To many academics and researchers the American Psychological Association is largely known as the publisher of many high quality, and high status, journals. the National Institutes of Health recently required that all research funded y the NIH deposit publications in an open source depository. APA evidently tried to make money off this process, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reported yesterday:
July 15, 2008
Psychological Association Will Charge Authors for Open-Access Archiving
By Lila Guterman
In what appears to be a new policy, the American Psychological Association will require authors who publish in its journals to let it deposit their papers in open-access repositories — and it will charge them $2,500 to do so.
Researchers who have grants from the National Institutes of Health must deposit their published articles in the institutes’ online archive, PubMed Central. Last week the journal Nature and many of its offshoots announced that they would deposit their authors’ articles for them. Free.
Now the psychological association says that its authors “should NOT deposit” their own manuscripts, and instead should allow the group to do so. “The deposit fee of $2,500 per manuscript for 2008 will be billed to the author’s university,” the policy says.
Because the NIH does not charge a fee, that money is apparently going to the psychological association.
Open-access advocates like Peter Suber, a research professor of philosophy at Earlham College, expressed outrage. “It’s as bad as it looks,” he told The Chronicle. “This is not a good use of anybody’s money.” Depositing an article in PubMed Central, he said, is a “clerical job that can be done by a machine.”
The psychological association did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Chronicle.
This report, or other negative reaction appears to hve led the APA to back down. When one follows the link to their web site, one now sees:
Document Deposit Policy and Procedures for APA Journals
A new document deposit policy of the American Psychological Association (APA) requiring a publication fee to deposit manuscripts in PubMed Central based on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently being re-examined and will not be implemented at this time. This policy had recently been announced on APA’s Web site. APA will soon be releasing more detailed information about the complex issues involved in the implementation of the new NIH Public Access Policy.
APA will continue to deposit NIH-funded manuscripts on behalf of authors in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
To continue with these charges could lead many more academics and researchers to leave the APA, as any such fees would be taken, directly or indirectly, by their universities out of the grants, reducing already limited research funds. And non-APA journals would instantly become more attractive publishing venues.
July 16th, 2008
Social Worker Hal Brown on the idealization of Obama and the resultant disillusionment:
Idealization of Obama: The higher the pedestal the harder they fall
By Hal Brown
This is a column about the psychology of idealization and how it effects our feelings and our opinions about others when they disappoint us: case in point Barack Obama. Our wishes led many of us to think of Obama as a realization of our hopes for the perfect candidate, the ideal president. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s supporters.
“Idealization is a process which concerns the person; by it that person, without any alteration in its nature, is aggrandized and exalted in the subject’s mind.” Sigmund Freud*
After Freud other famous early analysts considered this to be a defense mechanism It is important to note two things. All people have and use defense mechanisms and they are often unconscious.
In the case of Obama, I think his supporters consciously had the highest hopes for him, but some may have unconsciously idealized him in the psychological sense.
Before you say “not me” realize that if you did this you wouldn’t necessarily know it.
A difficulty in writing about this is that there are two ways to use the word idealization, and most people outside of the field of psychology understand the word to mean simply to attribute ideal characteristics to someone.
There are numerous defense mechanisms (list), everybody uses them. Some may be harmful, most are not. In fact, some like humor and altruism actually are healthy. (See level 4 defense mechanisms on Wikipedia.) Most students of psychology today consider idealization one of the more benign defense mechanisms. It is a level 2 defense mechanism, defined (on the above link) as follows:
“These mechanisms are often present in adults and more commonly present in adolescence. These mechanisms lessen distress and anxiety provoked by threatening people or by uncomfortable reality. People who excessively use such defenses are seen as socially undesirable in that they are immature, difficult to deal with and seriously out of touch with reality. These are the so-called “immature” defenses and overuse almost always lead to serious problems in a person’s ability to cope effectively. These defenses are often seen in severe depression and personality disorders. In adolescence, the occurrence of all of these defenses is normal.”
Before people jump down the page to the comments section, I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that anyone’s idealization of Obama was unhealthy; unwise, perhaps, unrealistic for sure, but not unhealthy.
Most of those who reacted in negative ways to Obama’s changed positions, from disappointment to anger to outrage, made good points. I suggest that those whose feelings were particularly harsh are more likely than others to have idealized Obama.
Many of us, perhaps all of us, want people we look up to, whether in politics or the celebrity world, to reflect our own personal ego ideal (another term from psychoanalysis defined here. We want them to be everything we wished we could be, plus more.
Grown-ups aren’t supposed to have personal heroes in public life but we do. We often bend over backwards psychologically (through the defense mechanism of rationalization) to maintain our positive image of them, excusing and explaining their faults and failings until their behavior becomes so out of line with our expectations that our reason prevails. Then idealization can easily turn to outraged because we feel a very personal betrayal.
This is not to say that everyone who has experienced these feelings about Obama idealized him rather than simply had high hopes for him. Some readers may be curious about why they can’t seem to step back from their initial disappointment, anger or rage over, say, Obama’s FISA vote.
In order to have an accurate perception of anyone, whether a parent, friend, lover, spouse or politician, you have to recognize the extent to which you are idealizing them. Sometimes this is difficult to do because the roots of your tendency to idealize may go back to your relationship with one or both parents. Children have a strong need to believe that their parents are good, are perfect, that they end up blaming themselves for parental abuse or emotional neglect rather than deal with the facts. Some people spend years in analytic therapy to gain insights as to how their childhood experiences influence them.
If you were so enraged at Obama’s FISA vote that you wanted to not only throw him under the proverbial bus, but drive back and forth over him yourself, you may not have unconscious and unresolved issues with your parents.
But you might.
* ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914) (Standard Edition, XIV, pp. 73–102, at p. 94).Note: I’ve changed British spelling to American spelling in some quotes.
Hal Brown, LICSW, has been a clinical social worker and psychotherapist since 1961. He often writes about politics from a psychological perspective.
