Last Friday American Psychological Association President, and Indiana University professor, Sharon Brehm discussed the APA’s policies supporting psychologist participation in national security interrogations with faculty and students at her university. The Indiana Daily Student has an account of the meeting.
While the entire article is well worth reading, a few of Dr. Brehm’s comments as cited there are especially worth commenting upon. Either they reflect an unacceptable level of ignorance of the basic facts about psychologists’ roles in American torture or they are simply willful falsehoods. For example, Dr. Brehm stated:
“Brehm said psychologists only acted in an advisory role during questionings, working with interrogators to develop effective strategies that will elicit “accurate information.””
There is now overwhelming evidence from reporters and government documents that this statement is not simply false, but almost the exact opposite of the truth. Thus, three major journalists (Jane Mayer at the New Yorker, Katherine Eban at Vanity Fair, and Mark Benjamin at Salon) have reported that the basic torture techniques used by the CIA in its black sites were initially developed and implemented by psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. This role is far from Brehm’s “…psychologists only acted in an advisory role during questionings, working with interrogators to develop effective strategies that will elicit ‘accurate information.’ ” On the contrary, as Eban reported In Vanity Fair:
“psychologists weren’t merely complicit in America’’s aggressive new interrogation regime. Psychologists, working in secrecy, had actually designed the tactics and trained interrogators in them while on contract to the C.I.A..”
Thus, Dr. Brehm’s “effective strategies” include months of total isolation, freezing, being chained up in painful positions for hours and days on end, and it seems, waterboarding.
The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG), in a report declassified last May, documented the central role of psychologists, including those from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program in the development of what the OIG itself saw as abusive. [See our summary of the OIG report and in pdf format.] The OIG report documents how SERE psychologists trained Guantanamopsychologists in the use of SERE-based torture techniques. The OIG report also documents how SERE and Guantanamostaff went to Iraq to train US soldiers there in abusive SERE-based “counter-resistance” techniques. The OIG report made clear that these techniques were, in the OIG’s opinion, abusive.
Just last month the Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures manual was leaked. As I wrote, this document details the systematic use of a month of isolation on all new detainees “to foster dependence on interrogators and `enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process.‘ ” The decision about how long a detainee would be held in isolation, the SOP states, was to be made by the GTMO Joint Intelligence Group (JIG). The Chief Psychologist for the JIG at the time the SOP was issued was Col. Larry James. The APA appointed Col. James, along with five others with military or intelligence ties (including the head SERE psychologist), to its Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security to formulate “ethics” to decide if it was “ethical” for psychologists to participate in national security interrogations. Further, the APA selected Col. James to present its “anti-torture” policy to the 2007 Convention.
To this extensive record that psychologists were active and central participants in some of the worst of the Bush administration’s abuses, Dr. Brehm contrasts her faith:
““We have great confidence that at least most of our members are really good people and that they would not do bad things,” Brehm said, adding her belief that psychologists had the ability to be heroes in fighting against torture.”
Given the historical record, Dr. Brehm’s belief only makes sense if the words “heroes,” “against,” and “torture” no longer mean what they used to mean.
Another of Dr. Brehm’s statements is similarly astounding, given that she is a social psychologist:
““All of our ethical policies are based on individual responsibility,” Brehm said. “If you violate the behaviors that are prescribed then, if it is a serious violation, we’ll kick you out of the association and you may not be able to make a living anymore. It is that basic.””
Social psychologists are taught from the first day that the social environment often overrules individual behavioral tendencies. Those in abuse-generating situations are likely to participate in abuse. . Social psychologists routinely study why “good” people do “bad” things. There is no evidence that psychologists are uniquely able to resist these pressures Indeed, at the APA Convention last August, Craig Haney, a social psychologist who studies the US criminal justice system, stated that in 30 years of research in prisons, he knew of not a single instance in which a psychologist stopped existing abuse.
Dr. Brehm, like the rest of the APA leadership, ignores that we live in a country which, at this time, is committed to detainee abuse as national policy. Those aiding interrogations in that system are, at best, complicit in the numerous abuses we know are occurring, the kidnapping of detainees from around the world, the purchase of detainees, the lack of any legal rights, the removal of the centuries-old right to habeas corpus, not to mention the abusive interrogations. Rather than denouncing this organized regime, the APA talks obsessively about “influencing policy” through engagement, but has precious little to show for it. The CIA still tortures, using the techniques that were designed by psychologists. We all know it. The press reports on it. But the APA has yet to utter a word condemning these misuses of psychological knowledge and expertise.
