Return to Forever performs The Romantic Warrior for the Old Grey Whistle Test studio audience in 1976.
Return to Forever is:
Chick Corea - Piano, Synthesizer
Stanley Clarke - Double Bass and Bass Guitar
Lenny White - Drums, Percussion
Al Di Meola - Guitar
Add comment May 31st, 2008
Amy Goodman devotes her weekly column to remembering Utah Phillips who died last Friday. [See my comments on Utah's death here.]:
Utah Phillips Has Left the Stage
by Amy Goodman
“Utah” Phillips died this week at the age of 73. He was a musician, labor organizer, peace activist and co-founder of his local homeless shelter. He also was an archivist, a historian and a traveler, playing guitar and singing almost forgotten songs of the dispossessed and the downtrodden, and keeping alive the memory of labor heroes like Emma Goldman, Joe Hill and the Industrial Workers of the World, “the Wobblies,” in a society that too soon forgets.
Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935, in Cleveland, by his midteens he was riding the rails. He told me of those days in an interview in 2004. By then, he was slowed down by congestive heart failure. His long, white beard flowed over his bow tie, plaid shirt and vest. We sat in a cramped attic of a pirate radio station that was frequently raided by federal authorities. In the early days, he met old-timers, “old, old alcoholics who could only shovel gravel. But they knew songs.”
In 1956, he joined the Army and got sent to postwar Korea. What he saw there changed him forever: “Life amid the ruins. Children crying—that’s the memory of Korea. Devastation. I saw an elegant and ancient culture in a small Asian country devastated by the impact of cultural and economic imperialism. Well, that’s when I cracked. I said: ‘I can’t do this anymore. You know, this is all wrong. It all has to change. And the change has to begin with me.’”
After three years in the Army, he went back to the state that earned him his nickname, Utah. There he met Ammon Hennacy, a radical pacifist, who had started the Joe Hill House in Salt Lake City, inspired by the Catholic Worker movement. Hennacy guided Utah Phillips toward pacifism. Utah recalled: “Ammon came to me one day and said, ‘You’ve got to be a pacifist.’ And I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘Well, you act out a lot. You use a lot of violent behavior.’ And I was. You know, I was very angry. ‘You’re not just going to lay down guns and fists and knives and hard angry words. You’re going to have to lay down the weapons of privilege and go into the world completely disarmed.’ If there’s one struggle that animates my life, it’s probably that one.”
Utah’s pacifism drove him to run for the U.S. Senate in 1968 on the Peace and Freedom ticket, taking a leave of absence from his civil-service job: “I was a state archivist—and ran a full campaign, 27 counties. We took 6,000 votes in Utah. But when it was over, my job would vanish, and I couldn’t get work anymore in Utah.”
Thus began his 40 years in “the trade,” a traveling, working musician: “The trade is a fine, elegant, beautiful, very fruitful trade. In that trade, I can make a living and not a killing.” He eschewed the commercial music industry, once telling Johnny Cash, who wanted to record a number of Utah’s songs: “I don’t want to contribute anything to that industry. I can’t fault you for what you’re doing. I admire what you do. But I can’t feed that dragon … think about dollars as bullets.” He eventually partnered with one of the most successful independent musicians in the U.S., Ani DiFranco, who created her own label, Righteous Babe Records. Their collaborative work was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Utah Phillips was a living bridge, keeping the rich history of labor struggles alive. He told me: “The long memory is the most radical idea in America. That long memory has been taken away from us. You haven’t gotten it in your schools. You’re not getting it on your television. You’re being leapfrogged from one crisis to the next. Mass media contributed to that by taking the great movements that we’ve been through and trivializing important events. No, our people’s history is like one long river. It flows down from way over there. And everything that those people did and everything they lived flows down to me, and I can reach down and take out what I need, if I have the courage to go out and ask questions.” On his radio show “Loafer’s Glory,” he once said, work on this planet has been to remember.”
A week before he died, Utah Phillips wrote in a public letter to his family and friends: “The future? I don’t know. Through all of it, up and down, it’s the song. It’s always been the song.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. Her third book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” was published in April 2008.
