{"id":58393,"date":"2015-07-17T14:03:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T18:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=58393"},"modified":"2015-07-18T00:47:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T04:47:12","slug":"and-guild-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/17\/and-guild-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"and guild wars&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">In case you&#8217;re behind on the APA\/Torture story, here are a few catch-up links. Also see Rob Purssey&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/16\/guild-interests\/#comment-262261\" target=\"_blank\">comment<\/a> to the last post [<em><strong><font color=\"#200020\">UPDATE<\/font><\/strong>: There&#8217;s a more readable version <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2015\/07\/13\/opening-comments-to-the-american-psychological-association-apa-board-of-directors\/\">here<\/a><\/em>]:                 <\/div>\n<ul><sup>                           <\/p>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/12\/16\/us\/politics\/cia-on-path-to-torture-chose-haste-over-analysis-.html\">C.I.A., on Path to Torture, Chose Haste Over Analysis <\/a> 15 December 2014<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2015\/05\/01\/us\/document-report.html\">American Psychological Association&rsquo;s Role in Bush-Era Interrogation Program<\/a> April 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/11\/us\/psychologists-shielded-us-torture-program-report-finds.html?hp&#038;action=click&#038;pgtype=Homepage&#038;module=first-column-region&#038;region=top-news&#038;WT.nav=top-news&#038;_r=1\">Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds<\/a> 10 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/11\/opinion\/psychologists-who-greenlighted-torture.html?action=click&#038;contentCollection=U.S.&#038;module=RelatedCoverage&#038;region=Marginalia&#038;pgtype=article\">Psychologists Who Greenlighted Torture<\/a> 10 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2015\/jul\/10\/us-torture-doctors-psychologists-apa-prosecution\" target=\"_blank\">US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9\/11 &#8216;collusion&#8217;<\/a> 11 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"><a target=\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2015\/jul\/14\/apa-senior-officials-torture-report-cia\" target=\"_blank\">Three senior officials lose their jobs at APA after US torture scandal<\/a> 12 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2015\/jul\/13\/psychologist-torture-doctors-collusion-jean-maria-arrigo\">&#8216;A national hero&#8217;: psychologist who warned of torture collusion gets her due<\/a> 13 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2015\/jul\/14\/apa-senior-officials-torture-report-cia\">Three senior officials lose their jobs at APA after US torture scandal<\/a> 14 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"justify\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2015\/07\/torture-american-style-hoffman-report\">Torture, American-Style: The Role of Money in Interrogations<\/a> 14 July, 2015<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<p>                           <\/sup><\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">I spent a lot of time in the period between 2005 and 2008 blogging about the misadventures of the Bush Administration and learned more than I ever wanted to know about the CIA\/DoD Torture Program. Last night, I looked over some of those posts and felt the same fire in the belly I felt when I wrote them. I reread about the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for the New American Century, the Federalist Society, the Niger Forgeries, Valerie Plame, The Torture Memos, American Dominion, the Unitary Executive, etc. They wanted us to opportunize on the fall of the Communist Bloc and take over as the sole super-power. And they used the tragedy of 911 to jump&middot;start their New American Century by invading Iraq. It was painful to read all of that again and I&nbsp; stopped when I began to feel nauseated.<\/div>\n<p>                    <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">But there was one piece in all of what I had forgotten about those crazy times that relates to the present point. Remember that the Bybee\/Yoo Torture Memos appeared quickly after 911, and the torture program at GITMO started early, almost as soon as the detainees captured in Afghanistan started arriving. In 2008, the Senate Investigation [<a href=\"http:\/\/fas.org\/irp\/congress\/2008_hr\/treatment.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody<\/a>] told us why [see the <a href=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/20\/the-why-of-torture\/\" target=\"_blank\">the why of torture&hellip;<\/a>]:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">When Psychiatrist Major Paul Burney arrived at Guantanamo Bay in June 2002, he was unaware that he would be assigned to BSCT [Behavioral Science Consultation Team] to support interrogations.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">[1] Three of us; [the enlisted psychiatric technician], and I, were hijacked and immediately in processed into Joint Task Force 170, the military intelligence command on the island. It turns out we were assigned to the interrogation element because Joint Task Force 170 had authorizations for a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a psychiatric technician on its duty roster but nobody had been deployed to fill these positions. Nobody really knew what we were supposed to do for the unit, but at least the duty roster had its positions filled.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">They knew nothing of interrogation, so the psychologist contacted a psychologist he had met, LTC Banks, who was [unknown to the contacting psychologist] working with SERE. Banks set out to arrange training. BSCT thought they were going there just to learn about interrogation, but their CO wanted them to bring back SERE techniques to try.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">[2] At the time, there was a view by some at GTMO that interrogation operations had not yielded the anticipated intelligence, MAJ Burney testified to the Army IG regarding interrogations: <strong><font color=\"#990000\">&quot;This is my opinion, even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link, there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.