July 15th, 2008
Among the blockbuster revelations in Jane Mayer’s new book, The Dark Side, is that world famous psychologist and former American Psychological Association (APA) President Martin Seligman actively aided the development of the CIA’s torture techniques, based as they were upon Seligman’s “learned helplessness” theory. Apparently Seligman aided CIA consultant torture psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, in the development of these techniques.
Mayer’s book is due out Tuesday. But Scott Horton has read it and produced a summary, which is now posted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Here is the relevant section:
She traces the development of the torture techniques to the work of two contractors, Mitchell and Jessen, and disclosed the specific techniques they developed. She notes that the techniques rely heavily on a theory called “Learned Helplessness” developed by a Penn psychologist Martin Seligman, who assisted them in the process. All of this was done under the thin pretext of being a part of the SERE program. Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association. This helps explain why the APA alone among professional healthcare provider organizations failed to unequivocally condemn torture and mandate that its members not associate themselves with the Bush Administration techniques.
We should remember that Seligman is the second former APA President implicated in Mitchell and Jessen’s development of the CIA torture techniques from their SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) experience. Last summer it was reported that former APA President Joseph Matarazzo had a voting stake in Mitchell and Jessen’s CIA-consulting torture firm.
Strangely, out of the blue a few weeks ago an APA Board member sent an email out on Association listservs proclaiming that APA had no connection with Mitchell and Jessen:
Colleagues,
I wanted to share the fact that APA is aware of the concerns that two Washington state psychologists were employed by the Department of Defense to reverse-engineer survival and resistance training (which is designed to help U.S. military personnel in the event they are captured) for use in interrogations. These two psychologists are not APA members so are out of the reach of the APA’s ethics enforcement process but, nevertheless, APA’s position on inappropriate interrogations techniques is very clear.
In making these statements this Board member ignored an extensive web of connections between APA and the CIA torturers that I recently detailed: As I wrote then:
The APA is intensely disturbed by President Matzrazzo’s possible involvement in torture as can be gleamed from these ethically-principled quotes from APA leadership when Matzrazzo’s involvement was revealed last summer.
Then APA President Sharon Brehm: “No comment.”
APA Director of the Ethics Office and APA point man on torture and interrogations: “No comment.”
But one official did have a comment, which says everything one needs to knopw about the ethics of APA leadership.
“Dr. Matarazzo was president of APA 18 years ago,” Rhea Farberman, the organization’s director of public affairs, said in a prepared statement.
“Since that time, he has had no active role in APA governance but has been actively involved in the American Psychological Foundation (APF), the charitable giving arm of APA. Dr. Matarazzo currently holds no governance positions in either APA or APF,” the statement said.
Matarazzo’s “professional activities are outside and independent of any role he has played within APA and APF,” the statement said. “We have no direct knowledge about the business dealing of Mitchell’s and Jessen’s company; however, APA’s position is clear – torture or other forms of cruel or inhuman treatment are always unethical.”
Notice the deep concern for Mitchell and Jessen’s and, potentially, Matarazzo’s, actions expressed in this statement. Notice the (missing) promise to investigate and, if confirmed, discipline this former APA President. After all, while “torture is unethical”, this former President’s “professional activities” are no concern of the APA.
We are left to wonder if APA leaders had advance knowledge of these new reports about President Seligman contained in Mayer’s book. We can expect new claims that APA has no connection with President Seligman, who according to his bio:
In 1996… was elected President of the American Psychological Association, by the largest vote in modern history.
This means in 1997 Seligman was President-elect of the APA, in 1998, he was President, and in 1999 he was Past-President and Board member. (For the record, I voted for him with enthusiasm.) He is, of course, still an APA member. Further, Seligman is one of the most esteemed psychologists in the last several decades. In fact:
According to Haggbloom et al’s study of the most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century, Seligman was the 13th most frequently cited psychologist in introductory psychology textbooks throughout the century
It will be interesting to see the APA spinmeisters rapidly distance themselves from this second torture-connected former President. We can only wonder how many other former APA Presidents and officials will turn out to be connected to this sordid aspect of recent American history.
To remind readers of what is at stake, here is Horton’s summary of Mayer’s account of these techniques:
She provides a number of grueling examples of the application of the techniques including the brutal murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, the placement of prisoners in closed coffins for prolonged periods, and one instance in which a below-the-knee amputee with a prosthesis who had his prosthesis taken away and was forced to stand for hours on one foot, hanging from a rail.
We have already learnt from last Friday’s New York Times article that the Red Cross proclaimed these techniques to be “torture”, not just “tantamount to tortuer” or some such term.
We will undoubtedly be learning much more about Seligman, Mitchell, Jessen and the other torture psychologists in the days and weeks to come. Perhap APA members will finally take it upon themselves to demand radical reform of our professional organization that has closed its eyes to members’ aiding the torturers for far too long.
UPDATE: Seligman has sent a denial that he knowingly aided the CIA in the development of its torture techniques. I’ve posted it here.
July 13th, 2008
The Nordic Psychological Associations have together written a letter to the American Psychological Association posing a number of questions regarding the APA’s policy regarding psychologists’ participation in detainee interrogations. [pdf here]. It will be interesting to see the APA response:
————————
Oslo, 25th June 2008
American Psychological Association
Att: President Alan E. Kazdin
750 First Street,
NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242 USA
[Our ref: 780/1440/08 TLH/hs]
Questions about APAs stand on psychologist’s participation in US military and CIA interrogations.
The policy of the American Psychological Association (APA) regarding the involvement of psychologists in military interrogations has fuelled debate within the psychological communities in our Nordic countries, as it has in the US. The Scandinavian Psychological Associations thus wish to address the matter to share our friendly concerns, as well as to make sure that our understanding of these difficult questions is based on correct interpretations of the stated policies.
The participation of psychologists in interrogations, and the allegations that psychologists have been present in situations where coercive and abusive interrogation techniques have been used, has been brought to international attention through numerous newspaper articles (e.g. Eban, 2007; Lewis, 2004; Mayer, 2005, 2007; Zagorin & Duffy, 2005), articles in academic journals (e.g. Miles, 2007), reports issued by human rights organizations (e.g. Physicians for Human Rights, 2005) and recently declassified military reports (e.g. Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defence, 2006).
