our support right now. Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Soon after Colonel Larry James spoke, he was confronted by an APA member in the audience. Laurie Wagner is a psychologist and a member of the APA’s Psychoanalysis Division. She took Colonel James to task.

LAURIE WAGNER: I heard Colonel James say that if psychologists are not present in Guantanamo and other settings similar to it, that innocent lives will be lost, and I asked him what he meant by that, and he said, “The lives of detainees.” And I would submit that if psychologists have to be there in order to keep detainees from being killed, that those conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing to do is to protest it by leaving it.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Romero?

ANTHONY ROMERO: We have to go back to a categorical rejection of the torture and abuse and the use of techniques that humiliate detainees. There is no need to argue about the niceties of these definitions. There is no need to talk about whether waterboarding is or is not torture, whether mock executions are or are not torture. We need to go back to a point, Amy, where we as a nation ascribe to some core values, that we do not allow people to be poorly treated in our custody.

And I think the questions about — if individuals are dying in Guantanamo, for the gentleman who spoke from the Guantanamo base, it’s because many of them are trying to commit suicide, because they have no hope, because we’ve eliminated the right of habeas corpus. They have no access to the judicial system, no access to their family members, where they’re kind of detained — I’ve been to Guantanamo, and I’ve been for the first round of military commission proceedings. It is not what the government describes it to be. No matter how good a face they try to put on the detention center at Guantanamo in the military commission proceedings, it is a travesty. It does not uphold to the best of American values.

And we have to go back to a point where we look at ourselves in the mirror as Americans and say, “Who are we as a people? What do we stand for?” We stand for some core values, the right to habeas corpus, the right to be treated well, the right to be treated humanely, to equal protection under the law, to right to due process. And that’s often what our government officials forget to remind themselves of in their jobs.

We might add that psychologists need to decide who we are as a profession. Are we a profession in which “psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm” as Principle A of our Ethic Code states? Or are we a profession in which doing harm is fine as long as one can argue that the harm doesn’t cause “significant pain or suffering” or is done in such a manner “that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm” as the APA Council voted almost unanimously, with no debate of this fundamental change in the nature of the profession. Psychology has now defined itself as the harming, but not too much, profession.

Add comment September 8th, 2007

Riverbend in exile

A new post on the Baghdad Burning web site reports that Riverbend and her family have joined the over a million Iraqi exiles in Syria. On leaving:

It was a tearful farewell as we left the house. One of my other aunts and an uncle came to say goodbye the morning of the trip. It was a solemn morning and I’d been preparing myself for the last two days not to cry. You won’t cry, I kept saying, because you’re coming back. You won’t cry because it’s just a little trip like the ones you used to take to Mosul or Basrah before the war. In spite of my assurances to myself of a safe and happy return, I spent several hours before leaving with a huge lump lodged firmly in my throat. My eyes burned and my nose ran in spite of me. I told myself it was an allergy.

On arriving:

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

Riverbend will join those millions wondering if they will ever return home and, if they do return, who will be left alive.

Add comment September 8th, 2007