Turley & Olbermann discuss torture in the White House
April 13th, 2008
Countdown included a discussion of the White House micromanaging CIA torture.
Two aspects of this situation I haven’t seen commented upon earlier.
1) This torture was conducted by psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, as Katherine Eban, Jane Mayer and Mark Benjamin have reported. Mitchell and/or Jessen attended two invitation-only conferences that the American Psychological Association co-sponsored with the FBI and CIA respectively. These conferences covered such areas as the use of drugs in interrogations, the best way to overload the senses to break people down, and turning psychologists into informers on terrorist-related information.
2) If the specific interrogations plans were decided by the Principals Committee in the White House, it means that these strategies were decided upon by people with no experience or detailed knowledge of interrogations. In other words, these torture plans were the work of amateurs. As is stated in the title of the report of a conference between psychologists and veteran interrogators, “Torture is for amateurs.” I have heard from several sources in the press and among interrogators that, when the CIA and White House was developing their “enhanced interrogations” program, they did not consult anyone with experience in actual interrogations. Instead they turned to SERE psychologists and politicians. The results speak for the value of their strategy.
Entry Filed under: APA, CIA, Interrogation, Law, Psychology, Torture, War Crimes
1 Comment Add your own
1. Valtin | April 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Your post amplifies a couple of points I’ve been making for some time. The CIA and FBI workshops were covered by me some time ago.
The CIA/APA/Rand workshop that looked at drugs, and sensory overload and “assessment” of prisoner “deception” was reported by me almost a year ago, in Shocking: 2003 CIA/APA “Workshop” Plots New Torture Plans”
The FBI/APA conference that addressed, in part, changes in confidentiality procedures for the benefit of “national security” was reported in my piece at Daily Kos back in January 2007, FBI & American Psychological Association Attack Patient Confidentiality.
Finally, I have maintained for some time that the controversy over torture in APA reflects a division within the military/CIA between those who picked up the SERE style reverse-engineering torture, and those who believe in the old KUBARK isolation/sensory deprivation model, developed by the CIA with the help of psychologists and psychiatrists over forty years ago.
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