We acknowledge the action taken by the APA to prevent the involvement and participation of psychologists in torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. We especially welcome the latest amendment (APA, 2008) to the 2007 resolution (APA, 2007), which refers to important international standards and seals many of the potential “loopholes” in the 2007 resolution. However, we are still concerned over a number of issues.
1. Both the 2006 (APA, 2006) and 2007 resolutions, as well as the 2008 amendment, make reference to, among other international standards, the UN Principles of Medical Ethics (UN General Assembly, 1982), which states that:
It is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel, particularly physicians, to be involved in any professional relationship with prisoners or detainees where the purpose of which is not solely to evaluate, protect or improve their physical and mental health. (Principle 3).
And:
It is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel, particularly physicians:
(a) To apply their knowledge and skills in order to assist in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees in a manner that may adversely affect the physical or mentalhealth or condition of such prisoners or detainees and which is not in accordance with the relevant international instruments. (Principle 4)
The aim of psychologists’ involvement in military interrogations has been to evaluate where the potentially weak spots are, when to push or not to push the person under interrogation harder in pursuit of intelligence information (Office of the Surgeon General, 2005) and to teach interrogators how to exploit high value detainees (Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defence, 2006). Does APA consider such actions to be consistent with the UN Principles of Medical Ethics?
2. We regret that the APA Council of Representatives in 2007 did not adopt the amendment that psychologists’ roles in settings and environments where detainees are deprived of fundamental human rights should be limited to providing mental health care and psychological treatment (Okorodudu, Strickland, Van Hoorn, & Wiggins, 2007). Indeed, the UN Special Rapport on Torture considers the presence and participation of psychologists in settings and environments that violate international humanitarian law and basic human rights standards, in other capacities than that of a health care provider, as acquiescence to the violations committed (Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, n.d.). We are concerned that the mere presence of psychologists in settings and environments where detainees are deprived of their most fundamental human rights may be interpreted as a way of condoning these practices, giving support and legitimacy to serious violations of international law and human rights. What is the APA’s opinion in this matter?
3. We also have concerns regarding the seemingly incompatible nature of the APA Ethics Code (2002) and the 2007 resolution (APA, 2007). Whereas the Ethics Code provision 1.02 sets forth that if there is a conflict between ethical principles and the law stating that “psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority”, the 2007 resolution states that there
are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether induced by a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, that may be invoked as a justification for torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the invocation of laws, regulations, or orders.
Does the 2007 resolution supercede the Ethics Code provision 1.02? How are these two standards to be interpreted by psychologists?
4. Furthermore, according to the Introduction and applicability section of the APA Ethics Code (2002), psychologists should perform their work “in keeping with basic principles of human rights”. This entails that “a psychologist acting in a professional capacity could not invoke the law to justify an abuse of human rights” (Behnke, 2004). How does this apply to psychologists working in places and in environments in which violations of human rights and international law systematically occur as a matter of institutional policy, such as at Guantanamo Bay and “CIA black sites”?
5. Although the Introduction and applicability section of the APA Ethics Code makes reference to human rights, the Ethics Code provision 1.02 does not. This gives the impression that the idea of psychologists adhering to fundamental human rights in their work is merely aspirational and not enforceable (Olson, Soldz, & Davis, 2008). Even if the 2007 resolution supersedes the Ethics Code provision 1.02, we are concerned that the current wording of the provision 1.02 allows psychologists to participate in human rights violations that do not reach the standard of torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Does APA deem it ethical for psychologists to actively participate in situations where enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention/imprisonment without charge or trial occur?
6. One of the main arguments of the APA for the continued presence of psychologists in military interrogations is that this presence ensures that interrogations are conducted in a safe, ethical and legal manner. Although we agree that psychologists do possess important knowledge of the stresses of captivity, for instance SERE (survival, evasion, resistance & escape) psychologists, we are concerned by the practice of using military psychologists in the capacity of “safety officers”. To illustrate this point, we can mention that Danish military psychologists refuse to participate in the practical prisoners of war exercises/training that Danish soldiers have to undergo as part of their preparations for active service in war zones. This refusal on the part of the psychologists refers directly to their ethical guidelines and obligations (Ulrichsen, 2005). We are concerned that the “dual loyalty” difficulties (Physicians for Human Rights & University of Cape Town, 2002) inherent in these settings will impose restrictions on the psychologists’ possibility to act as whistle blowers in relation to potential human rights violations. Is it not so that APA would promote the protection of detainees far better by working to secure/grant independent organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other independent human rights monitoring bodies, unlimited access to all detainees in order to prevent abuse and ill-treatment? We are concerned that military psychologists cannot function in an ethically correct way in sites where basic human rights are systematically violated, and where appropriate international bodies of control are denied access.
7. In relation to this last point - what initiatives have been taken from the APA to secure that independent and thorough investigation have taken place in situations where allegations of psychologist involvement in torture and other ill-treatment have been presented?
We hope to engage in a constructive and open dialogue with the APA on these issues. We also hope to develop a close collaboration with the objective of eliminating all torture and cruel and degrading treatment. Our aim is a better and more practical approach to the necessary assistance of all people exposed to torture who are in critical need of good psychological treatment and rehabilitation. International attempts at justice and accountability for human rights violations represent an issue of great importance to our common field, and is one that deserves our deepest involvement and attention.
The committee is fully aware that this has been an issue between EFPA and APA for a long time. It is our view that this dialogue should continue, but we would like to raise these questions on behalf of the Scandinavian associations.