© 2008 Amy Goodman
Add comment May 30th, 2008
Bob “Bobbo” Simpson, who describes himself as “an old fashioned labor socialist,” has an interesting piece on his blog, The BobboSphere, where he calls upon us boomers to return to our roots and join the younger generation of activists. While I echo the sentiments in general, sometimes I wonder when the younger generation will join. But, like Bobbo, I can feel a change and think “The Times They Are a Changin.”
In poor taste, I will post his conclusion:
Many of today’s young generation grew up on the Harry Potter books. They know that Harry and his pals could never have taken down Lord Voldemort and his legions without the help of Dumbledor and the other older characters. They also know that while not everyone comes out alive in a fight for freedom, doing the right thing no matter what the personal cost is always the right choice. Not only is J.K Rowling a pretty good story teller, but she’s also a pretty shrewd political analyst.
“There’s a storm comin,” as Rubeus Hagrid said, but no one should face it bereft of support and solidarity.
Now go read the whole piece.
Add comment May 30th, 2008
My dear friend and comrade in the struggle against torture, Nathaniel Raymond, was interviewed on American Public Media’s The Story today. He discussed the burnout he experienced after a decade of humanitarian relief in some of the world’s most desperate crisis areas: the tsunami, Ethiopia, Iraq, Biloxi MS after Hurricane Katrina. It is one of the most amazing interviews I have ever heard. Extremely intense and heartfelt. You can really feel Nathaniel struggling to figure out who he is and how he can be that person while still doing good in the world. It also is one of the most moving testimonials for the value of psychotherapy in helping one sort out one’s varied and conflicting wishes and desires in the struggle for self and personal responsibility.
Here is the program description:
Burning Out
Whenever disaster strikes — like the earthquake in China or the cyclone in Myanmar — aid workers head to the scene and are lauded for their long hours and unstinting devotion. For more than a decade, Nathaniel Raymond lived that life. But he didn’t realize the high personal cost of doing aid work non-stop. Now he’s trying to deal with the down side of doing good.
Nathaniel talks to Dick Gordon about what the work was like, and why he decided to take a desk job.
You can listen to the interview here.
Add comment May 28th, 2008
The legendary folksinger, activist, and anarchist Bruce “Utah” Phillips, “the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest,” died this week in his sleep. For me this is extremely sad. I first heard Utah in 1970 or 1971. For a number of years I saw him once or twice yearly. I felt like he was a part of the family. It was important for my wife to see him, and my son once had the opportunity. His songs and stories were part of my tradition. They were about ordinary people, loggers and cowboys, and those who needed a little help.The people he talked and sang about came to life, so that, after a few years, I almost believed I personally knew them.
The songs and tales were an amazing mixture of funny and sad, expressing intense longing and the ability to shrug at life and cope. He also emphasized the struggle for a better life and against arbitrary authority. As an anarchist, and IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] member, Utah believed in ecouraging independent thought and personal moral responsibility, combined with social solidarity and community.
This week CounterPunch published a moving article on Utah by singer David Rovics: In Praise of Utah Phillips. And Amy Goodman rebroadcast a 2004 interview with Utah. Go there and listen or watch.
In order to remember him, I’ve selected a couple of videos from those on YouTube. These give a sense of his presence and spirit, but, alas, they don’t demonstrate his great guitar playing before arthritis interfered. There are many more there, so, if you too loved him, or if you’ve never heard him before but are enthralled, go check them out.then check out the web site created by friends and listen to his CDs. But, most important, embody his spirit, his love of life, and his call to resist illegitimate authority.
The song of his which has most stuck in my brain. I loved singing it to my son: Daddy What’s A Train?
His funniest story: Moose Turd Pie
And, finally, two parts [#1 & 7] of what appears to be an 8-part full concert performance. The first shows how he started concerts for almost 40 years:
And: Get rid of the bum on the plush! [also includes Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!]
Catch that great boxcar in the sky, Utah. And remember, there’s starlight on the rails!