Jane Mayer, in an august 8, 2007 Democracy Now! interview pointed out that not only the knowledge and expertise but the prestige of psychology was central to the Bush administration’s torture regime. The administration figures ordering torture hoped psychologist participation would prove to be a “get out of jail free” card, in the event of future investigation of and trial for their crimes:
“if you take a look at the so-called torture memos, the forty pages or so of memos that were written by Jay Bybee and John Yoo way back right after 9/11, and you take a look at how they — they’re busy looking at the Convention Against Torture, basically, it seems, trying to figure a way around it. One of the things they argued, these lawyers from the Justice Department, is that if you don’t intend to torture someone, if your intention is not just to inflict terrible pain on them but to get information, then you really can’t be necessarily convicted of torture.
So how do you prove that your intent is pure? Well, one of the things they suggest is if you consult with experts who will say that what you’re doing is just interrogation, then that might also be a good legal defense. And so, one of the roles that these SERE psychologists played was a legal role. They were the experts who were consulted in order to argue that the program was not a program of torture. They are to say, “We’ve got PhDs, and this is standard psychology, and this is a legitimate way to question people.””
We have written Dr. Brehm directly documenting in detail reports that psychologists were central in creating, implementing, standardizing as policy, and disseminating the abusive interrogation techniques used by American military and the CIA. We sent Dr. Brehm an Open Letter signed by over 700 psychologists. We sent her our summary of the OIG report. She never responded. I sent her my article on the systematic use of isolation at Guantanamo. Again, no response. So, if Dr. Brehm is truly ignorant of the central role of psychologists in US abusive interrogations, it was not for lack of opportunity to inform herself.
Or do APA leaders know the facts, but simply not care? After all, the military and intelligence agencies hire hundreds, or even thousands of psychologists and provided many tens of millions in grant funding for psychological research. Further, psychologists have a preferred position over their long-time rivals, the psychiatrists, aiding interrogations in US detention centers. A little willful ignorance is, perhaps, a small price to pay for the APA leadership when millions of dollars and preferential treatment for psychologists are at stake.
But whether ignorance or willful avoidance, Dr. Brehm’s lack of responsiveness to the legitimate concerns of so many of the APA’s membership comes at a high price. The issue is increasingly dividing the organization, and threatens its hegemony as the primary representative of organized psychology at a time when rival psychological organizations are gaining membership and energy.
Only the APA’s members can decide that closing one’s eyes to abuse is too high a price to pay for government funding and other favors from the powerful.
December 3rd, 2007
Last Friday American Psychological Association President, and Indiana University professor, Sharon Brehm discussed the APA’s policies supporting psychologist participation in national security interrogations with faculty and students at her university. The Indiana Daily Student has an account [Another press account follows.]:
Psychologists question torture policy
Many express concern that not enough was done
by Brian Spegele
Beyond the differences of opinion surrounding a controversial anti-torture resolution passed by the American Psychological Association last summer, Friday’s meeting between Association President Sharon Brehm and concerned members of the University community demonstrated a disagreement about the “facts” on torture.
About 30 students, faculty members and concerned Bloomington residents turned up to question Brehm on an anti-torture resolution her organization approved last summer. That resolution has been criticized by activists as not having done enough to end the suspected torturing of non-citizen prisoners.
While the meeting’s discussion of the resolution was often heated, participants did not attack the IU psychology professor personally. Rather, many expressed a concern that a continued presence by psychologists at detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba legitimizes questioned government operations there.
President Bush points to the continued psychologists’ presence at prisons as providing guidance to the interrogations, said IU Law professor Dawn Johnsen during the meeting.
Still, the actual role psychologists play in interrogations was debated itself. Brehm said psychologists only acted in an advisory role during questionings, working with interrogators to develop effective strategies that will elicit “accurate information.”
The controversy surrounding the Association’s resolution stems from a rejected moratorium of psychologists at interrogation sites. That amendment was turned down at the organization’s conference last August, but debate among some psychologists continues. Some former members of the Association have quit in protest, while hundreds of others are refusing to pay dues, according to an organization spokesman.
Similar professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association already passed resolutions similar to the psychologist’s rejected one.
When questioned about these other policies, Brehm responded those resolutions largely proved less effective than the regulations set forth by the American Psychological Association’s.
“All of our ethical policies are based on individual responsibility,” Brehm said. “If you violate the behaviors that are prescribed then, if it is a serious violation, we’ll kick you out of the association and you may not be able to make a living anymore. It is that basic.”
Brehm acknowledged, however, that it’s often tough to prove a psychologist’s wrongdoing.