Tor Levin Hofgaard
President of the Nordic Committee of Psychologists’ Associations
President of the Norwegian Psychological Association
References:
APA (2002). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.pdf
APA (2006, August 9). Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Retrieved June 10, 2008, from http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/notortureres.html
APA (2007, August 19). Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants”. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html
APA (2008, February 22). Amendment to the Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants”. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/amend022208.html
Behnke, S. (2004). APA’s new Ethics Code from a practitioner’s perspective. Monitor on Psychology, 35(4). Retrieved from http://ww-w.apa.org/monitor/apr04/ethics.html
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology (n.d.). Analysis of the American Psychological Association’s frequently asked questions regarding APA’s policies and positions on the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during interrogations. Retrieved June 10, 2008, from http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/apa_faq_coalition_comments_v12c.pdf
Eban, K. (2007, July 17). Rorschach and awe. Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707
Lewis, N.A. (2004, November 30). Red Cross finds detainee abuse in Guantanamo. The New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30910FF3A5A0C738FDDA80994DC404482
Mayer, J. (2005, July 1 1). The experiment. The New Yorker. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4?printable=true
Mayer, J. (2007, August 13). The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program. The New Yorker. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?printable=true
Miles, S.H. (2007). Medical ethics and the interrogation of Guantanamo 063. The American Journal of Bioethics, 7(4), 1-7.
Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defence (2006, August 25). Review of DoD-directed investigations of detainee abuse. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/abuse.pdf
Office of the Surgeon General (2005, April 13). Final report: Assessment of detainee medical operations for OEF, GTMO, and OIF. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://www.amedd.army.mil/news/detmedopsrprt/detmedopsrpt.pdf
Okorodudu, C., Strickland, W.J., Van Hoorn, J.L., & Wiggins, E.C. (2007). A call to action: APA’s 2007 Resolution against torture. Monitor on Psychology, 38(10). Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/calltoaction.html
Olson, Soldz, & Davis, (2008). The ethics of interrogation and the American Psychological Association: A critique of policy and process. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 3(3).
Physicians for Human Rights (2005). Break them down: Systematic use of psychological torture by US. Forces. Cambridge: Physicians for Human Rights.
Physicians for Human Rights & University of Cape Town. (2002). Dual loyalty and human rights in health professional practice: Proposed guidelines & institutional mechanisms. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/report-2002-duelloyalty.pdf
Ulrichsen, R. (2005). Forsvar for etikken. [In defence of an ethical psychology.] Psykolog Nyt, 21, 1. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://infolink2003.elbo.dk/PsyNyt/Dokumenter/doc/13387.pdf
UN General Assembly (1982, December 18). Principles of Medical Ethics relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_comp40.htm
Zagorin, A., & Duffy, M. (2005, June 12). Inside the interrogation of detainee 063. Time Magazine. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from http://www.time.comitime/magazine/article/0,9171.1071284,00.html
July 7th, 2008
Scott Shane, in the New York Times, reports for a broad audience what those who have carefully followed SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) “reverse-engineering” have long known, that US torture techniques were derived from Chinese Communist “brainwashing” techniques designed to elicit false confessions. That is, the techniques the administration has been claiming are essential to obtain vital intelligence are in fact designed to get people to admit to falsehoods. Not only are the brutal, immoral, and illegal, they are also downright stupid, if one is seriously interested in obtaining high-quality intelligence.
:Shane describes the origins of a table brought to Guantanamo by SERE trainers that they entitled “Coercive Management techniques” (p. 63). In fact, the table is taken directly from Albert Biderman’s 1957 paper Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War (p. 19):
China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo
By Scott Shane
WASHINGTON - The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.
Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.
But committee investigators were not aware of the chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.
Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured.
In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.
“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”
A Defense Department spokesman, Lt. Col Patrick Ryder, said he could not comment on the Guantánamo training chart. “I can’t speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current D.O.D. policy on interrogations,” Colonel Ryder said. “I can tell you that current D.O.D. policy is clear - we treat all detainees humanely.”
Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods,” sometimes in conditions of “extreme cold.” Such passive methods, he wrote, were more common than outright physical violence. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold have both been used by American military and C.I.A. interrogators against terrorist suspects.
The chart also listed other techniques used by the Chinese, including “Semi-Starvation,” “Exploitation of Wounds,” and “Filthy, Infested Surroundings,” and with their effects: “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist,” and “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns.”
The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.”
The documents released last month include an e-mail message from two SERE trainers reporting on a trip to Guantánamo from Dec. 29, 2002, to Jan. 4, 2003. Their purpose, the message said, was to present to interrogators “the theory and application of the physical pressures utilized during our training.”
The sessions included “an in-depth class on Biderman’s Principles,” the message said, referring to the chart from Mr. Biderman’s 1957 article. Versions of the same chart, often identified as “Biderman’s Chart of Coercion,” have circulated on anti-cult sites on the Web, where the methods are used to describe how cults control their members.
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who also studied the returning prisoners of war and wrote an accompanying article in the same 1957 issue of The Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, said in an interview that he was disturbed to learn that the Chinese methods had been recycled and taught at Guantánamo.
“It saddens me,” said Dr. Lifton, who wrote a 1961 book on what the Chinese called “thought reform” and became known in popular American parlance as brainwashing. He called the use of the Chinese techniques by American interrogators at Guantánamo a “180-degree turn.”
The harshest known interrogation at Guantánamo was that of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a member of Al Qaeda suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Qahtani’s interrogation involved sleep deprivation, stress positions, exposure to cold and other methods also used by the Chinese.
Terror charges against Mr. Qahtani were dropped unexpectedly in May. Officials said the charges could be reinstated later and declined to say whether the decision was influenced by concern about Mr. Qahtani’s treatment.
Mr. Bush has defended the use the interrogation methods, saying they helped provide critical intelligence and prevented new terrorist attacks. But the issue continues to complicate the long-delayed prosecutions now proceeding at Guantánamo.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Qaeda member accused of playing a major role in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, was charged with murder and other crimes on Monday. In previous hearings, Mr. Nashiri, who was subjected to waterboarding, has said he confessed to participating in the bombing falsely only because he was tortured.
July 2nd, 2008
Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times of the recently releases Physicians for Human Rights report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US:
All Too Human
By Bob Herbert
Thursday was the 21st anniversary of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
It was also the same day that two Bush administration lawyers appeared before a House subcommittee to answer questions about their roles in providing the legal framework for harsh interrogation techniques that inevitably rose to the level of torture and shamed the U.S. before the rest of the world.
The lawyers, both former Justice Department officials, were David Addington, who is now Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, and John Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. There is no danger of either being enshrined as heroes in the history books of the future.