2 comments May 28th, 2008
Robert Shapiro has written an interesting data-driven post from the perspective of “an Obama Supporter” on Talking Points Memo about why he thinks the Florida Democratic primary votes should be officially counted. I’ve summarized here the essence of the argument:
While reading Hillary Clinton’s increasingly outrageous arguments that the Florida and Michigan primary votes should count (e.g., the Zimbabwe analogy), I decided that rather than just getting angry it might be useful to try to take an objective look that isn’t simply based on candidate preference or Democratic Party rules. Did the Democratic voters in these two states make their preferences known in the primaries? Of course, for Michigan the question sounds completely ridiculous because Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot (Kucinich, Dodd, and Gavel were also listed). However, voters were also able to choose “uncommitted”, which 40% of them did, and there was an exit poll that showed 46% for Clinton, 35% for Obama, and 12% for Edwards.
So, I thought that the best starting point for assessing the primaries was to look at the turnouts. What I was expecting to find was that the turnouts for both primaries were extremely low, well below those for the other primaries. In that case, Clinton’s argument — that the voters in some sense would be disenfranchised by not counting the results — would clearly have no basis.
This is exactly what I found for Michigan. Only 594 thousand voters participated, compared to the 2.5 million who voted for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, i.e. a turnout rate of 24% (I recognize this isn’t the usual way to calculate a turnout, but for the question at hand it doesn’t matter). This was well below the average of 61% (through Feb. 19th; the turnout rates actually became even higher after that date) and was by far the lowest in any state (the next lowest was 40% in NM). The NH primary a week earlier had a turnout that was 84% of the 2004 Kerry vote, and the SC primary immediately following Michigan had a turnout rate that was 80%. In conclusion, there is no reasonable basis for counting the Michigan primary votes, even if one were to somehow use the exit poll results. The Democratic voters of Michigan were indeed disenfranchised, but this was due to the decisions of their state party and the DNC on the primary date, and cannot be remedied by validating the primary votes.
The story for Florida is quite different. Here all of the candidates were on the ballot, but (for the most part) didn’t campaign within the state. The voters actually turned out in fairly high numbers in this case: 1.75 million, compared to 3.6 million who voted for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election (49%). This is lower than the average of 61%, but within a standard deviation (16%), and higher than the turnout rates in NM, CT, NY, LA, and DE (40%, 41%, 43%, 47%, and 48%. respectively). It is also much higher than the turnout in the 2004 Florida primary (752 thousand), although that primary was fairly late (March 9th, just at the time that Kerry accumulated the necessary number of delegates)….
In light of these considerations, it is fair and reasonable to count the Florida primary votes. It is also politically wise, in terms of promoting a Democratic (presumably Obama) victory in November. After watching “Recount” on HBO last Saturday and seeing in graphic detail how the Democratic voters in FL were disenfranchised in 2000, largely due to missteps of the Dems on the national level, I think it is especially important to make sure that the votes of the Florida Democrats count now. How many times can we expect them to get excited and go out to vote when their votes don’t count?
Read the whole post here.
Add comment May 28th, 2008
Since 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) has steadfastly asserted that psychologists participating in detainee interrogations protects detainees by helping to keep these interrogations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.” Last week, the APA’s Ethics Director Stephen Behnke seized upon newly released portions of an official investigation of US detainee abuse, called the Church Report, as an opportunity to reinvigorate support for the APA policy of psychologist participation in interrogations.
In a letter to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the APA’s Dr. Behnke stated:
“In carefully reviewing the documents, we note that according to the information obtained by the ACLU, psychologists supporting interrogations ‘emphasized their separation from detainee medical care’, and that a psychologist who suspected abuse ‘recommended the interrogation not proceed and brought in medical personnel to evaluate the detainee.’ According to these documents, APA’s policy of engagement served the intended purpose: to stop interrogations that cross the bounds of ethical propriety.”
To give Dr. Behnke credit, he did acknowledge the abuses described in the newly released material as “abhorrent.” However, any unbiased “careful review” of the documents falls far short of supporting Dr. Behnke’s conclusion. Quite the contrary, the report raises new concerns about the roles of psychologists in US interrogations.