Despite insistence by some attendees that psychologists played a more active role in conducting interrogations, Brehm said she thinks psychologists usually are not even present in interrogation cells. Instead, Brehm said she thinks psychologists observed interrogations from behind one-way mirrors. In that role, they can serve as government watchdogs, ensuring interrogators do not torture prisoners.
“We have great confidence that at least most of our members are really good people and that they would not do bad things,” Brehm said, adding her belief that psychologists had the ability to be heroes in fighting against torture.
Those expectations are exactly the problem, said New York University psychology professor Beth Shinn. The psychologist had been a member of the American Psychological Association since the 1980’s, but resigned following last August’s resolution.
Psychologists are ordinary people who are affected by the situations in which they find themselves, Shinn said. It’s unrealistic to believe that psychologists will always act as superheroes standing up to the government in order to stop torture, she said.
A student contingent, led mostly by the activist group Indiana Students Against War, along with faculty and community organizations, showed up to question the policy.
Parts of last summer’s resolution are too ambiguous, said graduate student Sandrine Catris. In addition, Brehm’s uncertainty on specifics regarding interrogation sites made it difficult for Catris to take a firm stance on the issue.
Throughout the meeting, Brehm was uncertain on specifics regarding the controversial interrogation sites. She said she has never been to detention centers like Guantanamo Bay’s and as a result could not specifically discuss conditions there.
Regardless, Brehm’s stance on the resolution was strong. It’s a resolution she believes proves effective in stopping torture.
“To be a psychologist who treats people, it is a deeply engrained sense of ethics,” Brehm said. “So that’s the way we do business as an association.”
The Bloomington Herald-Times also reports on the discussion [available online only by subscription]:
Brehm addresses torture controversy
Former IU Bloomington chancellor discusses APA resolution
By Mercedes Rodriguez
For the first time since August, when the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution on torture and enemy combatants, Indiana University psychology professor and APA president Sharon Brehm spoke about the association’s controversial measure. Brehm took part in a forum Friday afternoon at the IU Psychology Building that was sponsored by the Progressive Faculty Coalition.
Brehm began by reading the resolution aloud to the roughly 25 audience members. The resolution, which was adopted at the APA’s annual meeting, details the organization’s position on the role of psychologists in the detention and interrogation of those defined as enemy combatants by the U.S. government.
In the audience were Progressive Faculty Coalition members, IU students and faculty, members of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and members of the community.
Brehm explained the parliamentary process by which the association approved the resolution. She said that during the annual meeting, discussion of the issue was unfettered. “We did not cut debate at all until there was no one left at the mic,” she said.
The resolution, which builds upon a 2006 effort to formulate guidelines on torture, calls on the government to prohibit the use of unethical interrogation techniques and pointed out specific techniques as torture.
The techniques mentioned in the resolution include mock executions, waterboarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation and cultural or religious humiliation. The resolution calls on psychologists to report any inhumane or unethical behavior.
Psychologists who break APA rules may face expulsion from the group and loss of their licenses.
However, the report did not specifically say that psychologists should not have anything to do with interrogations. Brehm pointed out that psychologists may still indirectly observe interrogations and may advise agents of the government on interrogations.
Audience members asked why during the annual meeting, the association did not adopt a proposed moratorium on all psychologist involvement in detention centers for foreign detainees. Brehm said that parliamentary procedure kept the moratorium from coming up for a vote. She added, “If you open the door to have the APA tell its members that they can work in one setting but not in another, that would be very difficult and it would raise some interesting comparisons.” She brought up the example of psychologists who work in prison systems where the death penalty is carried out. “Any kind of policy that the APA has that includes expulsion from the organization has to be person-based. The person has to be responsible for what they do.”
Audience reaction to Brehm was strong but civil. Many comments were made about the wording of the resolution.
The resolution defines torture as actions specified by the McCain Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2005. IU law professor and former acting assistant attorney general for the White House’s Office of Legal Council Dawn Johnsen was in attendance. She said, “The government is interpreting these prohibitions in a way that distorts their intent.”
Brehm emphasized that psychologists can do good in their capacity as observers and that they can prevent the use of inhumane techniques. “If you remove all the good people from a situation, then you are not going to be able to prevent the bad stuff,” she said.
An audience member countered, “If you remove the good people, it’ll be clear who the bad people are.”
After the talk came to an end, Brehm said she has great confidence that psychologists will ultimately do the right thing if working with detainees.
“I have great faith in my colleagues. No group of humans is going to be perfect. I know many psychologists. … They are, as a group very admirable, extremely humane and extremely committed to doing good,” she said.
I will post me comments on Dr. Brehm’s comments in a separate post.
December 3rd, 2007