For most Americans, torture is something remote, abstract, reprehensible, but in the eyes of some, perhaps necessary - when the bomb is ticking, for example, or when interrogators are trying to get information from terrorists willing to kill Americans in huge numbers.
Reality offers something much different. We saw the hideous photos from Abu Ghraib. And now the Nobel Prize-winning organization Physicians for Human Rights has released a report, called “Broken Laws, Broken Lives,” that puts an appropriately horrifying face on a practice that is so fundamentally evil that it cannot co-exist with the idea of a just and humane society.
The report profiles 11 detainees who were tortured while in U.S. custody and then released - their lives ruined - without ever having been charged with a crime or told why they were detained. All of the prisoners were men, and all were badly beaten. One was sodomized with a broomstick, the report said, and forced by his interrogators to howl like a dog while a soldier urinated on him.
He fainted, the report said, “after a soldier stepped on his genitals.”
Officials at Physicians for Human Rights said extensive medical and psychological examinations were conducted - and in two cases prior medical records were consulted - to help corroborate the testimony of the detainees. The organization has a long and credible history of documenting such abuses.
Leonard Rubenstein, president of Physicians for Human Rights, said: “In doing the evaluations, we used international standards, medical assessments of torture and ill treatment, and meticulously assessed physical and psychological evidence of torture and ill treatment, and the long-term physical and mental health consequences.”
The most effective element of the report is the way in which it takes torture out of the realm of the abstract to show not just the horror and cruelty of the torture itself, but the way in which it absolutely devastates the body, soul and psyche of its victims.
The detainees profiled in the report were abused at facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Three said they had been subjected to electric shocks. One said he was stabbed in the cheek with a screwdriver and hit in the head and in the jaw with a rifle.
In an example of how medical evidence was used to back up a detainee’s account, the report said scarring on one of the prisoner’s thumbs “was highly consistent with the scarring caused by electric shock.”
In addition to the physical mistreatment, the detainees reported that various gruesome forms of humiliation, including sexual humiliation, were pervasive. They said men were paraded nude in front of female soldiers, forced to watch pornography, and forced to disrobe before female interrogators.
The sheer number of different ways in which detainees were reported to have been abused was mind-boggling. They were deprived of sleep, forced to endure extremes of heat and cold, chained in crouching positions for 18 to 20 hours at a time, told that their female relatives would be raped, that they themselves would be killed, and on and on. All to no good end.
The ostensible purpose of mistreating prisoners is to inflict pain and induce disorientation and despair, creating so much agony that the prisoners give up valuable intelligence in order to end the suffering. But torture is not an interrogation technique; it’s a criminal attack on a human being.
What the report makes clear is that once the green light is given to torture, the guaranteed result is an ever-widening landscape of broken bodies, ruined lives and profound shame to all involved.
Nearly all of the detainees profiled in the report have experienced excruciating psychological difficulties since being released. Several said that they had contemplated suicide. As one put it: “No sorrow can be compared to my torture experience in jail. That is the reason for my sadness.”
Congress and the public do not know nearly enough about the nation’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation practices. When something as foul as torture is on the table, there is a tendency to avert one’s eyes from the most painful truths.
It’s a tendency we should resist.
July 1st, 2008
In New York Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried is sponsoring a bill to prohibit state licensed health providers from aiding torture or participating in interrogations. As Gottfried explains:
“Under the bill, health care professionals would be required to provide proper care and treatment to prisoners as best they can under the circumstances. Any evaluation or treatment they provide must be in the interest of the prisoner. Military or other governmental orders would not shield a person from the loss of their professional license in New York.” [emphasis added.]
The passage of this bill would constitute an enormous step toward restoring the health professions to their proper role of promoting human welfare.
Here is a Press Release from Assemblymember Gottfried about the bill:News from
Assemblymember
Richard N. Gottfried
75th Assembly District
Anti-Torture Bill Moves in Albany
June 10, 2008
Physicians and other health care professionals licensed by New York would be prohibited from participating in torture or improper treatment of a prisoner under a bill approved unanimously by the Assembly Higher Education Committee today.
“It is shocking that our government engages in torture and improper treatment of prisoners,” said the bill’s author, Assembly Health Committee chair Richard N. Gottfried. “It is even more shocking to see reports that physicians and other health care professionals are cooperating in it.”
In February 2008, the Washington Post reported on U.S. Attorney General Robert Mukasey’s argument that waterboarding was not torture because it was monitored and limited by someone with medical training. In 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine reported on violations of medical ethics against medical personnel at Guantanamo Bay for sharing prisoner’s health information with interrogators.
The bill has 27 co-sponsors in both parties and is the first of its kind in the nation, Gottfried said.
“It is never justifiable to torture another human being. It is wrong for a health care professional to use his or her education and training to participate in or facilitate torture or improper treatment of a prisoner,” said Gottfried. “I don’t think any New York patient would want to be treated by a health care professional who would do that to another human being.”
The bill would apply to conduct by any New York-licensed health care professional wherever it happens, and regardless of whether it is committed in connection with any government. The bill would follow international treaties and standards and professional standards by establishing the proper conduct of health care professionals in relation to the treatment of prisoners, Gottfried said.
“New York law ordinarily cannot reach beyond our borders, but the state can limit the professional behavior of a person to whom it grants a license,” Gottfried said. “We often revoke a license for out-of-state misconduct.”
Under the bill, health care professionals would be required to provide proper care and treatment to prisoners as best they can under the circumstances. Any evaluation or treatment they provide must be in the interest of the prisoner. Military or other governmental orders would not shield a person from the loss of their professional license in New York.
The bill is based on the UN Convention Against Torture, adopted in 1982, and the World Medical Association Declaration of Tokyo, adopted in 1975.
If the bill (A.9891) is approved by the Higher Education Committee, which has jurisdiction over professional licensure, it will go to the Assembly Codes Committee, which will review the penalty provisions of the bill.
Prohibiting health professionals from cooperating with torture is advocated by the UN General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Association of Social Workers, among others. The bill was developed with the assistance of Physicians for Human Rights, and the New York Campaign Against Torture.
