American Psychological Association says psychologists should stop participating in abusive interrogations. Good for them. On some level, it's sad that it took them this long. On another level, it's just so weird that they even need to address this in the first place that you can see how it might have taken a while to snap into action. Four years ago, I never would have guessed that the US government's officially sanctioned systematic use of torture was going to be a recurring topic in my political commentary. I guess I was naive, but I think it was naive in a good way.
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Torture Shrinks
21 Aug 2007 03:06 pm
Comments (8)
Or to boil it down:
it's just so weird that they even need to address this in the first place
It is very, VERY far from weird in the case of the APA. Again, it is deeply implicated in the recent history of US government interrogation practices.
I believe that Vanity Fair recently had an article about the APA's implication in the post-9/11 detainee-torture policy, but I could be wrong about the source. Kevin Drum further noted that the APA defeated another measure that would have banned their members from engaging in or directly assisting the goverment in torture.
Uh, yeah: the APA punted on this. Why? Because, apparently, the military and intel people basically said that if psychologists pull out, detainees could, y'know, die.
So, instead of establishing a moratorium on APA members working at Guantanamo, there's now a list of proscribed practices. Which, of course, leaves wiggle room.
The ethical problem is clear: the military wants psychologists to work for both the interrogators and those being interrogated. (More here from Democracy Now, which has covered the story.)
Plenty of psychologists see the APA as a bloated, self-interested lobby that maintains a stranglehold on the profession, to the benefit of its grand poohbahs. The dues withholding campaign is a good start.
You're still being naive, Matt. The resolution passed by the APA was watered-down to the point of meaninglessness. The psychiatric association's stance is much stronger. I'm a psychologist, and I left APA years ago because it had become such an establishmentarian, brain-dead organization. There's nothing here to say "good for them" about.
There is a whole bunch of doubletalk here. I think the key point of disagreement is whether using sensory and sleep deprivation to destroy someone's mind and put them back together 1984 style is torture on it's own or if the rat's actually have to come out of the bag before you are doing something immoral.
That's what they did to Padilla. He refuses to go into details of his treatment because it might interfere with the "commander-in-chiefs" ability to throw people in Gitmo. I didn't really believe that was possible but I guess they are coming right along in the psych department and that sort of ability to experiment has to be seductative.
As late as four years ago, you didn't expect this? That was post Abu Ghraib, no?
What pseudonymous in nc said.
Democracy Now's coverage of this issue is more complete than any other broadcast news source.
Comments closed September 04, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I think you're missing the important bit about this story, Matt. It's not so much a case of the APA being blindsided by an issue its members didn't see coming. It's more a case of prolonged active foot-dragging. The profession has in fact been heavily implicated in most everything the US government has done, torture-wise, in the past half-century or more. Some of its members hate that, others have been reluctant to sever their historic involvement, and they've been contending over this for some time. You and I may have been "naive" and innocent in not forseeing this issue coming down the pike, but the APA's position is radically different -- large numbers of its members have been in it up to their necks for some time.
Posted by Ryan | August 21, 2007 3:35 PM