&quot;<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">They actually tortured one detainee into saying that there was an <font color=\"#200020\">al Qaeda&middot;Iraq<\/font> connection, but he recanted as soon as they stopped drowning him every day [no big surprise]. And in case you didn&#8217;t catch it, the &quot;<font color=\"#200020\">LTC Banks<\/font>&quot; mentioned by Major Burney is the same &quot;Banks&quot; that ended up orchestrating the APA PENS Task Force in consort with Stephen Behnke, the APA Ethics Director.                <\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">The point is simply that besides being an indelible blot on the moral integrity of our country and failing to yield anything of any worth to us, the Torture Program was actually used as a tool to take advantage of our wounded and frightened state to trump up a reason to invade a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 911 by trying to link al Qaeda and Iraq, probably partly motivated to gain access to Iraq&#8217;s oil reserves and partly as a showpiece for their Project for the New American Century &#8211; AKA American Dominion on the world stage. So why did the APA Ethics Director, Stephen Behnke, and his cohort in the APA leadership do it? Was he part of the Bush Administration megalomania. No, it was something much simpler&#8230;<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">&#8230;to repeat <em>&laquo;from the Hoffman Report, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apa.org\/independent-review\/APA-FINAL-Report-7.2.15.pdf#page=29\">page 14<\/a>&raquo;<\/em><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">APA&rsquo;s motive to please DoD<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"> The very substantial benefits APA obtained from DoD  help explain APA&rsquo;s motive to please DoD. and show that APA likely had an  organizational conflict of interest, which it needed to take steps to  guard against. DoD is one of the largest employers of psychologists and  provides many millions of dollars in grants or contracts for  psychologists around the country. The history of DoD providing critical  assistance to the advancement and growth of psychology as a profession  is well documented, and includes DoD&rsquo;s creation of a  prescription-privileges &quot;demonstration project&quot; in which psychologists  were certified to prescribe psychiatric drugs within DoD after going  through a two-year training course&#8230; And by the time of the PENS Task Force,  contemporaneous internal discussions show that improving APA&rsquo;s already  strong relationship with DoD was a clear priority for officials working  on the PENS Task Force. <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">In addition, at the time of the task force&rsquo;s  creation, DoD was in the midst of developing policy about how  psychologists and psychiatrists could participate in interrogations and  other intelligence-collection activities. APA wanted to positively  influence DoD regarding this policy so that psychologists would be  included to the maximum degree possible, and psychologists would not  lose the lead role to psychiatrists. APA used the pro-DoD task force  composition and report to show its strong support to DoD, with the hope  or expectation that APA would be rewarded with a very prominent role for  psychologists in this new policy. And in fact, the policy did provide a  very prominent role for psychologists, a fact celebrated by the APA  officials who had worked most closely on the task force&hellip; <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\">And in response to allegations that psychologists had behaved unethically and  actively participated in Torture:<\/div>\n<p>              <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"small\"><em>&laquo;from the Hoffman Report, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apa.org\/independent-review\/APA-FINAL-Report-7.2.15.pdf#page=78\">page 63<\/a><\/em>&raquo;<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Behnke failed to proceed with and actively resisted proceeding with these complaints. The evidence shows that Behnke knew that the adjudications process was not equipped to address ethical complaints regarding psychologists&rsquo; participation in interrogations &mdash; and that it would not lead to any sort of meaningful or thorough investigation.<\/div>\n<p>             <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">The end result of the limited nature of the ethics investigations and the Ethics Office&rsquo;s purposeful unwillingness to thoroughly investigate allegations of unethical conduct by psychologists who participated in interrogations was that the Ethics Office prioritized the protection of psychologists &mdash; even those who might have engaged in unethical behavior &mdash; above the protection of the public.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr size=\"1\" \/>\n<ul><sup>  <\/p>\n<li><strong><font color=\"#000001\">American Psychiatric Association<\/font><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&#038;rct=j&#038;q=&#038;esrc=s&#038;source=web&#038;cd=1&#038;cad=rja&#038;uact=8&#038;ved=0CB8QFjAAahUKEwjKxeTy4-PGAhUCmIgKHdU_BPM&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychiatry.org%2Ffile%2520library%2Fadvocacy%2520and%2520newsroom%2Fposition%2520statements%2Fps2006_interrogation.pdf&#038;ei=qM2pVcrRIYKwogTV_5CYDw&#038;usg=AFQjCNFeHE3Jr1pL0IhwRsQAIf9of7fbYw&#038;sig2=Bixg-inq4Skv71vJZ-39Bw&#038;bvm=bv.98197061,d.cGU\" target=\"_blank\">policy on interrogation<\/a> 2006 <\/li>\n<li><strong><font color=\"#000001\">American Medical Association<\/font><\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amednews.com\/article\/20060703\/profession\/307039957\/7\/\" target=\"_blank\">policy on interrogation<\/a> 2006<\/li>\n<p>  <\/sup><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In case you&#8217;re behind on the APA\/Torture story, here are a few catch-up links. Also see Rob Purssey&#8217;s comment to the last post [UPDATE: There&#8217;s a more readable version here]: C.I.A., on Path to Torture, Chose Haste Over Analysis 15 December 2014 American Psychological Association&rsquo;s Role in Bush-Era Interrogation Program April 2015 Outside Psychologists Shielded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58393"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58426,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58393\/revisions\/58426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}