New York readers, please lobby your Assembly members to support this bill!
June 20th, 2008
Yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee [SASC] conducted its hearings on the origins of torture practices at Guantanamo. the hearings revealed an organized campaign to apply the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape [SERE] tactics to GTMO detainees. Perhaps the best account of the hearings is by Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent.
In addition to the hearings SASC released a 63 page set of documents. While some of these had been publicly available for years, others were new. Yesterday’s testimony, and these documents, confirm once ad for all that the US torture policies were modeled on SERE tactics, as many of us have been arguing for years. And at the core of SERE are psychologists. The testimony and documents also established once and for all the centrality of psychologists in the development of the US torture regime. In fact, one of yesterday’s witnesses was a SERE psychologist.
The charade of the American Psychological Association [APA], pretending that psychologists were preventing abuse, not designing and promoting it, is collapsing. Any APA official who continues that line is an apologist for US torture plain and simple. The evidence that psychologists were central participants in designing, implementing, standardizing, and training US torture is now clear and incontrovertible.
As Gen. Taguba wrote in his preface to the new Physicians for Human Rights report — Broken Laws: Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact:
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
The General also says, apropos psychologists and other health providers:
[T]he healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
It is now time for APA leaders to acknowledge that their members have been complicit in the “willful infliction of harm” and to put a stop to it.
This morning, Phillip Carter blogs at the Washington Post on some of the contents of these documents:
The Genesis of Torture
By Phillip Carter
Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a 63-page set of documents that illuminates how the Pentagon developed, selected and approved its list of coercive interrogation techniques for Guantanamo Bay.
As Joby Warrick reports in today’s Post, the documents clarify the role that the CIA (and senior government officials such as DoD General Counsel William “Jim” Haynes) played. “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong,” CIA lawyer Jonathan Friedman proclaimed in a working group meeting that led to the development of this DoD memo on approved interrogation techniques.
Even more significant, the documents show how the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (”JPRA”) helped develop interrogation techniques, borrowing extensively from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (”SERE”) courses. (Mark Benjamin provides a detailed timeline in Salon for precisely how this unfolded.) These techniques — which include waterboarding, confinement to small boxes, and stress positions, among others — were developed to mimic the interrogation practices of our worst enemies, such as the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese. It speaks volumes that they were adopted by the U.S. at Gitmo.
Some of the things that struck me while reading the documents last night:
Tabs 2 and 3 confirm Jane Mayer’s reporting on the use of SERE practices as an interrogation template — both at Gitmo and elsewhere by the CIA. There wasn’t a lot of hard evidence to support this narrative though, and many chalked up the similarities between the Gitmo and SERE techniques to coincidence or chance. For instance, in Philippe Sands’s new book, retired JAG officer Diane Beaver and retired Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey recount a somewhat hazy process by which tactics made their way into memo form. Both hint that personnel from the CIA and other agencies were placed at Gitmo to seed ideas. The memos released yesterday, however, indicate that there was a much more deliberate effort to share the SERE/JPRA community’s tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs in military parlance) with the interrogation community at Gitmo. (Tab 16 shows this link too.)
Tab 4 discusses the military’s psychological assessment of personnel during SERE training. Taken by itself, this is a sign that the military cares about its personnel and wants to avoid “crushing the spirit of the students.” But in the interrogation context, this memo reads uncomfortably like Mengele or Cold War-era research on torture.
In the October 2002 meeting described in Tab 7, FBI agents report talk of “wet towel” treatment during interrogations, despite the fact that waterboarding was explicitly not authorized by Haynes and Rumsfeld at that point. So it appears that DoD personnel at Gitmo took the initiative to use SERE techniques before they were approved by higher HQ. These meeting notes also confirm the presence and role of CIA personnel. And they strongly suggest that the Justice Department memoranda authored in Washington — but previously thought to have not reached Gitmo — were probably shared with Gitmo lawyers and intelligence personnel in some manner. This connects those memoranda with the one that then-Lt. Col. Beaver authored, which ultimately made its way to Rumsfeld’s desk in December 2002.
Tab 19 further documents the relationship between SERE training and the interrogation practices at Gitmo. But at some point, probably around the time of Abu Ghraib and the post-scandal investigations of all Defense Department detention and interrogation operations, there comes a break. Tab 24 contains a memo by the head of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency that comes pretty darn close to refusing any future orders to participate in interrogations. The uniformed military seems to be trying to correct its course. But by that point, three years had passed and it may have been too late to undo the damage wrought by the Pentagon’s torture policies.
McClatchy Newspapers published extracts of these documents:
‘If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong’
Following are excerpts from some of the documents released today by the Senate Armed Services Committee:
“The CIA is not held to the same rules as the military. In the past when the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD has ‘moved’ them away from the attention of the ICRC. Upon questioning from the ICRC about their whereabouts, the DOD’s response has repeatedly been that the detainee merited no status under the Geneva Convention. The CIA has employed aggressive techniques on less than a handful of suspects since 9/11.
“Under the Torture Convention, torture has been prohibited by international law, but the language of the statutes is written vaguely. Severe mental and physical pain is prohibited. The mental part if explained as poorly as the physical. Severe physical pain described as anything causing permanent damage to major organs or body parts. Mental torture described as anything leading to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality. It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong.
” . . . Any of these techniques that lie on the harshest end of the spectrum must be performed by a highly trained individual. Medical personnel should be present to treat any possible accidents. . . . When the CIA has wanted to use more aggressive techniques in the past, the FBI has pulled their personnel from the theatre.
” . . . if someone dies while aggressive techniques are being used, regardless of cause of death, the backlash of attention would be severely detrimental. Everything must be approved and documented.”
_ Jonathan Fredman, chief counsel, CIA Counter-terrorism Center, according to the minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002, Counter Resistance Strategy Meeting.
“This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of. Quotes from LTC (lieutenant colonel) Beaver regarding things that are not being reported gives the appearance of impropriety. Other comments like ‘It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong’ and ‘Any of the techniques that lie on the harshest end of the spectrum must be performed by a highly trained individual. Medical personnel should be present to treat any possible accidents’ seem to stretch beyond the bounds of legal propriety. . . . Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this.”