Dr. Behnke’s letter to the ACLU was widely distributed within the APA as a defense of the association’s long-contested policy. It therefore is important to carefully examine his claims in the context of what is known about interrogation abuses in Iraq. In a separate article, Trudy Bond responded to Dr. Behnke’s claims in the same letter, questioning his assertions that the APA is willing to adjudicate reports of psychologists participating in detainee abuse. I will focus instead here on examining Dr. Behnke’s claim that the Church Report supports the APA’s policy of participation in detainee interrogations. In this process I briefly revisit previous justifications for APA policy.
Newly Released Church Report Materials
On April 30, 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced the release, under the Freedom of Information Act, of previously redacted portions of the Church Report on US military detainee abuses. This material contains numerous reports of physical and mental abuse, including several detainee deaths. The report makes clear that:
“[M]edical personnel often have exposure to the circumstances of detainee treatment.”
In discussing a number of these deaths the report states:
“We do not know if medical personnel reported suspicions of detainee abuse in this case, but the circumstances probably should have led them to consider detainee abuse.”
Although the language is sanitized, this statement nevertheless strongly points to the failure of medical personnel to take appropriate action in the face of likely interrogation abuse. Yet, in only one of eight deaths judged “suspicious for abuse” is there evidence that an Army physician reported the abuse. Thus, even in the face of potential homicide, medical personnel, for the most part, appear to have remained silent.
With regard to psychologists, the report stated:
“In Iraq, we interviewed two military personnel and one civilian serving in this capacity. All three emphasized their separation from detainee medical care. Only one believed he had observed or suspected detainee abuse. No details were offered, except that, when this occurred, he recommended the interrogation not proceed and brought in medical personnel to evaluate the detainee.”
The newly released material also reports that interrogation techniques [authorized by a September 2003 memorandum from commanding General Ricardo Sanchez] continued to be widely used until at least July 2004, well after some techniques were retracted in October 2003. Other techniques were banned in May 2004 [in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal]. These included:
” Isolation.”
” Environmental Manipulation: Altering the environment to create moderate discomfort (e.g. adjusting temperature or introducing an unpleasant smell)…. [Caution: Based on court cases in other countries, some nations may view application of this technique in certain circumstances to be inhumane. Consideration of these views should be given prior to use of this technique.]”
” Presence of Military Working Dog: Exploits Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations.”
” Yelling, Loud Music, and Light Control: Used to create fear, disorient detainee and prolong capture shock.”
” Sleep Management: Detainee provided minimum 4 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, not to exceed 72 continuous hours.”
” Stress Positions: Use of physical postures (sitting, standing, kneeling, prone, ect.) for no more than 1 hour per use. Use of technique(s) will not exceed 4 hours and adequate rest between use of each position will be provided.”
As was confirmed by the just released Justice Department Inspector General report on FBI involvement in abusive interrogations, these techniques were derived from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program to train US military personnel how to resist breaking under torture. As the Defense Department Inspector General reported, these techniques were “reverse engineered” by military and intelligence psychologists into US interrogation techniques. Authorization to use these techniques was hidden as, even after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the administration refused to release the Sanchez memo for nearly a year. These techniques, according to the Church Report, continued in widespread use long after their use had been retracted.
Special Forces
According to accounts by individuals like former Iraq Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis, these SERE techniques were regularly used by Special Forces in Iraq. Other interrogators learned of them, directly or indirectly, from Special Forces and attempted to imitate the techniques used by these revered units. Abuses by the Navy SEALS, a Special Forces unit, were reported by Lagouranis:
“They would actually have the detainee stripped nude, laying on the floor, pouring ice water over his body. They were taking his temperature with a rectal thermometer. We had one guy who had been burned by the navy SEALs. He looked like he had a lighter held up to his legs. One guy’s feet were like huge and black and blue, his toes were obviously all broken, he couldn’t walk.”
Further reports of abuse by Special Forces include the New York Times’s March 19, 2006 article chillingly entitled “In Secret Unit’s ‘Black Room,’ a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse“:
“American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government’s torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball….
Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, “NO BLOOD, NO FOUL.” The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: ‘If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.’ “
This unit combined elements from throughout the Special Forces:
“The task force was a melting pot of military and civilian units. It drew on elite troops from the Joint Special Operations Command, whose elements include the Army unit Delta Force, Navy’s Seal Team 6 and the 75th Ranger Regiment.”
