Psyche, Science, and Society

Blogging light during APA Convention

I am leaving for the APA Convention, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility activities there in the morning. Blogging will be light or absent until my return Monday. nyone in Toronto, come hear Steven Reisner, Brad Olson, Trudy Bond, and myself speak tomorrow, Thursday, at 1:00-2:50 on Torture, Psychologists, and the APA at the PsySR Hospitality Suite in the Montebello Suite on the First Floor of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. The Suite will be my base of operations during the Convention. Come say “Hi!”

3 comments August 5th, 2009

APA referendum authors: Don’t let democracy die in committee

In the lead up to the American Psychological Association convention in Toronto tomorrow, where the struggle against APA cover for psychologist participation in human rights abuses will continue for yet another year, the authors of last year’s referendum — adopted by 59% of voting members — that condemned psychologist participation in detention sites outside of or in violation of international law, have issued an appeal to the membership to prevent the referendum’s murder by committee:

Don’t let democracy die in committee

Dear APA member,

Last year you, the membership of the APA, passed the first referendum in our history.  By a margin of 59 to 41, rank and file members of the APA voted to walk away from the dark side.

All the evidence has that emerged since the September vote has confirmed the soundness of the decision we made.  Newly declassified memos make it crystal clear that psychologists have designed, overseen, and participated in torture sessions.  Psychologists were so deeply integrated in the U.S.’s legal defense of torture that nearly any act – including those resulting in organ failure or death – was considered legal if a psychologist assured the interrogators that the action would produce information.  The role that psychologists played in the U.S.’ torture program was a central one.

Yet, despite this historic vote and despite the evidence confirming the soundness of our decision, psychologists continue to work in places like Guantanamo Bay.

In the 10 months that has passed since the passage of the referendum the leadership of the APA has done very little to implement the will of its members.  While the APA has received a report detailing numerous ways the referendum could be implemented, the various boards and committees of the association have not recommended taking any concrete actions.

Democracy is dying in committee – but we can change that.  We are asking you to contact President Bray and your council member and ask them implement all of the items included in the Presidential Advisory Group Report (PAG report).  Please also ask President Bray to immediately inform psychologists working at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Airbase that they are violating APA policy.

You can contact President Bray at: president@apa.org and you can find the contact info for your representative on this website:

http://cor.apa.org/corlist.cfm

Together we can change things for the better,

Dan Aalbers
Brad Olson
Ruth Fallenbaum

August 5th, 2009

Military letter to the APA: Drop the Nuremberg Defense from psychologist ethics code

Capt. Lawrence Rockwood (ret.), the author of Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility,has organized the following letter from military figures to the American Psychological Association. The Letter expresses dismay by these military people to the inclusion of  ethics standard 1.02 — the Nuremberg “just following orders” Defense — in the APA ethics code. [See attorney Scott Horton's comments on 1.02 at his Harpers blog.]

The military letter was sent to President Bray and the members of the APA Council of Representatives:

August 4, 2009

To President James A. Bray and the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association:

We write as concerned, veteran military and intelligence professionals. If the American Psychological Association (APA) retains Section 1.02 in its Ethics Code, the APA will place itself in opposition to some of the best traditions of the American military profession. Section 1.02 of the APA Ethics Code undermines not only the good order and discipline of military and intelligence professionals who happen also to be psychologists, but also their responsibilities under official military doctrine and professional military ethics. This section of the APA code entails an exemption that a psychologist can follow an order from a government employer even if it is otherwise contraindicated by the APA code. This section of the APA code disregards the Nuremberg Principles as recognized in 1950 by UN General Assembly Resolution 177 and incorporated into American military doctrine in the 1956 publication of Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Armed Conflict.

The Nuremberg Principles were drafted in the United States War Department during the last year of the Second World War. Two major themes of the Nuremberg Principles have been incorporated into American military doctrine: (1) commanders and government officials are responsible for the criminal acts of their subordinates, and (2) that a person acts in response to an order from a government or of a superior does not relieve him or her from personal criminal responsibility. In the case of the prosecution for the massacre of unarmed civilians in My Lai in Vietnam in March 1968, a military court categorically ruled out the so-called Nuremberg Defense in a defense of an accused war criminal who claimed an order(s) from superiors sanctioned an otherwise criminal act.

The professional normative standards of the military professional as a whole are binding on psychologists within the military. We therefore ask that the APA remove Section 1.02, or any equivalent statement, in the APA Ethics Code and any other APA policy inconsistent with official military doctrine, professional military ethics, and the standards of international humanitarian law.

Lawrence P. Rockwood, PhD, Former Captain, US Army Counterintelligence
Author: Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility in the American Military Profession, 2007, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

David C. MacMichael, Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Security Council, former captain, USMC

Terrence Karney, Former Staff Sergeant, US Army: Interrogator, and Interrogation Instructor

Peter Weiss, Sergeant, Military Intelligence, 1945, served as interrogator
of high-value German detainee in Nuremberg

Matthew Alexander, former senior interrogator for the U.S. military in Iraq,
Author: How to Break a Terrorist, 2008. New York: Free Press.

David DeBatto, U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent (ret.)

C.B. Scott Jones, Ph.D. Commander, USN Retired. South Asia Naval Intelligence, J-2 U.S. European Command, Scientific and Technical Intelligence Analyst

Virenda Verma, M.Sc., Col., Indian Army Intelligence Retired. Visiting Fellow – Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. India-Pakistan Soldiers Initiative for Peace, Founder. Tibet Study Group, Founder and General Secretary.

Herbert Ely, Retired from Department of the Army, Senior Intelligence Analyst

August 5th, 2009