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Who’s Crazy Now? American Psychological Association Supported Torture “At Every Critical Juncture”

George Washington's picture




 

While most psychologists are good people, tyrannies have always deployed corrupt psychologists to punish dissenters, and label them “crazy”.

The Nazi government substantially supported psychologists … many of whom, in turn, espoused extermination of the people they considered to be “racially and cognitively compromised”.

Soviet psychiatrists famously aided Stalin in applying fake insanity diagnoses to political dissenters.  The official explanation was that no sane person would declaim the Soviet government and Communism.

And authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, … and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)  Indeed, Americans are literally being thrown in the loony bin after they question those in power.

As prominent forensic psychiatrist James Knoll – psychiatry professor at SUNY-Syracuse and director of a forensic fellowship program – writes in the Psychiatric Times:

When psychiatric science becomes co-opted by a political agenda, an unhealthy alliance may be created. It is science that will always be the host organism, to be taken over by political viruses…. [P]sychiatry may come to resemble a new organism entirely — one that serves the ends of the criminal justice system.

Indeed, American psychologists created the American program of torture which was specially-crafted to produce false confessions to justify U.S. military policy.

Ironically – given the background of psychologists deployed by Stalin to crush dissent – the type of torture used by the CIA was a Communist torture technique .  And see this.  (In reality, we’ve known for 2,000 years that all torture produces false confessions. And we’ve known for a very long time that torture reduces our national security.)

It wasn’t just rogue psychologists: the American Psychological Association was central to the torture program.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist James Risen reports today in the New York Times:

The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror …

 

“The A.P.A. secretly coordinated with officials from the C.I.A., White House and the Department of Defense to create an A.P.A. ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the C.I.A. torture program,” the report’s authors conclude.

 

***

 

The involvement of health professionals in the Bush-era interrogation program was significant because it enabled the Justice Department to argue in secret opinions that the program was legal and did not constitute torture, since the interrogations were being monitored by health professionals to make sure they were safe.

 

***

 

The American Psychological Association “clearly supports the role of psychologists in a way our behavioral science consultants operate,” said Dr. William Winkenwerder, then the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, describing to reporters why the Pentagon relied more on psychologists than psychiatrists at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

 

***

 

By June 2004, the Bush administration’s torture program was in trouble. The public disclosure of the images of prisoners being abused at the Abu Ghraib prison earlier that year prompted an intense debate about the way the United States was treating detainees in the global war on terror, leading to new scrutiny of the C.I.A.’s so-called enhanced interrogation program, which included sleep deprivation and waterboarding, or simulated drowning. Congress and the news media were starting to ask questions, and there were new doubts about whether the program was legal.

 

***

 

In early June 2004, a senior official with the association, the nation’s largest professional organization for psychologists, issued an invitation to a carefully selected group of psychologists and behavioral scientists inside the government to a private meeting to discuss the crisis and the role of psychologists in the interrogation program.

 

Psychologists from the C.I.A. and other agencies met with association officials in July, and by the next year the association issued guidelines that reaffirmed that it was acceptable for its members to be involved in the interrogation program.

 

To emphasize their argument that the association grew too close to the interrogation program, the critics’ new report cites a 2003 email from a senior psychologist at the C.I.A. to a senior official at the psychological association. In the email, the C.I.A. psychologist appears to be confiding in the association official about the work of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the private contractors who developed and helped run the enhanced interrogation program at the C.I.A.’s secret prisons around the world.

In the email, written years before the involvement of the two contractors in the interrogation program was made public, the C.I.A. psychologist explains to the association official that the contractors “are doing special things to special people in special places.”

 

***

 

“In 2004 and 2005 the C.I.A. torture program was threatened from within and outside the Bush administration,” [Stephen Soldz, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis] said by email. “Like clockwork, the A.P.A. directly addressed legal threats at every critical juncture facing the senior intelligence officials at the heart of the program. In some cases the A.P.A. even allowed these same Bush officials to actually help write the association’s policies.”

 

***

 

The critics frequently criticized the 2005 findings of an association committee, the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, or PENS, which concluded that it was appropriate for psychologists to remain involved with interrogations, to make sure they remained safe, legal, ethical and effective.

So psychologists created, pushed and rationalized, and then actually took part in the torture program.

Like Nazi and Soviet psychologists, these quack American psychologists have lent their hand to tyranny.

 

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Fri, 05/01/2015 - 07:07 | 6049861 Seal
Seal's picture

Bush belongs in the Hague in chains

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 13:30 | 6051140 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

Bush was a gangbangkster zio puppet teleprompter reading idiot

just like Obama

and every other person allowed to be "elected" US president going forward

time to get wise

rise above ZWO divide and conquer tactics or else you are just the goyim cattle they believe you to be

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 10:24 | 6050448 cheech_wizard
cheech_wizard's picture

Bush has been out of office for how long now? Tell me, in excruciating detail, how Obama is any different, if not worse than Bush?

Standard Disclaimer: It's obvious you have nothing relevant to add here, so kindly STFU.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 11:06 | 6050619 TheGreatRecovery
TheGreatRecovery's picture

And whoever is next will be even worse. 

But Bush was like the Sting part of the con.  Bush's Wars On Terrur and Arabs were definitely a huge hit to finances.  One trillion for Afghanistan.  One trillion for Iraq.  One trillion for DHS.

Of course, Bush couldn't have run up that three-trillion-dollar debt on USA citizens' Mastercard without Greenspan keeping interest rates artificially low so USA citizens didn't feel the financial pain until it was too late.  In 2008.