There are numerous other reports of pervasive abuse by troops across Iraq. Thus Capt. Ian Fishback and two other members of the 82nd Airborne Division told Human Rights Watch in 2005 that the abuse in their unit was routine. As reported in the New York Times:
“In separate statements to the human rights organization, Captain Fishback and two sergeants described systematic abuses of Iraqi prisoners, including beatings, exposure to extremes of hot and cold, stacking in human pyramids and sleep deprivation at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base near Falluja.”
Capt. Fishback also quoted an Army Ranger, a Special Forces unit, as saying (after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April 2004):
“I talked to an officer in the Ranger regiment and his response was, he wouldn’t tell me exactly what he witnessed but he said “I witnessed things that were more intense than what you witnessed,” but it wasn’t anything that exceeded what I had heard about at SERE school”
Military Intelligence
Military Intelligence units in Iraq were also involved in much of the detainee abuse. Thus, the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] inspected detention facilities across the country and, in a leaked February 2004 report, described systematic abuse by military intelligence throughout Iraq. It states:
“persons deprived of their liberty under supervision of the Military Intelligence were at high risk of being subjected to a variety of harsh treatments ranging from insults, threats and humiliations to both physical and psychological coercion, which in some cases was tantamount to torture, in order to force cooperation with their interrogators” (p. 3-4).
The ICRC further reported:
“In certain cases such as in Abu Ghraib military intelligence section, methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information. Several military intelligence officers confirmed to the ICRC that it was part of the military intelligence process to hold a person deprived of his liberty naked in a completely dark and empty cell for a prolonged period to use inhumane and degrading treatment, including physical and psychological coercion” (p. 11).
It is important to note that no one was prosecuted or convicted at Abu Ghraib for isolating or humiliating prisoners, or for putting prisoners in ‘stress positions.’ These were considered standard operating procedures by the prosecution. The convictions were handed down for taking the infamous photographs or when there was evidence of physical abuse that went beyond these techniques.
The Church Report
It is relevant to understand that the Church Report is widely viewed as an attempt to whitewash detainee abuse through sidestepping the extent to which abuse was standard operating procedure and thus reducing command responsibility for that abuse. Thus Human Rights Watch characterizes the Church Report as a partial cover-up containing patent falsehoods:
“The Church report was supposed to be the definitive report on the development of interrogation techniques and detainee abuse in the “global war on terror” but the unclassified summary suggests a careful attempt - months after the Schlesinger and Fay/Jones report put the Pentagon on the defensive - to present a version of the facts that would not cause any trouble for the hierarchy. Time and again, the summary goes out of its way to rebut any inference that government policy was to blame, to the point of straining credibility and flatly contradicting the earlier reports. The report concluded that there was ‘no single, overarching explanation’ for the ‘few’ cases in which detainees had not been treated humanely.
Although Secretary Rumsfeld and General Sanchez both approved the use of guard dogs to strike fear in detainees, and although guard dogs were featured prominently in the Abu Ghraib photos, the Church executive summary states that ‘it is clear that none of the pictured abuses at Abu Ghraib bear any resemblance to approved policies at any level, in any theater.’ Indeed, the only mention of dogs in the entire summary is the patently false statement that in Afghanistan and Iraq ‘interrogators clearly understood that abusive practices and techniques - such as … terrorizing detainees with unmuzzled dogs … - were at all times prohibited.’ “
Given the nature of this report, it should be taken as a statement of what cannot be denied, and not as a definitive account of the nature or the extent of detainee abuse.
Previous APA Policy Justifications
The APA has utilized many questionable arguments and deceptive tactics to justify psychologists’ participation in interrogations. In 2005, the APA appointed a Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS). This Task Force was given the mandate to determine APA policy on psychologists’ participation in detainee interrogations. The majority of the Task Force membership, it turns out, consisted of military and intelligence psychologists who played roles in post 9/11 interrogations at Guantánamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the CIA’s “black site” torture centers. Not surprisingly, this task force emphasized psychologists important role is aiding national security by participating in these interrogations.