_ e-mail from Mark Fallon, deputy commander, Defense Department Criminal Investigation Task Force to five other DOD officials, Oct. 28, 2002.
“I am forwarding Joint Task Force 170’s proposed counter-resistance technologies. I believe the first two categories of techniques are legal and humane. I am uncertain whether all the techniques in the third category are legal under US law, given the absence of judicial interpretation of the US torture statute. I am particularly troubled by the use of implied or expressed threats of death of the detainee or his family. However, I desire to have as many options as possible at my disposal and therefore request that the Department of Defense and Department of Justice lawyers review the third category of techniques.”
_ Gen. James T. Hill, USA, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, in a memo to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Oct. 25, 2002.
“The Air Force has serious concerns regarding the legality of many of the proposed techniques, particularly under Category III. Some of these techniques could be construed as ‘torture,’ as that crime is defined by 18 U.S.C. 2340.
” . . . Implementation of these techniques could preclude the ability to prosecute the individuals interrogated. Successful prosecutions in military commissions or subsequent use of detainee statements in Federal prosecutions will require that the evidence obtained be admissible.
” . . . The Level III techniques will almost certainly result in any statements being declared as coerced and involuntary, and therefore inadmissible. Such a finding may also exclude any evidence derived from the coerced statement. . . . Additionally, the techniques described may be subject to challenge as failing to meet the requirements outlined in the military order to treat detainees humanely and to provide them with adequate food, water, shelter and medical treatment. Defense counsel will undoubtedly argue that any evidence derived by the prosecution must be excluded because the Government did not abide by its own rules.”
_ Col. Donald E. Richburg, USAF, in a memo to the United Nations and Multilateral Affairs Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nov. 4, 2002
“The suggested Tier III and certain Tier II techniques may subject service members to punitive articles of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
” . . . any information derived from the aggressive techniques, although admissible, will be of diminished value during any subsequent proceedings. The taint concerning the diminished weight accorded the statements would apply not only to the detainee making the statements, but also against those individuals about whom the detainee has provided incriminating information.
” . . . One detainee subjected to these techniques could taint the voluntary nature of all other confessions and information derived from detainees not subjected o the aggressive techniques.”
_ Maj. Sam W. McCahon, Chief Legal Advisor, Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Task Force, in a memo to the commander of the CITF, Nov. 4, 2002
“As set forth in the enclosed memoranda, the Army interposes significant legal, policy and practical concerns regarding most of the Category II and all of the Category III techniques proposed.
” . . . From a policy standpoint, employing many of the suggested techniques would create a PA (public affairs) nightmare. The War on Terror is expected to last many years and ultimate success requires strong domestic and international support. Whatever interrogation techniques we adopt will eventually become public knowledge. If we mistreat detainees, we will quickly lose the morale (cq) high ground and public support will erode.”
_ Memo from John Ley to the Office of the Army General Counsel, undated
“Navy staff recommends, however, that more detailed interagency policy review be conducted on proposed techniques. Such policy review should address the possibility, if not the likelihood, that techniques will be inadvertently disclosed through the visits to the detainees in Cuba by the International Red Cross or foreign government delegations, which could lead to international scrutiny. Navy staff also recommends that the classification level of counter-resistance techniques be increased to the Top Secret level.”
_ Memo from Capt. D.D. Thompson, USN, special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations for Joint Chiefs of Staff matters, to the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate of the Joint Staff.
“I have discussed this with the Deputy (Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz), (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy) Doug Feith and (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Gen. (Richard) Myers. I believe that all concur in my recommendation that, as a matter of policy, you authorize the Commander of USSOUTHCOM to employ, at his discretion, only Categories I and II and the fourth technique listed in Category III (’Use of mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger, and light pushing’).
” . . . While all Category III techniques may be legally available, we believe that, as a matter of policy, a blanket approval of Category III techniques is not warranted at this time. Our Armed Forces are trained to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint.”
_ Memo to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld from William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Nov. 27, 2002. Rumsfeld, who used a stand-up desk in this Pentagon office, approved the recommendation, but wrote at the bottom:
“However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
“LEA (law enforcement agency) does not believe that coercive interrogation techniques are effective. However, on those rare occasions when these techniques have yielded results, the reliability of the information gathered has proven to be highly questionable. Detainees who are coerced into making admissions often develop strong feelings of anger and resentment toward their interrogators. Instead of creating an environment conducive to fostering continued cooperation, the interrogation process ends up fueling hostility and strengthening a detainee’s will to resist.
“A recovered Al Qaeda training manual instructs its members to expect Americans to use coercive interrogation tactics, even torture, to elicit information. The manual draws attention to these techniques and characterizes them as further proof of the evil and unjust acts which Americans commit against Muslims. Thus, the use of coercive techniques only serves to reinforce these erroneous perceptions. In essence, we end up proving ourselves worthy of the detainees’ righteous resolve and inspiring continued resistance.
“Despite the advice of LEA behavioral experts who have consistently advocated the use of a rapport-based approach, there seems to be a tendency to revert to a shortsighted coercive model of interrogation.”
_ Memo from Timothy C. James, Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Investigation Task Force, Guantanamo, to Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, Dec. 17, 2002.
June 18th, 2008
Physicians for Human Rights has just released an extremely important new report — Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact — involving extensive medical and psychological examinations of 11 detainees released from US detention facilities in Iraq and at Guantanamo. The report provides a detailed account of the brutality involved throughout the US detention system in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo.
These detainees were all brutally beaten and humiliated. All subjected to isolation. Several were sodomized while others were subjected to electric shocks. All the other “techniques” from the panoply of US torture techniques are represented here, including sleep deprivation; sensory deprivation; being subjected to loud noise; and “stress positions,” including being suspended from the ceiling.
The report provides both medical evidence supporting torture claims, and evidence of the severe long-term effects of the abuse. The medical and psychological examinations in most cases substantiated detainees’ claims of abuse. Where the medical evidence was equivocal, it was largely due to types of injuries, e.g., soft tissue injuries, that would have healed in the meantime.