And Clinton helped by helping move the jobs overseas, by letting federally-insured "safety first" Too Big To Fail savings banks become "all-out gambling" investment banks. and by keeping up the bombing of Iraq for eight years, and by bombing Serbia.

And Daddy Bush helped with Desert Storm, which got USA citizens used to thinking they had to pay for Wars on Arabs.

And Reagan helped by getting USA citizens used to thinking it was maybe okay to have a slew of Secret Black-op Presidential Dirty Wars going on all over the world.  And by getting USA citizens used to thinking it was maybe okay for the President to do about faces and declare last month's enemies this month's allies, and vice versa.

And Carter helped with that Camp David Accord thing that apparently actually did nothing.

With every USA President, it gets more expensive.  So the trend appears to be that it will get even MORE expensive.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 07:16 | 6049877 BoredRoom
BoredRoom's picture

WHERE DOES OBAMA BELONG?

 

I know I know,,, he should be floating in a septic tank with you......

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 10:45 | 6050524 TheGreatRecovery
TheGreatRecovery's picture

There's air in the top of a septic tank.  So I can breathe.  And it's one place they aren't going to look when they come to get me because I got too vocal so they had to have their psychologist declare me unfit and help me by locking me away.  :-)

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 10:06 | 6050397 Citxmech
Citxmech's picture

It's not "either/or" - there's plenty of room at the Hague.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 07:11 | 6049865 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

so that we europeans get the blame from all his supporters? the same supporters that might send his brother to the White House in 2016? I'd pass

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 07:07 | 6049860 Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture

Makes sense because psychologists and psychiatrists are the most fucked up losers on the planet.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 09:36 | 6050272 neidermeyer
neidermeyer's picture

ABSOLUTELY , they're drawn into the study (and business) of Psychology/Psychiatry for the most part as they are trying to figure out why they themselves are so screwed up.  Women love to analyze people ,, shrinks take a womans brain and put a turbo on it..

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 09:55 | 6050353 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Better than the rev-limiter you've put on yours.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 05:46 | 6049771 conscious being
conscious being's picture

Keep the hits comming George. Unlike Lloyd, you are doing God's work.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 05:46 | 6049766 escapeefromOZ
escapeefromOZ's picture

The not known fact is the EU members states use psychologists to harass dissenters or people of " interest " . Althought most EU states signed the Universal Declaration of Human Right that document is left in a draw and ignored . In practice the Secret Sevices of EU members states abuse the Human Rights of the citizens every day and there is no mechanism to hear the complaints of the victims or LAWYERS interested in Human Right abuses . Infact Lawyers are not interested in Human Rights becasue they are afraid of the Secret Services criminals . Gang  stalking of citizens is widespread in the EU vassal states and occasionally people are murdered   . The Human Rights abuses can go on with the complicity of the Polticians , the corrupted Judicial system and the Law professionals . 

http://newsinsideout.com/2015/03/eucach-org-melanie-vritschan-nsa-is-rem...

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 05:16 | 6049752 Hamsterfist
Hamsterfist's picture

Nothing is as grey as "psychologists are crazy assholes".  Some are, some aren't.  Same as all scientists.  Or religious people. 

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 09:57 | 6050355 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

You've hit the nail on the head there..."systems of belief"  on all sides.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 07:50 | 6049778 g'kar
g'kar's picture

I prefer to avoid going to anyone in any medical profession these days. They're more and more becoming another arm of the police state. "Got any guns at home?"

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 12:30 | 6050977 Kassandra
Kassandra's picture

I got hit with that list of questionable questions when I had to go get a new test and Rx for thyroid meds. My first thought was, what the hell IS this? I don't have time for this crap. Then I was told I could opt out. I've known these people at my doctors office for 15 years. They don't like it either.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 20:30 | 6052419 g'kar
g'kar's picture

"Then I was told I could opt out."

 

Did they say what would happen if you opted out?

 

For me it was, "ok bye!" and I never went back. That was two years ago. I opted out of medicine and went with walking, herbs, minerals and vitamins.

 

Just a thought on your condition:

http://www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com/articles/5-herbs-to-help-overco...

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 15:20 | 6051645 Skateboarder
Skateboarder's picture

"The law's the law, sir." That 'sir' at the end really makes a difference, huh.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 09:39 | 6050274 americanreality
americanreality's picture

Same.  They'll bleed your bank account to pay for their 3rd homes while treating you with contempt and expecting you to be grateful for the opportunity to pay them.  Most doctors became doctors for all the wrong reason$.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 09:53 | 6050344 g'kar
g'kar's picture

Not to mention a bounty for everyone they turn in to the state.

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 08:27 | 6050029 McCormick No. 9
McCormick No. 9's picture

My wife suggested marriage conselling.

"Are you crazy?" I said.

"No, but maybe you are."

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 11:22 | 6050681 TheGreatRecovery
TheGreatRecovery's picture

I'm not crazy!  INSTITUTION.   

You're the one who's crazy!  INSTITUTION.   

You're driving me crazy".  INSTITUTION. 

"Institutionalized", by Suicidal Tendencies.  Youtube.  :-)

Fri, 05/01/2015 - 05:13 | 6049751 Aussiekiwi
Aussiekiwi's picture

We Tortured some Folks....well a lot actually, farmers, shop keepers, mechanics, teachers, they all confessed to being hard core terrorists who wanted to destroy the American way of life, nd rape our woman and kill our babies....every single one  of them....thinking back I suppose that was a little strange.

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