In support of its policy the APA has highlighted every available report of psychologists resisting interrogation abuses. While finding small pockets of resistance would hardly defend the policy, the APA has been able to offer only three incidents of psychologists ostensibly opposing the abusive interrogation policy. This despite the central role of psychologists in interrogations at Guantánamo and the CIA black sites and their participation in interrogations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most noteworthy example offered thus far has been that of Michael Gelles, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service psychologist. Gelles forcefully opposed opposed some of the worst abuses committed at Guantánamo and reported them to his commander, leading to policy changes. While Dr. Gelles acted honorably and may have helped change policies, one should remember that, long after these interventions the ICRC found conditions at Guantánamo continued to be abusive. As the New York Times described the ICRC findings during their June 2004 visit:
“[I]nvestigators had found a system devised to break the will of the prisoners at Guantánamo, who now number about 550, and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through ‘humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions.’ Investigators said that the methods used were increasingly ‘more refined and repressive’ than learned about on previous visits.
”The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture,’ the report said. It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to ’some beatings.’ The report did not say how many of the detainees were subjected to such treatment.”
Thus, whatever successes Dr. Gelles’ achieved, they did little to dismantle the abusive system, described in the ICRC report as “tantamount to torture.” Even Dr. Gelles’ valiant attempt to oppose these interrogation techniques did little, in the end, to keep interrogations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.”
The APA has also at times pointed to Col. Larry James as an example of a psychologist successfully opposing torture. But there is simply no evidence to support this claim. Col. James was the Chief Psychologist on the Joint Intelligence Task Force in charge of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantánamo in early 2003. As the Red Cross noted when they returned to Guantánamo a year after col. James’ departure, conditions had only become increasingly “more refined and repressive” since Col. James was stationed there. Additionally, during Col. James’ tour at Guantánamo, the Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures were adopted mandating a minimum of four weeks isolation for all new detainees:
“to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process. It concentrates on isolating the detainee and fostering dependence of the detainee on his interrogator.”
The Joint Intelligence Task Force, of which Col. James was the Chief Psychologist, was in fact assigned the role of deciding when a detainee had been sufficiently disoriented, disorganized, and dependent on his interrogator enough to be released from this isolation. When this policy was described in Harpers online, Dr. Behnke, the APA’s Ethics wrote a letter agreeing that this use of isolation was unethical for psychologists:
“With the recent posting on the Internet of what has been identified as the U.S. military’s 2003 operating manual for the Guantánamo detention center, attention has been directed to the use of isolation and sensory deprivation as interrogation procedures. APA policy specifically prohibits using any such technique, alone or in combination with other techniques for the purpose of breaking down a detainee.”
Nonetheless, even after this information became public, APA officials have continued to cite Col. James to audiences as an anti-torture hero.
APA and the Newly-Released Materials
Contained in the newly released sections of the Church Report is an official acknowledgement that psychologists in so-called Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs) functioned in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But what had not been clear before is that these BSCTs are “mostly within Special Operations, where they provide direct support to military operations.” That is, the BSCT psychologists were, as described above, within the units especially known for using brutal means for dealing with detainees (Arrigo & Bennett, 2007).
Given this context, it is especially misleading that the APA’s Ethics Director points to two vague sentences in the report to argue that this material supports the APA’s policy of “engagement” with the Bush administration’s interrogation regime. Here are the relevant sentences from the Church report:
“In Iraq, we interviewed two military personnel and one civilian serving in this capacity. All three emphasized their separation from detainee medical care. Only one believed he had observed or suspected detainee abuse. No details were offered, except that, when this occurred, he recommended the interrogation not proceed and brought in medical personnel to evaluate the detainee.”
Given that these BSCT psychologists are “mostly within Special Operations” and are assigned to military intelligence, a curious reader might wonder about the routine nature of interrogations witnessed or participated in by the BSCT psychologists. These routine interrogations likely included techniques approved by the September 2003 memorandum from Gen. Sanchez which the very same Church Report materials document were still in widespread use through at least July 2004. Given this background, there is a more plausible reading of these sentences. It is most likely that what was “abuse” to a BSCT psychologist were interrogation tactics that went beyond those authorized by the September 2003 memo as ‘standard operating procedure.’ That is, given the “No Blood, No Foul” attitude of many Special Forces units, “abuse” would very likely be tactics that led to serious and visible physical harm. The fact that the BSCT “brought in medical personnel to evaluate the detainee” also supports such an interpretation. In years of reading and writing about detainee abuse in Iraq and elsewhere, I have never seen accounts of medical personnel being brought in to examine victims exposed “merely” to psychological abuse such as isolation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, or exposure to loud noises or freezing temperatures. It is unlikely that this sole report of a psychologist reporting abuse was referring to these widespread, but standard, abuses.
