Dr. Trudy Bond has a post on Uruknet.info about how the American Psychological Association (APA) has gone to unusual lengths to deny that psychologists in their membership have participated in torture.
Major John Francis Leso, New York psychologist license number 013492, chair of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team at Gitmo in 2002, and active member of the APA was identified in the log as being present at the interrogation of a prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtan, in Guantanamo.
Mohammed al-Qahtan told his interrogators that his religion "forbids him to even speak to a woman" was subjected to this:
Prisoner 063 was called "unclean" and "Mo"[for Mohammed]. . .He was not told, despite asking, that some of the interrogation took place during Ramadan, a time when Moslems have special obligations. He was not allowed to honor prayer times. . .Transgressions against Islamic and Arab mores for sexual modesty were employed. The prisoner was forced to wear photographs of "sexy females"and to study sets of such photographs to identify whether various pictures of bikini-clad women were of the same or a different person. He was told that his mother and sister were whores. He was forced to wear a bra, and a woman's thong was put on his head. He was dressed as a woman and compelled to dance with a male interrogator. He was told that he had homosexual tendencies and that other prisoners knew this. Although continuously monitored, interrogators repeatedly strip-searched him as a "control measure." On at least one occasion, he was forced to stand naked with women soldiers present. Female interrogators seductively touched the prisoner under the authorized use of approaches called "Invasion of Personal Space"and "Futility." On one occasion, a female interrogator straddled the prisoner as he was held down on the floor . . . He was leashed (a detail omitted in the log but recorded by investigators) and made to "stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to a dog." He was told to bark like a happy dog at photographs of 9/11 victims and growl at pictures of terrorists . . . He was shown pictures of the attacks, and photographs of victims were affixed to his body.
An Army investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners referred to the above as "counseling".
Was the above blockquote torture or counseling? The APA's Director of Ethics Stephen Behnke told Mark Benjamin in a 2006 interview for Salon that psychologists may actually help keep interrogations safe, by encouraging interrogators to talk to prisoners rather than employ harsher methods.
Harsher methods? Like, maybe these:
On November 27, in the middle of al-Qahtani's daily 20-hour interrogations, Major John Leso "suggested putting the prisoner in a swivel chair to prevent him from fixing his eyes on one spot and thereby avoiding the guards." On December 11, after 16 days of 20 or more hours of interrogation a day, broken only by a 42-hour hospitalization for torture-induced hypothermia, al-Qahtani asked to be allowed to sleep in a room other than the one in which he was being fed and interrogated. "The log notes that 'BSCT' advised the interrogators that the prisoner was simply trying to gain control and sympathy."
The APA's code of ethics was revised in 2002 to allow pyschologists working for the government leeway to participate in this type of "counseling".
1.02 Conflicts Between Ethics and Law, Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority If psychologists' ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, psychologists make known their commit- ment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict. If the conflict is unresolvable via such means, psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority.
Pyschologists are now offered an out if they want to follow government orders rather than the Hippocratic Oath of "Do No Harm".
The Bush Administration is still repeating the mantra that the United States does not and is not engaged in torture and wasn't it George Bush himself who said on March 17, 2003 that:
War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."
If you're a psychologist and need help in filing a complaint against Dr. Leso, Dr. Trudy Bond is willing to help you; her e-mail address is at the bottom of the article.
If you're not a pyschologist it can't hurt to write your representatives again. I know I've written them many times before against torture and with this Administration's unitary executive, signing statements and general above the law stance, and our slim majority in the Senate, it's probably an exercise in futility, but I least I feel like I've done something in opposition to what's going on.