The report also provides abundant documentation of the extent of medical and psychological complicity with the torture. In no case did medical personnel report abuse. In many cases they patched up detainees to facilitate additional torture:
“[W]hen the doctor had finished treating him, “I heard the doctor say ‘continue’ (to the interrogators)”, p. 21.
The cases where medical personnel were “helpful” are just as disturbing:
““[The doctor] helped me … he told the soldiers, ‘If you go on torturing him in this way, he will die’,” p. 85.
Not surprisingly, detainees did not report psychologists consulting in interrogations (SOP called for these psychologists to not identify themselves, an interesting ethical issue in itself). But treatment psychologists were perceived to be collaborating with interrogators:
“Haydar indicated, however, that he suspected the psychologists shared information with the soldiers,” p. 48.
And:
“While in Camp Delta, Youssef asked to speak with a psychologist because he was distressed, and the two spoke about him missing his family and his feelings of sadness. Although Youssef believed the meeting was confidential, he stated that shortly after the psychologist left, he was brought to an interrogator who immediately brought up information connected to his disclosures, such as telling him that he was going to stay at Guantánamo for the rest of his life and discussing his family (“Don’t you want to leave this place and get back together with your family?”…If you do as we tell you, you can get back to your family.”). He stated, “I figured out the reason they had called me for the interrogation was because the psychologist had told them about the meeting.” He stated, “They were stressing these fears very much.” Following this interrogation, Youssef reported that he was moved to the “worst” section in Camp Delta, where he was not allowed to have a blanket or a mattress,” p. 58
After the publication of this report, any claim that psychologists helped keep detentions or interrogations “safe or ethical” are completely unsupportable. Psychologists, and indeed, all medical personnel, regardless of their personal characteristics, were simply part of the apparatus of abuse. As Maj. Gen. Taguba — who was driven out of the military because of his Abu Ghraib investigation– states in his preface:
“And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.”
If we do not stop this complicity, we thereby ourselves become complicit. After this report, we can no longer say “We didn’t know. We thought they were helping.”
Below are two PHR Press Releases and the Preface by Gen. Taguba.
Medical Evidence Supports Detainees’ Accounts of Torture in US Custody
Cambridge, Mass. (PRWEB) June 18, 2008 — Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has published a landmark report documenting medical evidence of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on 11 men detained at US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, who were never charged with any crime. The physical and psychological evaluation of the detainees and documentation of the crimes are based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims. The report also details the severe physical and psychological pain and long-term disability that has resulted from abusive and unlawful US interrogation practices.
“Rigorous clinical evaluations confirm the enormous and enduring toll of agony and anguish inflicted for months by US personnel on eleven men who were detained without any charge or explanation,” stated PHR President Leonard Rubenstein. “Their first-hand accounts, now confirmed by medical and psychological examinations, take us behind the photographs to write a missing chapter of America’s descent into the shameful practice and official policy of systematic torture.”
Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact documents practices used to bring about excruciating pain, terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end. These practices included, but were not limited to:
- Suspensions and other stress positions;
- Routine isolation;
- Sleep deprivation combined with sensory bombardment and temperature extremes;
- Sexual humiliation and forced nakedness;
- Sodomy;
- Beatings;
- Denial of medical care;
- Electric shock;
- Involuntary medication; and
- Threats to their lives and families.
In the foreword to the report, Maj. General Antonio Taguba (USA-Ret.), who led the U.S. Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal, wrote: “After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
“Ending the use of torture, while essential, is not enough. The United States government must make this right. Those responsible for these abuses must help heal the grievous harm inflicted in our name,” said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue. “PHR is calling for full investigation, accountability, an official apology, and reparations, including medical and psychological treatment for the survivors.”
And:
US Torture of Detainees Caused Severe Pain, Long-Term Suffering
Cambridge, Mass. (PRWEB) June 18, 2008 - A team of doctors and psychologists convened by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to conduct intensive clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay has found that these men suffered torture and ill-treatment by US personnel, which resulted in severe pain and long-term disability. The men were ultimately released from US custody without charge or explanation.
“The horrific consequences of US detention and interrogation policy are indelibly written on the bodies and minds of the former detainees in scars, debilitating injuries, humiliating memories and haunting nightmares,” states Dr. Allen Keller, Director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and a contributor to PHR’s report Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact. “Physical and psychological evidence clearly supports the detainees’ first-hand accounts of cruelty, inhuman treatment, degradation, and torture.”
“The poignant case studies focus on the profound and lasting consequences of cruelty at the hands of US personnel,” said Farnoosh Hashemian, MPH, PHR Research Associate and lead author of the report. “The detainees suffer permanent hearing loss, persistent and debilitating pain in limbs and joints, major depressive disorder, severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks.”
One Iraqi detainee, Laith, recounted that during his initial detention in an unknown prison, he was brutally beaten and kicked until he lost consciousness. In Abu Ghraib, he was kept naked for almost a month in a variety of stress positions in isolation in a small, dark cell wearing soiled underwear and was subjected to lengthy interrogations.
On one occasion he was brought to see his brother who was bleeding, naked, and humiliated. The most painful experience for Laith was the threat of rape of his mother and sisters: “They were saying, ‘you will hear your mothers and sisters when we are raping them [here].’”
These men also continue to endure profound disruptions in their social and family lives. Many live with an abiding sense of shame caused by the loss of their ability to protect and provide for their families. And several men told medical evaluators of their desire to relocate, stemming from their loss of a sense of safety, since they had been arrested without charge or to avoid the frequent reminders of their harrowing detention experiences.
The report calls for full investigation and remedies, including accountability for war crimes, and reparation, such as compensation, medical care and psycho-social services.
Here is the preface :
Preface
by General AntonioTaguba [Ret]
This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual’s lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.
The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full-scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted —both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.
But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.
And so do the American people.
Major General Antonio Taguba, USA (Ret.)
Maj. General Taguba led the US Army’s official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and testified before Congress on his findings in May, 2004.
Go download and read the report here.
June 18th, 2008