Can I prove my interpretation of this passage is the correct one? No. The wording is ambiguous and “no details were offered.” But Dr. Behnke’s claim that these newly released materials provide evidence that “APA’s policy of engagement served the intended purpose - to stop interrogations that cross the bounds of ethical propriety” - is totally unsupported. In contrast, my interpretation is grounded in knowledge about detainee abuse in Iraq and about the Church report. Dr. Behnke’s “careful” review of these documents does not attempt to understand the role of psychologists in abuse of detainees but, like U.S. “intelligence” about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, fixes the data around established APA policy.
Reference
Arrigo, Jean Maria, & Bennett, Ray. (2007). Organizational Supports for Abusive Interrogations in “The War on Terror.” In Torture Is for Amateurs, special issue of Peace and Conflict, 13 (4): 411-421.
2 comments May 26th, 2008
Support Our Troops! Bring Them Home! And take care of them!
Add comment May 26th, 2008
The New York Times had an editorial on last week’s Department of Justice Inspector General report on FBI observation of US detainee torture and abuse.
What the FBI agents Saw
New York Times Editorial, May 22, 2008
Does this sound familiar? Muslim men are stripped in front of female guards and sexually humiliated. A prisoner is made to wear a dog’s collar and leash, another is hooded with women’s underwear. Others are shackled in stress positions for hours, held in isolation for months, and threatened with attack dogs.
You might think we are talking about that one cell block in Abu Ghraib, where President Bush wants the world to believe a few rogue soldiers dreamed up a sadistic nightmare. These atrocities were committed in the interrogation centers in American military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And they were not revealed by Red Cross officials, human rights activists, Democrats in Congress or others the administration writes off as soft-on-terror.
They were described in a painful report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, based on the accounts of hundreds of F.B.I. agents who saw American interrogators repeatedly mistreat prisoners in ways that the agents considered violations of American law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the report, some of the agents began keeping a “war crimes file” — until they were ordered to stop.
These were not random acts. It is clear from the inspector general’s report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, his Justice Department and other top officials corrupt American law to rationalize and authorize the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners:
— Four F.B.I. agents saw an interrogator cuff two detainees and force water down their throats.
— Prisoners at Guantánamo were shackled hand-to-foot for prolonged periods and subjected to extreme heat and cold.
— At least one detainee at Guantánamo was kept in an isolation cell for at least two months, a practice the military considers to be torture when applied to American soldiers.
The study said F.B.I. agents reported this illegal behavior to Washington. They were told not to take part, but the bureau appears to have done nothing to end the abuse. It certainly never told Congress or the American people. The inspector general said the agents’ concerns were conveyed to the National Security Council, but he found no evidence that it acted on them.
Mr. Bush claims harsh interrogations produced invaluable intelligence, but the F.B.I. agents said the abuse was ineffective. They also predicted, accurately, that it would be impossible to prosecute abused prisoners.
For years, Mr. Bush has refused to tell the truth about his administration’s inhuman policy on prisoners, and the Republican-controlled Congress eagerly acquiesced to his stonewalling. Now, the Democrats in charge of Congress must press for full disclosure.
Representative John Conyers, who leads the House Judiciary Committee, said he would focus on the F.B.I. report at upcoming hearings. Witnesses are to include John C. Yoo, who wrote the infamous torture memos, and the committee has subpoenaed David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Mr. Conyers also wants to question F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, both of whom should be subpoenaed if they do not come voluntarily.
That is just the first step toward uncovering the extent of President Bush’s disregard for the law and the Geneva Conventions. It will be a painful process to learn how so many people were abused and how America’s most basic values were betrayed. But it is the only way to get this country back to being a defender, not a violator, of human rights.
Add comment May 26th, 2008
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