At an American Psyuchological Association awards ceremony this summer, APA President James Bray gave the most succinct statement of what is wrong with the association’s ethics. In talking of award winner Patrick DeLeon, a clinical psychologist, lawyer, 2000 APA president and chief of staff to Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Bray stated:
“Dr. DeLeon has shown us through his right actions and public service that we don’t need to focus on what other groups say about what psychology should or shouldn’t do,” said APA President James H. Bray, PhD. “We get to decide because we know what’s right for us.”
As one colleague who read this statement has commented:
The ultimate In-Group Credo. Here the APA has a meeting of the minds with religious fundamentalists. Amazing. Out with monitoring. Out with checks and balances. Out with democratic principles.
It should be remembered that DeLeon has been described as the critical connection between the APA and the military-intelligence establishment by former APA insider Bryant Welch, who claimed that DeLeon was behind the association’s collusion with the Bush regime torture and abusive interrogations. Given this background, President Bray’s endorsement of DeLeon’s attitude has an ominous ring indeed.
November 24th, 2009
Following the resignation of White House Counsel Greg Craig, another Obama administration official involved in detainee policy and sympathetic to human rights is resigning “for personal reasons.” Phillip Carter, who has been Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy since April, suddenly announced his resignation today. His resignation is so sudden that the Pentagon spokesperson didn’t know if he was still working or had cleaned out his desk.
As the Washington Post reported:
Since taking office, he has helped craft new policies that will allow hundreds of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan to challenge their indefinite detention under a new review system. Carter was also involved in the administration’s effort to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, which holds 215 detainees….
Carter worked on a Justice Department-led task force, which will offer recommendations to President Obama on future detention policy.
A critic of detention policy under the Bush administration, Carter filed friend-of-the-court briefs in Supreme Court cases on administration policies, including the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, which struck down the Bush administration’s system of military commissions for trying detainees at Guantanamo.
Carter, who worked on Vets for Obama during the president’s campaign, attempted to build relationships with the human rights community, which remains critical of the administration’s decision to employ a reformed system of military commissions.
It’s beginning to look as if the Bush II, Rahm Obama administration may be purging those officials who don’t understand that human rights take last place, after placating the intelligence community and looking strong so Liz Cheney doesn’t mock them.
November 24th, 2009